On the Case: Issue 20

On The Earthly Good of Being Heavenly Minded

In this edition of On The Case we take a break from considering any specific legal case and join Adjunct Professor Brian J Grim in a discussion about a recent study into the economic value of religion to U.S. society. Given the vast contribution of religion to Australian life - in areas as diverse as education, health, aged and palliative care and other charitable activities - no doubt similar findings would be made in a study of the position in Australia.

In Brief

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr once famously said that "[s]ome people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good," A new study which I conducted with Melissa Grim shows the flip side – the earthly good of being heavenly minded. In an age when fewer Americans participate in local congregations, the new study provides a more balanced understanding about the role of religion in American life beyond the many daily headlines that rightly – but narrowly – highlight people's concerns about faith groups, ranging from clergy sex abuse to religion-related terrorism. The study is the first documented quantitative national estimates of the economic value of religion to U.S. society, appearing in the peer-reviewed Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion.

What Did The Study Find?

Specifically, the study provides conservative, mid-range, and high estimates of religion's contribution to the U.S. economy. The study's most conservative estimate, which takes into account only the revenues of faith-based organizations, is $378 billion annually – or more than a third of a trillion dollars. By way of economic perspective, this is more than the global annual revenues of tech giants Apple and Microsoft combined. While this first estimate has the most concrete data, we believe that it is certainly an undervaluation because it focuses on annual revenues rather than on the fair market value of the goods and services religious organizations provide.

Our second mid-range estimate attempts to correct for this in two ways: by providing an estimate of the fair market value of goods and services provided by religious organizations, and by including the contribution of businesses with religious roots. This mid-range estimate puts the value of religion to U.S. society at over $1 trillion annually. That is equivalent to being the world's 15th largest national economy. It's more than the global annual revenues of the world's top 10 tech companies, including Apple, Amazon, and Google. And it's also more than 50% larger than that of the annual global revenues of America's 6 largest oil and gas companies.

These contributions fall into three general categories. First, religious congregations – churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and chapels – of every denomination add $418 billion annually to the American economy. These local congregations number more than 344,000 and employ hundreds of thousands of staff and purchase billions worth of services in every corner and crossroads of the country's urban and rural landscape.

This figure includes what is referred to as the "halo effect". For instance, St. Benedict's Prep, a Catholic middle and high school in New Jersey readies 530 mostly poor, mostly minority boys for college and beyond. And graduates, such as Uriel Burwell, return to make an impact. Upon graduating from Drew University, Uriel returned to his childhood neighborhood to build 50 new affordable houses, rehabilitate more than 30 homes and attracted more than $3 million funding to build additional affordable homes and apartments in the area.

Second, tens of thousands of other religiously affiliated charities, health care facilities, and institutions of higher learning also contribute at least $303 billion each year to the U.S. economy.

And third, an additional $437 billion is added to the American economy from faith-based, faith-related or faith-inspired businesses. Clearly faith-based businesses include the halal and kosher industries, religious media such as EWTN and the Christian Broadcast Network, and industry-specific businesses such as the faith-based Knights of Columbus, who alone have over $99 billion insurance in force.

Faith In Action

Beyond faith-based businesses, employees and employers take their faith to work each day across America, as documented in the Harvard University Press book, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise, by Bethany Moreton. Examples range from Tyson's Foods, which employs a large force of chaplains for their multi-religious workforce, to Marriott hotels whose rooms often have the Book of Mormon in addition to the Bible, a nod to the faith of its founder.

Finally, our higher-end estimate recognizes that people of faith conduct their affairs to some extent (however imperfectly) inspired and guided by their faith ideals. This higher-end estimate is based on the household incomes of religiously affiliated Americans, and places the value of faith to U.S. society at $4.8 trillion annually, or the equivalent of nearly a third of America's gross domestic product (GDP). We conclude, however, that this estimate is likely too high, but does offer another possible way of estimating faith's contributions to the economy.

Conclusion: Religion is good for the State

The data is clear. On the one hand, the wide range of heavenly minded endeavors contribute significantly to the United States' economy. On the other, the decline in religious participation may have unforeseen economic implications that will affect us all. For more information, including a video and graphics, see: http://faithcounts.com/report/