The Business Turn in American Religious History

Focusing on the interdependence of business and religious life in America, this volume explores the business aspects of numerous religious organizations, with attention to the financing, production, marketing, and distribution of religious goods and services and to the role of wealth and economic organization in worship, charity, philanthropy, institutional growth and missionary work. Treating religion and business holistically, the essays show how business practices have continually informed American religious life, and how business has operated as a vital domain of religious life that historians of religion often overlook.