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B Business Now Accepting American Express at Church

Economics and religion have generally been as separate as chalk and cheese. True, Adam Smith delved into religion in the 1776 classic The Wealth of Nations. For the most part, though, economists have regarded religion as a dark continent beyond the reach of their analytical tools.

But religion is simply too big for economics to ignore, and now the gulf is closing. A new generation of economists of religion is following in the footsteps of University of Chicago economist Gary S. Becker, who won a Nobel prize for applying economics to the study of crime, drugs, and family interactions. Economists still avoid such theological questions as the nature of God. But they can shed light on the earthly concern of how people “buy” and “sell” the goods and services -- material and

spiritual -- that religious organizations provide. Also, in the wake of September 11 and the rise of militant Islam, fresh work by economists on the nature of religiously inspired terrorism is drawing widespread attention, including from the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

The sudden interest is vindication for the most tireless advocate for the field, Laurence R. Iannaccone, 50, an economics professor at George Mason University who studied at Chicago under Becker. He heads a new academic group, the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics & Culture. Academics ignored religion in part out of a belief that it would fade under the onslaught of secularization. Says Iannaccone: “We finally figured

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The Chicago Chronicle

Mega-Churches and their Mega-Cash

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COMMON GROUND

How

Dollar

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), ranking member of the Senate Finance Commit-tee, expects responses this week from half a dozen of the country’s largest churches to questions about their finances.

Grassley has taken on megachurches, where millions of dollars are raised with little oversight. In letters that Grassley sent to the churches last month, he wonders whether the lavish lifestyles of the ministers violate the churches’ tax-exempt status.

The churches are huge, with congregations in the tens of thousands. The buildings are like magnificent stadiums, and the pastors are larger than life.

Rev. Creflo Dollar preaches the prosper-ity gospel, the belief that wealth is a bless-ing from God. He runs World Changers International Church just south of Atlanta. In a DVD called Does God Want You to be Poor?, Dollar says that Jesus was not poor and his disciples were not poor. He says faith can transform poverty into an abundant life.

“When we are prosperous people, we are responsible for going in, going back and impacting somebody else’s life that’s down. That’s our job: to pick people up,” Dol-

by Kathy LohrNPR

photo illustrated by Richard Carroll

Monday February 22, 2010 chronicle.com

By Joseph Weber in Chicago, with Peter Coy in New York

and the

Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY. Photo by Tom Roades

From M-B-A to G-O-D: How an Economics Student Found Faith in College. see “MBA” B3

FaithFound

James Rajotte for The New York Times