The Business of Religion

Mr. Bolos gave us a quote in class a few days ago, "the business of religion is the business of the puritans". Now after some explanation, I understood it meant that the puritans loved their religion and liked to talk about, business being in a social sense. However, when I read it initially, the thought of the puritans making money off of religion came to mind. Although that wasn't really the message of the quote, it got me thinking about the profitability of religious groups and prompted me to research this. I came across an NPR broadcast entitled Inside the Business of Religion on this topic (link). The report says that "there are plenty of companies that make money helping people develop spiritually" and states that the market research firm Packaged Facts estimates that Americans will spend 8.6 billion dollars this year on religious products. Daniel Radosh, a guest on the program, states that he believes it is important that a religious group that intends to take part in commerce, then "they should be representing the highest principles of that religion". He also states that one of his motives for starting his own business was to model these high standards and principles, almost in a way of expressing faith through the way commercial proceedings are held. I found this broadcast very interesting and even a little relevant to The Crucible because of how the people of Salem love to talk about religion and we love to spend money on religion.