Financing American Religion

Christian Century, Sept 8, 1999 by Jerry Dean Weber

Financing American Religion. Edited by Mark Chaves and Sharon L. Miller. Altamira, 196, pp., $24.95.

THIS COMPACT, valuable book brings together the most important current research on faith and money. Mark Chaves, associate professor of sociology at the University of Arizona, and Sharon Miller, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Notre Dame, have gathered essays by such prominent scholars as Dean Hoge, John and Sylvia Ronsvalle, Robert Wuthnow, Loren Mead and John Mulder. The essays will stimulate discussion, since the writers' assessments of the state of religion and money in the contemporary U.S. differ.

Their practical orientation also makes the essays valuable. Though this is not a how-to book aimed at helping congregations with their annual stewardship campaigns, the larger contexts it provides make it worthwhile for anyone interested in the state of individual giving, the congregational resources available for addressing faith and money issues, or philanthropy in religious institutions.

Reviewed by Jerry Dean Weber, development officer for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Foundation.