Religiosity undermines growth, makes households poorer

The Shakahola ‘cult’ deaths in Kilifi County continue to shock many people across the world. The cult deaths continue to get media attention everywhere, especially because of the many families, including children, who were lured to death on the promise that they would meet Jesus Christ.

But Kenya is not the only country where cult deaths linked to religious beliefs have taken place. In 1978, more than 900 people died when a charismatic Christian US pastor lured them to suicide “to meet Jesus”. In 1987, South Korea had cult deaths too.

About 33 people died in a factory in what was suspected to be a religious cult. In 2000, at least 700 people died in Uganda when members of the Movement for Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God were lured to death again to supposedly go to heaven.

The most common factor in all these deaths is the presence of a charismatic religious head and extremist preachers who attract many enthusiastic followers. They attract a huge following because they promise riches and cause people to believe they will go to heaven upon death.

These religion-linked deaths have another common factor; poverty and underdevelopment. It is in poor communities and societies where charismatic preachers are getting more following than anywhere else. There are cult deaths also in the developed world but these are not as common as in Africa.

The prosperity gospel is spreading fast by exploiting the poor of society and selling fear to the rich. The rich are worried about losing what they have. They even mortgage their properties to serve the preachers.

The poor are promised a rich life. Many poor people have nothing to lose and have suffered a lot under poverty, so any promise of a different life is a godsend. The preachers capitalise on this to bring up new readings from the holy book – interpreting it to arouse fear.

This is the context that links religiosity to issues of development. Religiosity simply means attaching so much importance to religion that religious beliefs shape your everyday behaviour. Religiosity is about the importance of religion and specifically the degree to which religious beliefs influence behaviour and day-to-day lives and engagements.

Religiosity is all about someone or a group of people believing that their hope lies in religion and that their problems will end when they turn to religion without doing anything else. It is about believing that you do not need to do anything on your own because religious belief will sort it out.

And because people already have economic challenges, they are indoctrinated to believe that God will provide a solution even if they do nothing about their challenges.

Extremists 

The charismatic preachers — many of them extremists — use the vulnerability of the poor to show that things will change if they listen to what the preacher says no matter how falsified the words of the preacher are. The preachers tell them that they are poor because they do not tithe and clothe the men and women of God.

They are told they will be cursed if they do not buy a car or a house for the pastor or the preacher to spread the gospel. Then they begin to make contributions to buy the car and the house. The extremists do not stop here. They get personal, including asking for the sharing of materials things or passing over the property to the church.

This infatuation with beliefs undermines economic growth. While some religious doctrines encourage hard work, thrift, trust and honesty, the extremists and charismatic preachers do not emphasize these virtues. 

There are tons of studies showing how protestant ethics encouraged capitalism during industrialisation in Europe. These studies show that being lazy does not lead to heaven or a good life after death. But many charismatic preachers point in the opposite direction. 

There are many studies providing insights these days on the relationship between religion, religiosity and economic growth and development. 

Some of these point out that GDP per capita is higher in countries where freedom of religion is guaranteed. However, these are the same countries where the significance of religion in people’s lives is on the decline — there is religious freedom but this does not mean that religion shapes people’s behaviour on an everyday basis.

These studies also show that countries with high levels of religiosity also have low GDP per capita. Put crudely, this means that countries, where religious beliefs shape people’s daily practices and behaviour, have more people with low levels of income. These studies point out that participation in religious activities — probably guided by extremist interpretations — crowds out time meant for economically productive activities. 

Households have less time to spend on productive activities when they are driven by beliefs that lead to fear rather than respect of the higher life.

On the other hand, societies that enjoy religious freedoms also enjoy high GDP per capita because freedom also means freedom in other areas including freedom of thought, expression and innovation.

These freedoms are important in producing higher levels of income because people are not constrained by what they believe in. Religiosity, however, constrains innovation. It does not allow one to think outside the box because this may be interpreted as challenging God. 

Technological development 

In fact, religiosity does not tolerate innovation or technological development because these have results that may counter what we already know.

A study on religiosity and levels of GDP across the world finds that people have higher incomes in countries where religion is not considered important. 

People were asked: “How important is religion in your life? The countries where over 90 per cent of respondents said “very important” included Burkina Faso, Uganda and Ethiopia. These countries have a GDP per capita income of less than USD 1,000. Those where 80 per cent said “very important” had USD per capita of about USD 2,000 and included Pakistan, Nigeria and Kenya. 

Countries, where religion is important to less than 50 per cent of the population, had a GDP per capita of more than $5,000. Countries where religion as a way of life does not matter have per capita incomes of more than USD 20,000 and all of them are in the West, the developed world. This means that incomes continue to increase with the declining importance of religion in people’s lives. 

The less the importance of religion in people’s lives, the more their incomes, their wellbeing and the quality of life. 

People in these countries — in spite of religion not shaping their way of life — have high levels of trust in one another. In the same study, people were asked how much they agreed with the statement: “most people can be trusted”. Norway, Netherlands, Sweden and New Zealand topped the list. African countries were just at the bottom of the list. They are religious but trust levels are very low. 

Zambia, Zimbabwe and Uganda are at the bottom yet religion is the way of life there.

But this does not mean that people in the West — the developed world — do not believe in God or heaven and hell. It simply means that religion does not shape their behaviour. They may believe in a higher being, and life after death, but these do not shape their everyday experiences. They have the freedom to “believe” – but they do not fear, nor are they caused to fear.

Where did we go wrong? The mainstream religious institutions, Christian churches in particular, failed the society and created gaps that have been exploited by these prosperous preachers. In the old days, the mainstream churches were the agents of socialisation. We learnt honesty, trust, thrift and good behaviour from Church leadership. I doubt whether this is the case today.

Prof Kanyinga is based at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of Nairobi, [email protected], @karutikk