The unintended consequences of religious suppression: understanding the growth of suppressed religions

Abstract

This paper develops a model that seeks to understand the vitality of suppressed religions in a highly restricted surrounding. Suppression can bring some unintended consequences. First, repression can induce suppressed religions to create adaptive doctrines which are helpful to increase the supply of other-worldly rewards; second, persecution can make religions adopt institutional innovations to sustain their networks, to keep the followers’ morale and to avoid detection; the sustained networks make massive recruitment possible; third, suppression is helpful to reduce the risk of religious goods offered; and finally, suppression can mitigate free-riding through creating a social barrier that filters out half-hearted members. All of these unanticipated consequences of religious suppression, which fall out of the prediction of religious regulators, contribute to the vitality of suppressed religion.