Shopping for a Church and ‘We ’ Instantiation:

When Does Church Variety Increase Church Participation? Propounding a new paradigm in the sociology of religion, Iannaccone, Stark, and Finke maintain that a richer "menu " of religious options allows a better fit to individual preferences and thereby splinters religious practice and increases overall religious participation. As these authors note, however, there are other forces in play and exceptions arise. Cases like Utah, Poland, and East Germany, where religious practice is (or was) both concentrated and high, upset the simple shopping model. This paper adds to the set of such cases by examining participation in the "free churches " in Sweden during the period 1890 to 1940. The decision to join a free church required the individual to exit the State church and join the free church of her choice. I discuss how the decision to join a free church differed in homogeneous and heterogeneous districts, due to differences in the holding power of the common ways of life. In heterogeneous districts, an increase in free church variety (i.e. competition) increased overall free church participation. I