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This paper contributes to the research on the symbiotic relationship between religion and the market by examining the nature and implications of the marketization of religion in a contemporary Christendom in which religion and the market are hegemonic. Based on our analysis of 3741 church advertisements in Ghana over a 6-year period, we conceptualize three symbiotic relationships that coexist between the market and religion—commensalism, mutualism, and competition. We argue that these symbiotic relationships mirror how religion hegemonizes popular imagination and members' consumption through marketization in contemporary Christendom. This study extends our understanding of the dialectical relationship between religion and the market by showing that religion can use marketization to perpetuate its hegemony within and beyond the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a growing body of literature has explored the association between religion and the prevalence of sexually transmissible infections (STIs), the focus has mainly been on HIV/AIDS and developing countries. Using data from the British National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal), we examine the direct association between religion and the prevalence of STIs including individual perception of exposure and risk of STIs. We focus on the importance of religion to respondents, religious affiliation as well as frequency of attendance to religious meetings. Our analyses suggest that being religious and frequently attending religious meetings are associated with lower odds of being diagnosed with STIs as well as lower self-assessed risk of getting HIV/AIDS. This seems particularly true for adherents of Christianity and more specifically, those of the Catholic denomination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postmodern discourse challenges dichotomous cultural categories such as male/female, past/present and consumer/producer; it rather venerates the complexity, fusion, and diffusion of cultural categories. This ideology suggests that indeterminate or fluid cultural categories liberate consumer culture discourse availing it to varying consumer needs. African Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity advances such a postmodernist discourse that recognizes and bridges indeterminate physical, temporal, moral, and symbolic cultural categories of consumption. This is achieved through two processes: convergence and divergence. Fluid and capable of meandering rigid cultural categories and structures, African Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity theology is attractive to a broader audience of consumers because it appeals to a wider array of consumers' demands/desires. This article thus advances that African Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity continues to grow due its ability to fluidly adapt its postmodern theology to the variegated consumption needs and identity projects of the postcolonial African consumer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]