Professor A. Keith Thompson, Jeffrey Cummings, and Robert Dudfield—three members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in Australia—have been working with Catholic, Anglican, Muslim, Jewish, and other faith representatives for the last several years, as members of a multifaith thinktank called SEIROS (study of the economic impact of religion on society).
The group has been gathering data, answering the questions:
“What does Australian religiosity mean to the economy?”
“How does religiously motivated charitable giving help the country?”
And, “How does religiously motivated volunteering help communities and the nation?”
A new book was published this year called "The Economic Impact of Religion on Society in Australia: Recent Research and Commentary," edited by Brother Thompson.
Professor A. Keith Thompson and Rev. Professor Philip Hughes at the February 2024 Melbourne launch of "The Economic Impact of Religion on Society in Australia".
Professor A. Keith Thompson and Rev. Professor Philip Hughes at the February 2024 Melbourne launch of "The Economic Impact of Religion on Society in Australia". © 2024 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.The book’s introduction poses the question: “Does religion (any religion) provide economic benefit to Australian society?”
It continues: “Sociological research has demonstrated the obvious but ignored connection between religious altruism and private philanthropy. But the question whether religiously observant people volunteer and donate more to general charity (not their own churches) than non-believers has never been answered in Australia.
"This book explains a research project initiated by an interfaith economic think tank at the offices of Deloitte Access Economics (Deloitte) in Sydney in 2012. Building upon the preliminary advice of Professor Ram Cnaan at the University of Pennsylvania, following that 2012 meeting Deloitte prepared a scoping study identifying the kind of research that was missing in Australia.
"A follow-on academic conference at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne in 2013 recommended to the newly created SEIROS (the Study of the Economic Impact of Religion on Society) interfaith board that they should initiate the ‘Contributing to Australian Society Survey’ and the research project was born.”
Learn more at the SEIROS website.