Chong Xiang is a professor of economics at Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind. He is conducting a research project, “The Global Marketplace for Christianity,” through a grant from the University of Southern California’s Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative.

Gordon Hanson is a professor of economics and holds the Pacific Economic Cooperation Chair in International Economic Relations at the University of California at San Diego. He is conducting a research project, “The Global Marketplace for Christianity,” through a grant from the University of Southern California’s Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative.

Read a May 17, 2013, article from The Guardian that examines how the push for sustainability can stem from divergent motivations and values, some selfish and others more altruistic.

Read a Dec. 22, 2008, post by David Waters, editor of the “On Faith” site of The Washington Post, crunching the numbers and analyzing the SBC downturn.

Read a Sept. 11, 2012, Insights into Religion article on the state of theological education.

Read an Aug. 23, 2012, column in The Wall Street Journal about the debt problem for seminary students and what congregations and schools can do differently to address it. Russell D. Moore, dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., is the author.

Read an Aug. 6, 2012, post by David Briggs of the Association of Religion Data Archives about how student debt is burdening prospective clergy members and in some cases causing seminaries to turn applicants away.