The Business of Religion

The business side of every religion fears that the congregation may take its business elsewhere.

Christians fear more than Muslims, Jews and and Bhuddists -- they also fear alcohol, dancing, commerce, and hunting -- to name just four items once banned under Sunday "blue laws”.

Eleven states – including Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania – still ban Sunday hunting.

One story says the ban on Sunday hunting was first implemented as a kind of conservation measure to prevent landowners from shooting out all their game.

In truth, the measure was more likely implemented to keep the church pews full.

In Victorian England, the problem was not just keeping the congregations in church, but the pastor too. Parson John Russell, after all, was not *the* hunting parson, but just one of many

The Reverend John Froude had his own pack of foxhounds, for example, while the Reverend John Templer of Stowe hunted with a live monkey seated on the saddle in front of him.

There were so many hunting parsons, in fact, that Anthony Trollope dedicated a whole chapter to them in Hunting Sketches (1865).