In the deregulated religious marketplace of the United States, the niche overlap effect implies that competition between religious groups drives them to be what they often do not want to be—homogenous.44 This is because they must focus limited resources on a relatively unique niche and, as we have seen, because atypical members do not generally remain members. Therefore, because individual congregations are situated within a marketplace of competing congregations, attempts at pluralism are often overridden by the homogenizing structural factors of the niche edge and overlap effects. And this
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