ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at Durkheimian selection at play in early Christ-religion; it is clearly evident in the context of early Christ-religion and the mystery cults. It draws out Darwinian imagery in Durkheim's model and discusses variables that affect the selection dynamics that can be drawn from organizational ecology. A moral order persists because organizations in which particular ideologies develop are able to secure resources in competition with other organizations engaged in same activity. A moral order is composed of moral codes that define commitments to particular course of behavior, which can be viewed as divided into three distinctive components or "dualities": moral objects vs. real programs, core self vs. enacted roles, and inevitable constraints vs. intentional actions. Moral orders will change with evolution of a society's institutional systems, and, indeed, such change inevitably leads to production of new ideological variations. Moral codes must distinguish between those forces that are out of people's control and those that they can control.
