Christian Religious Footprints On Accounting

Today, there are many vestiges of Christian religion's doctrines and teachings shaping accounting theory and practice. As reflected in the 23accounting themes presented in this paper, modern accounting theories and practices are traceably a consequence of the overall process of pre-historic and cultural milieu as documented in the Holy Bible. This paper draws upon DiMaggio and Powell's (1983) three dimensions of institutional isomorphism framework to examine Christian religion's influences on accounting. Purposive sampling method was adopted in collecting qualitative archival information from the Holy Bible. Our findings lend credence to the suggestion that Christian religion's doctrines or teachings appear to be shaping the development of modern accounting. We hope that this paper helps to better our knowledge of the institutional isomorphism driving the trajectory, history, process, theory and practice of modern accounting. We recommend that sections 4.7–4.9, 4.12–4.13, 4.17–4.20 and 4.22 of this paper should be applied in the teaching of accounting ethics in universities as well as to accounting practice generally.