Megachurch: An American Original (Almost)

Megachurches are not a new phenomenon; in fact, they have been around for a long time in some form. We trace their history back to the beginning of the Christian faith and describe their trajectory through key historical figures, examining how the Wesley brothers, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, Charles Grandison Finney, Russell H. Conwell, and Aimee Semple McPherson produced and nurtured megachurch forms. We describe and argue that Christian churches, and megachurches in particular, are particularly potent in illumining American religious history, and that congregational studies reveal and explain core attributes of American social life.

Megachurch: The Drug That Works

Megachurches are growing in size and number in the United States with no indication of slowing down. We argue that their success is due to motivating their congregations with emotional energy that stimulates intense loyalty and a desire to come back repeatedly to get recharged. Megachurches are like drug dealers offering members and nonmembers alike their next hit of emotional energy. Ritual life is critical for the generation of emotional energy, but so are the minimally counterintuitive ideas that capture attention, channel the emotional energy, and rally loyalty and motivation to keep coming back for more. However, these ideas are not sufficient on their own but need to be charged with emotional energy from rituals to inspire loyalty from participants.

Conclusion: Havens of Health or Habitats for the Prosperity Gospel?

The dominant assessment of megachurches, in both popular culture and scholarship, is that they tend to be havens of commerce and exploitation, and purveyors of the prosperity gospel. After sifting through the data on members in twelve representative American megachurches, looking at people who were longtime members and leaders, those who were new members, and those that were just visiting, we found something quite different. We found wells of goodness, satisfaction, generosity, and inspiration. We found religious organizations that have a certain genius for meeting the needs of what Durkheim called homo duplex. Megachurches are organizations that meet the desire of humans to flourish as individuals and to do it in a group—an equipoise that is rare but deeply satisfying.

Desire for a Reliable Leader

In this chapter, we show how megachurches meet attendees’ desire for a reliable leader. In megachurches, for those who attend, their desire and the force of feeling, the zenith of emotional energy, is squarely centered on the megachurch pastor. We identify how the charismatic bond between the attendees and their senior pastor is solidified through the demonstration of his perceived extraordinary and ordinary qualities. Allowing followers to see their human side makes charismatic leaders more relatable, authentic, and trustworthy. The pastor is both the central figure around which most activities, and in some sense the lives of individuals, revolve, and the mouthpiece for the explicit articulation of the values, beliefs, morals, and symbols that will define the group. The pastor is the “mutual focus of attention” that contributes to binding the group together and amplifying the emotional energy experienced by attendees.

Desire for Wow, or Hacking the Happy

In this chapter, we show how megachurches meet attendees’ desire for “wow” and awe. The data show that megachurch members are overwhelmingly “in love” with megachurch worship. Worship time is often an outward expression of praise and the sharing of joy—a time for generating collective effervescence. The collective effervescence evoked during the worship service is intensified by the fact that there are thousands of people contributing to it. Megachurch services are fields of wonder that energize and synchronize human bodies and feelings with remarkable acuity. The intense emotional energy produced prepares attendees for the pastor’s message, which follows the worship service.

Desire for Acceptance and Belonging

In this chapter, we show how megachurches meet their attendees’ desire for acceptance and belonging. It all begins with co-presence—being together at the same place and time—in an atmosphere of excitement and acceptance as one is welcomed and invited into the worship service. Megachurches have crafted particular strategies to make attendees feel welcome, which include having few barriers to entry. The entire experience is designed to require no prior knowledge and to make individuals feel comfortable. This is accomplished in part by incorporating aspects of secular culture. In this way, megachurches both embody the world (i.e., secularity), and introduce and bring out the sacred at the heart of the secular.

Dissecting Megachurch Scandals

This chapter examines the dark side of megachurches by quantifying and theorizing megachurch scandals. We collected data on megachurch scandals and identified fifty-six such scandals discussed in forty-eight online newspaper articles for the years 2006 to 2017. Most of the scandals that we studied came from the malfeasance of megachurch senior pastors, and the vast majority were sexual in nature. The charismatic bond that megachurch pastors form with their attendees and the power that stems from it can be used for their own personal gain. We theorize a form of soft patriarchalism as a way to name this power differential. We contend that the model of soft patriarchalism gives power to men and creates opportunities for them to manipulate and ruin the lives of women under their care. These scandals often lead to the implosion of megachurches, where the charismatic bond between the pastor and congregation is irrevocably broken.

The Micro-sociology of Interaction Rituals within Megachurches

We describe the paradigm of micro-sociology using Randall Collins’s work on interaction ritual chains to understand how emotional energy is produced in megachurches. We argue that individuals are motivated to participate in megachurches through a process of interaction ritual chains that produce and evoke deep desires satisfied through emotional energy, which attracts and keeps so many coming to megachurches. We describe Collins’s ingredients for successful rituals (co-presence, a shared mood, a mutual focus of attention, and barriers to outsiders) and how megachurches meet or transform these ingredients for their purposes. As we narrate Collins’s interactive ritual structure, we briefly outline the ways in which the six desires, described in Chapter 3, are met in a cyclical manner within megachurches. We show how they are evoked and addressed in overlapping and synchronic ways, which reinforces the power of the collective effervescence of these churches.

Congregations in a Time of Change

We examine Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago as a rare example of a liberal Protestant megachurch that provides a case study of broader changes in American religion. We argue that there are four important lessons that can be learned from American religious history: (1) culture controls churches—churches are shaped by the cultural climates of their time, (2) emotion always trumps the mind—the emotional capacity of churches wins over cognitive claims, (3) leadership counts—charismatic leaders are vital for the success of churches, and (4) congregations tell the real story of what is going on in American religious culture.

Desire for Purpose in Service

In this chapter, we demonstrate how megachurches provide individuals with purpose through service. The genius in megachurch socialization is that it not only encourages service to others, but also conceptually roots this service as an expression of one’s “gifts.” It makes individuals feel as though their service—their gifts—are specifically and uniquely needed. Encouraging their attendees to engage in service results in a community overflowing with ministries for members and the community. Megachurches are like small towns—communities that welcome all and where every conceivable form of care is given, which includes hospital clinics for “every sinner and sickness.”