This handbook is the third in a series of handbooks edited by Stephen Hunt tracking broad developments in Christianity. The first two, Handbook of Global Christianity (Brill 2015) and Handbook of Contemporary Christianity: Movements, Institutions and Allegiance (Brill 2016) pursue broad agendas. The present volume narrows its focus to a relatively recent, important development in church organisation, the megachurch. This focus narrowing is pragmatic but now confronts an explosion in the number and diversity of megachurches. No single volume can any longer capture empirically and theoretically the megachurch phenomenon, but a handbook is a good place to start. In these circumstances, handbooks like this one, which present incipient theory and case studies, represent guideposts introducing and serving as the foundations for the next stage of theory and research.
Megachurches offer a new and unique form of religious organisation. Once developed, however, the various constituent elements of the form can be reconfigured to fit alternative sociocultural environments. What this means, of course, is that a single, general theory of megachurches is problematic. And so the interim solution to area-of-study development is precisely what this volume delivers, a mix of original case studies and theoretical proposals even as the form itself continues to spread and diversify. Even if a larger and more encompassing theory is pursued, I would argue that a theoretical understanding of the rise in the site of origination, at least, is achievable. Let me offer a brief outline of one additional perspective to those offered in this volume.
The emergence of the megachurch form in the U.S began during an historical period with specific sociocultural characteristics. Religion, along with the family, had moved to the private sphere. The religious landscape was dominated by a very large number of very small congregational units. Their median membership size was under 100, which means that half were smaller than that. These congregational units were largely determined organisationally by their geographic and denominational affiliation. Membership in the mainline churches had begun what continues to be a steep membership decline. Those denominations began to relinquish moral authority in favour of a service orientation. The distinctiveness and importance of denominational identity waned, and there were even a few mergers of historically related denominations. Conservative and sectarian church growth exploded as mainline church members and the unaffiliated experimented with what Dean Kelly called “strict religion”. Simultaneously, the public sphere institutional area also was transformed. Science became its knowledge base, technological innovation
Sociologist Robert Merton has offered a convincing and influential theory of social stability/instability. He asserts that a social order consists of two broad dimensions: cultural and social. The culture consists of symbolically constructed values and goals; the social dimension consists of the socially constructed institutional means for achieving them. Social orders are stable when the goals are accepted as legitimate and the means as effective. When that stability breaks down, there is pressure on both. Sometimes there are challenges to the cultural goals; in the case of Christian religion, sectarian, diasporic, and new religious groups exemplify this. If the goals are culturally foundational, as a Christian worldview and values have been, there is an impetus to adjust the means. Merton identifies several of these (innovation, retreatism, ritualism, and rebellion) of which innovation is most pertinent here. If affiliation with, loyalty to, and engagement in existing Christian churches is diminishing and larger secularising trends undermine their historic role, innovative forms are likely. Megachurches are classic innovations in the Mertonian sense that they most often seek to preserve the theological core of conservative Christianity but eschew “brand loyalty” in favour of new means of achieving traditional ends. The social and cultural transformation that occurred in American society provided the impetus and the opportunity for the innovation that has taken place.
This much of the story of the rise of megachurches seems consistent with established social theory. What comes next is not. The rise of megachurches may have begun in America, but it is no longer simply an American phenomenon. The form has taken on a life of its own and transplanted, with various modifications, to a wide array of sociocultural environments. And so this handbook offers exactly what is needed at this moment. It offers a review of where research and theory stand in the study of megachurches, chronicles their continuing expansion and diversification, and offers a guidepost for interpreting the next stage of megachurch development.
David J. Bromley