mim’s blog

Last week’s New Yorker has an article entitled “Come one, come all” by Frances Fitzgerald about a new megachurch in Connecticut called Faith Church. I was expecting a description of a big box store filled with evangelical fire and brimstone, but instead found it full of chicken soup for the soul. The bits about this particular church were interesting, but the parts about the megachurch phenomenon in general were fascinating because they failed to conform to my expectations in every way. While looking for an online version of this article, I came across a 2005 Malcolm Gladwell article in the New Yorker entitled The Cellular Church. I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me to have found Gladwell on the scene 2 years before me. This led me to still other articles, one in Mother Jones and another in the Detroit News.

Even though all of the articles described different churches, they all basically followed the same pattern. Charismatic pastor fresh out of seminary seeks to set up church in suburbs. Goes door-to-door asking people why they don’t attend church and what kind of church they would attend. Pastor proceeds to found such a church, achieves overwhelming success, spreads message to the masses, creates network of affiliated churches, posts Peter Drucker (management guru) quotations on office wall.

What I find so interesting is not the religious message by any means, it is the fact that the religion has so little to do with it. Between the child care, the food court, the youth programs, the sports complexes, the massive parking lots, and the ubiquitous television screens, you might miss the religion. But in addition to the amenities, Gladwell argues that what keeps people coming back are the “support group” of 6-8 people, one for any combination of interests or needs. The church that appears to be made up of 20,000 members is really an aggregation of 3000 “cells.” The group member keep each other engaged and interested in what going on and provide community in the otherwise lonesome suburbs.

The articles mention other groups that succeeded with this cellular model in the past: elks, shriners, labor unions, the communist party, and so forth. I would volunteer another example, all levels of government and their constituent institutions, from city councils to political parties. But you’ll notice from the list that all of these groups have at least one thing in common, they don’t have much momentum these days. All of the articles quote Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community, which enumerates an almost limitless number of civic and community groups that have shriveled since their heyday in the sixties. Not only does he study civic life in general, he also teaches people like the SEIU’s Andy Stern how they can use the lessons learned from the megachurch.

It seems to me that the megachurch’s real success is its structure, not its spirituality. Any religion or even secular morality could be swapped in instead of whatever passes for the church’s denominational affiliation without chasing people away. Religion does provide a focus for the proceedings and a reason to come every week, and has the advantage of being a societal activity deeply ingrained in people. It would be difficult, but not impossible, to replace. For example, the religious institution of the tithe facilitates fund raising. Gladwell describes one weekend at Saddlebacks church in which pastor Rick Warren’s congregation gave $7 million in cash and $53 million in commitments in addition to their tithes. The government has taxes and other organizations have dues, but it seems hard to compete with those sorts of numbers.

The megachurch shows that people still do want community. Perhaps these other institutions that worked so well in the past could be revitalized through “suburbanization” as well. Could government engage more voters by redesigning itself to cater to voters’ and citizens’ needs? Could communities regain some notion of common spaces that are actually used and shared? Could people be re-empowered to change their society, to regain some control over their lives, to alleviate alienation? It seems a Faustian bargain, with the disastrous consequences of the suburbs accompanying the benefits of community. Making more institutions suburban means acknowledging the reality and permanence of the suburbs. It takes us that much farther from a sustainable society, but it seems like the direction things are heading at the moment.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 10:59 pm and is filed under reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.