Marketização da Igreja Protestante? Orientação do consumidor e ofertas de baixo limiar em igrejas de cidades alemãs

This article examines religious and social changes in relation to economic demands. The Protestant Church in Germany faces a financial crisis since the early 1990s due to shrinking church taxes. Attracting new members in a secular environment has thus become a key imperative. In order to meet this goal, new sites such as so-called city churches have evolved, which, by conducting so called ‘low threshold offers’, address a religously relatively indifferent audience. The article argues that these city churches represent a de-dogmatized, de-Christinanzized religious phenomenon within the wider context of the Protestant Church.Este artigo examina as mudanças sociais e religiosas em relação às demandas econômicas. A Igreja Protestante na Alemanha lida com uma crise financeira desde o início da década de 1990 devido ao encolhimento das taxas das igrejas. Atrair novos membros em um ambiente secular se tornou uma chave imperativa. Buscando alcançar esse objetivo, novos lugares na igreja chamados cidades-igreja emergiram, conduzindo as chamadas “ofertas de baixo limiar”, direcionadas à uma audiência relativamente indiferente à religiosidade. O artigo discute que essas cidades-igreja representam um fenômeno religioso desdogmatizado e descristianizado dentro do contexto mais amplo da Igreja Protestante

Megachurches in the USA and Singapore in Transcultural Perspective: A Critical Look at the Export Narrative From the West to the Rest

The chapter critically discusses the so-called export narrative “from the West to the rest”, with which the globalization of American-style “fundamentalist Christianity” is often described. What lies behind the narrative is an observation of the global spread of Evangelical and Pentecostal forms of organization and expression, such as Megachurches, televangelism, the so-called prosperity gospel, and cell groups. These phenomena are often described as American exports with global success. Based on fieldwork observations in megachurches with TV-ministries in the USA and Singapore, the chapter offers an alternative approach to look at these practices in the global context. The author argues that a transcultural perspective allows for a more differentiated description and analysis of the material, one that takes varied positionalities, multi-directionality, and entanglement into account

Megachurches in den USA und Singapur in transkultureller Perspektive: Ein kritischer Blick auf das Export-Narrativ From the West to the Rest

The chapter critically discusses the so-called export narrative “from the West to the rest”, with which the globalization of American-style “fundamentalist Christianity” is often described. What lies behind the narrative is an observation of the global spread of Evangelical and Pentecostal forms of organization and expression, such as Megachurches, televangelism, the so-called prosperity gospel, and cell groups. These phenomena are often described as American exports with global success. Based on fieldwork observations in megachurches with TV-ministries in the USA and Singapore, the chapter offers an alternative approach to look at these practices in the global context. The author argues that a transcultural perspective allows for a more differentiated description and analysis of the material, one that takes varied positionalities, multi-directionality, and entanglement into account