Changes in American Megachurches: Tracing Eight Years of Growth and Innovation in the Nation’s Largest-Attendance Congregations

The report focuses on developing patterns of megachurches observed across three national surveys done in 2000, 2005 and 2008 in a partnership between the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, Hartford Seminary and Leadership Network

Subsidizing Religious Participation through Groups: A Model of the “Megachurch” Strategy for Growth

Either despite or because of their non-traditional approach, megachurches have grown significantly in the United States since 1980. This paper models religious participation as an imperfect public good which, absent intervention, yields suboptimal participation by members from the church’s perspective. Megachurches address this problem in part by employing secular-based group activities to subsidize religious participation that then translates into an increase in the attendees’ religious investment. This strategy not only allows megachurches to attract and retain new members when many traditional churches are losing members but also results in higher levels of an individual’s religious capital. As a result, the megachurch may raise expectations of members’ levels of commitment and faith practices. Data from the FACT2000 survey provide evidence that megachurches employ groups more extensively than other churches, and this approach is consistent with a strategy to use groups to help subsidize individuals’ religious investment. Religious capital rises among members of megachurches relative to members of non-megachurches as a result of this strategy

L’Heure du Gospel. Liminalité, identité et religion dans un bar gay

Published in the United States for the first time in 1996 by two doctors of Religious Studies at Emory (Atlanta), this article analyzes an innovative gay ritual outside of religious institutions. The « Gospel Hour » is the name taken up in an Atlanta gay bar for a regular session of gospel singing on Sunday, led by a troupe of drag queens with varied religious beliefs, and frequented by men reviving the evangelical Protestantism of their childhood. Mobilizing the concept of « liminality » inherited from anthropologist Victor Turner, the authors analyze this as a moment of ritual community creation, on the border of the religious and the profane, and the border between Christian socializations and gay sociabilities

L’Heure du Gospel. Liminalité, identité et religion dans un bar gay

Published in the United States for the first time in 1996 by two doctors of Religious Studies at Emory (Atlanta), this article analyzes an innovative gay ritual outside of religious institutions. The « Gospel Hour » is the name taken up in an Atlanta gay bar for a regular session of gospel singing on Sunday, led by a troupe of drag queens with varied religious beliefs, and frequented by men reviving the evangelical Protestantism of their childhood. Mobilizing the concept of « liminality » inherited from anthropologist Victor Turner, the authors analyze this as a moment of ritual community creation, on the border of the religious and the profane, and the border between Christian socializations and gay sociabilities