Blessed: Consumer Culture in an American Megachurch

• In Event: 378 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session II
  In Refereed Roundtable: B. Table 08. Religion

Abstract

The culture of America's consumer driven economy continues to extend its presence into a growing portion of social and personal life. Religious life has not been immune to this influence. Since the late 1960s, white American Protestantism has increasingly embraced this culture of consumption. Recent work often credits these changes to the marketing efforts of innovative leaders responding to a relatively unique and competitive American religious market. This paper offers an alternative argument that reincorporates the element of social construction into religion and the role society-wide cultural change may play in the unfolding of belief systems. Using a mixed-method case study of one of America's largest Protestant churches, I propose that these changes are perhaps better understood as demand-driven adjustment to the cultural realities of a consumer society in which consumer goods, the means of acquiring and displaying them, and the self are sacralized.

Author

• Hannah E. Clarke, University of Arizona