Masters of Divinity

NOTE: this PhD was re-worked, with deleted chapters and new chapters in my book _The Subversive Evangelical_. There is much new and different material.

Megachurch pastors—as local and international celebrities—have been a growing phenomenon since the 1960s, when megachurches began to proliferate across North America. Why are these leaders and their large congregations so popular in an age of increasing “religious nones”? Commentators in both popular and academic literature often resort to characterizing the leadership with stereotypes of manipulative opportunists along the lines of Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry (1927) or narrow characterizations of savvy entrepreneurs who thrive in a competitive religious economy. Similarly, writers assume megachurch attendees are a passive audience, or even dupes.

This dissertation challenges the Elmer Gantry stereotype and the religious economic perspectives by examining one particular megachurch pastor named Bruxy Cavey in the context of his “irreligious” megachurch community called The Meeting House. It argues that charismatic leadership, not calculated management and branding techniques, best explains the rapid growth of this megachurch as well as the deep commitments many people make to it. While the concept of “charisma” is often used equivocally, in the tradition of Max Weber I contend that charismatic authority is best understood not only as an extraordinary individual quality but as a form of cultural authority that arises when traditional and institutional forms have lost their plausibility and people experience uncertainty, dissatisfaction, or distress. People attribute exemplary powers to someone who offers them a way out, and intellectually and emotionally bond with the visionary and their vision.

This charismatic authority I portray as a dramatic production, what I call a “dramatic web” that draws followers into its scene and script, offering some resolution to their worries. The complex, compelling nature of this drama is best understood in the context of Wendy Griswold’s “cultural diamond,” which proposes four elements in the analysis of a cultural object: the cultural object itself, its creators, its receivers, and the social world that encapsulates them all. I investigate the four elements as part of a “charismatic diamond”: the cultural object is the “dramatic web” of Cavey’s church, marketed as “a church for people who aren’t into church”; the creators are Cavey and his staff, who employ a variety of media to generate and disseminate the drama; the social world is a Canadian culture ambivalent about religion and which stigmatizes right-wing evangelicals; the receivers are various concentric circles of audience who participate in the subculture of the church to varying degrees.

Following the dramaturgical themes of Erving Goffman, I investigate the “dramatic web” of The Meeting House in two parts—as a deconstructive, satirical project displayed on Sunday mornings and then as a re-constructive, romantic adventure that is exemplified in weekday Home Churches. For the first, I show Cavey deliberately takes “role distance” from the stereotype of a right-wing evangelical pastor, using satire to deconstruct the mores of North American evangelical culture and create an “alienating effect” in his audience. The negatively oriented opening acts create a space in which a new script can be constructed, and I demonstrate next Cavey’s two core romantic narratives that champion “relationship, not religion”—a script that is to be enacted through their weekday Home Churches. Not all attendees are caught up in this dramatic web to the same degree, however, as attendees select elements from it for their own purposes, some embracing and identifying with the whole script, while others take pieces from it to arrange into a more eclectic religious life. The final chapter explores moments of “dramaturgical trouble,” including the question of what happens when Cavey retires, dies, or is deposed. In other words, how might this religious performance come to an end? I offer a typology of possible endings and their sequels—three scenarios of charismatic succession I developed from Weber’s writing on the routinization of charisma.

The dissertation concludes by suggesting that, contrary to predictions of the megachurches demise, if megachurches indeed are a compelling drama co-produced by leader and follower that brings meaning, purpose, and joy to followers’ lives in the midst of cultural tension, megachurches are not just a passing fad or vulnerable personality cult, but a viable and likely enduring North American religious institution.

Dr. James K. A. Smith has been called both an "academic rock star" and "a faithful guide" and I want to commend his postliberal Biblical vision for creaturely life to you. I have been following him for years, trying to keep up with his prolific writing, identifying him as a post-boomer peer who offers a fresh paradigm and practice for Reformed Christians. I would describe him best as a provocative public intellectual: a self-described "philosophical theologian with interest in socio-political realities" who teaches at Calvin College, edits a magazine (Cardus' Comment Magazine) and a book series (The Church in Postmodern Culture) while publishing regularly in newspapers and scholarly journals, and speaking in a wide range of venues. He seems to spit out a book every year, and has just released the third and final book of his acclaimed trilogy on "cultural liturgies" entitled Awaiting the King (which Hans Boersma hints will possibly "profoundly redirect contemporary public theology").

Vincent Lloyd argues we move beyond both cynical and pragmatic approaches to charisma and instead apply a normative analysis of charismatic leadership--how it either is authoritarian and abusive or democratic and empowering. His goal is to use the concept for ethical evaluation towards the good, the true, and the beautiful society.

This is not just the publication of my PhD. Chapters have been edited, two removed, and two new ones added, including a preface. My entire angle has also shifted to include an assessment of evangelical religion in Canada. Evangelicals have been scandalized by their association with Donald Trump, their megachurches summarily dismissed as “religious Walmarts.” In _The Subversive Evangelical_  I show how a growing group of “reflexive evangelicals” use irony to critique their own tradition and distinguish themselves from the stereotype of right-wing evangelicalism.

Entering the Meeting House - an Ontario-based Anabaptist megachurch - as a participant observer, I discover that the marketing is clever and the venue (a rented movie theatre) is attractive to the more than five thousand weekly attendees. But the heart of the church is its charismatic leader, Bruxy Cavey, whose anti-religious teaching and ironic tattoos offer a fresh image for evangelicals. This charisma, I argue, is not just the power of one individual; it is a dramatic production in which Cavey, his staff, and attendees cooperate, cultivating an identity as an “irreligious” megachurch and providing followers with a more culturally acceptable way to practise their faith in a secular age.

Going behind the scenes to small group meetings, church dance parties, and the homes of attendees to investigate what motivates these reflexive evangelicals, I reveal a playful and provocative counterculture that distances itself from prevailing stereotypes while still embracing a conservative Christian faith.

"Creatively written and engaging, The Subversive Evangelical is an important book and a pleasure to read." Sam Reimer, Crandall University

_The Subversive Evangelical_ provides a compelling portrait of an ironic religious orientation--an anti-Christian Christianity--that mixes subversion and deconversion to uphold religious orthodoxy while seeming to reject it. This book uncovers the sociological workings of an enormous multi-campus megachurch led by an overweight, unkempt, and self-deprecating pastor who kicks seriousness to the curb and insists that Jesus is a totally fun guy. This quirky, whimsical, and iconoclastic minister overturns established tradition by restructuring his church around "Those Who Hate Church." Given the increased number of disaffected white Christians walking away from organized religion, this book explains how an inventive and charismatic leader adopted and now orchestrates the performance of an unexpected and newly legitimated ecclesiology for contemporary evangelicals, one that is aggressively fighting for the continued relevancy of congregational faith in North America.

Gerardo Martí, L Richardson King Professor of Sociology at Davidson College and co-author of The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity.

A rigorous sociological, theoretical, and empirical ethnographic study of one of Canada's most witty, playful, and humorous evangelical leaders (and his congregation). Schuurman masterfully unpacks the place of charisma in a congregation's attempt to systematically distance itself from a popularized and stigmatized conception of what it means to be evangelical in a post-Christian Canada. A must read for scholars of religion and church leaders in Canada who wish to think carefully and critically about congregations and/or evangelicals.

Joel Thiessen, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Director, Flourishing Congregations Institute

This article investigates a megachurch's ritual internally referred to (with ironic tones) as “Purge Sunday” in order to show how evangelicals in Canada navigate their "spoiled identity" (Goffman). This occasional Sunday ritual, a sort of “anxious bench” counter-performance or reverse altar call at The Meeting House (Toronto), demonstrates clearly the ambivalence of the church toward consumer culture and megachurch growth pressures while at the same time reinforcing aspects of it. It is a signal to their audience that communicates the congregation’s distance from high-pressure evangelical churches and so-called “cults.” This particular ritual celebrates one of the paradoxical dimensions of their identity—that they are “evangelicals for people not into evangelicalism”--an attempt to find a more culturally legitimate Canadian identity.

Megachurch pastors-as local and international celebrities-have been a growing phenomenon since the 1960s, when megachurches began to proliferate across North America. Why are these leaders and their large congregations so popular in an age of increasing "religious nones"? Commentators in both popular and academic literature often resort to characterizing the leadership with stereotypes of manipulative opportunists along the lines of Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry (1927) or narrow characterizations of savvy entrepreneurs who thrive in a competitive religious economy. Similarly, writers assume megachurch attendees are a passive audience, or even dupes. This dissertation challenges the Elmer Gantry stereotype and the religious economic perspectives by examining one particular megachurch pastor named Bruxy Cavey in the context of his "irreligious" megachurch community called The Meeting House. It argues that charismatic leadership, not calculated management and branding techniques, best explains the rapid growth of this megachurch as well as the deep commitments many people make to it. While the concept of "charisma" is often used equivocally, in the tradition of Max Weber I contend that charismatic authority is best understood not only as an extraordinary individual quality but as a form of cultural authority that arises when traditional and institutional forms have lost their plausibility and people experience uncertainty, dissatisfaction, or distress. People attribute exemplary powers to someone who offers them a way out, and intellectually and emotionally bond with the visionary and their vision. This charismatic authority I portray as a dramatic production, what I call a "dramatic web" that draws followers into its scene and script, offering some resolution to their worries. The complex, compelling nature of this drama is best understood in the context of Wendy Griswold's "cultural diamond," which proposes four elements in the analysis of a cultural object: the cultural object itself, its creators, its receivers, and the social world that encapsulates them all. ! ! vi Christian Scholarship entitled "Congregations and Social Change: Adaptations and Innovations in Religious Communities" for four weeks in the summer of 2011. I am deeply grateful to my small Ph.D. cohort of Denis Bekkering and Leah McKeen; these two exceptional colleagues kept me in touch with the program and its schedules, and helped me get into shape for its comprehensive exams. Other supportive colleagues include David Feltmate,