Books by Peter J Schuurman
New Leaf Press, 2024
Weaving in church history, cultural analysis and their personal stories, Bick and Schuurman use c... more Weaving in church history, cultural analysis and their personal stories, Bick and Schuurman use canoe camping to illustrate the twists and turns of the spiritual journey. Whether you feel like you're up the creek without a paddle when it comes to faith, or if people you love have lost their bearings, this book is for you. WONDERING WHAT ALL THE 'DECONSTRUCTION' TALK IS ALL ABOUT? This book neither condemns nor condones the trend of those deconstructing their faith. It seeks to describe and document the Canadian "deconstructing faith" scene while also providing a theological and sociological frame through which to understand it. Provocative, critical, fair, and focused on Canadian concerns, this book opens a window of well-researched appraisal.
McGill-Queen's University Press, 2019
This is not just the publication of my PhD. Chapters have been edited, two removed, and two new o... more 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
NOTE: this PhD was re-worked, with deleted chapters and new chapters in my book _The Subversive E... more 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.
Master's Thesis by Peter J Schuurman
A sociology graduate thesis on the subject of video surveillance.
Supervisor: Dr. David Lyon
Quee... more A sociology graduate thesis on the subject of video surveillance.
Supervisor: Dr. David Lyon
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
May 1995
Book Chapter by Peter J Schuurman
Brill's Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism Online , 2020
This is a thousand word entry under the subject heading of "megachurches" in the Encyclopedia. He... more This is a thousand word entry under the subject heading of "megachurches" in the Encyclopedia. Here I discuss the megachurch as a global phenomenon and tie it into the charismatic and prosperity gospel movement.
Brill Book of Megachurches, 2019
An investigation of the development and character of megachurches in Canada, including some stati... more An investigation of the development and character of megachurches in Canada, including some statistics and a case study of The Meeting House, an "irreligious" megachurch in 17 sites across Ontario.
Engages the work of James K. A. Smith as it pertains to the Emerging Church.
In: DeRoo, Neal and... more Engages the work of James K. A. Smith as it pertains to the Emerging Church.
In: DeRoo, Neal and Brian Lightbody, eds. _The Logic of Incarnation: James K. A. Smith’s Critique of Postmodern Religion_. Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2008.
Papers by Peter J Schuurman
Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity, Dec 14, 2017
Sociology of Religion, May 16, 2013
Review of Religious Research, Jun 1, 2021
Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, May 18, 2011
Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, Jun 1, 2012
The Subversive Evangelical
Review of Religious Research, 2021
Megachurch pastors-as local and international celebrities-have been a growing phenomenon since th... more 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,
Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2019
Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 2010
Entire books could be, and have been, written about martyrs or ascetics, about the early Church o... more Entire books could be, and have been, written about martyrs or ascetics, about the early Church or the medieval period. Nevertheless, as a survey of the field, or as an exercise in the application of a broad model to particular cases, Kleinberg’s book is a successful work of scholarship. The book’s subtitle, Saints’ Stories and the Western Imagination, points to Kleinberg’s narrative approach to his subject. Narrative readings offer a distinct and valuable window into the past, and Kleinberg does an admirable job processing the stories he picks and drawing important conclusions from them. Nevertheless, his narrative approach seems sometimes to ignore textual realities, such as the later redaction of texts by copyists, and the general reliability of ancient texts. This is not to say that Kleinberg himself is not aware of the textuality of the sources he works from. In fact, he does address these issues from time to time, on matters of proliferation of manuscripts as a sign of popularity, and in the case of competing versions of a given story. However, these issues are not addressed in a systematic fashion, and there is a danger, I think, that a reader new to the field would have some trouble, perhaps, navigating the textual reality of hagiography. Kleinberg himself seems to weave a narrative, and while it does not detract from the scholarly value of the book, its arc may overshadow some nuances of the subject. Flesh Made Word would serve as an excellent starting point for someone interested in Christian sainthood from narrative and sociological points of view. Its accessible, sometimes enjoyable, language would be no challenge for an upper level undergraduate, and may even be refreshing for scholars in the field looking for a new point of view. Not all good scholarship makes for an enjoyable read, and not all should. Kleinberg’s Flesh Made Word, however, does.
Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 2010
féconde la mienne » (226). Les quatre critères de discernement qui apparaissent en conclusion n’a... more féconde la mienne » (226). Les quatre critères de discernement qui apparaissent en conclusion n’auraient-ils pas pu intervenir plus rapidement pour corriger une lecture éventuellement tronquée des Évangiles ? Ce livre est à lire pour tous les pèlerins en quête de liberté et gageons que le prochain livre de Bergeron approfondira ces critères de discernement pour un monde trop souvent soumis aux seules lois du marché.
Handbook of Megachurches
This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
Liturgy
“A church for people not into church” is the ironic motto of The Meeting House, an Anabaptist meg... more “A church for people not into church” is the ironic motto of The Meeting House, an Anabaptist megachurch in southern Ontario, Canada. It has seventeen satellite sites—mostly rented movie theatres—where its approximately 5,000 attendees show up each Sunday. Led by Bruxy Cavey, a long-haired hippie-wannabe in jeans and a T-shirt, the church’s vision is to upend cultural stereotypes of evangelical Christians by doing the liturgically unexpected—and, so they claim, more easily offering seekers a fresh, unimpeded look at Jesus and his teaching. This essay is based on graduate work I completed at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and published as The Subversive Evangelical. I attended The Meeting House most closely during 2011–14, although I followed the teachings from a distance until 2018. Unlike most megachurch studies, I personally interviewed the leading figure (on three occasions). I also attended five House Churches (small groups) for eleven weeks each and interviewed eighty-two people with varying connections to the church. This is the advantage of ethnography: megachurches are not just sermons, vision statements, and the dramatic scandals reported by mass media: they are people, practicing their religious lives alongside their other daily commitments, and the rituals they practice shape and transform their religious identity.
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Books by Peter J Schuurman
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
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.
Master's Thesis by Peter J Schuurman
Supervisor: Dr. David Lyon
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
May 1995
Book Chapter by Peter J Schuurman
In: DeRoo, Neal and Brian Lightbody, eds. _The Logic of Incarnation: James K. A. Smith’s Critique of Postmodern Religion_. Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2008.
Papers by Peter J Schuurman
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
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.
Supervisor: Dr. David Lyon
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
May 1995
In: DeRoo, Neal and Brian Lightbody, eds. _The Logic of Incarnation: James K. A. Smith’s Critique of Postmodern Religion_. Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2008.
Click the URL above to see the article on-line.