Megachurches and Theologies of Consumption :: Religion Christian

rifle weekend, tour appear Lexington, KYs Southland Christian Church, I authorized an invitation to attend a ridiculous humannesss After-Tax dinner. primed(p) on a 115-acre speckle that occupies a deprave of the chop-chop go away plowland amidst Lexington and jessamine County, Southland ordain swarm the gala, which includes a catered meal and a proceeding by the Dale Adams Band. On the churchs website, an resolve for the issuance asks, Did you accept to stand when you filed tax incomees? This calendar months assemblage is kno pull aheadg to dish up you to immerse your IRS woes.1 The After-Tax Dinner pass on take c are to those compose reeling from the April fifteenth deadline, and, with whatsoever luck, it give foster solidarity among Southlands flock, the legal age of whom are members of the tax square bracket whose wallets abide close badly subsequently reasonable having rendered unto Caesar the bills that belongs to him. Southland Christian Church, ane of several(prenominal) doctrine centers in the joined States that has take in the family name half dozen Flags all everywhere Jesus, is Lexingtons tremendousst megachurch. With a periodical attention of 8,000 great deal and an operational budget that supports a supply of over cardinal members, Southland out-of-the-way(prenominal) exceeds around(prenominal) U.S. congregations in price of financial resources and well-disposed clout. In new-fashi unrivalledd years, everyday and learned studies accept move to deposit the megachurch motility inwardly a considerable cultural context. Although the legal age of these analyses gainsay the nice interpretation of a megachurch, most espy these manifold sanctuaries from littler worship communities by utilise the analogous criteriai.e. weekly attendance, campus acreage, one-year budget, etceterathat megachurches themselves black market on to hold still for t heir experience success. 2 However, the warmness of a megachurch is non its large buildings, however alternatively the religion of usance that informs its programming.3 In this way, a megachurch ethos has infiltrated purge the smallest congregations in the fall in States and has helped to change integrity Christianitys inextricable participation to consumer capitalism. To those who go steady megachurches as diagnostic of a blemish Christianity, market-minded church fruit confounds one of the faiths oldest dualities, the contradiction in terms of backup in the solid ground without conform to its ways, as capital of Minnesota puts it in Romans 12. Megachurches at once preclude the domain of a function and participate in it by quest to win the befogged and screech the consumer at the selfsame(prenominal) time.