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This book highlights the expansion of the influential Pentecostal Hillsong Church global megachurch network from Australia across global cities. Ethnographic research in Amsterdam and New York City shows that global cities harbor nodes in transnational religious networks in which media play a crucial role. By taking a lived religion approach, media is regarded as integral part of everyday practices of interaction, expression and consumption of religion. Key question raised is how processes of mediatization shape, alter and challenge this thriving cosmopolitan expression of Pentecostalism. Current debates in the study of religion are addressed: religious belonging and community in global cities; the interrelation between media technology, religious practices and beliefs; religion, media and social engagement in global cities; media and emerging modes of religious leadership and authority. In this empirical study, pressing societal issues like institutional responses to sexual abuse of children, views on gender roles, misogyny and mediated constructions of femininity are discussed.
List of contents
Introduction.- Community Formation in Global Cities.- Time and Presence.- Social Engagement.- Authenticity and Transparency.- Media Protest.- Pentecostal Popular Feminism.- Mediatized Christianity.- Conclusion.
About the author
Miranda Klaver is Professor Anthropology of Religion at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Report
"This book uncovers the penetration of the media-saturated sociocultural environment into the everyday life of Hillsong Church through the religious perspectives and practices of Hillsong Church actors and then explores the intertwining of the media with the Hillsong Church. This book is a catalyst for research in Pentecostal Christianity, globalization and religious mobility, and media-religion relations." (Wei Xiong, Religious Studies Review, Vol. 48 (4), December, 2022)
