A megachurch is a Christian church that has a very large congregation averaging more than 2,000 people who attend regular weekly services. As of 2016, the largest megachurches in the United States were the Lakewood Church in Houston Texas, with an average weekly attendance of more than 43,500, and Life.Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, with up to 53,000 weekly attendees. Megachurches have existed in other parts of the world, especially South Korea, Brazil, and several African countries, but the rise of the megachurch in the United States is a fairly recent phenomenon that has developed primarily in California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

Since 1970 the number of megachurches in the United States has grown from about fifty to more than 1,000, most of which are affiliated with the Southern Baptist denomination (Bogan, 2009). Approximately six million people are members of these churches (Bird and Thumma, 2011). The architecture of these church buildings often resembles a sports arena or concert hall more than it does a traditional site of religious worship. The church may include jumbotrons (large-screen televisions typically used in sports arenas to show close-ups of an event). Worship services may feature contemporary music with drums and electric guitars and use state-of-the-art sound equipment. The buildings sometimes include food courts, sports and recreation facilities, and bookstores. Services such as child care and mental health counseling are often offered.

Typically, a single charismatic pastor leads the megachurch; at present, all are male. Some megachurches and their celebrity preachers have a wide-ranging television presence, and viewers all around the country watch and respond to their performances and frequent fundraising drives.

Figure 2. Christianity is declining in the United States, while those claiming to be unaffiliated or in non-Christian faiths is rising.

Besides size, United States megachurches share other traits, including conservative theology, evangelism, use of technology and social networking (Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, blogs), charismatic leaders, successful fundraising, multiple sites, and a predominantly white membership. They list their main focuses as youth activities, community service, and study of Scripture (Hartford Institute for Religion Research b).

Critics of megachurches believe they are too large to promote close relationships among fellow church members or with the pastor, such as those that might occur in smaller houses of worship. Supporters note that, in addition to the large worship services, congregations may also meet in small groups, and some megachurches have informal events throughout the week to allow for community-building (Hartford Institute for Religion Research a).

Secularization

August Comte, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx predicted that in modern society, positivism (Comte’s term), rationality (Weber’s term), and science would displace the religious perspectives from earlier societies. Weber believed membership in distinguished clubs would outpace membership in Protestant sects as a way for people to gain authority or respect, but this has not come to fruition. In our modern, scientific world, traditional religious values still play an important role, sometimes conflicting with scientific views and other times adjusting because of them, or supporting them. Some of the high-profile confrontations between leaders of religious and scientific communities over issues such as embryonic stem cells, genetic modification, and family planning illustrate that science has not simply replaced religion in the modern world ^[1]

Secularization is the decline in the social and cultural importance of religion. As discussed in previous sections, secularization has also been imposed in some areas of the world, as in China following its communist takeover in 1949. Some people suggest secularization is a root cause of many social problems, such as divorce, drug use, and educational downturn. One-time presidential contender Michele Bachmann even linked Hurricane Irene and the 2011 earthquake felt in Washington D.C. to politicians’ failure to listen to God (Ward, 2011).

While some scholars see the United States becoming increasingly secular, others observe a rise in fundamentalism, which is defined as belief in the unquestionable authority of sacred texts and/or religious leaders. Christian fundamentalists, for example, often claim that the events and descriptions in the Bible are true in a literal and material sense. Secularization interests social observers because it entails a pattern of change in a fundamental social institution. Compared to other democratic, industrialized countries, the United States is generally perceived to be a fairly religious nation. Whereas 65 percent of U.S. adults in a 2009 Gallup survey said religion was an important part of their daily lives, the numbers were lower in Spain (49 percent), Canada (42 percent), France (30 percent), the United Kingdom (27 percent), and Sweden (17 percent) (Crabtree and Pelham, 2009). These numbers do seem to be declining as secularization or non-religious affiliation increases.

Watch this video of sociologist Peter Kivisto as he explains the sociology of religion, and particularly how religion is changing through secularization. He reviews some of the ideas from key theorists and examines how and why secularization has not happened as much as some early sociologists predicted.

Watch the short video clip below and think about what sociological variables can influence religiosity in the U.S. and around the world:

Religion has historically been an impetus for social change. The translation of sacred texts into everyday, non-scholarly language empowered people to shape their religions. The United States is no stranger to religion as an agent of social change. In fact, some of the first colonial settlers in what would become the United States were acting on religious convictions when they crossed the Atlantic and made their way to the New World.

Disagreements between religious groups and instances of religious persecution have led to wars and genocides—the very same European settlers that came to the New World looking for religious freedom persecuted Native Americans, forced conversions and family separation, and used religion to justify the practice of human slavery.

Liberation Theology

Liberation theology began as a movement within the Roman Catholic Church in the 1950s and 1960s in Latin America. Liberation theology combines Christian principles with political activism; it is the synthesis of Christian theology and Marxist socio-economic principles, emphasizing liberation for oppressed peoples. It uses the church to promote social change via the political arena, and it is most often seen in attempts to reduce or eliminate social injustice, discrimination, and poverty. One of the founding members of the movement, Father Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino (a Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest) said true liberation has the following dimensions:

• It addresses the elimination of the immediate causes of poverty and injustice with the goal of political and social liberation, 
• It involves the the emancipation of the poor, the marginalized, or the oppressed and the removal of obstacles limiting their ability to develop with dignity 
• It involves liberation from selfishness and sin as well as a re-establishment of a relationship with God and with other people. 

Civil wars and political unrest in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people, including priests. One of these priests was the Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was killed in 1980 by a Salvadoran death squad, shortly after he asked the soldiers to stop killing each other. Romero was canonized in 2018 by Pope Francis.^[2].

Although begun as a moral reaction against the poverty caused by social injustice in that part of the world, today liberation theology is an international movement that encompasses many churches and denominations, such as Jewish liberation or black liberation philosophy. Liberation theologians discuss theology from the point of view of the poor and the oppressed, and some interpret the scriptures as a call to action against poverty and injustice. In Europe and North America, feminist theology has emerged from liberation theology as a movement to bring social justice to women.

Liberation theology influences Pope Francis’ philosophy from the Vatican today, as demonstrated by his pointed critiques of economic exploitation. In Pope Francis’ first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), he said, “Today we also have to say ‘Thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.” ^[3]