Marion Maddox

‘In the Goofy parking lot’: growth churches as a novel religious form for late capitalism

Literature on megachurches (Protestant churches with attendance over 2000) concentrates on numbers at the expense of an associated, but more instructive, characteristic: an overriding commitment to growth. Churches of any size can adopt a growth-oriented theology, style and organisational structure. In such churches, the growth imperative is likely to apply not only to congregational membership but also to church buildings and collection receipts; to the television ministry and other forms of outreach; to the pastor’s book and CD sales; and to individual members’ businesses, incomes, houses and possessions. In each dimension of religious life, at both individual and corporate level, the gospel of growth demarcates a novel Christian form, attuned to the ethos of late capitalism.

Prosper, consume and be saved

A Sydney-based megachurch with global reach, well-known for its “prosperity gospel” of financial acquisition, has developed an additional strand: a detailed theology of consumption. The affinity between a theology of guilt-free—indeed, obligatory—consumption and late capitalism goes some way towards explaining the attraction this minority strand of Christianity holds for politicians, including those without personal religious commitments, in a secular electorate.

Right-wing Christian Intervention in a Naive Polity: The Australian Christian Lobby

Abstract The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), which established itself in the national capital in 1995 as a registered company limited by guarantee, declares itself “rigorously non-partisan,” enjoying “credibility with church leaders, political parties and the media,” and making “a real difference on issues of concern to Christians.” From its base in Eternity House, Canberra, the ACL has been credited with some remarkable achievements, including persuading an atheist prime minister, herself living in an unconventional relationship, to maintain her seemingly incongruous opposition to marriage equality for same-sex couples. This article argues that the ACL has achieved its influential position by successfully presenting itself as politically, theologically, and culturally middle-of-the-road. The article analyses the ACL’s claims about itself, the campaigns it conducts and the international networks to which its founders and board members relate in the light of political science theories of right-wing extremism. It finds that some ACL positions meet at least some formal definitions of right-wing extremism. This analysis further suggests that the category of “extreme right” offers both greater subtlety and more utility for study of the Christian right than some of its scholars have proposed.

Are religious schools socially inclusive or exclusive? An Australian conundrum

Beginning with the progressive government of Gough Whitlam in the early 1970s, Australia has embraced policies of multiculturalism and, more recently, social inclusion. With the conservative government of John Howard in the late 1990s, federal governments have fostered a rapid expansion of religious schools, heavily subsidised by taxpayers. Justifications have included the need to promote ‘values’ in the school system and the need to increase ‘choice’ and ‘diversity’. The new religious schools’ proliferation raises tangled questions of culture, religion, ethnicity and class. The extent to which the schools promote inclusion and foster diversity depends on several factors, including what kind of religion the schools present and how the schools understand their educational and cultural responsibilities in relation to the wider society and the state.

Howard's Methodism: How Convenient?!

Analyses of John Howards social policy often attribute his social conservatism to personal nostalgia, seeking sources in his schooling, family background and church attendance. For example, recent publications have allributed Howards positions on unemployment, industrial relations, multiculturalism, reconciliation and refugees to his childhood Methodism. There are good reasons for skepticism about such accounts, however. This article draws on archival research on 1950s Methodism, both nationally and in the congregation the Howard family attended, to demonstrate that, in instance after instance, Howards current social policy positions tend to conflict with the political tenor of 1950s Methodism. Instead of looking back to the lounge rooms and church halls of 1950s Earlwood, we do better to seek sources for the Liberal Partys recent social policy departures in contemporary international neoconservative politics.

Framing the Kingdom

During the early 1970s, an Australian Methodist minister named Clark Taylor, who had been moving in Pentecostal and charismatic circles, gained special insight known as “Word of Knowledge” and the ability to perform faith healings. Finding his charismatic gifts unwelcome in the Methodist church, Taylor founded the Christian Outreach Centre (COC) in Brisbane, capital of the state of Queensland. The congregation grew and, over the decades, “planted” offshoots around Australia and overseas, so that COC became a global denomination (Hey 2010, 100–104) or, as the church refers to itself, “movement.” In 2000, under the leadership of Senior Pastor Mark Ramsey, the original Brisbane congregation changed its name to Citipointe Church. By 2010, COC had become “a denomination with [more than] 160 churches across Australia and over 1,000 affiliated COC churches spread across the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and Africa” (Hey 2010, 17). In 2013, the COC denomination rebranded as International Network of Churches. Its acronym became “inc,” rendered in lowercase. In 2014, the inc website claimed churches in 33 countries.

Australian Religious Thought

dence of polio per 100,000 population in Australia was between 1951 and 1953; many readers, whether children of the vaccine era or otherwise spared, may well know people who manage their polio-induced paralysis today or who live with other effects of their much earlier polio infection. Finally, the author, with characteristic lightness of touch, invokes the paralysed body. In one respect, this invocation follows the ‘turn to the body’ in scholarship over the last generation, scholarship that handles past and present cultures of health and disease. But in this book ‘the body’ is more than a now standard academic convention. The pathos and plight of the paralysed body remind readers acutely of the experience of polio, so often a child’s, and so often marginal to the focus of medical histories. While the author demonstrates scientific mastery and an extensive research base, it is her sensitivity to lived experiences and to legacies of polio, her judgement, and her ability to draw together so many threads that impressed this reviewer. Highley gave the word ‘cripple’ new meanings for me. Fault-finding is hard. Yes, once or twice the author repeats some lines of expression, and occasionally one might wonder where a work cited in the bibliography was used. But these quibbles are trivial. Overall, the book certainly rewards a second read. Many are the ironies worth reflecting upon, not least those of gender suggested by the opposition between Macnamara and Kenny themselves. Yet the voices of polio-sufferers transcend all else. The polio kids on Manly Beach have been honoured.

Finding God in Global Politics

The literature on religion and international politics has expanded in reaction to the events iconically known as ‘9/11’, said to cast doubt on the ‘secularisation thesis’, which dominated the social sciences’ approach to religion until the 1980s. The four books under review begin by assessing the secularisation premise, before amassing data to demonstrate the ways in which ‘religion’ (however conceived) influences or is suppressed by governments, inflames or mediates conflicts, shapes voter attitudes and political cultures, and so on. With one exception, the authors devote little attention to defining ‘religion’ or to delineating what differentiates it from other categories such as ‘politics’, ‘culture’, or ‘ethnicity’. What ‘religion’ refers to, and how it relates to the ‘secular’, has been the subject of detailed, technical debate within the discipline of religious studies since 1962, but this literature is largely invisible in the four reviewed texts. The result is an enormous body of data which will overturn many enduring stereotypes; but whose usefulness is, in some cases, limited by the fact that the studies ultimately demonstrate that researchers tend to find what they go looking for.