Where Would Jesus Shop?: The Relationship Between Politics and the Use of Popular Culture in American Evangelical Churches Abstract This research focuses on the relationship between media use and political action by evangelical organizations in the U.S. Using ethnographic observations of media use in multiple churches in Champaign, Illinois and surrounding counties, we have found that mainstream media – such as popular television shows and movies, as well as commercial references – permeate the modern, evangelical church experience. The adoption of secular popular culture blurs the boundaries between religion and mass media specifically, and between public and private in general. In the past, scholars who study the relationship between religion and media have made a distinction between religion as a private, sacred phenomenon and the mass media as a secular public enterprise. However, our observations would indicate that, at least in the case of evangelical churches in America, this line is being erased, and the spheres once considered to be mutually exclusive now overlap, as religion moves into the public, political sphere and as popular culture enters the church. This move from the public into the private – and vice versa – has significant implications for the role of religious organizations in American politics. Introduction This exploratory project began as an offshoot from a larger study on media use and the public sphere that was funded by a National Science Foundation grant, in which individuals from all walks of life kept media diaries in which they recorded their daily media use in their private and public lives.1 Many of the participants were religious and discussed their religious involvement in their diaries, sometimes in the context of politics and the 2004 presidential election, which was being held at the time. Those individuals who did not consider themselves to be religious also discussed the role of religion in national politics, noting what they considered to be appropriate and inappropriate overlap between church and state. This salient feature of the diaries (ie, where the line is drawn between public and private, and between politics and religion) led us to begin ethnographic observations in local churches. The data for this research come from ethnographic observations of evangelical churches in Champaign County and surrounding areas in southeastern Illinois. We attended Sunday morning services in these churches and took notes on the content of the sermon, the media used, the interaction among parishioners, and the spaces themselves. We also examined the websites for these churches to supplement our observations. It is important to note that, although our observations were limited to churches that operated within our area, all of these churches were connected to larger religious organizations. Some of the churches were part of Assembly of God, and others were part of institutions that operate worldwide, but all were evangelical1. Thus, although the findings of this By “evangelical,” we are referring to the generally accepted definition used in the U.S., in which evangelicalism is seen as based in the Protestant tradition, and in which the Bible is taken literally and seen to be inerrant. As Morgan (2003) states, evangelicalism views the “scripture (as) an untrammeled and unparalleled record or transcription of divine thought and will” (p. 108). 1 research are based upon observations of small and large churches in southeastern Illinois, our local observations might be indicative of larger trends in evangelical churches in the U.S. When we began our observations in the church, our attention was drawn to the plethora of media – both old and new – and technology that framed the experience. Many scholars have discussed the importance of material culture in American Christianity. McDannell states that American Christians…want to see, hear, and touch God…. Throughout American history, Christians have explored the meaning of the divine, the nature of death, the power of healing, and the experience of the body by interacting with a created world of images and shapes. People learn the discourses and habits of their religious community through the material dimension of Christianity” (1998:1. emphasis added). This emphasis on the sensual nature of religion – or “visual piety,” to use the words of Morgan (2003) – in evangelical churches is not particularly new. Both Hendershot (2004) and McDannell (1998) note that Protestants in particular have demonstrated an affinity to (as well as a simultaneous rejection of) material culture that dates back to Victorian times, if not earlier. What does seem to be new, however, is the enlistment of media, both new and old, into church services that not only emphasizes the importance of secular popular culture to religious institutions, but is also related to the increasing connection between religion and politics in the U.S. More specifically, we theorize that the incorporation of mainstream media into churches help to construct a specific religious (moral) and political (conservative) identity, which then sets the stage for possible political mobilization through churches that political scientists have noted as a phenomenon in recent American politics. As part of this argument, we put forth that the incorporation of secular popular culture into churches represents an erosion of the tension between public and private, between the profane and the sacred, that has often been discussed by scholars of religion and the media. Typically, scholars (such as Schultze, 2001) have seen an irresolvable tension between mainstream media and modern religion, manifested in the rejection of popular culture by religious groups, but also in the treatment of organized religion by the secular media. However, Hoover notes that the old dividing line between religion and media may be disappearing: What was once easily understood as a line between private and public has been or is being erased as a result of forces at work in contemporary religion and contemporary media. What has emerged in place of an old dualism between the private and the public, between the religious and the secular, and between the sacred and the profane is a less definite space where those distinctions exist in a state of fluidity and flux (2001: 50). This may be especially true in the churches we have observed, as evangelical organizations are especially adaptable and inventive in using material culture to spread religious messages (Moen, 1998:193). This makes sense, in part because of the nature of evangelicalism itself. As Hendershot (2004. p. 11) notes, “It should not be surprising that Page 2 of 18 evangelicals know how to manipulate the conventions of popular media. After all, a completely isolated culture could not be evangelical, could not reach out to share ‘the good news’ of the Bible with others.” What we have witnessed in the course of our visits to churches can almost be described as an embrace of popular and consumer culture by evangelical organizations, in which religious messages often are couched in consumerist terms, or delivered in the form of popular and commercial culture. Several scholars have described the practice by which religious groups take the forms (such as film styles) of secular popular culture while changing the content to reflect religious values (Hendershot, 2004; McDannell, 1998). One example of this is provided by Schofield Clark (2003), who notes that evangelical churches were adept at using media to send religious messages, seen especially in publicly-released movies like A Thief in the Night, designed to show what would happen to those who didn’t adopt the beliefs of the Church in a story about the Rapture. What we have seen, however, goes beyond what Hendershot (2004) describes as the “poaching” of commercial forms of popular culture by evangelicals. Instead, what we have observed is first the wholesale appropriation of movies, television shows, and commercials – and the concomitant references to consumer culture – that do not have explicit religious content, and then the attempt to imbue these media, in the context of church services, with moral values and religious messages. Many scholars of religion and media (Hendershot, 2004; Morgan, 2003; McDannell, 1998) have focused upon the use of religious popular culture that has been produced by evangelical organizations, such as Veggie Tales (the Christian videos for children) and the myriad bumper stickers, tshirts, and music that espouse religious values. Very few, if any, have discussed the incorporation of secular popular culture and commercial media by religious organizations themselves. In that sense our research is unique, and possibly a result of our method, since ethnographic observations within churches themselves allow a glimpse into what churches are actually doing on a day-to-day basis. Consumer culture and popular culture Before describing the adoption of consumer culture by evangelical churches, it is important to define the relationship between popular and consumer culture in the context of this research. By consumer culture we mean both the actual consumption of goods and services but also the consumption of popular culture and mass media (which in the U.S. are mostly commercial). Consumption in both senses is invoked in church language. For example, many sermons mentioned local and national companies, casually referencing them in discussions of how to be a good Christian in everyday life, with one pastor mentioning the temptation not to put money into the coffee jar at Panera, or why picking up trash in the Wal-Mart parking lot is important. In a different sermon, another pastor asked for a show of hands who in the audience had gone to Wal-Mart to get the latest Xbox video game for their children during a discussion of war and abortion. In addition to commercial references, however, one church also broadcasts local college basketball games for the public at night, using the church not solely for religious purposes, but also for public enjoyment and consumption of secular popular media. The church leaders themselves acknowledge this, referring to what would normally be called the church “sanctuary” (where services are held) as a “theater,” and referring to the Page 3 of 18 sermon itself as a “show” during services. Thus, consumer culture in the context of the churches we observed includes the consumption of popular culture as well as specific references to consumption of commercial goods. Multiple instances of this consumerist aspect of evangelical church services were observed in all of the churches that we visited. Why embrace consumer culture? The adoption of popular and commercial culture is potentially beneficial to evangelical organizations for several reasons, but primarily we believe because media culture is a central aspect of Americans’ everyday experience and identities (CITE). Because of this, new churches’ ability to enlist this culture in the fabric of their service and teachings empowers them to capture the imaginations and allegiances of Americans who might not have formerly had any particularly religious inclination, education or identification. Seen from this perspective, the various movie clips and popular commercial references allow churchgoers to draw upon their own, pre-existing knowledge about popular and consumer culture (both distinctly American) in order to better understand the religious messages conveyed by the church. Most often, the secular media were used in conjunction with specific passages from the Bible, so that a clip from the Lone Ranger television show was accompanied by a reference to John 13:35 (“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another"). One of the church leaders explained it in precisely these terms, telling us that many members of the congregation were not “bible literate,” and that using media in the service made the service more accessible and the ideas less foreign, thus making media into an effective evangelizing tool. Building from this point, the function of popular culture in the church thus appears to be three-fold: first, it helps to educate new church members that may be unfamiliar with the teachings of the bible by providing a frame of reference through familiar secular movies and commercials. Second, it firmly embeds the church experience in American popular culture, in the process blurring the line between private religious practice with public mass media, a phenomenon noted by Hoover (2003, 2001). Third, the use of popular culture enables the construction of a specific identity – consumerist, moral, conservative, white, and male – within the church congregation itself. These conclusions bring us back to our original interest in the presence or absence of political activity in religious spaces in the U.S. When studying the relationship between modern religion and politics, it is clear that political action by churches represents a move by evangelical churches into the public sphere.2 What we are discovering is that the public/private distinction is becoming blurred in the other direction as well, as secular, mainstream media enters into the space of the church. Typically, evangelicals have attempted to be “in” but not “of” the secular world (Hendershot, 2004). However, it is possible that the erosion of the boundary between the sacred and profane that occurred as American churches have become more political has resulted in the incorporation of the outside, secular world into the church. It is beyond the scope of this research to explore 2 Many examples of this exist, including that 22 percent of voters in the last presidential election indicated that the most important factor for them was “moral values” (Ludden, 2004), or simply the fact that the most salient political issues in the last election included abortion and gay rights. Page 4 of 18 what these changes mean to religious organizations and their members3. Instead, we use what we have observed to explore how the use of secular media – both old and new – has changed the political nature of American evangelical churches. Getting a Postcard from God: The Church as Locus for American Politics in the Bush Era The political nature of churches in American culture has long been recognized (Shupe and Misztal 1998; Buddenbaum, 2000; MORE REFS). Many have commented on the prominent role American churches have played in the 2004 presidential election, attributing President Bush’s election victory to the role evangelical churches played in mobilizing support for the Republican party (Frank 2005; MORE REFS). One example is the highly publicized list of 22 “instructions” that were sent to churches from the BushCheney campaign that included doing voter registration drives, distribute voter guides, and identifying who in the church was “pro-Bush” (Cooperman, 2004). In addition, the fact that religion and religious issues such as abortion and gay rights were such central issues in the last presidential election campaign indicates the central role that religion has come to play in American politics. A comparison of voting by religion between 2000 and 2004 illustrates the growing influence of religion on voter behavior (Figure 1). There is also evidence from the NSF “media diary” study indicating that some individuals felt pressure from their churches to vote for a conservative president. One couple in particular who were devout Christians mentioned that their pastor exhorted the congregation to vote for Bush on the grounds of moral values. The couple stated that they decided instead to vote for Democratic candidate John Kerry because of their unhappiness with the Iraq war, but couldn’t tell anyone at church for fear of ostracism. This statement is an important indicator of the increasing overlap between the political and religious spheres. It also indicates the importance of not focusing solely on the messages – from both mediated and non-mediated sources – but on the reception of those messages as well, a point addressed later in this paper. What we have found in the course of our research is that there are different ways that churches are political, and different methods that they employ toward social and political ends. Not everyone agrees that religious organizations are overtly political. Hendershot (2004), in her examination of churches’ use of religious media within and outside of church services, states that “although some Christian media are designed for overtly political and sometimes incendiary purposes… the majority of Christian media does not have overt political intentions” (p. 9). This difference in opinion could be due to different considerations of what is political. For Hendershot, politics might be restricted to electoral politics and partisan campaigning; in the context of this research, however, politics includes electoral politics as well as other factors such as political mobilization and the wholesale embrace of capitalism towards social and political ends. What follows is a description of our observations of political activity in several evangelical churches. Although pastors in conversations with us (as outsiders) indicated that they were bipartisan, the content of the services indicated otherwise. 3 For more discussion on secularization theory, see Moen (2001); or see Hoover (2001, 2003) on how recent changes in the mass media have influenced religious organizations. Page 5 of 18 1. Political content of sermons: In the course of our research we observed repeated instances of explicit political talk. During one service, the pastor made a connection between George Bush and God, expressing disappointment that “I never get a phone call or postcard from George Bush, although I’d like to,” but we can all communicate directly with God. Here, members of the congregation are addressed as Americans. But in this case, the specific identification goes further, with an allusion to George W. Bush which cast him in the light of a great leader, and the concomitant implication that a politically conservative congregation supports Bush, looks up to him in this way and desires direct communication with him. Another pastor at a different church also overtly equated the American president with Jesus, referring to Jesus as “our president, our commander in chief” who “put himself on the front lines” to sacrifice for a cause. Interestingly, this theme of militarism and doing “battle” again enemies was mentioned repeatedly in several churches in terms of waging “spiritual warfare.” Sermons in different churches included discussions of the importance of doing “battle” against “evil,” using clips from war-themed, popular movies such as Gettysburg and Ben Hur, with one sermon in particular emphasizing Mel Gibson’s character in the movie Braveheart as an example of how to become a “radical revolutionary” for Jesus. The war language used in the sermons – in conjunction with the films – touches upon a theme of new American militarism of which evangelical churches have been associated, beginning with the Vietnam War and continuing with the ongoing Iraq War (Bacevich, 2005). This new militarism may be responsible for the absence of criticism by many evangelical churches on the current U.S. war in Iraq, seen especially in the framing of certain political issues. 2. Agenda setting and priming of political issues: While associating George Bush with God and Jesus was an example of an overt invocation of politics, political references were not always as explicit. Another evangelical church sermon alluded to the importance the church played in agenda setting and the priming of political issues, especially the war. In this case, the pastor began to talk about the cause for the lack of peace in our society, including the “war in the Middle East” (and, oddly, the holiday shopping rush at Wal-Mart and the pastor’s search for the latest version of the Xbox video game player), and how some might feel that this war was the cause for chaos and a lack of peace. We fully expected an ensuing discussion of the war in Iraq and the tragedy of lost lives, but the talk then turned to a discussion of Jesus as the “King of Peace.” It turned out that what we needed to be concerned with – what Jesus truly cares about – was not the ongoing war but instead what was termed the “slaughter of the innocents,” a thinly veiled reference to abortion that is identified by this name on evangelical websites. The message sent by the pastor during this sermon appeared to be that you can care about the war to a certain degree, but what Jesus cares about (and what should be the most important issue) is abortion. In part, this lack of criticism against the war appears to be tied in to evangelical views about abortion. A sermon at a different church shed some light into the relationship between war and abortion, stating that, “although abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are immoral, God does allow for death in battle.” This sermon included video depicting small, white crosses on a grassy expanse with the U.S. White House in the background, again alluding to politics in relation to these issues. In addition, homosexuality and gay Page 6 of 18 rights – salient issues in the 2004 presidential campaign – were discussed, in one instance three weeks before the presidential election: What about Christianity and the whole, um, gay/lesbian scene? I don’t believe Christianity says that’s the way we ought to live, but…we ought not to be a barrier for them coming to Christ to get the help that they need…. I’m not saying we have to have (an AIDS) ministry. We don’t support lifestyles that don’t fit with the Bible, but we support them coming to Christ and getting help (emphasis added). Here, homosexuality is treated as an addiction, similar to alcoholism, a problem that can be “fixed” through religious counseling (Hendershot, 2004). From this perspective, support for gay rights is unnecessary, because homosexuality is simply an aberrant ‘lifestyle’ choice. This method of framing the issues is important to consider when exploring the relationship between politics and the mass media in the context of religion, because political messages that churchgoers receive from their pastors may a significant effect on their use of mass media and on their political opinions (Buddenbaum, 2000: 27). Specifically, Buddenbaum theorizes that “specialized sources” – such as religious leaders in church – influence how people interpret and use the mass media, in part by supplying alternate resources for making sense of information and forming opinions (p. 28). In the context of our research, the influence of the media on religious beliefs appears to be part of the strategy of evangelical leaders. In discussing evangelical organizations specifically, Jelen (1993, in Buddenbaum, 2000: 25) notes that “the belief within Conservative Protestantism of an inerrant bible coupled with a rhetorical style that links a specific Bible verse to each statement, gives a normative dimension to clergy pronouncements that is much more conducive to political mobilization than the liberal Protestant emphasis on individual autonomy and reason.” What we would add from our own observations is that evangelical churches have begun the practice of associating specific bible verses to secular films, television shows, and commercials. For example, a discussion of Desperate Housewives was accompanied by the bible verse Peter 3:7 (“Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered”). These two examples – the explicit political content and the framing of political issues within church services – may not surprise those who followed the involvement of religious organizations in the last election, especially those familiar with evangelical institutions. What our research can contribute, however, is a better understanding of the use of secular popular culture – and the concomitant consumerist emphasis – by churches, especially in relation to American politics. Our argument is that the use of popular culture has the potential to make the rhetoric of these religious organizations more powerful when couched within the language and ideals of American consumer culture. Integral to this argument is the construction of identity and how religious individuals make meaning in their lives. 3. Construction of identity and meaning-making. Page 7 of 18 This research supports the idea that group identities (at least within the context of the evangelical churches we studied) are formed within a capitalist framework that uses secular popular culture. What we found is that the references to mainstream media – popular Hollywood films, television shows, and commercials – bracket and permeate the experience, invoking we argue a particular sense of identity that is above all consumerist, politically conservative, white, male, and moral. The use of this media indicates that evangelical leaders recognize that, as Americans, their congregations lead highly mediated lives, and churches’ ability to incorporate media that is familiar to churchgoers allow religious messages to be delivered in a form that is familiar to American individuals. The role of the media in identity construction and meaning-making is addressed by Hoover (2003) and Schofield-Clark (2003) in several reception studies, with Hoover in particular exploring the interaction between media and religion, and how this contributes to “meaning making and the construction of identity” (2003: 10). Hoover states that the recent proliferation of the mass media and the resulting diversity of information and symbolic sources available has accentuated a sense of individualism and personal autonomy (and has also resulted in a loss of control over symbolic forms by religious organizations). As a result, religious individuals now take a consumer approach to “shopping” for the church and religion that best suits them (2001: 50). This trend of “personal autonomy” and emphasis on the self is applicable to this research because of the churches’ focus on consumer culture, which is largely focused on individual wants, needs, and desires. Interestingly, our observations in the church affirm Hoover’s assertions. As one pastor noted during a service, “It is difficult to bridge the word of the Bible with life in the 21st century.” In addition, another pastor quoted Rick Warren (author of the wildly popular book “A Purpose Driven Life”) when he described American churchgoers as “Christian bunnies” that were “hopping all over the place” from church to church. This statement was accompanied by a clip of the television show the Lone Ranger [LAST SLIDE HERE, ANDREA], which the pastor showed because “the Lone Ranger symbolizes western mentality that we can do it all by ourselves.” This message is telling, because it indicates that these evangelical churches have recognized that their constituents live highly mediated lives and that, as a result, the media – in this instance, an American television hero – plays a key role in how individuals make sense of their public and private lives. 4. Consumer power. Recently, certain scholars have noted that evangelical churches changed their strategy, from boycotting companies that went against religious ideals in the 1970s and 1980s, to using proactive consumer buying power in the 1990’s and 2000’s (Hendershot, 2004). McDannell (1998) notes that there are now Christian phone directories published to aid church members find Christian car dealers, florists, restaurants, and other companies. Thus, if there is a company that supports the messages of the religious right – be they political, social, or moral – religious leaders attempt to support them financially. The apparent economic mobilization by religious groups and their members indicates that not only have evangelical organizations incorporated references to secular popular culture into their church services, but that they embrace many dimensions of capitalism, in effect drawing important aspects of public life into the previously private space of the Page 8 of 18 church. This is evident in the mentions of both local and national businesses in almost every sermon we observed, in which the discussions of these companies were woven into the fabric of the sermon in the context of a religious message. When discussing how to be a good Christian, one pastor noted that one shouldn’t steal from the “honor system” coffee can at the national chain restaurant Panera, nor should one litter in the Wal-Mart parking lot; and a discussion of how to integrate of the Bible into everyday life was facilitated by showing a menu from the local restaurant “Smokey Bones” (eg, how the Bible is a “menu” for how to live a moral life). What follows is a description of church services that incorporate secular popular culture – and its attendant consumerist perspective – into the style and content of their church services, and then an exploration of the reasons that secular culture is playing such a prominent role in American evangelical churches today. For the sake of space, in this paper, we focus on two of the churches we observed: a new, relatively small church that was a “plant” from a larger church in a nearby town, and a mega-church with over 2,000 members. As mentioned previously, both churches are part of larger evangelical organizations in the U.S. and worldwide. “Welcome to All-Mart”: References to Popular and Consumer Culture in Church “I have a pain in my side, a headache, and don’t feel that being a greeter at All-Mart is fulfilling.” (From Choices Community Church, October 9, 2005) On our first visit to the churches we were struck by the media-saturated nature of the experience that included PowerPoint presentations, live music, websites, and clips from popular movies, television shows, and commercials. The use of many different forms of technology – such as the Internet – by religious organizations is not unusual, as has been noticed by Miller and Slater (date) and Keane (1997), in their examination of the speed and skill in which religious organizations have adopted new technology. In addition, the use of religious popular culture produced by Protestant churches is not new, as several authors (Hendershot, 2004; McDannell, 1998) have noted. Stout (2002) and Buddenbaum (2001) in particular note that Protestant churches in particular have not drawn as clear a line between the sacred and the profane as other denominations such as Catholics or Mormons. What is striking, however, is the degree to which secular popular and commercial culture saturate the evangelical church experience, often providing the main theme for the sermons. Choices Community Church Choices church, a small organization of approximately 140 members in a small, semirural town in the Midwest, presented a skit entitled “Welcome to All Mart,” a thinly veiled reference to the well-known corporate giant Wal Mart. The purpose of the skit was to present a man who held a boring, repetitive greeting job at “All Mart” (“Welcome to All Mart” was the continuing refrain throughout the skit) who acknowledged the feelings of purposelessness that such jobs are seen to engender. The solution for this man came in the form of his friend, who told him that the reason that his life felt purposeless Page 9 of 18 was because he had stopped going to his church. The real solution, then, to a low-paying job with few benefits, is the adherence to religious beliefs and practices. Similar to other skits we observed, the pastor told us that the script came from a national organization that mass produces and mass markets a variety of such scripts to churches in the U.S. The Walmart sketch was accompanied by a clip from Groundhog Day, the popular film starring Bill Murray, in which Murray is shown attempting to explain to a group of local men in a Puxsawtawnee, PA café that he is cursed by having to live the same day over and over again. When he expresses his feelings of purposelessness and despair, one of the local men looks up and dejectedly rejoins, “sounds about right.” The scene was shown in conjunction with the “All Mart” skit to reinforce the idea that religion can help us to live life with purpose (ie, help us to not live the same day “over and over again”). There were other references to popular culture that we observed during our visits to the church. In one case, the congregation was asked to visualize Alex Trebek and the Jeopardy show category boxes (like “Geography,” “Presidents,” etc.). The pastor imagined a category called “Containers,” and church members were asked what the answer to the question of “As a container, what am I to be filled with?” would be (answer: “purpose”). There were other examples of media use in Choices that were striking examples of the church’s (as well as its members’) familiarity with American consumer culture. The church produced a video spoof of an Enzyte commercial, a product for the enhancement of male sexuality, and they aired a (nationally-produced) spoof of a well-known Budweiser commercial about the “ordinary guy.” What makes this use of popular and consumer culture especially noteworthy is that in order for these sketches (including All Mart) to be effective educational tools, there must be a prior knowledge by the churchgoers of the company and its original commercials in order to make the connection and understand the message that the church is trying to send. The pastor himself explained that he was nervous that his audience would not “get” the reference to the Enzyte commercial in one of his sketches, which revolves around a man in 1950s style white suburbia who was sad until he purchased “natural male enhancement” pills. What the pastor noted, however, was that the congregation immediately began chuckling in response to the commercial’s familiar tune and visual style, indicating their ready familiarity with mainstream commercial media. Interestingly, in these two examples, secular popular culture is taken and used wholesale within the services, with no alteration or change in the content. What is especially striking is that these secular commercials and films are used within the services and infused with religious values, sending a message that is undoubtedly different from what the original creators of the programs had in mind (enhancement of male libido and consumption of alcoholic beverages, respectively). In other words, this church seemingly was able to use the non-religious messages of popular films and television shows to refer to the messages of the Bible, which were displayed on the screens after the clips had been shown. Intrigued by what we were finding, we visited other churches in the area to determine if the heavy media use we were seeing was a unique phenomenon. We visited a much larger church in a nearby town and found a similar saturation of church services with secular, consumerist media. The Orchard Page 10 of 18 The Orchard is a “mega-church” with over 2,000 members (according to the church website) that is similar to Choices in that it also incorporated a great deal of entertainment and consumer media into the services, more than was observed at Choices. Almost every sermon we attended contained popular film and television clips, as well as references to local and national companies. During one sermon, we watched a clip of Antz the movie to illustrate how to live a life “with purpose.” In another service, one of the pastors discussed Nike shoes: You know the tennis shoes that we all wear with the waffle on the bottom? (They’re made by) you know, Philip Knight or whoever it is that owns Nike made his billions. Hap (her husband) had that designed before Nike ever came out with them. [laughter] I mean, come on, Hap - what were you thinking? In another service, the church played a lengthy clip from the classic Hollywood film Ben Hur. In this scene, Jesus gives water to a very thirsty Charlton Heston, a man who has been enslaved by the Romans. After the clip was shown, the pastor referred to Jesus as “the ultimate thirst quencher,” alluding to Gatorade, a popular sports drink. Thus, although the scene from Ben Hur seems to say that Jesus fulfills our most basic needs, it is a mixed message, for Jesus is now directly associated with the pleasure of material consumption. This clip, with its religious overtones, was unusual in this church: in fact, it was the only film that could be considered overtly religious. Early in 2005, the Orchard held a series of six sermons that focused on the theme of marriage in the U.S. The pastor noted that “American households are desperate with the brokenness,” stating that the sermon series was “going to take a cue from some popular television shows” such as Desperate Housewives, Wife Swap, The Brady Bunch, Super Nanny, Bachelor/Bachelorette, and MTV’s The Real World, with each sermon in the series represented by a different show. Each of the sermons played clips from the shows and discussed them in the context of Christian marriage. Although this seems as though it is an example of using secular media to show what is not appropriate as a Christian (and thus could represent a rejection of mainstream media), the pastor noted that watching the Real World was important because it helps Christian parents understand their children. As is apparent, the Orchard – which is part of a larger evangelical organization with over 500 churches in the U.S. alone, and double that worldwide – relies heavily on mainstream media to convey its messages. At this juncture, the architecture and the space of the church merits attention because it directly reflects what we were seeing in the church services. As we attended services, we also focused our attention on the spaces themselves, and what they could tell us about the church. An Analysis of Space The consumerist content of The Orchard’s church services is reflected in its architecture [SLIDE]. From the outside, the building itself does not look like a church: with its low (one story, no steeple) architecture, lack of large windows, and no apparent Page 11 of 18 crosses, it looks from the street more like a community center. In addition, its name – The Orchard – evokes less a sense of a religious space and more of a restaurant, winery or other consumption space, and its location – on a main thoroughfare, right off a major interstate highway – seems more appropriate for a Wal-Mart or large shopping center. Once you enter the interior, there are no obvious signs that you are in a religious space. The outer doors open up into a larger space that is decorated in neutral colors and covered with beige carpet. There are two coffee bars (operated by the church’s “Brew Crew”) with gourmet, flavored creamers, as well as a breakfast center and a bookstore. You are invited into the “theater” (not sanctuary) with your coffee, as long as the lid is on. The reclining chairs are comfortable, not like pews or benches, more resembling theater seats, with drink holders on each chair. There are no windows in this space, and none of the stained glass that is so familiar in churches of other denominations. The floor of this inner space is graded down towards the stage, which has two large screens that are used to show film and television clips, PowerPoint presentations, websites, and song lyrics. Not only is there entertainment to consume during the service but, as the website indicates, you can get your hair cut, work out, and get your oil changed at certain times of the month in the church by Christian businesses that donate their time and services. Thus, The Orchard is a great example of a church that incorporates the forms of consumer culture. The Orchard does not appear to be an isolated case: as now there are many evangelical “mega-churches” that exhibit what can be described as a consumer setting, with bookstores, food courts, and commercial businesses like Starbucks that operate within them. The heavy use of secular media in the church services, in conjunction with the secularist architecture, prompts the question of why the evangelical organizations we have observed have chosen to appropriate the forms of mainstream American consumer culture. As noted earlier, there are certain benefits to modern churches that recognize and respond to the culture of hyperconsumption that surrounds individuals outside the church environment. But isn’t there also a danger? Religion and media scholars (such as Hendershot, 2004 and McDannell, 1998) discuss whether the blending of the secular and the profane results in a lessening of religious influence. Hoover (2003, 2001) in particular sees the vague ‘spirituality’ that has proliferated in the mass media (the television show Touched by an Angel being the prime example) as representing a dilution of religious principles and the loss of churches’ control over the meaning of religious symbols. While Moen (2001) argues against this secularization theory, his consideration does not include the wholesale appropriation of secular what we have detailed here. It is important to consider the question of whether this blending of private and public represents a concession on behalf of evangelical churches that wish to remain relevant. Why Wal-Mart? Consumer Culture and Evangelical Churches As we mentioned earlier, Wal-Mart is a constant topic of reference in the churches we have observed. Consider the following quotes from various church services: “I don’t know if you’re aware that we have moved from being a child-centered culture to being a child-dominated culture. Just visit Wal-Mart and see what you see there.” Page 12 of 18 “As many of you know, we are gift-wrapping at Wal-Mart this Christmas season. This is a great opportunity to spread the good news about what we’re doing here at in church.” “The peace that Jesus can give you is better than any present you can buy at WalMart” “I was at Wal-Mart the other day to buy an Xbox for my son: How many of you have an Xbox?” “Welcome to All-Mart!” “I was in the parking lot at Wal-Mart and saw some trash. I didn’t have to pick it up, but I did, because it was the right thing to do.” These constant references to Wal-Mart made us wonder if there some active, intentional association being made between these churches and Wal-Mart. With some research, we found that Wal-Mart has a long history of association with religious organizations. The company was founded within the small religious community of Bentonville, Arkansas and bases many of its practices on religious grounds. As Sellers (2005) notes in Christianity Today: “Wal-Mart has a tradition of tailoring its service to churchgoing customers,” using the example of the store selling only the sanitized versions of hip-hop CDs based upon the wishes of evangelical groups. The company also donates large amounts of money to conservative campaigns which, in the case of the Bush and Reagan administrations, supports evangelicals’ stances on abortion and gay rights. In addition, Wal-Mart also supports religious campaigns commercially, by stocking media produced by religious organizations (such as Veggie Tales and other Christian books and paraphernalia), but in doing so it is also making the religious products more available to the consuming public, and so also functions partly as proselytizer. Ultimately, the close-knit ties between churches and Christian companies like Wal-Mart create a symbiotic, mutually-beneficial, relationship in which church members support Wal-Mart financially, in exchange for the company upholding various “moral values.” CONCLUSION In bringing mainstream, secular culture into the church and using the strategy of proactive consumer power to achieve church goals, evangelical churches appear to recognize the political power of consumer choices in the American capitalist system. Through looking at the media in contemporary churches we are working towards a theory of the role of religion and media in current American politics. Specifically, we argue that the use of secular, popular media by religious organizations in the U.S. has strongly facilitated the involvement of these organizations in American public life. One way that the media shape the tenor of Church services today, at least those we have recently witnessed in researching this paper, is by alluding to the collective consumerist identity, which is morally conservative and almost always white and male, that popular mass media products like classic films or popular television commercials often invoke. In addition, bringing the world of classic Hollywood into the church setting reminds churchgoers of their common identity as consumers and prepares them in important ways to be mobilized as Americans, perhaps in a political sense. The sketch “Welcome to All Mart” functions similarly. In fact, the repeated references to Wal Mart Page 13 of 18 that we’ve witnessed underscore our argument that the national organizations writing liturgy for the grassroots Churches that form the focus of this study are extremely and consciously aware of addressing their audience as a workforce occupying a particular peg in the American social structure. Their attempt at reassuring poorly paid service workers, lower income consumers, and their particular frustrations, is also an overt political move. The fact that the Churches are mobilizing Americans’ knowledge of and identification with consumer culture is underscored by their holiday proselytizing in consumer settings like Wall Mart, where church members volunteer to wrap packages during the Christmas holidays. As Putnam and others argue, religious organizations are great repositories of social capital in that their members form dense and extensive social networks that often serve to organize their lives. When media is introduced into these networks, it facilitates their use for all sorts of purposes, among them the recent political mobilization we’ve witnessed. The church phenomena contrast sharply with our observations of political talk and media use in other settings, like the fast food restaurant with which we began this discussion. In that case, the near absence of media referents and national political talk coincided with the men involved invoking a sense of identity that was distinctly local, though similarly white and male to the churchgoers. While the Arby’s group was also politically mobilized in a sense, as indicated by the visits from the mayor, they were less susceptible to modes of address that invoked national collective identities, as we found in the churches. This comparison perhaps raises more questions than it answers concerning the developing relationship between religious identity and the rise of a conservative political establishment in this country. But we hope with this data to lay the groundwork for a broader, more comprehensive discussion of these issues that we plan to present in future work. 1 This project was funded by NSF grant DST IIS-04838803 entitled References Churches with Thousands of Members and a One-Stop Mentality Becoming More Popular. ABC news report, retrieved on 7 December from http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Business/story?id=617341&page=1. Originally released 27 March 2005. Bacevich, A. (2005). Onward. The New American Militarism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 122-146. Buddenbaum, J. (2001). The media, religion, and public opinion: toward a unified theory of cultural influence. Religion and Popular Culture. Iowa State University Press. pp. 1929. Page 14 of 18 Buddenbaum, J. (2002). Christian perspectives on mass media. Religion, Mobilization, and Social Action. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. pp. 81-94. Cooperman, A. (2004). Churchgoers Get Direction from Bush Campaign. July 1. P. A06. Retrieved on 18 January 18, 2006 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/A19082-2004Jun30.html?referrer=email. Hendershot, H. (2004). Shaking the World for Jesus. University of Chicago Press. Hoover, S. (2001). Religion, media, and the cultural center of gravity. Religion, Mobilization, and Social Action. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. pp. 49-60. Hoover, S. (2003). Religion, media and identity: theory and method in audience research on religion and media. Mediating Religion. New York: T&T Clark, Ltd. pp. 9-20. Jelen, T.G. (1993). The Political World of the Clergy. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. Ludden, J. The Evangelical Vote and the Election. Retrieved on 25 January 25, 2006 from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4156923 . Mazur, E., and Hammond, P.E. (1998). The market paradigm and the future of religious organizations. In A. Shupe and B. Misztal (eds.) Religion, Mobilization, and Social Action. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. pp. 67-84. Moen, M.C. (1998). The New Christian Right in the Twenty-First Century.” In A. Shupe and B. Misztal (eds.) Religion, Mobilization, and Social Action. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. pp. 183-196. Morgan, D. (2003). Protestant visual piety and the aesthetics of American mass culture. Mediating Religion. New York: T&T Clark, Ltd. pp.107-120. Schultze, Q.J. (2001). Touched by angels and demons: religions’ love-hate relationship with popular culture. Religion, Mobilization, and Social Action. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. pp. 39-48. Sellers, J. (2005). "Deliver Us from Wal-Mart? Christians are among those sounding the alarm about the ethics of this retail giant. Are the worries justified?" Christianity Today, 2005-MAY. [A prime example of this is the recent popularity of the Chronicles of Narnia movie by C.S. Lewis, which has overt religious references. Leaders of American churches became aware of this, and started to offer bible groups for children that usedthe movie as the main theme. This was also seen in the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” in which churches held viewings for the congregation.] Page 15 of 18 The Lone Ranger symbolizes western mentality that we can do it all by ourselves, but… God’s plan is for a family. We need to drop our individualism and become part of the body of Christ. In Rick Warren’s book (Purpose Driven Life) he actually calls them “Bunny” Christians – you know, they’re “hopping all over the place.” People don’t like commitment because they are self-centered. "What was once easily understood as a line between private and public has been or is being erased as a result of forces at work in contemporary religion and contemporary media. What has emerged in place of an old dualism between the private and the public, between the religious and the secular, and between the sacred and the profane is a less definite space where those distinctions exist in a state of fluidity and flux" So the media is turning into a marketplace, concomitant with the rise in autonomous religious seeking (p. 51) from a variety of different media sources. This is interesting in the sense that evangelical churches like the Vineyard appear to treat their congregation exactly like that, as consumers seeking the best church to suit their needs. It is an organization that is clearly trying to sell itself and its services (hair cuts, gym workouts, coffee bar). The clergy admit this, referring to the sanctuary as a “theater” and the service as a “show.” Hoover believes that this new “marketplace” means that “the ways of being religious have moved out of the protected sphere of religious institution and tradition and into the open ground of the symbolic marketplace” (p. 51). “The emergence of a new religious marketplace has arisen at the same time as the emergence of a new media marketplace” (p. 58). In terms of commercialism: “These ways of doing religion – popular, material, commodity based – represent more and more of what American religiosity is today. And, they are gradually moving the center of religious culture into the center of media culture” (p. 54). This may be one reason why evangelical churches have saturated church services with media references (making service more like a “show” than a traditional sermon), but another might be that the messages are thought to be clearer when using the vehicle of media. Groundhog Day was a very popular movie that was viewed by millions of Americans: to use the movie itself to represent religious values might seem like a stretch, but during the service it was an effective tool to learn how to live a life “with purpose.” Buddenbaum notes: Buddenbaum (2000) notes that political messages that churchgoers receive from their pastors have an effect on their use of mass media and on their political opinions (p. 27). Specifically, she theorizes that specialized sources (such as religious leaders in church) affect agenda setting by the mass media by providing additional resources for evaluating information and forming opinions (Buddenbaum, 2000. p. 28). Seen in this way, the mass media hold less sway in terms of agenda setting and priming for those individuals who receive political messages from religious opinion leaders. In discussing evangelical Page 16 of 18 organizations (the focus of our study) specifically, Buddenbaum (2000, p. 25, citing Jelen, 1993) notes that “the belief within Conservative Protestantism of an inerrant bible (a cornerstone belief of evangelicals) coupled with a rhetorical style that links a specific Bible verse to each statement gives a normative dimension to clergy pronouncements that is much more conducive to political mobilization than the liberal Protestant emphasis on individual autonomy and reason.” When media - both old and new - is added to this rhetoric, the churches can send very powerful social and political messages. 1. Explicit political talk (about war, abortion, George Bush), 2. The framing of issues (war is not as important as abortion) and the clergy's impact for churchgoers on agenda setting by the mass media (the congregation may pay less attention to messages in the mass media because they've already been told what is important and how to think about it - priming). I put this section into the paper, based upon new reading: The use of secular culture in the church goes against what Hendershot states about evangelicals, to be “’in but not ‘of’ the world” (p. 11). What our research indicates is that evangelicals now recognize that many individuals are noe ‘of’ the world as well. “My Apology As the Senior Pastor and chief vision caster of our church, I am responsible for what is communicated. Therefore I take full responsibility for confusing and/or offending some of you in regard to this message. I specifically ask your forgiveness if any of the following apply: You thought I came across as arrogant You thought I was making light of other views You thought that the Vineyard was changing its historical approach to debatable issues by stating a position which every person attending the Vineyard must accept or no longer be welcome You thought I had changed to “exclusive doctrine” which is now mandatory in the Vineyard” Important link from Washington Post: http://www.allhatnocattle.net/7-104_what_would_jesus_do.htm Page 17 of 18 Page 18 of 18