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The Supply-Side Theory of Religion, or, How to Build a Mega-Church in New England

By pharrell

I confess my skepticism a few years ago when Rodney Stark, Roger Fink and other economists argued that Americans are more religious than Europeans because we have a free market for religious services. Basically, this "supply side" theory of religion argued that American churches have to offer innovative, popular religious services or the bank will foreclose on church property and send the pastor packing--a fact that encourages ministers to drum up new religious "business." The ministers of state-centered European churches, by contrast, face no competitive pressure to pack the pews; they draw a healthy sinecure as long as a handful of onlookers, most of them born before the first World War, turn out on Sunday mornings.

But after reading Frances FitzGerald's recent New Yorker article about a megachurch in New Milford, Connecticut, Come One, Come All, I'm reconsidering my skepticism. The pastor, Frank Santora, self-consciously moderates his pentecostal services to appeal to a reserved New England constituency. He sends glossy junk mail to residents of adjacent towns to drum up Sunday business. Like other megachurches, Santora's Faith Church offers micro-targeted classes and affinity groups to attract different types of prospective congregates, as well as a coffee-shop (Son-Bucks, get it?) and daycare. Other mega-churches, according to the article, "offer classes in how to manage family finances, and many have funds to help church members through financial crises. All have opportunities for community service, and many have drama groups, arts classes, and high-tech recording equipment. In other words, megachurches offer just about everything the newly arrived suburbanite can't find at Wal-Mart or Home Depot."

That's understanding the market.

Which shouldn't be surprising, given what FitzGerald reports about modern megachurch management. Robert Schuller, the founder of Crystal Cathedral (an early megachurch in California) built his ministry by ringing neighborhood doorbells to conduct an informal survey about the church services people actually wanted. "On the basis of their answers, he built a church with a huge parking lot, greeters to welcome new 'customers,' and Sunday services with inspirational talks...." The article quotes Schuller himself as saying that he "advocated and launched what has become known as the marketing approach to Christianity." (emphasis added). Santora, the pastor of the New Milford church, has contracted with an ad company to create a "marketing blitz" around the sermons he gives at times of the year when people are likely to drop back into church after an absence, for example, after children go back to school in the fall. Other megachurch pastors study modern business management theory. Willow Creek, a prominent church near Chicago, is "the subject of a Harvard Business School study." Its Executive Pastor has a Stanford MBA and is a former consultant at McKinsey. It hired a market-research firm to survey congregates about their spiritual growth, and, on the basis of that research, has begun offering individual "spiritual growth plans" to its members.

FitzGerald certainly portrays the modern American megachurch as a business, though it's important to point that she offers no moral judgments about the churches she describes. Indeed, she seems to have a certain sympathy for the methods of a modern megachurch pastor, who, after all, is just trying to understand the spiritual needs of his community before creating programs tailored to them.

But the real question for the religious "supply siders" is why contemporary European religious entrepreneurs haven't sprung up to fill the gap left by state religious services that aren't meeting the spiritual needs of Europe, at least judging from the numbers of people who actually go to church on the other side of the Atlantic. Perhaps Europeans get their spiritual fulfillment elsewhere (the French read a lot of philosophy). Or perhaps they've found substitute goods--maybe some combination of museums, cafes, and long vacations keeps Europeans content. Or perhaps it is only a matter of time, and, like music, movies, and Coca Cola, American-style religion will sweep the Continent.

Full post as published by Harrell Blog on November 30, 2007 (boomark / email).