Humans are homo duplex, seeking to be individuals but knowing this is only possible in communities. Thus, humans struggle to integrate these two sides of their nature. Megachurches have been enormously successful at resolving this struggle. How do they do it, and what is it about their structure and rituals that makes so many feel as if they are high on God? The affective energies and emotional valences that characterize religious ecstasy are the primary focus of our study of megachurches. Empirically, humans want and desire forms of what Randall Collins calls “emotional energy.” Drawing on extensive qualitative and quantitative data on twelve nationally representative megachurches, we identify six desires that megachurches evoke and meet: acceptance, awe and spiritual stimulation, reliable leadership, deliverance, purpose, and solidarity in a community of like-minded others. Megachurches satisfy these desires through co-presence—being in the presence of other desiring people—a shared mood achieved through powerful musical worship services, a mutual focus of attention on the charismatic senior pastor who acts as an emotional charging agent, transformative altar calls, service opportunities, and small-group participation. This interaction ritual chain solidifies attendees’ commitment and group loyalty, and keeps them coming back to be recharged. Megachurches also have a dark side: they are known for their highly publicized scandals often involving malfeasance of the senior pastor. After examining the positive and negative sides to megachurches, we conclude that they successfully meet the desire of humans to flourish as individuals and to do so in a group.
Prior research indicates that ritual can be a source of social solidarity by signaling trustworthiness and group commitment. A separate line of research expects domestic violence against women to be more common in societies with post-marital residence at the husband’s birthplace (i.e. patrilocality). Thus, we hypothesized that when wives are able to construct strong bonds with the female members of their communities through solidarity-building rituals, they gain social support capable of inhibiting violence, leading to lower overall levels of domestic violence--especially in patrilocal societies. Results indicated that certain types of women-centered rituals were associated with lower levels of sexual and domestic violence; however, we found inconsistent effects according to patrilocal residence. Women-centered rituals were not found to be associated with beliefs about the husband’s prerogative to punish and dominate his spouse, and patrilocality did not contribute to the effects we found.
Singh deploys cultural evolution to explain recurrent features of shamanistic trance forms, but fails to substantively address important distinctions between these forms. Possession trance (vs. trance without possession) is disproportionately female-dominated and found in complex societies. The effects of cultural conditions on shamanism thus extend beyond its presence or absence and are vital for modeling its professionalization and spread.
In this chapter, we show how megachurches meet attendees’ desire for “wow” and awe. The data show that megachurch members are overwhelmingly “in love” with megachurch worship. Worship time is often an outward expression of praise and the sharing of joy—a time for generating collective effervescence. The collective effervescence evoked during the worship service is intensified by the fact that there are thousands of people contributing to it. Megachurch services are fields of wonder that energize and synchronize human bodies and feelings with remarkable acuity. The intense emotional energy produced prepares attendees for the pastor’s message, which follows the worship service.
The article presents new research about spiritual experiences during COVID-19. It starts with a wider discussion about the relationship between spirituality and wellbeing, based on research carried out in Brazil and the United Kingdom before the pandemic. The research showed a strict division between personal faith and medical treatment, reflecting a professional distance when treating patients that results in patients’ unwillingness to speak about their experience to anyone in the medical profession, even when these experiences impact their mental health. The article then explores findings of a new research project about spiritual experience during COVID-19 and reflects on three themes that emerged from the data: 1) changes in patients’ relationships with their religious communities, 2) seeing spiritual figures and near death experiences, and 3) interpretations of COVID-19 as a spiritual contagion. These themes contribute to a nuanced understanding of how spiritual experiences that arise in moments of crisis are interpreted by the people who have them, potentially contributing to resiliance and coping. The last section discusses the reluctance to speak about non-ordinary experiences and reflects on the importance of integrating non-ordinary experiences for mental health.
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