Theology and Religious Studies

The author begins her answer to the question, “What can we learn from the stories which mothers of extremely premature children born in NICU tell about their spiritual needs?” by presenting an analysis of her own life history in ethnographic form.  A theoretical examination of the nature of spiritual care follows, in which it is shown to address in four dimensions (existential, spiritual, esthetic, and ethical) the needs of those who are failing to cope on their own with an existential crisis that has left them with neither sense of meaning nor purpose in life.  Drawing from her own experience allied with voices from interviews conducted with other mothers who have given extreme premature birth, the author finds the compulsive need on the part of these mothers to answer the question, “Why did this happen to me?” as indicative of an existential crisis, while an excess of professionalism and a deficient ethic of care allow physicians and the hospital staff to be unprepared to interpret the healthy lamentations of a mother who feels disconnected from her expectations and any sense of purpose or meaning in her life; instead of recognizing her lamentation as a cry for help and comfort and making efforts to accommodate it, by repressing or dismissing her lament, they may heighten her trauma, resulting in her feeling silenced and contributing further to the mother’s feelings of disconnection, disempowerment and stigmatization.

Keywords: auto-ethnography, disempowerment, existential crisis, ethics of care, extreme motherhood, extreme premature birth, lamentation, professionalism, spiritual care, stigmatization.

Why do recent converts in new evangelical churches desire to be re-baptized by immersion despite their previous infant baptism in mainline churches? This article addresses this question through a discussion of the observed shift in baptism practices from that of ‘sprinkling’ infants (in Protestant mainline churches) to full bodily immersion of adults (in new evangelical churches) in the Netherlands. Based on an ethnographic comparison of these two baptism practices, I demonstrate the performative effect of rituals as well as the importance of connections between material forms, embodiment and doctrines. The call for different baptism practices, I suggest, illustrates a broader shift in Dutch Protestantism from a didactic to an experiential form of Christianity in which the encounter with the sacred is increasingly located in the body. At the same time, it demonstrates how religious authority has moved from institutions to individual believers.

One of the remarkable observations in the books of Acts is that the spread of the gospel is accompanied by the formation of new communities of Christ followers. The gospel brings people together and unites people across boundaries of culture, class, race and gender. The story of the church through all ages reveals how the gospel in essence is a power for community formation. This shows that the good news of the gospel brings humanity back to God’s intended purpose: for humanity to live in relationship with God and each other.
But next to this universal aspect of the church, church history also reveals a second characteristic of Christian community formation: the gospel always enters into a specific time and place. While ecclesiastic models of community are usually developed in light of Scripture, the diversity in forms and shapes of Christian communities, roles, and leadership positions emerged through time and across cultures, reveal the church’s embedding in specific cultural contexts. This has profound consequences for understanding what it means to be a missional congregation in contemporary networked society. Clearly most congregations will share what Galindo describes as the mission of congregations: “to be the body of Christ in the world, participating with God in the redemptive work of restoring the people to unity with God and each other in Christ.”  But how congregations embody this mission in their practices, in their liturgies, in their relationships among believers and doubters, seekers and those who do not share the same beliefs, is one of the most pertinent questions in the Western church today.
This article discusses missional identity markers of congregations understood as expressions of identity politics of congregations, being keys for ecclesial transformation in the context of Dutch Baptist churches.

This article argues that the rise of ‘pastorpreneurs’ in global neo-Pentecostalism calls for an aesthetic perspective on religious authority and leadership in the context of new media. Different from mainline churches, religious leadership in neo-Pentecostal  churches is not legitimized by denominational traditions and the ordination of clergy but by ‘pastorpreneurs’ , pastors who combine entrepreneurial business skills and an orthodox Christian message, fostering a neo-Pentecostal style of spirituality. The emergence of this new mode of religious leadership described as ‘pastorpreneurs’ is investigated in a thriving Pentecostal megachurch located at the heart of the Dutch Bible belt. As the Dutch case demonstrates, the rapid development of new media technology creates and facilitates a rapid spread of performative authoritative modes of leadership on a global scale. Pentecostal megachurches in different parts of the world, because of their size and success and presence in the online world, operate as authoritative centers of divine blessing, inspiration and even God’s presence. So it is not doctrine that binds people together but rather shared aesthetic forms that have the capacity to evoke religious experiences and the tangible felt presence of God.

Keywords: aesthetics, religious leadership, megachurches, pentecostalism, globalization, new media.

Global megachurch networks like Hillsong having its center at the megachurch in Sydney, Australia, are becoming important research sites to understand how the integration of new media technology in worship services affects and even transforms liturgical practices. The Hillsong megachurch network, like most Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, regards media technology as positive. It provides access to mass audiences and enables Hillsong to extend its network and mission of spreading the gospel and planting churches. On the basis of ethnographic research in Hillsong New York City and Hillsong Amsterdam, I discuss new modes of preaching practices enhanced by the possibilities of media technology. I argue that, because live preaching is accompanied by real-time video casting of the preacher on screens and showing sermons on video has become an acceptable substitute for live preaching, the Hillsong megachurch network challenges the characteristics of live preaching in terms of coherence between time and place, embodiment, and performance. Alternatively, the sermon is transformed into a “sermonic event” that can be reproduced across limits of time, place and context.

“... not what media says that will hurt you; it’s what the media says that is true. Therefore practicing what we preach and doing the journey in front of our church family and community, and openness and transparency is paramount. 
Brian Houston, senior pastor Hillsong Church, (emphasis added).

Introduction
Global megachurch networks are intriguing sites to investigate how religious authority and leadership are established and challenged through media and media technology. The rapid growth of the Australian Hillsong Church network, having its center in a Sydney megachurch, demonstrates how the integration of new media technology - in particular the Internet - creates favorable conditions for the expansion of innovative networks of churches on a national and even a global scale. The Internet not only enables interactive communication between churches and believers but offers also opportunities for religious leaders to profile themselves. Focusing on the question how religious authority can be authenticated and negotiated in the current media age, this chapter discusses the media performances of Hillsong Church’s senior pastor Brian Houston when he was confronted with the public exposure of the allegations of sexual child abuse against his father. The question raised in this chapter is how the media and in particular the development of media technology, including the Internet, are affecting the legitimation of the religious authority of megachurches and their pastors.

Global cities around the world are breeding grounds for the multiplication of megachurch networks like Hillsong. Characteristic of Hillsong Church is the confluence of music and media technology in presenting a contemporary style of Pentecostal Christianity that attracts young people from different backgrounds. This article discusses the processes of globalization and mediatisation at play in transforming religion in global cities. The diverse audience encountered in Hillsong Amsterdam and New York City demonstrate the various modes of belonging Hillsong offers to its visitors: from local church to a free Christian event. The rise of Hillsong church indicates the importance of aesthetic experiences and that structures and patterns of belief become increasingly global and interconnected.

This book highlights the expansion of the influential Pentecostal Hillsong Church global megachurch network from Australia across global cities. Ethnographic research in Amsterdam and New York City shows that global cities harbor nodes in transnational religious networks in which media play a crucial role. By taking a lived religion approach, media is regarded as integral part of everyday practices of interaction, expression and consumption of religion. Key question raised is how processes of mediatization shape, alter and challenge this thriving cosmopolitan expression of Pentecostalism. Current debates in the study of religion are addressed: religious belonging and community in global cities; the interrelation between media technology, religious practices and beliefs; religion, media and social engagement in global cities; media and emerging modes of religious leadership and authority. In this empirical study, pressing societal issues like institutional responses to sexual abuse of children, views on gender roles, misogyny and mediated constructions of femininity are discussed.
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030742980

Initiated by the Pentecostal Hillsong megachurch in Sydney, Australia, a rapidly growing global network of new churches has emerged in urban centers in Europe such as London, Paris, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam, and also in South Africa’s Cape Town and recently in New York City and Los Angeles in the United States. This transnational network of churches, characterized by entrepreneurial charismatic leadership, displays a vibrant form of neo-Pentecostal Christianity that is accessible and appealing in its use of music and multimedia. From a missiological perspective, the Hillsong megachurch and its network raise a number of questions. How are we to understand and evaluate the current expansion of global Pentecostal networks founded by megachurches that plant new churches in different parts of the world? Furthermore, since this global movement is largely an urban phenomenon, how does a megachurch network such as Hillsong relate to multiple local city contexts? How is the success of Hills...