Modern Religious Experience-Driven Societies: Medial and Aesthetic Presentations of the Teachings of Christian-Orientated Organisations in the USA.

Project Description

Modern Religious Experience-Driven Societies: Medial and Aesthetic Presentations of the Teachings of Christian-Orientated Organisations in the USA.

This DFG funded research project investigates the ways in which Christian-orientated organisations in the USA maintain the loyalty of actors, specifically in the case of three case studies. At the core of the project lie research questions based in material religion and economics of religion. Medial and aesthetic presentations of religious teachings will specifically be investigated as strategies of gaining and maintaining membership in religious organisations.

As the project analyses how Raider Nation, megachurches and creationist parks try to illustrate an assumed transcendental entity through verbal and non-verbal signifiers, the project understands itself as a contribution to and development of the research approach of material religion. We support the proposition that in religious traditions, organisations, and communities meaning cannot happen without the senses. Combining the questions from material religion and sociology of religion, it can therefore be concluded that cognitive and sensory signifiers coalesce in religious activities.

The project also follows the approach of economics of religion. This means that the Christian-orientated organisations are understood as religious goods and treated like goods in the economic sense. This approach, which in newer studies is often referred to as the American marketplace of religions, promises to be fruitful. A multimethodological approach based in participatory observation and qualitative social-sciences methods has been chosen for the collection of data.

The project is located at the Institute for Religious Studies at the University of Heidelberg and is financially supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for 30 months.