John Boy
"Churching Postmoderns: Evangelical Missionaries and Religious Change in Europe"
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Abstract
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What is the place of religion in the contemporary European metropolis? For the longest time, sociologists could only imagine the trajectory of religious change pointing downward: Lower attendance at religious services, and less sway of religious institutions in everyday life, culture and politics were sure to ensue in modern society. While this component of secularization theory has come under revision in recent decades, it is still largely undisputed with regard to Europe, which some have argued is the exceptional locus of a secular modernity. Because of such broad structural assumptions, sociology has a Kuhnian blind spot for the ways in which social and cultural changes underway actually lead to a reinvigoration of religion in European societies. One trend, which so far has received mostly journalistic and little scholarly attention, indicates that Europe, as far as religion is concerned, has become “provincialized.” Today it is the destination of evangelical missionaries from North America and elsewhere who, using sophisticated “church-planting” methods and newly “inculturated” theologies, are successfully gaining a foothold in the urban cultures of European metropolises and penetrating into political discourse and cultural production. As yet a miniscule phenomenon, it is difficult to gauge its implications. My exploratory study will employ ethnographic study of several “church-plants” in German metropolises—including Berlin, “the capital of secularity and secularism” (Davie)—to illuminate the phenomenon with reference to debates in the sociology of religion (including secularization) as well as critical theories of modernity, the public sphere, identity, and everyday life.
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