Faith-based economic system
Until thirty years ago, Evangelicals were considered amongst the poorest and least educated people in the USA, as they mostly belonged to the lower classes of society. Richard Niebuhr, an important 20th century Christian theologian in the US even called Evangelicalism "the religion of the dispossessed". It seems nowadays that a revolution has occurred, for these former buffoons have now penetrated the society's top ranks. Evangelicals have infiltrated the political elite, financial elite, cultural elite, intellectual elite, and so on. About 40% of the people in the United States are now identifying themselves as Evangelicals: the proselyte effort has been successful. Their economic power allows the Evangelicals to found more and more missions and megachurches in the USA and to achieve more conversions everywhere else. Here are some examples of how the Evangelical establishment gathers money in order to expand.
From the White House
With one of them at the White House, Evangelicals are guaranteed the receipt of State funding. . According to Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, on the one hand there is an increasingly significant amount of money that goes to faith-based organisations in the US; on the other hand, the non Christians religious organisations do not receive a dime from the Bush administration. Barry Lynn also notes that this state money goes primarily to political friends of President Bush. For instance Pat Robertson, one of the most powerful TV preachers in the US and chairman of CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network), a supporter of the Republican Party, got half a million dollars from the federal government to rule one of his ministries. Barry Lynn blames the current US administration with disrespecting the First Amendment to the Constitution when it finances radical Christian groups with public money. Indeed the First Amendment states that a United States government should not prefer one religion over another, or over no religion at all. Furthermore, the money given to Christian organisations is spent at the expense of public policies dedicated to social issues and education, for instance.
Wal-Mart churches
The common practices of religion in the USA are really far from what they are in Europe. Instead of being cold in an empty dark church on Sunday morning, American believers can enjoy their faith anytime thanks to "televangelical" shows and, even better, praying and shopping at the same time in one the impressive megachurches the Americans have built. These co-called megachurches are usually Evangelical Protestant congregations with average weekly attendance of 2000 or more. Basically, these are some kind of faith-supermarkets providing an increasing number of products and services in order to entertain and ultimately to keep their devotees or convert new ones. The megachurches offer the US suburban communities at least as much as the greatest shopping mall could: proximity, comfort, entertainment and jobs. For instance in South Barrington, a suburb of Chicago, the Willow Creek Community Church gathers about 18 000 people every Sunday. At Willow Creek´s ceremonies, not only can the believers listen to and look at the preacher and his music bands thanks to huge flat video screens, but they can also have a drink, leave their kids in a kindergarten or in a sport training course, buy some books and CD´s and a myriad of other attractive products. Megachurches are ironically called "Wal- Mart churches" or "McChurches" by their opponents. In Anchorage, Alaska, ChangePoint Ministry, a 4000-members Christian congregation, is turning into a real estate agent, financing and leasing buildings to local or national companies. This entrance of churches into business provokes complaints of for-profit companies with which they compete. Indeed, US churches benefit from tax breaks and exemptions given to religious organisations by the current administration. Mixed-used projects like churches including shopping centres and clinics exclusively employing church members are criticised because they disrespect business rules and threaten local diversity. Evangelicals will eventually build whole faith-based neighbourhoods and finance others with the profit they took out of it.
Sources:
Twitchell B. James , « Les supermarchés du Christ », LE COURRIER INTERNATIONAL, 2005/05/12
Henriques, B. Diana, "Megachurches Add Local Economy to Their Mission", THE NEW YORK TIMES, 2007/11/23