Hillsong Church

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 an integral part of everyday practices of interaction, expression, and consumption of religion. A 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, including religious belonging and community in global cities, the interrelation between media technology, religious practices, and beliefs, religion, media and social engagement in global cities, and 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.