Megachurches in den USA und Singapur in transkultureller Perspektive: Ein kritischer Blick auf das Export-Narrativ From the West to the Rest

Abstract

The chapter critically discusses the so-called export narrative “from the West to the rest”, with which the globalization of American-style “fundamentalist Christianity” is often described. What lies behind the narrative is an observation of the global spread of Evangelical and Pentecostal forms of organization and expression, such as Megachurches, televangelism, the so-called prosperity gospel, and cell groups. These phenomena are often described as American exports with global success. Based on fieldwork observations in megachurches with TV-ministries in the USA and Singapore, the chapter offers an alternative approach to look at these practices in the global context. The author argues that a transcultural perspective allows for a more differentiated description and analysis of the material, one that takes varied positionalities, multi-directionality, and entanglement into account.