Word: megachurch
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...hardly unusual for Bill Clinton to spend Sunday mornings making the rounds at black churches in primary states. But the Sunday before Hillary Clinton's squeaker victory in Texas found her husband ensconced with daughter Chelsea at Joel Osteen's Houston megachurch, which is white, black and Latino. Why the change in venues? Polls by the progressive group Faith in Public Life show that Hillary has support among white Evangelical Democrats, winning them 57% to 35% over Barack Obama in Ohio, for example. The former President didn't address Osteen's congregation, but the preacher acknowledged him from the pulpit...
Lugo would not speculate on whether such a buyer's market might cause some groups to dilute their particular beliefs in order to compete. There are signs of that in such surveys as one done by the Willow Creek megachurch outside Chicago, which has been extremely successful in attracting tens of thousands of religious "seekers." An internal survey recently indicated much of its membership was "stalled" in their spiritual growth, Lugo allowed that "it does raise the question of, once you attract these folks, how do you root them within your own particular tradition when people are changing so quickly...
...campaign could have used the North Carolina Methodist much in the same way that Al Gore's campaign dispatched Joseph Lieberman to engage religious voters in 2000. Edwards carried with him a leather-bound copy of The Purpose-Driven Life, a popular devotional book by the Evangelical author and megachurch pastor Rick Warren. Edwards' copy was worn from daily reading, a discipline he shared with tens of millions of other Americans who owned the book...
...crossover effort can have limits. Entertainer-preacher Huckabee could simply end up being the best-liked candidate among people who will never vote for him. But he has already become the political embodiment of the megachurch approach: get people in the door with rock or cappuccino or stand-up?but get them in the door. "Religion and politics and show business are all about attracting people," Pelosi says. The big question is whether Huckabee can keep his lyrics from drowning out his music...
...Life is another story. It grew even faster than YWAM after Haggard founded it in 1984. It too, was vastly creative, helping to define the modern megachurch and experimenting, among other things, with a facility that Haggard hoped would become the NORAD for "prayer war," a Charismatic practice taken up against demons. Despite its size, the church was keyed to the magnetism of one man, Haggard, and after his departure in shame, the church limped along without a pastor until Boyd, a Texas minister, took over...