The Institution, the Ethic, and the Affect: The Hillsong Church and the Production of Multiple Affinities of the Self

Abstract

The Hillsong Church, based in Sydney, is the Australian exemplar of the ‘megachurch’ phenomena, characterised by large, generally non-denominational churches with evangelical, ‘seeker-friendly’ aspirations and adoption of contemporary worship methods. Given the increasingly large following the Church commands, there is surprisingly little scholarly research on Hillsong, particularly from the perspective of Sociology. This study seeks to contribute to a sociological understanding of the phenomenon of Hillsong by analysing the particular ways that its doctrine and practices evoke and respond to crises of the self in modernity. Hillsong does not rail against the developments associated with modernity, rather, the Church consciously evangelises in recognition of them, managing to both empower the individual and also act as a bulwark against more dehumanising elements of modern society. This study will first argue that Hillsong represents a new form of Goffman’s Total Institution, one that recognises and responds to the voluntaristic component of faith through the offer and provision of order and stability in a chaotic world. Secondly, Hillsong espouses ‘prosperity theology’, the injection of divinely-mediated meaning and purpose into the acquisition of wealth. Thirdly, by harnessing and producing affective labour the Church is able to provide meaning, ways of feeling, connecting, and experiencing generally not experienced in everyday life. Ultimately, Hillsong attempts to simultaneously satisfy multiple identity projects of the individual, and somewhat paradoxically the subsumption of the individual within a cause greater than themselves. I conclude by arguing that their success is due to their ability to ‘invert the void’, whereby all that was once hollow and aimless becomes imbued with significance, meaning and purpose. This inversion, however, does not substantially change the lifestyles of constituents, only their perspective, raising several worrying implications regarding the conflation of the sacred, commerce, and identity.