Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches (The Anthropology of Christianity, 12)

277 Pages·2011·1.55 MB·English

by  Omri Elisha

Moral Ambition
the anthropology of christianity
Edited by Joel Robbins
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Matthew Engelke
3. Reason to Believe: Cultural Agency in Latin American Evangelicalism, by
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4. Chanting Down the New Jerusalem: Calypso, Christianity, and Capitalism in the
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5. In God’s Image: The Metaculture of Fijian Christianity, by Matt Tomlinson
6. Converting Words: Maya in the Age of the Cross, by William F. Hanks
7. City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala, by Kevin O’Neill
8. Death in a Church of Life: Moral Passion during Botswana’s Time of AIDS, by
Frederick Klaits
9. Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective, edited by Chris Hann and
Hermann Goltz
10. Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods, by Allan Anderson,
Michael Bergunder, Andre Droogers, and Cornelis van der Laan
11. Holy Hustlers, Schism, and Prophecy: Apostolic Reformation in Botswana, by
Richard Werbner
12. Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches,
by Omri Elisha
Moral Ambition
Mobilization and Social Outreach in
Evangelical Megachurches
Omri Elisha
university of california press
Berkeley (cid:129) Los Angeles (cid:129) London
Parts of chapter 5 appeared in different form in “Sins of Our Soccer Moms:
Servant Evangelism and the Spiritual Injuries of Class,” in Local Actions:
Cultural Activism, Power, and Public Life in America, ed. Melissa Checker
and Margaret Fishman, 136–158 (New York: Columbia University Press,
2004). Chapter 6 appeared in slightly different form in “Moral Ambitions
of Grace: The Paradox of Compassion and Accountability in Evangelical
Faith-Based Activism,” Cultural Anthropology 23, no. 1 (2008): 154–189.
Parts of chapter 7 appeared in different form in “Evangelical Megachurches,
Racial Reconciliation, and the Christianization of Civil Society,” in Politics
and Partnerships: The Role of Voluntary Associations in America’s Past
and Present, ed. Elisabeth Clemens and Doug Guthrie, 269–296 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2011), and “Taking the (Inner) City for God:
Ambiguities of Urban Social Engagement among Conservative White
Evangelicals,” in The Fundamentalist City? Religiosity and the Remaking
of Urban Space, ed. Nezar AlSayyad and Mejgan Massoumi, 235–256
(London: Routledge, 2010).
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University of California Press, Ltd.
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© 2011 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Elisha, Omri, 1972–
Moral ambition : mobilization and social outreach in evangelical
megachurches / Omri Elisha.
p. cm. – (Anthropology of Christianity ; 12)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-520-26750-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-520-26751-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Big churches. 2. Church work. 3. Missions. 4. Church and social
problems. 5. Evangelicalism–Tennessee. I. Title. II. Title: Mobilization
and social outreach in evangelical megachurches.
BV637.9.E45 2011
253.09768′09045—dc22 2010053747
Manufactured in the United States of America
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post consumer
waste, recycled, de-inked fi ber. FSC recycled certifi ed and processed chlorine
free. It is acid free, Ecologo certifi ed, and manufactured by BioGas energy.
For my parents, Haim and Rina Elisha

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1. Introduction 1
2. Awaking Sleeping Giants 36
3. A Region in Spite of Itself 61
4. The Names of Action 85
5. The Spiritual Injuries of Class 121
6. Compassion Accounts 153
7. Taking the (Inner) City for God 183
Epilogue 214
Notes 223
References 241
Index 253

Acknowledgments
Writing this book has been a labor of love, but a labor nonethe-
less. I am tremendously thankful for all of the support, encourage-
ment, and insight I have received from people and institutions along
the way. I alone take full responsibility for the content, but I am
proud to acknowledge the company I have kept in the process. As I
believe the subjects of this ethnography would readily agree, the most
worthwhile achievements in life, personal and professional, are those
that allow us to absorb the presence and talents of others into what
we do.
Research for this book was funded by a research grant from the
Social Science Research Council’s Program on Philanthropy and the
Nonprofi t Sector, a dissertation fellowship from the Louisville Institute,
and a summer travel grant from the Department of Anthropology at
New York University. A vital stage in the writing of the book took place
at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where
I was a Resident Scholar in 2007–2008, with a fellowship funded by
the Social Science Research Council.
It is no exaggeration to say that this book would not have been
possible without the cooperation and goodwill of evangelical pastors
and churchgoers in Knoxville who agreed to participate in my research.
Almost all the individuals and local organizations described in this eth-
nography, including churches and faith-based ministries, appear under
pseudonyms. For this reason, obviously I cannot properly acknowledge
ix