Author's Keywords: mega church, consumption, ritualization	Convention All Academic Convention is the premier solution for your association's abstract management solutions needs. Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: American Sociological Association URL: http://www.asanet.org
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p183963_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Knottnerus, J.. "SpiritChurch: A Case Study of Consumer Ritual Symbolic Practices" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA, New York, New York City, Aug 11, 2007 <Not Available>. 2009-05-24 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p183963_index.html>

Knottnerus, J. D. , 2007-08-11 "SpiritChurch: A Case Study of Consumer Ritual Symbolic Practices" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA, New York, New York City Online <PDF>. 2009-05-24 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p183963_index.html

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript Abstract: While sociologists have been observing the growing commodification of religion in a larger consumer culture, there has been little study of particular congregations and ways they engage religion as a consumer product. This may be due to a lack of theoretical clarity on how religion is engaged as something to be consumed. Building on the work of structural ritualization theory (Knottnerus 1997, 2002, 2005), this paper argues that rituals, more specifically consumer ritualized symbolic practices (CRSPs), offer a clear theoretical framework in which to identify religious consumption. This theoretical approach provides a basis for a case study of a mega church located in the Sunbelt. Consumer Ritual Symbolic Practices (CRSPs) are identified within the particular congregation through observation, interviews, and analysis of institutional documents. The focus of this paper is on those CRSPs engaged by the staff in the mega church. These include CRSPs that create religion as a brand name; create religion as a spectacle, and create religion as a rationalized provider of services.

Symbol and Ritual Online: Case Studies in the Structure of Online Religious Rituals

Consumer Ritualized Symbolic Practices: A Theory of Religious Commodification

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