The Rise of Network Christianity, Updated Edition: How Independent Leaders Are Changing the Religious Landscape

This book explains social forces behind the fastest growing form of Christianity in the United States, which we have labelled “Independent Network Charismatic” (INC) Christianity. This form of Christianity emphasizes aggressive engagement with the supernatural, including healing, direct prophecies from God, engaging in “spiritual warfare” against demonic spirits, and social transformation. Drawing on in-depth interviews with leaders and participants, we analyze why this type of Christianity is growing so fast while traditionally organized religious groups have declined. We argue that macrolevel social changes since the 1970s, including globalization and the digital revolution, have given competitive advantages to religious groups organized by networks rather than traditionally organized congregations and denominations. Network forms of governance allow for experimentation with controversial supernatural practices, innovative finance and marketing, and a highly participatory, unorthodox, experiential faith that is attractive in today’s pluralistic, unstable religious marketplace. We hypothesize that as more religious groups imitate this type of governance, religious belief and practice will become more experimental, more oriented around practice than theology, more shaped by the individual religious “consumer,” and that authority will become more highly concentrated in the hands of individuals rather than institutions.