Shopping mall Megachurches in Indonesia: A Global North export?

Commonly cited as an exportation of what’s labelled as an ‘American’ model to the rest of the world, megachurches are thriving in the Global South and are in fact drivers of growth to the global Christianity landscape.    Dubbed as a distinctive model of church, megachurches’ charismatic senior pastor, contemporary music, prosperity preaching and lure of only the positive, hip and world relevant messages have attracted scholarly attention from both Global South and North researchers.    Another common assertion made with regards to megachurch growth is its relationship with the marketplace.  To what extent megachurches absorb, mimic and/or intersect with the marketplace and global flows is by and of itself a scholarly inquiry, but whether this result in a more nuanced understanding of religion and market interactions is neither conclusive nor definitive.    I explore the notions of a ‘shopping mall’ megachurch and aim to unpack the contextual megachurch trajectory in the Global South through case studies in Indonesia where the middle-class is a major driver of megachurch growth.  In fact, thriving Indonesian megachurches can be found and/or have origins from Surabaya. Whether these are mere Global North importations are questioned, but this also further illuminates the difficulty of answering such a question as that depends on the way religious scapes are conceptualised and to what extent the flows are shaped by politics, culture, class, other religions and particular market dynamics in Indonesia.