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Worshipping Bodies: Affective Labour in the Hillsong Church

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Worshipping Bodies: Affective Labour in the Hillsong Church bs_bs_banner Worshipping Bodies: Affective Labour in the Hillsong Church MATTHEW WADE* and MARIA HYNES Sociology, Australian National University, Building 22, Acton Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] Received 1 February 2012; Revised 31 May 2012; Accepted 31 July 2012 Abstract The Australian megachurch, Hillsong, is as well known for its music and spec- tacle as it is for the content of its religious ideas. This is largely due, as Connell argues in his geography of Hillsong, to the peculiar mix of the theological and the modern that a highly globalised and mediatised context can today produce. This paper re-examines the phenomenon of Hillsong through the theory of affect, which has gained notable analytical purchase in geography in recent years. More specifically, it uses the concept of ‘affective labour’ to analyse the specific ways in which bodies are put to work in the spaces of Hillsong worship. We demon- strate the way that Hillsong produces and mobilises affect in order to attain the collective experience of the spectacle, which is so crucial to Hillsong’s visibility as a social phenomenon and also to its recruitment of the individual member into the logic and ethos of the church as a whole. We indicate the importance for the success of Hillsong of producing particular kinds of subject, namely, subjects who are at once comfortable, enthusiastic and loyal. By recruiting its followers as affective labourers towards a shared evangelical cause, the embodied and vaguely felt sense of potential of members is mobilised towards the spectacular phenom- enon that is the Hillsong church. KEY WORDS affect; embodiment; religion; Pentecostalism; spectacle Introduction ‘geography of religion’ concerns the process by Despite the fact that the Australian megachurch, which the spiritual comes ‘to be expressed and Hillsong, is one of the largest and better known of conveyed, particularly in an area of human life the Pentecostal Assemblies of God churches in where words are presumably an inadequate way Australia or indeed of any evangelical organisa- of expressing feeling’, the concept of affect offers tion, it remains a relatively understudied phenom- potentially rich insights. If the diverse and chang- enon. In geography, John Connell’s (2005) study ing spiritual forms in contemporary society might of the church is a notable exception. Connell’s be studied from the point of view of the religious (2005, 315) contribution to what he calls the ideologies they express, much can also be learned ‘neglected religious geography of Australia’ situ- from an analysis of the affective dynamics that ates Hillsong as a civic social institution with both play out within their distinctive spatial environ- local and global features. This paper seeks to ments. It is with this in mind that this paper seeks extend Connell’s work on Hillsong church by to explore the peculiar expressions of spirituality exploiting a growing interest in geography in the within the affective space of the Hillsong church. theory of affect.1 Some 20 years after Kong’s More specifically, our aim is to better understand (1990) suggestion that a crucial question for the the role that the congregation plays in the Hillsong Geographical Research • May 2013 • 51(2):173–179 173 doi: 10.1111/1745-5871.12010 174 Geographical Research • May 2013 • 51(2):173–179 spectacle as contributors to the vitality of the beliefs, nor indeed the ideology, of Hillsong, but Hillsong experience, as loyal enthusiasts for the rather with the affective elements of the phenom- cause and as recruiters of new church members. enon. To anticipate our overall argument, our Through their ‘affective labour’(Lazzarato, 1996; claim is that the functioning of Hillsong is Hardt and Negri, 2001; 2004), the congregation inseparable from the production of affective show Hillsong to be an especially contemporary spectacle within the space of the church environs, social form. While dimensions of our argument which, as Connell (2005) notes, must be seen in could certainly be extended beyond the context of both its local and global context. This produc- Hillsong to contemporary evangelism more gen- tion, we suggest, involves a deployment of affec- erally, our own interest is in drawing out the tive labour. In pursuing this argument, we specificities of this Australian empirical case demonstrate the way that Hillsong produces and study. The Hillsong church was originally estab- mobilises affect in order to attain the collective lished in 1983 as the ‘Hills Christian Life Centre’ experience of the spectacle, which is so crucial to in Baulkham Hills, Sydney, by husband and wife Hillsong’s visibility as a social phenomenon and pastors Brian and Bobbie Houston who continue also to its recruitment of the individual member as head pastors today. The more market-friendly into the logic and ethos of the church as a whole. moniker of ‘Hillsong’did not come into existence We also indicate the importance for the success until 1999, a portmanteau derived from the major of Hillsong of producing particular kinds of campus at Baulkham Hills and Church’s growing subject, namely, subjects who are at once com- reputation as a producer of Christian music. The fortable, enthusiastic and loyal. church today boasts two main campuses in Sydney, ‘Hills’ and ‘City’, along with a third, smaller campus in Campbelltown (‘South West’) Labouring for the affective spectacle and another in Brisbane. Hillsong states that from In his famous thesis on modern society as a an initial congregation of 45 in 1983, today the ‘society of the spectacle’, Debord (1977) argues two main campuses in Sydney regularly attract a that the capitalist mode of production and ideol- total attendance on any given weekend of over ogy mediates social relations through assem- 21 000 people (Hillsong Church, 2011a). blages of images, spectacles that impoverish and One of the main drivers behind this exponen- ultimately negate real life. In suggesting that tial growth has been the music arm of the organi- Hillsong produces affective spectacles, we affirm sation. Hillsong is recognised worldwide for its Debord’s interest in the spectacle as a social phe- Christian music and is among the highest selling nomenon while emphasising its affective, rather and most prolific producers of Christian music than ideological, operations. In the case of Hill- in the world, releasing over 40 albums and song, we argue that participants are directly selling over 11 million units since 1988 (http:// involved in the production of the spectacle, distribution.hillsong.com/help/about). In addi- which is not to say that they have overcome the tion to the music arm of the church, Hillsong false consciousness that is so crucial to the opera- also provides Christian ‘resources’ (at a price) tion of the spectacle in Debord’s essentially including DVDs, CDs, mp3s, rights to down- Marxist analysis. Rather, it is not principally at loadable content, podcasts and vodcasts of their the ideological level nor is it through conscious- teachings, along with broadcasting a television ness that the affective spectacle operates. The programme ‘. in over a 180 countries and ter- production of affective spectacle involves a ritories around the world!’ (http://hillsongtv.com/ modulation of bodily potentials and, in this screeningtimes). This embrace of various media sense, Hillsong exemplifies the kind of affective enables rapid global penetration of their particu- power that Massumi (2002a) and others have lar ‘brand’, which, along with the church’s physi- convincingly argued to be such a feature of con- cal, franchise-style presence across the globe, temporary society.2 mimics the practices of retail-based corporations, From the typical 3500-capacity weekend as well as those of other megachurches, particu- service of Hillsong to the 20 000 strong ‘rallies’ larly those in the United States (see Roof 1999; during annual conferences, Hillsong produces Coleman, 2000; Einstein, 2008). spectacular affairs rivalling in sensory stimula- While much could be said about the beliefs tion any other contemporary form of entertain- and values embodied in Hillsong, its relationship ment.3 Although services give the appearance of to the basic tenets of Pentecostalism and so on, informality, they are in fact tightly structured and our interest in this paper is not so much with the carefully managed events (Connell, 2005), which © 2013 The Authors Geographical Research © 2013 Institute of Australian Geographers M. Wade and M. Hynes: Worshipping Bodies 175 provides both a form of apparent spontaneity yet As much geographical literature on affect in comforting familiarity with services rarely devi- recent years has stressed, affect is characterised ating ‘from the music-message-music-donations- by a felt, but not consciously grasped, potential music-altar call-music pattern’ (McIntyre, 2007, or capacity, a bodily, rather than rationally sensed 179). As Duffy and Permezel (2007, 370) note, empowerment operating in the present and ori- music ‘shapes and creates our awareness of space ented to the immediate future. Certainly, the both through its acoustic properties and its cul- impact of the Hillsong experience on participants tural codes, and the symbolic structures embed- can be of this vaguely perceived nature, produc- ded within the way these sounds are assembled’ ing a sense of ‘being on the cutting edge of some- (Duffy and Permezel, 2007, 373).4 Beyond this, thing’ (Connell, 2005, 322). The inability to music operates at an affective level, working articulate exactly what this ‘something’ is, while through bodies and adding intensity to events vaguely recognising its effects, is characteristic (Shouse, 2005).5 of the embodied, rather than cognitive, quality of Lighting and stage effects are abundant within affect. As Massumi (2002b) has stressed, affect is the space of the Hillsong church and the rigor- more than the surface recognition of ‘emotion’ or ously rehearsed live band that leads worship is ‘feeling’ as drivers of action.
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