Prosperity and the Therapeutic Turn
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
This chapter argues that megachurches around the world have taken a therapeutic turn: Self-help has become a dominant theological theme. Aimed at the cultivation of the self, its main premise is that believers can discover and fulfill their potential. Three areas matter to the theology of self-help: purpose, personal issues, and prosperity. The latter part of the chapter offers sociological explanations that account for the therapeutic turn. It then ends with a critical reflection. Sacralizing self-help fails to confront structural contexts of inequality that engender the very ontological insecurity it wishes to address.
Recommended Citation
Cornelio, J. (2024). Prosperity and the therapeutic turn. In A. Adogame, C.M. Bauman, D. Parsitau, & J. Yip (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Megachurches (1st ed.). Routledge.
