ChurchScape

A creative and fascinating book. Susan Bratton critically examines the relationship between megachurch campuses and their natural environments as well as surrounding urban-social space. She reflects thoughtfully on the link between church landscapes, practical theology, and social ethics.

~Philip Sheldrake, Senior Research Fellow, Westcott House and the Cambridge Theological Federation

Among academics and other cultural elites, the American megachurch has long been an easy target for cheap shots and caricature. ChurchScape brings an incredibly refreshing and helpful corrective to this unfortunate cultural habit. Bratton opens our eyes to the many ways the megachurch continues the ongoing ecclesial narrative while at the same time presenting a set of brand new opportunities and challenges for American religious and civic life.

~Eric O. Jacobsen, author of The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment

Susan Power Bratton brings a unique array of interdisciplinary knowledge and skill to this carefully crafted ethnographic study of United States' evangelical megachurches. ChurchScape is engagingly written, well illustrated with photographs, and a model case study of the interaction of ecology and religion in the increasingly mainstream religious culture of the American megachurch.

~Michael Northcott, Professor of Ethics, University of Edinburgh

The many and varied strengths of this book rest on the extensive research involved in documenting observations of the 200 megachurches on this journey. [Bratton’s] descriptions of the churches are written in clear, accessible language with snapshots that give the reader access to a far-reaching narrative....This book is one of great value, especially to those working in the realm of religious-environmental action, as a way to understand the theological values of megachurches in the religious landscapes of this country.

~Mallory McDuff, Worldviews: Culture, Religion and Ecology

Professor Bratton's wide travels and comprehensive reading have resulted in a book that contains ideas and their demonstration through her careful and sympathetic--but not uncritical--analysis of megachurches' landscapes. The buildings have sometimes been analyzed, especially in articles rather than books, with comments on their frequent departure from the familiar image of a white box with steeple and cross. But Professor Bratton has found serious meaning in their surroundings, partly made of asphalt with or without greenery, pools, or sculpted elements.

~Carol Herselle Krinsky, Religion and the Arts