Megachurches—those congregations drawing 2,000 or more people each week—are almost entirely Christian, and usually Protestant, and it is natural to ask: "Why don’t we see megachurches in non-Christian religious traditions?"
At first glance, the pattern seems puzzling, especially because there are large gatherings in other religions traditions. For example, major mosques can host tens of thousands of persons for Friday prayers, and Hindu temples and Buddhist shrines attract massive crowds during festivals and pilgrimages. Yet, these gatherings do not resemble the megachurches as typically conceived by social scientist of religion: a single congregation, meeting weekly, under centralized leadership, offering a wide array of programs, and supported by voluntary attendance and donations.
From an economics-of-religion perspective, the explanation lies less in theology, which is where our attention might be instinctively drawn, and lies more in organization, incentives, and scale economies.
Let's first start with how religious “production” works. Christianity is unusually well suited to mass production. In a typical Christian congregation, the weekly gathering is sermon-centered with a preacher and an audience, and this setup scales efficiently. Once the fixed costs of buildings, technology, and staff are paid, adding more attendees is relatively cheap. That creates a potential incentive to grow large.
Contrast this with other kinds of religious activities that do not scale as easily. Small groups which focus on scriptural learning do not scale in the same way as a weekly religious service, and the building of strong social ties as in an Amish community also do not scale. Hinduism centers on household rituals and temple offerings rather than weekly congregational worship, so there is no scope for scaling up. Similarly, Buddhism often prioritizes meditation, monastic authority, and individualized practice. These modes of religious production generate fewer economies of scale, so there’s less payoff to building a single massive congregation.
Second, consider authority structures. Megachurches typically revolve around entrepreneurial leaders—charismatic pastors with significant autonomy over doctrine, programming, and branding. Indeed, about 40% of megachurches are non-denominational, which provides them with more flexibility in what they teach and how they operate. This governance structure works well in competitive religious markets like in the United States where religious groups compete with each other. In contrast, religions with strong centralized hierarchies (Catholicism, Shi’a Islam) or dispersed authority (many forms of Hinduism) limit the ability of any one local leader to grow a congregation unchecked.
Third, megachurches thrive in religious markets characterized by competition and choice. In the U.S., individuals can easily switch congregations, denominations, or opt out altogether. Under these conditions, growth-oriented groups can... well... grow! And growth-oriented groups, especially evangelical Christian groups, are also internally motivated to adapt their style of religion to appeal to segments of the population who are dissatisfied with other options. Other traditions, especially those tied to ethnicity, family, or inherited identity, face weaker incentives to compete for marginal attendees.
Thus, the absence of non-Christian megachurches is about the underlying economics of religious production, authority, and competition, and that also means that megachurches in other religious traditions are possible. It is really a question of whether the congregation's leaders prioritize growth and are willing to design religious services in a way to accommodate that growth, and whether there is demand for it by religious consumers. Remember, there's a supply side and a demand side. As proof of this concept, there are in fact some large, non-Christian congregations. One example is Temple Emanu-El in New York, which is reported (though I cannot confirm) to have over 2000 families in its membership.
The megachurch is ultimately an institutional solution that some congregations have adopted, and although Christian congregations are well-suited to this solution, Christianity is not the only religious tradition that can leverage this institutional arrangement.
Acknowledgement: ChatGPT 5 assisted in the writing of this post.
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