Megachurch Model - This Time Without God

DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas hit on a successful idea with his wacky left blog community. Now he wants to do the same for liberal activists by creating his own version of megachurches, only this time without God (from Wired, h/t Glenn):

At what's arguably the top of his game, Moulitsas says he's "going offline" next year, taking his obvious knack for building online communities and applying it to that other great American pastime: sports. And once he gets his network of sports blogs ramped up, he'll turn to building communities in the real world, a chain of giant meeting places "replicating megachurches for the left" – complete with cafés and child care. Moulitsas has shown he can harness people's enthusiasm, but he says he doesn't want a leadership role in these "democracy centers"...

While working on the mechanics of the sports blogs, he plans to embark next year on building real-world destinations for progressives and liberals throughout the Midwest, "cultural outposts" designed to attract thousands of like-minded liberals. "Each one of these would have a vast left-wing conspiracy component," he says, like leadership training or discussions on progressive issues.

I've always thought liberalism was a religion of its own, complete with the sacrament of abortion. Instead of tithing to the church, in the Church of Kos, the government tithes to you. I don't see why this won't work.

Of course, some wags are already suggesting that there are plenty of Godless megachurches out there. They usually go by the name of Methodist or Episcopal, maybe even Presbyterian. However, most of the way left liberal institutions that still call themselves churches are doing well enough to be described as anything close to "mega".