 |
LibriumArcana.com
Fantasy Gaming, SciFi and Irreverence
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
frigidmagi
Dragon Death-Marine General
Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 8108
Location: Alone and unafraid
|
 Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 5:27 pm Post subject: New face of religion in Latin America |
 |
|
CSMonitor
| Quote: | A man bursts through the aisles, practically leaping, clapping his hands in the air and shouting “Alleluia” each time he is moved to do so, which is often. No one in the Methodist Pentecostal Church of Chile looks askance at the emotional display. For one thing, similar eruptions of prayer and song blend into one cacophonous and frenetic hour of worship.
Welcome to the new face of Christianity in Latin America, where Pentecostal and “charismatic” Christians from mainline churches, forced to change or face irrelevance, have spread from the Amazon to the Andes, from the most precarious houses of worship in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to sprawling stadiums in the region’s capital cities.
While Pentecostalism was first introduced to Latin America by American missionaries in the early 20th century, the movement here is now more vibrant than ever, drawing legions of the faithful and destitute to pews in a way that would make many churches in the United States and Europe envious. The same is happening in Africa and Asia.
In fact, there is a sense today that these three regions are emerging as the new stronghold of Christianity. Pastors and religious scholars even imagine a reverse-missionary scenario, in which Latin Americans coax disillusioned Americans and Europeans back to mainstream churches.
“The first missionaries came from Europe to the US to Latin America,” says Pastor Eduardo Duran, a leader of the Methodist Pentecostal Church of Chile, the oldest in the nation at 100. “In the near future there could be a role reversal, in which our church will have more influence in the Anglo world.”
While the number of Christians has been growing unabated in Africa and Asia, it is flourishing in Latin America as well – changing the intensity and affiliation of worship. Roman Catholicism was once a virtual monopoly in the region.
Now, according to the World Christian Database, Pentecostals represent 13 percent of Latin Americans, and charismatics another 15 percent. In 1970 the number of “renewalists” – the umbrella term used to describe both movements, which believe God acts directly in their lives through the Holy Spirit – was just 4 percent.
It is Latin America, with its relatively strong cultural institutions and similarities to the West, which Paul Freston, a religion and global politics expert in Brazil, says could become the bridge between the old Christian and new Christian worlds. “It could help bring people into the faith or back into the faith, or revitalize the influence on those people who are already practicing Christians,” he says.
Already, Hispanic immigration to the US has brought Latino-style worship to storefront churches from New York to Los Angeles. “Latin America immigration is basically sustaining the Catholic Church in the US,” says Andrew Chesnut, a religion expert at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
According to a global survey carried out by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in 2006, Guatemala and Brazil harbor the largest communities of renewalists as a percentage of their populations: 60 percent in Guatemala and 50 percent in urban Brazil. Evangelicals have exerted growing influence in political spheres as churches, which first drew members among the poor, have become more attractive to the middle and upper classes. Chile remains deeply Catholic, but a quarter of the Catholics are now charismatic.
And the Protestants there tend to be among the most “pentecostalized,” Pew says.
“Charismatic Christianity has attained nothing less than hegemonic status in Latin American Christianity,” says Mr. Chesnut.
Mauricio Ramirez, a Pentecostal in Santiago, describes the appeal simply: “It is cold outside,” the store owner says, “and the Pentecostal church is like warming up next to a fire.”
One impact of all this might be to make Christianity more conservative worldwide. True, Pentecostals in Latin America are hard to pigeonhole: They tend to be more liberal than their US counterparts on economic policy, but just as conservative on homosexuality and abortion.
Yet any change will come slowly. Mr. Freston says there is a time lag between the shift in numbers and “the shift in influence, the ability to take control and create the impression of being the center of the Christian world.” |
For the record I'm a Pentecostal.
We're an odd group, we were founded in 1910 in L.A and we were the first major group of Christians in the US to have as a normal matter mixed race churches. I'm talking blacks, whites and latins in the same church, holding hands and singing... In 1912. Today due to social inertia the churches tend to be more mono-racial but recent pastors have been trying to reverse the trend. I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.
Pentecostalism is hard to pigeon hole for a big reason, one of it's big doctrine is that every believer has the Holy Spirit with them (the 3rd and least mentioned part of the Christian Trinity) and should move with said Spirit. This makes individual decision a big thing. It means according to church doctrine I have every right in the world to challenged, dispute and outright mutiny against my pastor. It also lends itself well to mob and personality cults on the downside. As well as leading us into many schisms and divisions (fun fact Sarah Palin's church was thrown out of my church for being outright crazy, it remains a rather singular event in the annuals of my specific organization). The big thing here is a pastor's authority is pretty limited and based mainly on his force of personality then on any church law.
This also leads to alot of head banging and screaming. We're based mainly in the west and the south, as you could guess that means most of our members are social conservatives (my own experience leads me to believe that location is as important as anything, I know a southern atheist who thinks gays shouldn't be allowed to marry, I know a evangelic christian up in New York who has no problem with the idea). For example, I am not considered in the main to be a heretic (which in this case mainly means that I would be in open disagreement with the estblished doctrine of the church which is difficult to do). I am perfectly okay with letting gays marry. I am less okay with abortion but believe it should remain legal.
My parents disagree with these stances, as do a number of my friends. To be fair most of my friends believe abortion should be legal but never receive a red cent of government money, they don't feel that their tax dollars should go to it. Some of them feel the government has no business saying who can or can't get married but that a Christian church should certainly never marry anyone expect a heterosexual adult unrelated couple. I can go on. They're the majority in American Pentecostalism. There are other of my coreligionist who believe that gays should be allowed to marry. So on and so forth. However I am considered to be well within the limits of doctrine and what not.
Now for the Latins, well we shouldn't be surprised. Most Latin Americans of any religion are socially conservative to us. Let me point out for example that Argentina only legalize divorce in 1987 and Chile only did so in 2004. In our own country to see attidues change we are on a death watch. We wait for the baby boomers and older to start dying, which will remove the biggest voting block opposed to gay marriage and abortion. The big challenged here is gonna be convincing the Latins our age or younger that we're right and for me at least convincing them that God doesn't mind if Adam and Steve get married.
_________________
Al Sadr must die!
 |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
LadyTevar
Pleasure Kitten Foreman
Joined: 13 Jan 2006
Posts: 9606
Location: In your lap, purring
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I hate to say this, but as a Baptist, the Pentacostals around here scare me. Speaking in tongues, writhing on the ground, screaming and shouting... 
yes, I got out of there as soon as politely possible.
_________________
 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
frigidmagi
Dragon Death-Marine General
Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 8108
Location: Alone and unafraid
|
| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | I hate to say this, but as a Baptist, the Pentacostals around here scare me. Speaking in tongues, writhing on the ground, screaming and shouting... Shocked |
Which is funny because as a Pentecostal, the Baptist, especially the South Baptist scare me! So authoritarian and hateful! I remember I went to a service after coming home form the war and the preacher was ranting and raving! Declaring all the main stream baptists would go to hell! Why? Because a group of them prayed in front of the same building that a bunch of Wiccans were praying at. That's right folks, pray within 30ft of a bunch of Wiccans or Pagans and you will be damned for eternity. I have never personally heard a sermon so damn hateful and so damn petty all at once.
Or my favorite piece of Baptist doctrine that makes me crosseyed, once you're saved you can never go back. Go ahead, sin! Have that affair, embezzle from your boss, steal those mittens from Walmart, you're saved so God will forgive you!
I'll take the screaming and the babbling please. 
_________________
Al Sadr must die!
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
General Havoc
Mr. Party-Killbot
Joined: 10 Aug 2005
Posts: 2478
|
| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:51 am Post subject: |
|
|
Well as an Atheist, I gotta say, you guys BOTH scare me.
_________________
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Comrade Tortoise
Shark Bait
Joined: 09 Jun 2005
Posts: 4046
Location: Land of steers and queers indeed
|
| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 3:42 am Post subject: |
|
|
| General Havoc wrote: | | Well as an Atheist, I gotta say, you guys BOTH scare me. |
magi does not scare me. He is a very reasonable person despite his pentacostalism. 
I have never seen him babble in tongues and I have known him for years. He is not even a creationist!
How does that work in a deaf church anyway? I mean... I have this mental image of your parents making strange moaning sounds and flailing their hands... but that is not much different than anyone speaking in tongues.
_________________
"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
- Theodosius Dobzhansky
Liberal teenagers rebel by becoming paradoxically conservative.
Last edited by Comrade Tortoise on Wed Jan 27, 2010 3:46 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
frigidmagi
Dragon Death-Marine General
Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 8108
Location: Alone and unafraid
|
| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 11:50 am Post subject: |
|
|
I am not a reasonable person despite my Pentecostalism. My beliefs are part and parcel of my reasoning process. It's like saying you're a moral guy despite your Utilitarianism. You couldn't be moral despite the very foundations of your moral system.
_________________
Al Sadr must die!
Last edited by Comrade Tortoise on Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Comrade Tortoise
Shark Bait
Joined: 09 Jun 2005
Posts: 4046
Location: Land of steers and queers indeed
|
| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| frigidmagi wrote: | | I am not a reasonable person despite my Pentecostalism. My beliefs are part and parcel of my reasoning process. It's like saying you're a moral guy despite your Utilitarianism. You couldn't be moral despite the very foundations of your moral system. |
I know man. I just couldn't resist the friendly cheap shot.
The point is, you are an anomaly among christians I have interacted with. Most never know, think about, and apply their faith the same way you do. It is especially odd in that respect because you do not come out of a denomination that has an intellectual tradition. It is a bit refreshing
Except for the babbling.
_________________
"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
- Theodosius Dobzhansky
Liberal teenagers rebel by becoming paradoxically conservative. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
LadyTevar
Pleasure Kitten Foreman
Joined: 13 Jan 2006
Posts: 9606
Location: In your lap, purring
|
| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 7:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Magi, *I* am scared of Baptists today! 
(which is why i don't go to church much anymore.)
_________________
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Charon
No
Joined: 04 Aug 2005
Posts: 3970
Location: On my boat, as always.
|
| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 8:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Alright people, lets get back to discussing the matter at hand and not how one another's beliefs scare each of us
_________________
Moderator of Philosophy and Theology
DarkSteele: you helped in this didn't you...
IRWriter86: No.
IRWriter86: In fact I just shifted the power again.
DarkSteele: oh...that's...
DarkSteele: -wipes atear away-
DarkSteele: you little shit!
DarkSteele: Josh would be so proud!
IRWriter86: I never liked sharing power... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
