Religion in the Americas – serie

This volume explores the role of religion in the educational achievement of Hispanics. In particular, it assesses the influence of religion on parental involvement in children's educational experiences. The book compares Catholic and Protestant parents' opinions and practices against the backdrop of socio-economic factors, such as levels of income and schooling. In its examination of the relationships between family, church and school, the study explores how religion and other cultural traits such as family structure, language, and ethnic identity, interact and yield particular educational outcomes.The study shows that religion can make a positive difference in the education of Latinos. Religion is a resource that parents can tap into for the benefit of their children. Teachers, school administrators, policy makers and religious leaders will find this study useful as they strive to understand and change Latinos' educational status.

Spiritual Mapping is a U.S. Evangelical and Neo-Pentecostal movement (1989-2005), which developed its own religious technique to wage a 'spiritual' war against unseen non-human beings. These 'spirits' were identified along the lines of geographical territories and put on a map, whence 'Spiritual Mapping'. Its intended function was to boost the numerical growth of Christianity. This book offers a comprehensive historical-descriptive approach of both the movement and the concept, with special attention for theological and anthropological concepts. Its historical roots, relation with Argentina, self-understanding and critics are being described. The reader is presented with a unique insight into Spiritual Mapping as an expression of Americanism, as well as the socio-political concept of Manifest Destiny and U.S. religious marketing.

The story of Latin American evangelicals doing theology is mostly unknown. In the 1970s there was an important development with the formation of the Latin American Theological Fraternity (FTL). This group spearheaded the theological production in Latin America, marking the beginning of a critical stage in the history of evangelicals in the region. This book deals with the reception history in North America of the FTL and its program. Interamerican theological dialogue is documented and analysed.

Much of the scholarly focus on early twentieth-century Pentecostalism is dominated by the origins debates of the United States. The polarization between those who argue for Parham’s theological contribution or Seymour’s African American experiential contribution is well known. Beyond these debates scholars typically focus on the role of Americans in the development of Pentecostalism. However, the Hebden mission in Toronto, Canadian women, and the Latter Rain revival illustrate the transnational and innovative qualities of the movement. This book contextualizes the global story of Pentecostalism with some important and often neglected contributions by Pentecostals in Canada and their influence on Pentecostalism in the United States and the world.Contributors include: Peter Althouse, Linda Ambrose, Michael Di Giacomo, D. William Faupel, Shane Flanagan, Pamela A. Holmes, Randall Holm, Mark Hutchinson, David Michel, David A. Reed, Adam Stewart, and Michael Wilkinson.

Although French-speaking Canadians have largely been Roman Catholic, there has been a small, but significant Protestant minority among them for much of their history. Several important studies on these Protestants have appeared in French or in short articles in English, but there is no broader survey in English. Based on significant archival study, a fresh reading of printed texts and the work of a generation of historians, this collection of essays brings together the work of leading scholars in the field to bring reasoned perspective on various narratives of the history of this often forgotten religious minority. This collection highlights international and inter-confessional networks, the various stages of external and internal mission, the periods of growth and decline, and the cultural and political heritage of these Protestants.Contributors include: Randall Balmer, Sébastien Fath, Denis Fortin, Jean-Louis Lalonde, Robert Larin, J.I. Little, Richard Lougheed, Roderick MacLeod, Mary Anne Poutanen, Catharine Randall, Glenn Scorgie, Glenn Smith, Richard W. Vaudry, and Jason Zuidema.

Exploring the ritual and everyday religious practices through which Pentecostal life worlds unfold this book breaks new ground in the study of Latin American and global Pentecostalism. In addition to asking the familiar question of why many lower class Latin Americans convert to Pentecostalism, the author asks another question, so far largely neglected in the scholarly literature: how, or through what processes, do people begin and continue to relate to themselves and the social world in a particular Pentecostal way? For members of the Evangelical Pentecostal Church in Valparaíso, Chile, life is pervaded by divine and satanic presence and intervention. Through its fine grained analysis of different ritual, discursive/narrative and reflective processes the book shows how church members integrate sacred others into their everyday lives ― or how they learn to live, think and behave as Pentecostals.

Based on the analysis of 52 conversion narratives to various religious groups, A New Model of Religious Conversion utilizes case studies for comparison of converts' backgrounds, network influence, and conversion narratives. The author convincingly illustrates a "fit" between the converts' background and the religion they convert to, such as between disorganized family backgrounds and highly structured religions. Conversely, those from highly structured backgrounds often convert to more "open" groups. The book also makes it clear that not all conversions are influenced by networks or align themselves with a social constructivist view of a conversion as an "account." Taking converts' trajectories seriously, the author makes a strong case for the application of biographical sociology to the study of conversion and (American) sociology overall.

In Middle-Class Pentecostalism in Argentina: Inappropriate Spirits Jens Köhrsen offers an intriguing account of how the middle class relates to Latin America's most vibrant religious movement. Based on pervasive field research, this study suggests that Pentecostalism stands in tension with the social imaginary of the middle class and is perceived as an inappropriate lower class practice. As such, middle class Pentecostals negotiate the appropriateness of their religious belonging by demonstrating distinctive tastes and styles of Pentecostalism. Abstaining from the expressiveness, emotionality, and strong spiritual practice that have marked the movement, they create a milder and socially more acceptable form of Pentecostalism. Increasingly turning into a middle class movement, this style has the potential to embody the future shape of Pentecostalism.

This book is at the crossroads where a New Age sensibility, advancing like an ecumen of worldwide spirituality without national, cultural, or ecclesiastical frontiers, meets Latin America's syncretic religions, practiced by groups of people wiht African or indigenous roots or developed from the tradition of popular Catholicism. The Syncretic character of the two sensibilities makes both the New Age and popular religion behave like two, syncretizing and syncreticizable matrices of meaning. This book opens up a rich vein of debate with new dilemmas and discussions, that will provide a framework for a new field of study in anthropology. What new ways of signifying living and experiencing religion is the New Age generating in Latin America? What are its limits?Contributors are: Alejandra Aguilar Ros, Santiago Bastos, Lizette Campechano, Sylvie Pédron Colombani, Alejandro Frigerio, Jacques Galinier, Silas Guerriero, Cristina Gutiérrez Zúñiga,Nahayeilli B. Juárez Huet, José Guilherme C.Magnani, Antoinette Molinié, María Teresa Rodríguez, Deis Siqueira, Carlos Alberto Steil, Engel Tally, Renée de la Torre, and Marcelo Zamora.

In The Politics of Religion and the Rise of Social Catholicism in Peru (1884-1935) Ricardo Cubas Ramacciotti provides a lucid synthesis of the Catholic Church’s responses to the secularisation of the State and society whilst offering a fresh appraisal of the emergence of Social Catholicism and its contribution to social thought and development of civil society in post-independence Peru. Making use of diverse historical sources, Cubas provides a comprehensive view of a reformist yet anti-revolutionary trend within the Peruvian Church that, decades before the emergence of Liberation Theology and under divergent intellectual paradigms, developed an active agenda that addressed the new social problems of the country, including those of urban workers, and of indigenous populations.