Evangelical on my own terms. The new pentecostal consumer in Chile´s religious market
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-47272022000200130Keywords:
Pentecostalism, Chile, religious competition, individualism, religious marketAbstract
The purpose of this article is to shed light the Evangelical-Pentecostal diversity in contemporary Chile. I focus on the emergence of a new group of Pentecostal “religious consumers" that can be categorized as “Evangelicals on their own terms” or “Pentecostals on their own terms.” These are mostly persons who have grown up in Pentecostal churches but have attained higher levels of education than their parents. I draw on the work of Laurence Iannaccone and his concept of strict churches that impose restrictions on the conduct of members and maintain a certain level of tension with the surrounding society. Historically Pentecostal churches in Chile have been rather strict, but in contemporary Chile there is a growing demand for a less strict form of Pentecostalism. I argue that a nuanced understanding of religious competition in contemporary Chile requires that we move beyond a focus on competition between Pentecostals and Catholics and focus on how Pentecostal churches are competing over adherents. In this competition, come churches manage to “steal sheep” from others by adapting to the religious demands of a new group of Pentecostals who prefer less strict churches that allow them to Pentecostal on their own terms.
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