Pentecostalism In Latin America

One such example of a traditionalist religious movement which has risen in popularity is the Evangelical Christianity in America, specifically Latin America, where there are 40-50 million followers (Berger, 1999) . This kind of religion gives its followers a feeling of certainty in times where their beliefs are not mainstream, and allows them to adhere to moral and social values in touch with their own. On the other hand, Pentecostalism which has been a mass religious movement in the twentieth century, and has around 30 million followers in America, and 430 million worldwide, supports a different kind of religious view. As will be explored later, modern Pentecostalism promotes a much more self-reliant and personal form of religion. Whereas,
other religions focus on a set of belief and other-worldly gains, Pentecostalism emphasises this-worldly goals and aims to help achieve self-improvement and self-betterment (Stephens, n.d.) . This shows the stark difference in religious approaches, and how two different approaches are able to both account for the continued flourishing of religion in different forms.

On the other hand, Bellah (2005) explains the continued flourishing of religion through a much more subtle form of religion. He explores the idea of Civil Religion within American culture, where the actual religion is almost irrelevant, but remains ceremonially significant to the culture that it is a part of, in this case Christianity in America. For example, the idea of God is woven into their culture and their pledge of allegiance to the flag, stating that ‘in God we trust’ and that they are one ‘under God’, therefore showing that the idea and image of God has become just a part of their everyday life, something that they are used to. In touch with this, Davie (1994) believed that religion in Britain was a ‘formative cultural experience’, a part of our way of life that shapes our values and outlook. However, in Britain there is a trend towards ‘believing without belonging’, where people chose to believe on their own terms and don’t align themselves with a particular church, so Davie (1994) thought of Britain as an ‘unchurched’ society rather than a secular society, this relates to the personalisation of religion discussed later. However, this does provide a second explanation for the continued flourishing of religion, as religion remains a key influence and remains culturally significant to people’s lives and behaviour, however, people’s involvement in religious activities declines.

Lastly, we look at a different kind of religious movement, new age movements, for an explanation of the continued flourishing of religion.
As observed by many sociologists, we have become a much more religiously diverse, and many spiritual practises are rising in popularity (Lyon, 1948) . These new religious movements span a wide range of what could be considered religious, for example yoga, alternative medicines and feng shui. This again links to Lambert’s 4 ways that secularisation might affect religion, this shows how religion can adapt, and be adapted, to fit a more secular world; in addition to this, some believe that religious diversity may lead to competition between world views which leads to religious vitality and mobilisation as religions become highly visible in the public sphere and appeal to wider society (Furseth & Repstad, 2006) . However, this does spark a debate over what can be considered religious and what counts as a religion, more importantly, what makes a religion, although this is a debate for another time (Glock, 1969) . In addition to this, the idea that religion is a personal thing rather than something in which you share with a community is becoming more popular, which leads to people forming their own personalised forms of ‘pick and mixed’ religion, which again leads to the pluralisation of religion. Although, like new age movements, this also leads to debate over what religion actually is, and if the definition has been expanded too much (McGuire, 2008) . However, increased diversity in religious organisation and a widening definition does work as another account for the increased flourishing of
religion.

To conclude, although an argument has been made that we live in a secular time, where the roles of religion have been differentiated into those of science and technology, there is no doubt that certain kinds of religion are still flourishing in today’s modern society. In this essay, it has been accounted for in three ways. Through the rise in fundamentalist religious groups that are reacting to the increasingly secular and liberal modernization of society, with a very traditional form of religion in order to bring themselves back to the way in which they believe the world should be run, as evidence through Evangelism. Secondly, Civil Religion was used to explain the more background remains of religious flourishing in society through its maintained cultural significance to society. And lastly, a different look at the definition of religion was explored to see how the rise of new age movements and the personalisation of religion has influenced the continued flourishing of religion, shown through the personal approach of Pentecostalism. Therefore, despite societies move toward rationalisation and modernisation, sociologists are not for a lack of explanation for why the seemingly ill-fitting continued flourishing of religion continues to remain a part of society.