Religious Conversion in the Americas: Meanings, Measures, and Methods

Abstract

R eligious pluralism has fundamentally altered the social and religious landscape of Latin America and the Caribbean. From Mexico to Chile, millions of Latin Americans have abandoned their traditional Catholic upbringing to embrace new and different religious beliefs and practices. Evangelical Protestants represent approximately 15 percent of the population in the region today. Indigenous and Afro-diasporan religions have also experienced rapid growth. At the same time, significant changes within traditional religious categories have accelerated. Large numbers of Catholics have joined charismatic congregations, while sectors of classic Pentecostal and mainstream Protestant congregations have converted to "health and wealth" neo-Pentecostalism.Religious conversion is the primary motor driving this larger process of religious change. While the macro-level factors that set the context for religious conversion (changes within the Catholic Church, increased Protestant missionary activity, and changes in state policies on religious freedom) have been studied considerably, far less attention has been paid to questions of exactly which people convert and under what circumstances, how social scientists understand and interpret conversion, and Religious Conversion in the Americas: Meanings, Measures, and Methods Timothy J. Steigenga(1) religious conversion must be understood as a process and continuum rather than a single discrete event, (2) conversion is a multiply-determined phenomenon that demands a complex theoretical model and a multifaceted research methodology, and (3) researchers would be well served by reevaluating the categories and concepts we utilize for measuring the political and social effects of religious conversion.

Un análisis de cambios en la afiliación religiosa en América Central, 1970 – 2014

“…Según la socióloga y politóloga Evguenia Fediakova, en Evangélicos, política y sociedad en Chile: Dejando "el refugio de las masas" 1990-2010(Hualpén, Chile: CEEP Ediciones e IDEA, 2013p. 113…”