> 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.
>
This is already happening at a macro-level. I know that a lot of the leading
"new-paradigm" Christian thinkers and preachers we read about here (Ed Silvoso,
Luis Bush) are from Argentina.
However, I don't think they will "coax disillusioned Americans and Europeans
back to mainstream churches" -- unless they're using that word in a way I don't
understand.
Rather, they will be helping foment a new breed of post-evangelical
Christianity ("transformational"), which few "mainstream" churches are likely
to adapt. It is more likely to draw together federations of independent and
new churches than bolster traditional denominations.
-- Ernie P.
On Jan 1, 2010, at 10:01 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> New face of religion in Latin America
>
> Evangelicalism sweeps through churches, leading some to say that Latin
> America is emerging as the new center of Christianity.
>
>
> By Sara Miller Llana Staff writer
> posted December 17, 2009
>
> Santiago, Chile; and Rio de Janeiro —
> 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.”
>
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