This has political implications. Roughly speaking, Catholic Hispanics in
America
vote Democratic 2 : 1. For Pentecostals and Evangelical Hispanics the
numbers are almost exactly reversed.
This also should tell you that straight line extrapolation to forecast the
political future,
which is the dominant way of forecasting in politics, is intrinsically
flawed.
A growing Hispanic minority could mean, a decade or two from now,
a much stronger Republican base.
Billy
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U.S. Hispanics leaving Catholic Church for Evangelical churches
John Thomas Didymus ("Digital Journal," October 20, 2011)
USA - A National Public Radio (NPR) report says U.S. Hispanics are leaving
the Catholic Church in increasing numbers. The report says most Hispanics
leaving the Catholic Church for Evangelical churches are second and third
generation Hispanics.
Barbara Bradley Hagerty of National Public Radio , commenting on the
pattern of conversion of U.S. Hispanics to Pentecostal Christianity says,
“You can see evidence of that in the Assemblies of God, once a historically
white, suburban Pentecostal denomination...When you walk into the
denomination’s largest church, it’s sensory overload: The auditorium is
jam-packed
with hundreds of Latino worshipers singing in Spanish, swaying and dancing.
”
Reverend Wilfredo de Jesus of Chicago's New Life Covenant Church says
Hispanic converts to Pentecostal churches are helping to shore up American
Christianity. According Reverend de Jesus:
"No doubt, every denomination would have decreased in membership if it had
not been for Hispanic growth, including our fellowship, the Assemblies of
God.”
Hispanics who join the American Pentecostal churches are mostly second and
third generation Hispanics. This is because religious cultural restrictions
prevent first generation Catholics from taking a decision to change
religion.
The pattern of the trend in which Hispanics, especially second and third
generation, are leaving the Catholic Church for Pentecostal churches had been
noted since the early 2000s. Christianity Today reporting on the growing
number of Pentecostal Hispanics in the U.S., in 2003, noted that first
generation Hispanics were, however, helping to keep the total number of
Catholic
Hispanics constant. First generation Hispanic immigrants tend to remain in
the Catholic Church. It is the second and third generation Hispanic
Americans who tend to change their religion.
Christian Post, in 2009, reported a survey by George Barna which showed a
25 percent fall in number of Hispanic Catholics, with an increase of 17
percent in number of Hispanics claiming to be "born-again" Christians.
George Barna commented on the results of the survey:
“You cannot help but notice the changing relationship between Hispanics and
the Catholic Church...While many Hispanic immigrants come to the United
States with ties to Catholicism, the research shows that many of them
eventually connect with a Protestant church.”
NPR reports that a poll by Pew Research Center showed less than 60 percent
of second-generation Hispanics are Catholic.
The pew research study, according to NPR report, asked — why are
second-generation generation Hispanics leaving the Catholic Church?
Pew research concluded from its survey that most Catholics leave the church
because of desire for a less formal and regimented form of worship. They
find the Catholic system of worship formal and authoritarian in contrast to
the practice in Pentecostal and Evangelical churches.
Isaac Vega, speaking to NPR, says he left the Catholic Church because he
desired a form of worship which gives him personal relationship with God. He
said:
”I felt like my personal relationship with God — I was seeking more, and I
needed more. And there was kind of like a glass ceiling. I was hitting
something that wasn’t allowing me to grow, and I wasn’t quite sure what it
was.”
Betty Ochoa, Hispanic member of Reverend de Jesus' New Life Covenant
Church, says that back home in Mexico, people do not have the opportunity to
make
a choice because families simply do not allow members take the decision to
switch church. But in the U.S. things are different, young people are free
to decide to change religion. Betty Ochoa says:
"It's more open. We can go to different churches, and visit different
churches — or, what do they call it, church-shopping?"
Ochoa, like many former Catholic Hispanics, enthuses on the free and
spontaneous manner of worship in Pentecostal churches:
"Oh my goodness. I was so overwhelmed...I didn't know that you could sing
like this — and people raising their hands, and calling out, shouting...I'm
like, 'This doesn't happen in Catholic church. Like, people just don't do
that.' "
____________________________________
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