Latin America, pentecostalism and peripheral capitalism: A theoretical approachs beyond culturalism

Abstract

In this text, I intend to map the development of the analysis about religion, and more specifically, the analysis about Pentecostalism. The objective is to analyze, overall, the theoretical paths to understand the new wave of religious expansion of the last forty years. After the presentation of the analytical and theoretical model about religion and Pentecostalism in the 20th century, I locate my main theoretical assumption in relation to the traditional studies about Pentecostalism and religion. Thus, I make an effort to demonstrate how the dominant sociological view about religion nowadays and, consequently, about Pentecostalism, is correlated to the pragmatic change which we can name “culturalism”, which has begun, more clearly, in the 80s. This change has neglected the “material” causes of the development of religion, growing apart from the functionalist explanation to valorize “immaterial” aspects of the culture.