The Circulation of Pentecostal Modernity in the Americas

This poster presents the chronological and geographical spread of Pentecostal churches and their related practices across the southwestern United States, central Canada, and southeastern Brazil in the twentieth century. It is based on census records, Pew surveys, and my archival research on the historical conditions of Pentecostal growth in Latin America. It visually presents two related arguments: 

First, it argues for emphasizing the history of practices over denominations in the study of Christianity. The poster distinguishes between two models for visualizing Pentecostal growth: the expansion of Pentecostal denominations (measured by census) and the increasing regional/national prevalence of certain Pentecostal practices  (measured by Pew surveys). Denominational growth generally accounts for Pentecostal growth in North America during the first half of the twentieth century. However, it fails to meaningfully describe the post-1970s growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America—due largely to Roman Catholics who retained their denominational identity but adopted Pentecostal practices. The poster presents an alternative depiction of Pentecostal growth that maps the prevalence of particular Pentecostal practices onto the transdenominational growth of charismatic affiliation based on responses to survey questions. This provides a more meaningful representation of Latin American Pentecostal growth. In sum, the divergent maps suggests that denominationalism is an inadequate frame for understanding the transformation of Christianity in modern Latin America, but the history of practices could account for both.

Second, the poster argues that a history of practice provides better clues as to the historical origins of Pentecostal growth in Latin America. The poster shows the variation between the most prevalent North American Pentecostal practices (glossolalia and prophecy) and Latin American practices (prosperity and exorcism). I argue that the regional variation in practices are the fingerprints of the historical actors who induced Pentecostal growth in Latin America. Namely, a small network of North American evangelists exported Pentecostal practices that were marginal in North America but became central to Latin American churches. The regional disparity indicates that these evangelists had disproportionately seminal effects on Pentecostal praxis in Latin America. The poster also shows how those practices are now returning to North America through the transnational migration of Latin American Pentecostals. This movement represents my dissertation’s central findings and is visually portrayed as a hemispheric circulatory system.

The final component of my dissertation’s argument, which is alluded to in the poster, is the correlation in Pentecostal growth with economic modernization and urbanization. While often imagined as a religion that emerged in the rural culture of the U.S.’s Old South, I argue that Pentecostalism was born in the social disruption created by the New South’s rapid urbanization. As an urban religion, North American Pentecostalism no longer appears disjointed from its highly urbanized Latin American counterpart, but continuous as consecutive religious responses to the disruptive processes of modernization. Ultimately, my dissertation argues that Pentecostalism provides an alternative to the subjectivity induced by American secularism: an “old-time” Pentecostal modernity.