| By Andrea
Althoff
Senior Fellow, Martin Marty Center
Respondents:
Martin Marty, University of Chicago
Peter Versteeg, Free University
of Amsterdam
R.
Stephen Warner, University of Illinois at Chicago
New addition: Listen to Andrea Althoff discuss
her work on the radio program "Interfaith Voices," June
2, 2006.* Right-click to download and save this mp3 file.
In the June edition of the Web Forum, Andrea Althoff shares results
of her field research among Latino immigrant congregations in Chicago.
Incorporating demographics, observation, and interviews, she considers
what impact religious affiliation has on immigrant integration into
U.S. society, a largely unstudied subject. What she has discovered
is a link between two significant contemporary phenomena, Latin
American immigration to the U.S. and the explosive worldwide growth
in Pentecostalism. That link centers on conversion:
Latino Pentecostalism shares many characteristics with Christian
faith traditions in the United States. Therefore Latin American
immigrants, especially Protestant Pentecostals, revitalize the
religious landscape in the U.S. in a very different way than European
immigrants did before. One of the differences has to do with the
religious-historical relationship between Latin America and North
America … After the spread [of Pentecostalism] from the United
States into Latin America and other parts of the globe, the former
missionary organizations and denominations mostly developed into
autonomous, southern, indigenous institutions…However, I argue
that the general spiritual, doctrinal, and theological content
[including an emphasis on conversion] to a large extent remained
the same …
Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad points to one cultural common denominator
of Latino Pentecostalism and North American culture. In the introduction
of the volume Religion and Immigration: Christian, Jewish,
and Muslim Experiences in the United States, she states that
“… individualism is probably the single most important aspect
of American religious culture.” She contrasts American individualism
with the “more communal orientation of the traditional societies
from which many immigrants come.” From this perspective, it seems
that Pentecostal congregations fill a central gap. They create
continuity for the worshippers that is important for personal
and collective identity, while at the same time providing a norm
and value system similar to the host society.
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