Spiritual Bonfire in Argentina: Confronting Current Theories with an Ethnographic Account of Pentecostal Growth in a Buenos Aires Suburb

This case study of a Pentecostal church in a poor suburb of Buenos Aires greatly illuminates—if it does not bring closure to—much of the ongoing debate about the causes and consequences of Pentecostalism in Latin America. Daniel Míguez calls in question the emphasis that writers have placed on Pentecostalism as essentially a function of structural change, whether the phenomenon is viewed primarily as reinforcing traditional culture or supporting the modernization process. While he concedes that some authors like Cecilia Mariz and Elizabeth Brusco have avoided this reductionism by their attention to personal perceptions and initiatives, he criticizes the failure of “actor-centered” scholars to report their findings in a way that permits data taken from specific social contexts to be used comparatively. Both “structuralist” and “actor-centered” researchers have used too broad a conceptual brush to describe Pentecostals, distorting rather than clarifying the nature of their development and, probably, overestimating their social...