Diversificación y competencia religiosa en Guatemala: entre pentecostalismo y cultos "neotradicionales"

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

Sociedade e Estado

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

Guatemala is one of the Latin American countries that is most affected by the wide conversion movement of its population to Protestantism. Pentecostalism is this movement's main drive. The article points out that the extraordinary development of Pentecostalism in Guatemala is partly due to the fact that it proposes life changes, presents itself as a generator of modernity and, at the same time, is rooted in local religious traditions. The Pentecostal proposition is a mixture of rupture and continuity. Today, nevertheless, the dynamic of the religious field cannot be reduced to the "Pentecostal explosion". This work also focuses on the re-appearance of traditional movements - or so defined by themselves. This is the case, for example, of the cult of Maximón - also known as San Simón (Saint Simon) - whose appearance is the result of a long syncretic process that combines Catholicism and Mayan religion. In the present time, in spite of being continually considered a "traditional," "Mayan" cult, with a strong ethnic dimension, it also encompasses a number of adaptations and syncretic conformation between aboriginal and ladinos peoples. Moreover, the cult to Maximón is in the process of adapting to the new context of internationalization and competency of the religious universe.

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