Conversion of a Continent: Contemporary Religious Change in Latin America - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813542022 ISBN 13: 9780813542027

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2007

Synopsis

A massive religious transformation has unfolded over the past forty years in Latin America and the Caribbean. In a region where the Catholic Church could once claim a near monopoly of adherents, religious pluralism has fundamentally altered the social and religious landscape. 

Conversion of a Continent brings together twelve original essays that document and explore competing explanations for how and why conversion has occurred. Contributors draw on various insights from social movement theory to religious studies to help outline its impact on national attitudes and activities, gender relations, identity politics, and reverse waves of missions from Latin America aimed at the American immigrant community. 

Unlike other studies on religious conversion, this volume pays close attention to who converts, under what circumstances, the meaning of conversion to the individual, and how the change affects converts’ beliefs and actions. The thematic focus makes this volume important to students and scholars in both religious studies and Latin American studies.

About this title

About the Author

TIMOTHY J. STEIGENGA is an associate professor of political science and Latin American studies at the Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University. He is coeditor (with Cleary) of Resurgent Voices in Latin America: Indigenous Peoples, Political Mobilization, and Religious Change (Rutgers University Press).

EDWARD L. CLEARY is a professor of political science and the director of Latin American studies at Providence College.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813542022
• ISBN 13: 9780813542027
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 298
• Editor: Steigenga Timothy, Cleary Edward L.