The rapid global expansion of Pentecostal Christianity is one of the most striking religious phenomena in our contemporary world. Today, Pentecostalism is by no means some marginal or peculiar denomination within world Christianity. It is not simply a niche product in the global religious market, but the most dynamic and fastest growing religious movement within the contemporary Christian world. From Singapore over Brazil to Ghana, Pentecostal Christians are historically and presently rooted in many cultural contexts throughout the world. As such, Pentecostalism is a religious movement that...

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Sociology - Religion, grade: 6 (entspricht 1 in Dtschld.), University of Bern, course: Religionssoziologie, language: English, abstract: Despite Rodney Stark‟s postulate "to carry the secularization doctrine to the graveyard of failed theories" (Stark 1999:22) or David Martin‟s demand "towards eliminating the concept of secularization" (Martin 1965), the discourse on secularization seems to be as alive as ever. Indeed, from its beginnings to present the idea of secularization lies at the very core of sociological imagination. Hardly...

Master's Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Sociology - Religion, grade: 5.5, University of Bern, language: English, abstract: The birth and rapid global expansion of Pentecostal movements has led to widespread recognition of Pentecostalism as a major force in the Christian globalization enterprise, and a significant subset within the broader globalization movement. A main thread running through the study of global Pentecostalism, therefore, is its adaptability to the modern world system and, concomitantly its increasing visibility in the public sphere. Underlying the assertion of...

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Sociology - Religion, grade: 6 (entspricht 1 in Dtschld.), University of Bern, language: English, abstract: In this paper, I take up Joel Robbins′3 anthropological approach towards a general theory on cultural change. For this I will focus on the key issues and main concepts of his work, which he mainly derives from Marshall Sahlins and Louis Dumont4. Robbins argues that we should replace our traditional models of syncretism with a model based on an understanding of the roles that values play in structuring the relations between cultural...