For more information about the Christmas wars, see the recent transcript The Christmas Wars: Religion in the American Public Square. Heated disputes over seasonal religious displays in public spaces have become an American holiday tradition. Indeed, each year, as Christmas and Hanukkah approach, Americans across the country contest the appropriateness of the government sponsoring or […]
Pew Research Center Washington, D.C. With the November mid-term elections approaching, the Pew Forum convened a roundtable discussion with three respected observers of religion and party politics. Joining the conversation was Amy Sullivan, a former aide to former Senator Tom Daschle currently writing a book on faith and the Democratic Party, Ross Douthat, an associate […]
Washington, D.C. Despite predictions from some pundits that sex scandals involving former Rep. Mark Foley and former National Association of Evangelicals President Ted Haggard would make evangelicals disillusioned with the GOP, exit polls showed evangelicals supported Republicans at levels similar to previous elections. Exit polls showed Democrats also did well among their core constituencies; compared […]
Washington, D.C. Every year as the holiday season gets underway, debates break out across the country over the appropriateness of religious displays in public spaces, such as crèches and menorahs placed in town halls. But the so-called “Christmas wars” are only a small part of a much larger debate concerning the proper place of religion […]
Pentecostalism has become a significant part of Latin America’s religious and political landscape in recent years. Especially since the 1960s, the region has witnessed dramatic growth in the number of pentecostals. According to 2005 figures from the World Christian Database, pentecostals represent 13%, or about 75 million, of Latin America’s population of nearly 560 million. […]
Origins and Growth 1910s-1940s: In 1882, an anti-Catholic, liberal president, Justo Barrios, escorts an American Presbyterian minister to Guatemala to encourage Protestant growth. Other Protestant missionaries, with the Central American Mission, Quakers, Primitive Methodists, and Nazarenes, arrive in the late 1890s and early 1900s (Garrard-Burnett 2001: 2-3). Pentecostal missionaries with the United and Free Gospel […]
Origins and Growth 1909-1910: American Methodist missionary Willis Hoover encourages his fellow Methodists to seek charismatic gifts. Hoover reports that his congregations in Valparaíso and Santiago soon began to sing, shout and speak in tongues (Cleary and Sepúlveda 1998: 99). Hoover’s fellow pentecostals break away from the American-founded Methodist church in 1910 to form a […]
Los Angeles, California The Pew Forum held a telephone news conference with reporters across the country to discuss key findings from a new international poll, Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals. Speakers: Luis Lugo, Director, The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life John Green, Senior Fellow in Religion and American Politics, The […]