Overview

Combining historical and ethnographic research methods, along with a thorough review of existing literature on the study of Latin American Christianity, New Faces of God in Latin America addresses the important question of how global religion and local culture interact, situating the experience of Latin American Christianity in the broader conversations in the field of world Christianity, particularly with respect to the growing understanding of Christianity as a non-Western religion. Through case studies of different Pentecostal experiences in Latin America, Virginia Garrard explores cross-pollination and interaction with indigenous religions and cultures, finding widely varied responses to the material and spiritual needs of Latin Americans. The author locates Latin American religious experience within a field known as the ""history of non-Western Christianity."" This focuses on the experience, perceptions, and adaptations of those who adopt Christianity outside the context of Western missionary or other colonizing projects. The book engages with the intersection of culture and spirit-filled religion, with an eye to how those interactions help frame an alternative religious modernity. Throughout the book, the author uses culture as both a heuristic lens and as a variable within the equation. She argues that culture helps us understand how people engage with and reconfigure global religious flows within their own imaginations and for their own parochial uses.

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9780197529270

Table of Contents

Reviews

One great area for current research is that of lived or vernacular religion, or how ordinary people actually understand and practice faith, often running flat contrary to what established churches and institutions specify. A splendid example of this is Virginia Garrard's highly readable New Faces of God in Latin America: Emerging Forms of Vernacular Christianity. Different chapters explore a spectrum of beliefs and practices, from the definitely churched (Neo-Pentecostalism) through the more marginal and controversial (Santa Muerte and Mexico's intriguingly named off-label saints ) to more outre beliefs in witches and devils. The book benefits enormously from the author's wide linguistic skills, and her impressive access to indigenous sources. * Philip Jenkins, Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, Christian Century *

Author Information

Virginia Garrard is Director of LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections and Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. Among many other publications, her most recent work, co-authored with Peter Henderson and Bryan McCann, is Latin America and the Modern World. Her research interests include: historic memory and human rights during the Cold War in Latin America, archives and digital humanities, and contemporary Central American history.

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