ABSTRACT
The essay acknowledges the crucial relevance of the explosive growth of Pentecostal Christianity in Latin America and affirms the validity of David Martin’s pioneering interpretation. But it places this growth within the larger context of the transformation of Latin American societies, politics and cultures since the 1960s. It views the growth of Pentecostal Christianity and the transformation of Latin American Catholicism as parallel reformations that reinforced each other, contributing to religious pluralism, political democratization and more open and pluralist civil societies throughout the region.
