Pushing Pentecostalism toward the respectable: on the mainstreaming of a countercultural religious movement in Chile

ABSTRACT

Pentecostalism used to be the stigmatized religion of the marginal sectors of Chilean society and has often been interpreted by scholars in terms of symbolic protest. However, a new generation of Pentecostals is now attempting to redefine their religion as more legitimate and respectable. This process involves attempts at gaining more public recognition and it implies revisiting Pentecostal stylistic and religious practices. Many younger Pentecostals tend to distance themselves, both from certain kinds of emotional expressions and from what they perceive as the rigid formalism of classical Pentecostalism. This is prevalent, both in Pentecostal worship which carefully balances effusiveness and liveliness with control, and in testimonies of younger Pentecostals who tend to downplay the sensationalist aspects of conversion (as caused by an instant revelation) and rather portray it as a gradual process of maturation. My paper explores how mainstreaming processes unfold at different levels and occasionally cause tensions among Chilean Pentecostals.