Articles with the keyword Protestantism

• Toomas Gross

  Is Protestant Growth Inevitable? Assessing religious change in twenty-first century Mexico

  Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(2) 2009: 22-43

  Abstract

  Recent decades have seen a rapid increase in membership of Protestant churches
  in most Latin American countries, including Mexico. The growth has been
  considered sustainable and linked to modernisation processes. Drawing on
  fieldwork conducted in southern Mexico since the late 1990s, most recently in
  2008, this article seeks to challenge claims that Protestant growth in rural Latin
  America is inevitable, continuous and universal. Mapping and analysing changes
  in the religious composition of one particular Zapotec community in Oaxaca
  over the ten-year period, the article demonstrates that local level religious dynamics
  are multidirectional and considerably less predictable than aggregate statistics
  and general trends would suggest. Rather than presenting evidence of irrefutable
  Protestant growth, religious diversity in many Oaxacan communities has recently
  stabilised or actually decreased. Reasons for this can be sought in the internal
  dynamics of Protestant congregations, the high level of apostasy, national
  legislation, as well as in changes and revitalisation of Catholic practices.

  Keywords Catholic Church, indigenous, Mexico, Oaxaca, Protestantism, religious change