Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung
New Research Project: Religious faith and social presence: Pentecostal movement and other religious actors in Guatemala and Nicaragua
This research project, which is funded by the German research council DFG, aims at the analysis of the religious fields of the Central-American countries Guatemala and Nicaragua. The project focuses on the pentecostal movement, which in both countries has gained considerable social and political influence during the second half of the nineteenth century. The movement is not homogeneous, but differentiated in churches whose distinct religious styles, salvation promises, theological contents, and rituals appeal to distinct social constituencies to varying degrees. Using methods designed for a praxeological sociology of religion that builds on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this project elicits patterned relations between social positions and religious practice and analyzes the political participation and transnational networks of pentecostal actors and congregations. The researchers in this project are Prof. Heinrich Schäfer (chair), Adrián Tovar and Tobias Reu.