Emotion and the Poor: Pentecostalism (I)

Abstract

Ever since Weber’s (1906) famous study, sociological distinctions concerning ‘sects’ and ‘churches’ have been refined (Troeltsch, 1912; Niebuhr, 1929; Yinger, 1968). In his pioneering study on Latin American Pentecostalism, Lalive d’Epinay (1969, 1975) recapitulates these distinctions. In short, one can oppose the cold cults of ‘Churches’ to the hot cults of ‘sects’. One might add that ‘cold cults’ are led by an educated clergy, while ‘hot cults’ allow the faithful much greater participation. Related to this distinction, one might finally oppose the Church and its phobia of schisms to the ‘sect’, in which ‘to divide is to multiply’. At these different levels, liberation theology and Pentecostalism have nothing in common. Their discourses of mutual hostility correspond to their opposed realities.