Author(s)

Alberto da Silva Moreira

Advanced Studies Group on Religion and Globalization, Pontifical Catholic University of Goiás, Goiania, Brazil.

The challenges faced by this paper are two folds: to understanding how cultural changes brought about by globalization can influence religions and, conversely, how religions can influence broader cultural change. Globalization has spread powerful cultural forms, such as international popular consumer culture, media culture and the culture of the individual. These cultural forms or horizons interact with and transform local cultures which are often intertwined with traditional religions. Throughout this process, traditional religion can weaken its potential to express local cultures, but can also become a vehicle used to express strategies of identity affirmation. Many modalities of globalization-compatible religion, like Pentecostalism, are also consistently penetrated by consumer culture, media culture and individualism. When they interact with traditional religion, they often function as a critical dissolving factor. Therefore, Pentecostalism and similar religions have themselves become active factors in (global) cultural change processes.

Globalization; Cultural Change; Religion; Pentecostalism; Consumer Culture

da Silva Moreira, A. (2014) Globalization, Cultural Change and Religion: The Case of Pentecostalism. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2, 381-387. doi: 10.4236/jss.2014.24043.