When Sects Become Middle Class: Impression Management among Middle-Class Pentecostals in Argentina

Abstract

Sect-to-church theory assumes that sects will become more church-like, as members' socioeconomic status improves: abandoning tension-related characteristics, they decrease the level of tension with their social environment. Studying Pentecostal middle class congregations (MCCs) in Argentina, this article shows that the reduction of tension involves impression management: the studied MCCs display middle class features (e.g. educational training) and selectively shield tension-related practices (e.g. glossolalia) from the glances of non-Pentecostal peers. Instead of abandoning tension-related practices to reduce tension, MCCs strategically adjust their religious practices depending on the extent to which these are accessible for relevant outsiders, switching between sect-like and church-like styles of religion.

Measuring Religious Identification in the United States

“…Our approach maintains the independence of religious identifications and other social identities. Religious identifications intersect with other identities to shape social attitudes and behaviors (Sherkat ; Wadsworth ), and these identities also intersect to shape religiosity (Baker and Whitehead ; Edgell, Frost, and Stewart ; Koehrsen ). Intersectional research on religious identification is particularly important for understanding religion's role in “[shaping] symbolic boundaries and [providing] cultural tools,” and how these constructions are used to make sense of and justify inequities (Edgell :255).…”

“…This approach is better positioned to advance the cultural sociology of religion (Edgell ), enabling the examination of sectarians' engagement with cultural fields as outsiders or as the dominant group. Recent research shows that middle‐class sectarians in Argentina deemphasize potentially stigmatizing religious practices like glossolalia in order to reduce tension with society (Koehrsen ). Do sectarians in Alabama feel a similar need to mitigate their religious distinctiveness?…”

Religious Tastes and Styles as Markers of Class Belonging: A Bourdieuian Perspective on Pentecostalism in South America

“…The relationship between religion and social stratification was investigated in a research project on Pentecostalism in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Koehrsen, 2016(Koehrsen, , 2017. The field research consisted of several steps.…”

From the ‘What’ and ‘How’ to the ‘Where’: Class Distinction as a Matter of Place

“…The empirical research was conducted in Buenos Aires as part of a general study on middle-class Pentecostalism in Argentina (Koehrsen, 2016, 2017). The investigation was carried out on two levels: the micro-level of Pentecostal church members and the meso-level of Pentecostal churches.…”