By Hilary Wynarczyk (*) Data
a polling firm
On Sunday 24 October, the "approaches" of the Nation published some data on religious beliefs in Argentina, from the consultant Polyarchy, which A survey in September at the request of the newspaper. Lorena Oliva, author of the note, titled "The Argentine and faith - religious in private, lay in public."
From the data analysis I intend to convey a "very personal" and facing the second part to the sociology of evangelical churches in Argentina, which are the subject in which I specialize.
emphasizing the "personal" from the analysis because I need to work with approximate data inferences, since we have no scientifically reliable information collected in the field, enlighten us more accurately the statistical establishment of religion in Argentina.
To compensate for this deficit remains the option of joining, like tiles or pieces of a puzzle, all available data and identify the points where they converge. Statistics
Catholic and the tip of the iceberg
no doubt is essential to start the analysis from the Catholic territory, because in this nation's Roman Catholic Church (RCC) is the most faithful and who knew how to get value added (today challenged but undeniable) through their activism in various spheres of society.
The first striking fact is that 46% of respondents, according to information Polyarchy, considers himself a non-practicing Catholic. Then 31% is considered a practitioner, a subjective response which explains little concrete. Other data show that people in attendance at the ICR are common in the order of 26%. However, information management several years ago, from the experience of one or two members of the clergy, would indicate practicing Catholic groups that might be in the range of 5 to 10% of the population.
in any conceivable variations in these quantities, the question is whether we can perhaps infer that the Catholic churches are empty. Absolutely not. The practical experience of visiting temples indicates that in times of mass, both middle-class neighborhoods and upper middle class and popular sectors, the liturgical celebrations have many faithful. Young, unemployed and even sitting in the stands outside, often form a large segment.
addition to the liturgy, the ICR there is a remarkable offer of psychological support services, social and medical assisted by lay people, strikingly similar to those of evangelical groups. In the Church of St. Nicholas, for example, whose age belongs to middle and senior high in the Santa Fe Avenue between Talcahuano and Uruguay in the City of Buenos Aires, young priests run practices that appear similar to the imposition of hands Pentecostals, on the sidewalk in front of the church, at certain times of the year.
But, no doubt, practicing Catholic population is a minority and indisputable fact becomes more significant when considering the remarkable dissonance that the numbers reveal, among the belongings denominations and practices. In this way the statistical divide becomes something like the tip of an iceberg of problems that may be associated with the current position of the authority of the ICR regarding culture and the state.
First in the order of culture, it is the dissociation between the official dogma that comes from the "Magisterium of the Church" (which presumably would be the anchor of truth, and the "core values") and beliefs about sexual morality and bioethics supported by the public who attends Mass and in the sanctuaries seeking concrete solutions to specific problems from a truly active supernatural power, which seems to demand promises but not necessarily commitment to the dogma.
Secondly there is a clear loss of influence of the authorities of the ICR on the state, and through it on the institutions of society and culture. If there is, as it seems, a tendency towards the maintenance of a hegemonic status, the public shows no signs of that interests you. Poliarquía survey, as the story of Lorena Oliva, shows that only 12% of the sample is consulted for the State to provide economic assistance to the ICR (a practice largely supported on the second article of the Constitution). 42% rejected the idea that the state attending money to religions. Conversely, a significant 41% think the government should help all religions. At the same time, a high percentage is in agreement, though in different degrees of agreement with the idea that religious leaders should not try to influence how people vote in elections (78%) and in decisions of government ( 77%). Statistics
evangelical
Poliarquía numbers show that evangelicals are 9% of the sample surveyed. If this sample is projectable to the national universe, means that almost 10% of the inhabitants are Protestants. In turn, the data indicate Poliarquía there is a 1% 1% Adventists and other Jehovah's Witnesses.
These data converge with others that can hold two hypotheses, a minimum and a maximum on the presence of evangelicals in society in Argentina. The minimal hypothesis is that evangelicals comprise 10% of the population, some 4,000,000 people. But there are groups that could be called "para-evangelical" because strictly speaking are not in communion with the federation of evangelical churches. At this point we refer precisely to the above Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses, but the Mormons and the church known as IURD, Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. So if these groups also take into account the hypothesis of maximum certainly can be in the order of 13%. Consider for example that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons are very neat in this respect), added 387,000 members in all provinces of the country, something like 1% of the population of Argentina.
But what is of importance that data is the assiduous attendance of members of these evangelical churches and para-evangelical "in their worship and other related activities.
But still, the numbers speak little basic. It is important to place in perspective with other variables. The most important is the social and territorial to the extent that in Argentina the population is distributed by socioeconomic level decreasing from the center to the periphery of urban centers. By combining data from own and others' studies (of the others, the principal was one developed by the sociologist Juan Esquivel with colleagues in Quilmes), it seems correct to argue that the evangelical population in urban middle class and upper middle of the City Buenos Aires is below 4% but the retreat to the Buenos Aires suburbs, the figures rise to 20% and possibly exceed it. We can assume that this effect is due to the presence Pentecostal, which develops "Across class lines (and probably is something like 60% of evangelicals).
Additionally, registration of churches in the National Register of non-Catholic religions reveal the institutional activism of evangelicals in the search for recognition by the state, favoring instead to the ICR in accordance with the second article of the Constitution national (and 33 of the Civil Code, Act of Worship, and the Concordat of 1966 between Argentina and the Vatican State, which came to displace the tradition of the State Board that preceded it).
The 2009 report had taught then 3082 records of which corresponded to 71% evangelical churches. The magnitude must be understood from the fact that evangelical churches, especially the most popular, are fragmented, in stark contrast to the unity of the Catholic organization pyramid. Then there is a heterogeneous group in round numbers is 29 percentage points, where they have their space, plus others, also spiritualist cults and traditions associated with African Americans.
territorial distribution of the records of non-Catholic religions in 2009, has two main concentrations, respectively, in the Federal Capital (16%) and the Province Buenos Aires (52%). The second evidence to suggest (I do not have an exact measurement) the records are mostly from churches in the Greater Buenos Aires. This ring of cities is a space exacerbated poverty indicators, while the site of much industrial activity in Argentina and a key area of \u200b\u200bthe Peronist vote. Anyway, here is the 68% of the records of non-Catholic religions, predominantly evangelical institutions.
Conversely, towards the interior of Argentina, the average percentage of records of non-Catholic religions is 4% per province. The highest concentrations were found in the provinces of Córdoba (6%), Santa Fe (5 %) And Chaco and Mendoza (3% each).
The phenomenon of territorial distribution of these inscriptions has certain similarities with the population distribution in the country. The people of Argentina are largely concentrated in the Federal Capital (the 2001 census indicates 8%), the Greater Buenos Aires (24%) and the megalopolis that both are (32%).
Catholics, evangelicals and social structure
Finally, let's talk about the two religious camps, Catholic and evangelical. I use data match very interesting perspective Chilean sociologist Arturo Chacón. Imagine a rod representing the population. If divided into ten socioeconomic levels (each level is a decile, with 10% of the population), we can observe (says Chacón and my time agree) that the two or three deciles are like sedimentary areas where ICR has an established presence, you may not alter the fact that, embedded in the thinking of people with assiduous Catholic practices, beliefs can coexist some other kind ("energies" of esoteric type, for example).
then we came down from deciles 6 or 7 until the end of the income column, we find the space where religious competition becomes more evident. Since we all have certain prejudices settled and shared (think largely with "thoughts thought"), from these schemes we can assume that this is the competition posed by evangelical proselytizing. Actually inside the Catholic camp there is a fragmentation of offers and options, which is not strictly new, Santeria, internal movements equipped with some degree of autonomy, celebrations of the charismatic movement and healing priests (these are my impressions, since I specialize in Catholicism). + (PE)
(*) Doctor in sociology. Author of "Citizens of two worlds. The evangelical movement in the Argentina's public life, 2980-2001 "(Buenos Aires, UNSAM EDIT, a publishing label of Universidad Nacional de San Martín, 2009). Teacher workshop methodology and theory of the Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Prenota
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