Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream
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A01=Tony Tian-Ren Lin
American Dream
Americanization
Americans
assimilation
Author_Tony Tian-Ren Lin
Category=JBSL
Category=JHBA
Category=QRMB36
Charlottesville
Christianity
Churches
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnicity
faith
Family
finances
Gender roles
Health and Wealth
Hispanic
immigrant
immigration
Latin American
Latino
Latino Churches
LatinoHispanic assimilation theory
LatinoHispanic Conversion to Pentecostalism
Meritocracy
Modern America
New York City
Pentecostalism
Prosperity Gospel
race
Religion
Religious Conversions
San Diego
Word of Faith
Product details
- ISBN 9781469658940
- Weight: 498g
- Dimensions: 155 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 31 Aug 2020
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In this immersive ethnography, Tony Tian-Ren Lin explores the reasons that Latin American immigrants across the United States are increasingly drawn to Prosperity Gospel Pentecostalism, a strand of Protestantism gaining popularity around the world. Lin contends that Latinos embrace Prosperity Gospel, which teaches that believers may achieve both divine salvation and worldly success, because it helps them account for the contradictions of their lives as immigrants. Weaving together his informants' firsthand accounts of their religious experiences and everyday lives, Lin offers poignant insight into how they see their faith transforming them both as individuals and as communities.
The theology fuses salvation with material goods so that as these immigrants pursue spiritual rewards they are also, perhaps paradoxically, striving for the American dream. After all, Lin observes, prosperity is the gospel of the American dream. In this way, while becoming better Prosperity Gospel Pentecostals they are also adopting traditional white American norms. Yet this is not a typical story of smooth assimilation as most of these immigrants must deal with the immensity of the broader cultural and political resistance to their actually becoming Americans. Rather, Prosperity Gospel Pentecostalism gives Latinos the logic and understanding of themselves as those who belong in this country yet remain perpetual outsiders.
The theology fuses salvation with material goods so that as these immigrants pursue spiritual rewards they are also, perhaps paradoxically, striving for the American dream. After all, Lin observes, prosperity is the gospel of the American dream. In this way, while becoming better Prosperity Gospel Pentecostals they are also adopting traditional white American norms. Yet this is not a typical story of smooth assimilation as most of these immigrants must deal with the immensity of the broader cultural and political resistance to their actually becoming Americans. Rather, Prosperity Gospel Pentecostalism gives Latinos the logic and understanding of themselves as those who belong in this country yet remain perpetual outsiders.
Tony Tian-Ren Lin is Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Research at New York Theological Seminary.
