Cult controversies and government control of New Religious Movements in Argentina (1985-2001)

ALEJANDRO FRIGERIO; HILARIO WYNARCZYK

Regulating Religion: Case Studies from Around the Globe.

Kluwer Publishers

Lugar: New York; Año: 2004; p. 453 - 475

The paper focuses especially on how claims-making (Best 1990) in the media produced parliamentary responses, and demands on the State to intervene in the controversy -showing how government officers reacted to pressures from journalists, congressmen, church officials and minority religions.  It also demonstrates the agency of non-Catholic groups, some of which have made occasional but significant gains in media debates. Others, like the Evangelicals, have been able to produce collective action responses that modified what they considered to be an unfavorable draft law that would regulate religious liberty. Contrary to other scholarly approaches to the religious reality of Latin America that have privileged the Church´s reaction to the invasion of “sects”, this work shows the concurrent  importance of  secular responses to NRM and demonstrate that the Church is not a monolithic actor but a complex institution with different internal lines that articulate in complex ways with diverse secular actors .