Religion out of place? Social regulation of evangelical expansion in Buenos Aires

ALEJANDRO FRIGERIO

Secularisms in a postsecular age?

Palgrave MacMillan

Año: 2018; p. 275 - 293

The analysis of newspaper articles shows that journalists found Pentecostal euphoria, healing and charismatic preaching in places that they considered secular and non-religious (soccer stadiums, reconverted cinemas and plazas) disturbing: too emotional, too magical, too suspicious?because of their non-Catholic as well as magical nature? and, especially, clearly out of place in ?the most European? city of Latin America. The chapter argues that such an image of the city can only be maintained through the strict control of the religious and social practices shown and allowed in public spaces, in accordance with what the author calls the religious-spatial order. It also contends that religious regulation is a necessary feature of secularism and that it has social as well as governmental dimensions, public space being an important social arena where it must be enforced.