|
Books > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches > Other Protestant & Nonconformist Churches > Pentecostal Churches
Negotiating Respect is an ethnographically rich investigation of
Pentecostal Christianity-the Caribbean's fastest growing religious
movement-in the contemporary Dominican Republic. Within the context
of urban poverty in a barrio of Villa Altagracia, Brendan Jamal
Thornton considers the role of religious identity in the lives of
young male churchgoers who navigate conversion as a transformative
means of status acquisition, authority, and transition out of gang
life. Thornton shows that conversion offers both spiritual and
practical social value because it provides a strategic avenue for
prestige and an acceptable way to transcend personal history.
|
|