THE SOCIO-CULTURAL SPACE OF PENTECOSTALISM IN PRESENT-DAY TRANSYLVANIA: DYNAMICS OF RELIGIOUS PLURALIZATION IN POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIA
THE SOCIO-CULTURAL SPACE OF PENTECOSTALISM IN PRESENT-DAY TRANSYLVANIA: DYNAMICS OF RELIGIOUS PLURALIZATION IN POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIA

Summary/Abstract: The present paper approaches from a particular angle the dynamics of religious pluralization in post-communist Romania. It explores the remarkable case of Pentecostalism and its implications for a more complex understanding of the processes of religious pluralization taking place in Romania after 1989. The major arguments of the paper are articulated through ethnographical insights into the socio-religious processes that made possible the successful anchoring of a particular Pentecostal congregation in a Northern Transylvanian town. The ethnography is organized around the investigation of three main processes that, I argue, create and maintain the specific socio-cultural space of Pentecostalism in Transylvania: 1) the individualization of faith, 2) the articulation of the Pentecostal authority regime and 3) the emergence of the Pentecostal form of congregational life. This classification is rather analytical because, on the ground, all of these processes are intrinsically related and mutually enhanced. Its relevance comes from the fact that on one hand it expresses more systematically the major articulations around which the socio-cultural space of Pentecostalism is configured against the background of "traditional" churches. On the other, it reveals some of the crucial concerns of Pentecostals themselves, when it comes to defining their way of being "true Christians".

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