How the heck did a religious movement that started in the 20th century grow so large so quickly?

I mean sure, that's what they consider themselves, but let's be honest, the movement itself didn't even start until the 1900s.

It literally started on the Day of Pentecost, 32 AD.

People want to, and do, worship Jesus as God in different ways. Birds of a feather and all that.

The modern Pentecostal church is identical to the Corinthian church Paul describes.

I dream of the day when all the evangelicals and charismatics are swept into the sea and moderate mainline Protestantism regains its rightful place as America's normative religion

Unfortunately, that's never ever going to happen

What's so great about moderate mainline protestantism?

It was hegemonic in the U.S. from the late 19th century up until the 1960s, providing a majority religion that perfectly complemented democracy and civic values while providing a common moral and cultural framework. Then the 60s happened and it disintegrated in the face of two counterculturalisms: the modern secular left on the one side and the evangelical religious right on the other. Since then, we've been trapped in increasingly absurd culture wars.

True, "old" Protestantism is effectively dead, they're losing members and the few that remain have mostly embraced leftist values like gay marriage and secularism.

We must secure the existence of our faith and a future for God's children.

Amen brother

I mean, as far as faith goes, evangelicalism ain't all that bad. More extreme than the "old" Protestantism for sure, but the world could use a little Christian extremism.

It's not all that popular in the USA or Europe, but it's growing strongly in Latin America, Africa, and some of Asia.

your obtuseness leads me to believe you a pentecostal

Thanks Martin Luther.

If I had a dollar for every fucking missionary group that traveled to Central America, I would be rich. Heck, I was just in Nicaragua recently and I think I bumped into some Jehovah's Witnesses and began getting into a doomsday vibe with the brief conversation about "escaping all the political chaos in the United States".

Also it's no secret the embrace of Protestantism in the 1970s and 1980s by Central America's political elite and small middle class was the result of rebuking the growing influence of Liberation Theology in the Catholic Church at the time.

You can thank Gutenberg for Protestantism.

Yep, I'm pretty sure there's a massive movement in Guatemala right now after years of missionaries doing their thing in the country. El Salvador as far as I know has gone dark for obvious reasons, not sure about Honduras

What happened to El Salvador?

Brutal civil war destroyed the country and national identity, some parts of the country are in complete anarchy today thanks to the MS and you literally cannot get anything done in El Salvador anymore because a commie got elected as president.

Pentecostals are the most retarded of the Christain sects, they’d be ISIL jihadists if they were Muslim.

Years back, I had a buddy who was Pentecostals and his parents made him quit Boy Scouts because it interfered with him going to church 8 days a week, while his dad beat the shit out of him for the most minor infractions and all our parents thought he was weird, as he called everybody "sir" and "mam".

Later in high school, he showed a talent for working on cars and our school had one of the best auto shop programs in the country (metro Detroit here) but when he graduated, his parents forced him go to some shitty Pentecostal college somewhere out in the boonies to become a pastor.

I also dated a chick for a while whose older sister switched to Pentecostal and the family was bat-shit crazy; went to church every day, women couldn’t cut their hair, could only wear skirts and couldn’t swim in the same pool with guys, everything was “God this” and “God that” all day erry day and eventually her two kids rebelled and moved out of the house the day they turned 18.

>because a commie got elected as president.

You know Salvador Sánchez Cerén was a former commander in the FMLN. So he has implemented a lot of tougher security measures and new military-police units aimed at tackling the insecurity. Also, it should be reminded that the fucking ARENA party was caught trying to solicit votes from the gangs during the previous Presidential election so they're not exactly innocent either.

It's super emotional, and that draws people in. These charismatic churches are deeply moving experiences. It's not like boring church nonsense.

Evangelicalism is a god damn cancer. It's completely authoritiarian, and completely incompatible with democracy. If 50% of America was Evangelical, you can say hello to your new Theocratic Fascist regime.

Mainline protestantism and Enlightenment deism built America. Evangelicalism stands opposed to both.

Much of Evangelicalism is quite literally a doomsday cult given the whole bullshit about rapture and what not. Their movement in Central America has been nothing but insidious and a means to distract from dealing with the socioeconomic issues facing the region.

Poor and uneducated communities desperately seeking spiritual help.

WE WUZ EARLY XTIANZ N SHIT

I miss the old Catholic Church that wasn't afraid to call out heresies and sects. All this ecumenical "we're all brothers in Christ" nonsense has done the church no favors.

I see those fucking heretics walk around town, making the ignorant more ignorant and yet the priests don't call for the burning of those money hungry pastors

things decay and stagnate due to entropy, so we constantly reinvent old ideas. within the macrocosm of christianity you get these advent sects that latch on to demographic sentiment and spread, grow as people become bored with the status quo or current paradigm. they dont seek upheaven or overturning of such (unless its a meta shift), but rather, a new fresher reincarnation of what already is. this explains most denominations of christianity, religion as a whole

I was in Mexico last year around Christmas and found a bunch of hallelujahs handing out Chick tracts and religious flyers; most of that propaganda ended up littering the streets.

We had Jehovah's Witnesses in rural Hungary in the 80s already, that shit is pretty global.

upheaval*

This, there's a reason it's confined mostly to the poorest areas of the US.

>If 50% of America was Evangelical, you can say hello to your new Theocratic Fascist regime.
Is that supposed to make them look bad?

Because protestants won't rest until they bastardize every scrap of Christianity.

>Pentecostalism
>bastardization of Christianity

It's not even Christianity

How is it not Christianity?

>peancing around with snakes and screaming literal niggerbabble while jumping and dancing like a mongoloid in some Satanic trance and claiming it's the holy spirit

Doesn't sound as bad as all the heretical shit Catholicism and Orthodoxy add to their religions.

Like?

>purgatory
>limbo
>Charismatic Catholicism
>praying to saints
>the pope

Yeah, Jehovah's Witnesses freak me the fuck out.

I was just casually walking in Granada and three of them, all matching button down short sleeve dress shits and khaki pants came out of nowhere and approached me, asking if I was American.

One was some black guy wearing aviator shades, maybe in his 20s, some small skinny white kid, looked to be between 10 to 12 years old, and a local Nicaraguan who looked to be in his 20s as well.

So I started out with a bit of Spanish but switched to English. Black guy seemed chilled and we got to talking. There was just something off about the conversation. I talked briefly about what I was doing in the area (homestay program). Then he started talking about if I was there to "get away from all the political chaos" back home. I jokingly replied with a timid yes.

Immediately I decided to get the fuck out of there and quickly shook hands with all three, quickly said "mucho gusto" and left. That kid looked like he didn't want to be there. Again, just something slightly off about the whole thing. I'm sure you have had crazier encounters.

>A few years on this dirtball is more important than eternity.

Yeah, no.

I do, and praise his name every year:

"Sir, a plow boy now does know more about the bible than the Catholic Magesterium. We are all in your debt."

Read about the Corinthian church. People standing up and shouting in different languages with the gift of tongues. Communion turning into a feast where they got drunk and gorged themselves. People tolerated all sorts of nonsense, including a man sleeping with his father's wife.

Read the bible.

People always heap praise upon the Catholic church for keeping people united, but the fact that as soon as people were able to actually fucking read the Bible the Catholic church broke apart shows just how frail and reliant on ignorance this "unity" was.

And then blood ran like rivers.

This might be news to you but literal babbling is not a foreign language.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossolalia#Linguistics

That it did. At least there is peace nowadays between the Christian denominations. Well, physical peace at least.

You'd think the Bible is clear enough that there wouldn't be any divisions or controversial doctrines among Christians, but...

>30k+ denominations

It's usually over little things too. Does baptism require dunking, or can you sprinkle water? Do you say "in the name of Jesus" during baptism, or do you say "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit"? Are you literally eating God's body and drinking his blood, or is it a metaphor?

It's stuff that you think we'd be able to kindly agree to disagree over, but for some reason people always take this shit way too seriously.