Atheism and Latino Americans

...Craig Keener, in his huge review of claims of miracles in a wide variety of cultures, concludes that routine rejection of the possibility of the supernatural represents an impulse that is deeply Eurocentric.^[1]

Latino theological literature describes spirituality as integral with Latino culture. Although Latinos are not a monolithic or homogenous group, there are fundamental cultural influences that must be considered in an exploration of spirituality among Latinas/os....

Most of the empirical research in spirituality and religiosity among Latinos has targeted primarily Mexican Americans. These investigations indicate that spirituality and religiosity are interwoven with their daily lives and serve as foundations of strength in coping with life's struggles. For example, religious attendance was associated with psychological well-being across 3 generations of Mexican American families and with physical health status among Mexican American women. Latinos describe their faith as intimate and reciprocal relationships with God, family, and community, with these relationships playing an important role in health and well-being.^[2]

Why are Latin Americans leaving the Catholic Church for Protestantism? The survey asked respondents to rate eight possible explanations. Protestants who converted from Catholicism most frequently say they “wanted a more personal experience with God.” Other commonly cited reasons include the style of worship at their new church and a desire for greater emphasis on morality.

In general, Latin American Protestants are more religiously committed than Catholics.^[8]

The finding that Protestant fundamentalism may decline in relative terms over the medium term contrasts with a prevailing view that envisions the continued growth of “strong religion” (Stark and Iannaccone 1994a). This is the result of an older age structure, which increases loss through mortality, and immigration, which reduces the size of all predominantly white denominations — all of which are poorly represented in the immigration flow. Fundamentalists’ relatively high fertility and net surplus from the religious marketplace is not sufficient to counteract the effects of immigration. Obviously, this could change if significant immigration begins to arrive from more Pentecostalist source countries such as Guatemala or parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Our work also sheds light on the religious restructuring paradigm, though we do not find a clear victor between secularism and fundamentalism. The secular population will grow substantially in the decades ahead because it has a young age structure and more people leave religion than enter it. The sharpest gains for secularism will be within the white population, where seculars will surpass fundamentalists by 2030. On the other hand, there are important demographic limits to secularism, demonstrating the power of religious demography. The relatively low fertility of secular Americans and the religiosity of the immigrant inflow provide a countervailing force that will cause the secularization process within the total population to plateau before 2043. This represents an important theoretical point in that demography permits society to become more religious even as individuals tend to become less religious over time.^[15]