Almost daily emotional worship pours from a warehouse-sized evangelical church in the small rural community of Santa Cruz, Costa Rica. Within twenty years an evangelical presence has gone from virtually non-existent to standing alongside the Catholic Church in the area’s religious landscape. Scenarios like this are going on throughout Latin America as evangelical faith has become firmly rooted in the region. In this thesis I provide another ethnographic research context to the growing body of literature focused on Pentecostalism/evangelicalism in Latin America. Like others addressing this dynamic, I explore the factors and motivations that lead people to become evangelical. I approach these questions with particular emphasis on the characteristics of evangelical faith as it is constructed and practiced during church services. Through participant observation during church services and interviews with practicing evangelicals in and around Santa Cruz, I highlight the relationship between the characteristics of an evangelical faith and the factors and motivations that lead people to seek it. To be religiously active in the manner of my informants requires deep commitment and is not a faith adopted and practiced lightly. Those who become evangelical and sustain the demanding practice are likely to seek it for spiritual solutions to difficult life situations.

This thesis traces the uncomfortable relationship between a mainstream Christian denomination in New Zealand, the Anglican Church, and a movement of religious enthusiasm, the Charismatic Movement. The institutional Anglican Church�s struggle with the movement went through different stages from initial discomfort and concern, to some cautious acceptance before moving to marginalise it. This marginalisation led to the creation of Anglican Renewal Ministries New Zealand (ARMNZ), an Anglican charismatic institution within the Anglican Church. The reasons for this "struggle to embrace" were that the movement originated, and was resourced from, outside the institutional New Zealand Anglican Church structures; fulfilled needs that the institutional Church in New Zealand was perceived as having failed to fulfil; introduced beliefs and practices perceived as "un-Anglican;" and competed with other initiatives within the New Zealand Anglican Church. This uncomfortable relationship contributed to the failure of the Charismatic leaders to renew spiritually the whole New Zealand Anglican Church. The movement however, helped to broaden the scope of New Zealand Anglicanism and left a legacy of some large charismatic churches. This is the first substantial study of the Charismatic Movement in the New Zealand Anglican Church covering the period from the emergence of the movement in the mid-1960s, through the growth years in the 1970s marked by the formation of a national and ecumenical charismatic agency (Christian Advance Ministries), to the establishment of the Charismatic Movement as an institution within the Anglican Church in the early 1980s.

Project (D. Min.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1991. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-149).

Thesis (D.W.S.)--Institute for Worship Studies, 2007. / Abstract. Includes curriculum manual: "What do these stones mean?" Includes bibliographical references (leaves 168-173).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1994. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-169).

Thesis (doctoral)--Erlangen, Nürnberg, 2006/07. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 470-525).

Thesis (M.A.)--Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1991. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-58).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed December 16, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 349-366).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M.A.)--Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1991. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-58).