Citation

Coleman S. Sociol. Relig. 1993; 54(4): 353-373.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1993, Association for the Sociology of Religion)

DOI

10.2307/3711779

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article discusses the extent to which globalization theory can be used to interpret the recent revival and expansion of conservative Protestantism in western societies. By focussing on the diffusion of "Faith" ideology (the Prosperity Gospel) from the United States to the "Word of Life" Bible center in Sweden, I show how the Swedish group acts as a kind of transnational cultural broker, managing a flow of meaning between two very different politicoreligious contexts. I argue that Word of Life seeks to articulate its identity in both local and global terms, simultaneously asserting the existence of an organic unity between religious and political authority in its host country and accommodating to a much wider vision of a divinely sanctioned world order. In the process, it produces a conservative Protestant interpretation of the changing place of Sweden in the global order of nation-states.