Argentinian Religious Book Producers: Analyzing Catholic and Evangelical Publishing Houses

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore Christian publishing houses (Catholic and evangelical) as a form of media communication in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Publishing houses represent the main production agent of spiritual commodities. They deploy a cultural policy that includes literature, music, films, and other areas, shaping a material culture of religious configuration. Our purpose is to delve into the productive tendencies of their companies, the consumer-believer profiles they target, and the different media they market. This work is based on qualitative research about the figure of the producer of religiously marked cultural commodities.

Notes

¹ From a theoretical perspective, it is important to mention the works of Alejandro Frigerio (2000), Chiung Hwang Chen (2011) and Airton Jungblut (2012) about the scope of the religious market theories in general and in Latin America in particular.

² It is key to stress that the CONICET is the main public institution for the promotion of science and technology in Argentina.

³ San Pablo (Saint Paul), Paulinas (Pauline), and Certeza (Certainty).

⁴ Red Letra Viva (Living Letter network).

⁵ Servicio Apostólico Latinoamericano (Apostolic Latin American Service).

⁶ The members of evangelical mega-churches are organized into cells. The cell system is a model for growth and integration that arranges the members in a network of differentiated groups which act in a joint way. Each cell of eight to twelve people has a leader and a deputy leader called a Timoteo, named after St Paul's disciple and representing young leadership in the church. They both guide the group life through meetings, personal interviews and prayer meetings.

⁷ In Argentina, especially since the 1990s, megachurches were consolidated within the framework of general growth of the evangelical world. Some of them are connected to foreign religious organizations that set up new branches in our country, like the Iglesia Universal del Reino de Dios, IURD (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God) or Dios es amor (God is love), both of them originated in Brazil. Others answer to national experiences carried out by a second generation of Argentinean neo-pentecostal leaders. Following a trend that echoes in many Latin-American countries, these megachurches share an evangelizing orientation directed to the middle and upper-middle classes in Buenos Aires.