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There are two broad issues linking Pentecostalism with secularization which will be discussed in turn. The first is the argument that the growth of the Pentecostal movement worldwide from the 1960s onwards disproves the once widely accepted ‘unilinear’ theory among social scientists that secularization is a universal and inevitable consequence of modernity.In the 1960s it was widely accepted by social scientists that secularization was a universal consequence of modernity. The theory was an extrapolation from the evolutionary arguments underpinn…

Youth, as a distinct phase of the life cycle, is not a universal phenomenon. Although the processes of sexual maturation and biological aging are the common experiences of human beings, age is not an equally salient principle of social organization in every society. Moreover, different societies divide up the spectrum of chronological age at various points for purposes of classifying socially recognized phases of the life cycle. In many preliterate and peasant societies the transition from child…