Responses to Rapid Social Change: Populist Religion in the Philippines

Within the last few decades in the Philippines, there has been outstanding growth among Catholic Charismatic and Pentecostal groups and churches, part of a worldwide proliferation of these strands of Christianity. The article is based on qualitative interviews and nationwide survey data gathered in a research project on religious change in the Philippines, and explores the scope and the character of Charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity in the Philippines. It explains the success of this strand of Christianity by its ability to transfer core concepts and techniques of political populism into the religious sphere. The paper identifies the populist themes within the cognitive framework of Charismatic and Pentecostal religion in the Philippines, as well as the populist techniques applied to mobilize followers. The analysis of Charismatic and Pentecostal religion in the Philippines as populist religion, however, does not imply that such groups and churches can be characterized as populist actors in the political sphere. After outlining the core topics and techniques of populist religion, the paper concludes with a discussion of the political impact of these groups in the still crisis-ridden democracy of the Philippines. These potentials are depicted as potentially ambivalent, due to the ambivalent character of populism itself.