Abstract
Pentecostalism and other new religious movements have acquired an increasing social and political visibility during the 1980s. This corresponds to a restructuring of the religious field and a re-elaboration of the popular religion of subordinate and marginal social sectors by means of a symbolic do-it-yourselfism. Far from being faced with a movement of protestant religious reform as Martin and Stoll suggest in their recent works, we are witnessing a re-enchantment of the world in the sense of traditional, corporatist and authoritarian practices and values. The “clientelist” use of heterdox religious infrastructures by military regimes as well as by neo-populist politicians confirms the perennial nature of traditional religious mentalities and practices and not the rise of a democratic and tolerant religious modernity.