72 Grace Davie
It becomes increasingly apparent, for example, that different trends may well coexist
withinthe same society, quite apart from the contrasts between different global regions.
We need tools of analysis that are able to cope with this complexity.
Thematic Approaches
A thematic approach to the same question tackles the material from a different per-
spective – looking in turn at three global social movements: (a) global Catholicism,
(b) popular Pentecostalism, and (c) the possibly overlapping category of fundamental-
ism (encompassing a variety of world faiths).
Casanova (2001) points out the paradox in modern currents of Catholicism. At pre-
cisely the moment when European expressions of Catholicism begin to retreat almost
to the point of no return – as the convergence between state and church through cen-
turies of European history becomes increasingly difficult to sustain – Catholicism takes
on new and global dimensions. It becomes atransnational religious movement, and as
such has grown steadily since 1870 (the low point of the European Church). The Papal
Encyclicals from this time on are concerned primarily with the dignity of the human
person and with human (not only Catholic) rights, a movement that accelerates rapidly
as a result of the Second Vatican Council. Transnational Catholic movements begin to
grow (for example, Liberation Theology, theOpus DeiandCommunione e Liberazione),
centers of learning become equally international, so, too, does the Roman Curia emerg-
ing as it does from cross-cutting, transnational networks. One aspect of such links is the
growing tendency toward movement, manifested among other things in the increasing
popularity of pilgrimage. Most visible of all, however, is the person of the Pope himself,
without doubt a figure of global media proportions. The Pope goes nowhere without
planeloads of the world’s media accompanying him, and his health is the subject of
constant and minute speculation in the international press. Conversely the capacity of
the Pope to draw huge crowds of Catholics (not least young people) to one place can
be illustrated in the World Youth Days that took place as part of the millennium cele-
brations in Rome 2000: Two million young people came together in the final all-night
vigil and Sunday morning mass at the Tor Vergata University (August 19–20). Few, if
any, secular organizations could compete with these numbers.
It is hardly surprising that the different elements that make up this increasingly
global movement attract negative as well as positive comments. That is not the point.
The point is the existence of a transnational form of religion with, at the very least,
considerable influence on a wide range of moral and ethical debates, crucial factors for
the sociologist of religion at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Global Pentecostalism is rather different in that its immediate impact is less visible.
Its effect on huge and probably growing numbers of individuals is, however, undeni-
able, a phenomenon that is attracting the attention of increasing numbers of scholars
and in a variety of disciplines. The literature, as a result, is growing fast (see, for exam-
ple, Corten 1997).
Coleman (2001), Freston (2001), and Martin (2002) offer state-of-the-art accounts of
this phenomenon, each concentrating on a different dimension. Coleman, for example,
is primarily concerned with “Health and Wealth” Christians and how they establish
effective global communications, not least by means of electronic technologies. Freston
concentrates on the political dimensions of evangelical Christianity, an aspect that is
particularly difficult to discern given the fragmented, fissiparous, and often apolitical (at