“God Lives in Peru Today” : The israelita religious movement and the transmission of faith across digital and transnational networks

Abstract: After emerging from the central Peruvian Andes in the 1950s, the israelita religious movement has expanded across Latin America and beyond, reaching the urban centers of the Global North. The growth of the Peruvian israelitas makes part of a regional trend that has transformed the Latin American religious field. A decline in Catholic adherence has benefited the rise of a diversity of protestant faiths that, within a few decades, have secured large followings as well as economic, media and political power. These transformations contradict theories of secularization that posit the decline of religion as concomitant with processes of modernization. This research project aims to provide insight on how the expansion of the israelita religious movement prompts alternative ways to think about modernity and contemporary religiosity. Through an interpretative qualitative exploration of the israelita presence in two spaces considered to be quintessential products of modernity, the Internet and a European cultural capital, Barcelona, this project identifies some of the characteristics that have facilitated the religious movement’s expansion and adaptation to different environments. The examination of the processes of transmission that underlie the israelitas’ expansion also motivate a consideration of the innovations and transformations that have taken place in the israelita faith, particularly after the death of their founder and leader, Ezquiel Ataucusi Gamonal, in 2000.