Evangelical Gypsies in Spain: The Bible is our Promised Land [Hardcover]

The conversion of Spanish Roma to Pentecostal Evangelical Protestantism is one of the most unknown yet important modern religious movements. Its current spectacular transnational growth is due, among others factors, to the fact that it is directed, organized, and composed of Gypsies. This book provides one of the first serious analyses of an important historical, theological, and ethnographic account of the Pentecostal Revival movement that has been sweeping through the Southern European Roma/Gypsy.

Manuela Cant?n-Delgado, who led the research team that produced this work,is currently a professor in the department of social anthropology at the University of Seville, Spain.

Daniel L. Smith-Christopher led the translation project and edited the English. He is professor of Old Testament at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles.

The big questions about the emerging field of world Christianity are explored in this study of a trans-Andalusian ethnic group that sets in relief how evangelical and pentecostal-type converts are bringing their indigenous cultural traditions into late modernity. Amos Yong

This book will overturn most of what you think you know about Gypsies. Much of the Gypsy population of Spain now belongs to, or is influenced by, Pentecostal churches. Gypsies become Pentecostals, not to reject their culture and family structures, but to deal with new threats such as drug addiction and globalization. Cant?n-Delgado does an excellent job of explaining how the Gypsies beliefs and practices have evolved to deal with changing times. David Stoll, Middlebury College, USA

This enduring study of the Filadelfia Church in Central and Southern Spain provides an irreplaceable record of the character of the major Calo-Gitano led Pentecostal denomination. Cant?n-Delgado also dives headlong into the theoretical questions about the effect on the economy and society not only of Cale and Roma, but their non-Gypsy neighbors who are drawn inls)