“HE HAS ASKED US TO LIVE OUR LIVES FOR TOMORROW:” UN ANÁLISIS DISCURSIVO Y LONGITUDINAL DE LOS SERMONES DE UNA CONGREGACIÓN DE LA IGLESIA PENTECOSTAL UNIDA

The rapid growth of Pentecostalism has drawn significant scholarly attention in recent decades. However, few researchers have utilized sermon transcripts as a data source for understanding the evolution of Pentecostal thinking. An archive of thirty sermons from one United Pentecostal Church congregation is the primary data source for this analysis. Two groups of sermons from different time periods (1976-86, 2000-10) were compared to examine how one minister’s approach to social issues changed over time. The minister’s discourse about education, marriage and divorce, and homosexuality held to a Pentecostal worldview of “good” and “evil” across time periods. However, key shifts in the Pastor’s dualistic discourse suggest how Pentecostals can adapt to societal change over time. This study suggests that Pentecostalism may be significantly more adaptable to external changes than some analysts had predicted, and that longitudinal discourse analyses provides a window into how the Pentecostal dualistic worldview adapts to such changes.