Card-Carrying Christians: Debt and the Making of Free Market Spirituality in Colombia

This book addresses an important aspect of contemporary religious life in Colombia, and by extension anywhere that the “ prosperity gospel ” has taken root. Working with extensive data from interviews, case studies, and a lengthy experience of field work in Colombia, Bartel sheds light on the fact that many in these churches rely on credit (and credit cards now widely diffused in the country) to enable a self-presentation of prosperity. The unsurprising result is that many believers end up with crushing debt burdens. The author presents a wealth of original ethnographic data, and she knows both the general issues about religious change and the specifics of Colombian society and history very well. The result is a really fresh analysis, as well as a significant contribution to contemporary scholarship