Many people are turning to traditional faiths, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. The current search to find God has never before been this wide or deep. Some people say the reasons for the interest are moral decay, financial disaster, and the emptiness of materialism. Islam has 1.1 billion followers worldwide and is growing rapidly: in 1950, one of every seven people on earth was Muslim; today, one in five. Christianity has 1.9 million adherents and has become a major religion outside the West.

Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing family of world Christianity. It has 410 million members and is, after Roman Catholicism, the second largest Christian tradition. It is also growing by 20 million a year, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Gaston Espinosa reports: Little Pentecostal templos and iglesias, often averaging only 60-100 members, are attracting 30,000-40,000 Latinos annually from Roman Catholicism. Their minister usually works in a factory. Many Pentecostals attend church every night for a two-hour service. Loud Bible readings and spontanesous testimonies are part of every service. The hymns usually fill with rhythmic clapping, accompanied by guitar, drums, tambourines, bass fiddle, piano. Their call to born again, Spirit-filled life has led to great conflict and persecution in families and neighborhoods, where other people mock them, calling them “Aleluyas.”

Today, Latin America has approximately 1 million Pentecostals in 10,000 congregations in 40 denominations or fellowship circles.

Because Pentecostals argue over almost any subject from prohibitions on pork to the correct doctrine on the Trinity, today there are 11,000 Pentecostal or charismatic denominations worldwide.