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imposed on the rest of the population. In the Brazilian context Ireland can see \u2018signs of a potential to resist the cultural hegemony of the national triumphant security code\u2019 (1991: 217). He points out that political culture in the churches that arises from Pentecostalism is different from the national security code (1991: 215).\u000ADavid Lehmann says that Neo-Pentecostalism and Pentecostalism represent a profound rupture from Catholicism which he calls the \u2018cultural counterpart\u2019. He points out that Pentecostalism crosses frontiers and is capable of planting beliefs and practices in a variety of cultures. He emphasizes that \u2018we are thus in the presence of more than a competition for numbers in churches, or even for political power. Rather we are in the presence of a profound process of cultural change [...]\u2019 (1996: 209, 223, 227).\u000AFinally, John Burdick in his study of various religious groups in San Jorge, a community in Brazil, shows that Pentecostalism provides its members with a new identity; new values and pastoral support that help the people face their daily problems better within the existing political structures (1993: 226). Garrard-Burnett affirms that the \u2018Protestantism in the context of the armed conflict in Guatemala was a key factor in favour of reconstruction of peoples\u2019 lives and communities that had suffered because of the war. Those people found in the Evangelical churches a refuge, a new sense of control, a place for individuals, and a sense of order in the context of chaos and violence (1989a: 7). This approach of the analysis of political culture allows changes to be observed, which from the point of view of structural changes would not necessarily be apparent. The following analysis will observe how change occurs in the NPCs\u2019 context.\u000AE. KEY TERMS\u000ASome brief definitions will now be given for key terms which will be used in the thesis to guide and clarify the discussion of the themes.\u000ACulture: Geertz says that culture \u2018denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic 9\u000A