How Our Lady of Guadalupe became Lutheran: Latin American migration and religious change

International migration is initiating myriad processes of religious change from the level of individual conversion to the institutional transformation of religious structures and practices. An approach combining a transnational perspective and the concept of diaspora space facilitates the analysis of the different scales, agents, and actions involved in migration-caused religious change. The article analyzes the broadening of lutheranism to incorporate Latino Catholic culture into the Evangelical lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in madison, Wisconsin. Under the leadership of their pastor, latin American immigrants in madison are agents redefining the understanding of the category Lutheran through the incorporation of popular Catholicism. Though strongly contested by the Roman Catholic Church, the ELCA accepts these processes due to its institutional interest in the recruitment of new latino worshippers.