Pentecostal are infamous for their spread among the poor and many 3rd world nations. Many prior catholic bastions in Latin America and Africa are now converting to Pentecostalism.
Thanks! I also found this:
Economically, evangelical Pentecostals tend to earn lower incomes and have less education compared with the public overall and with other evangelicals. Nearly half of evangelical Pentecostals (45%) report annual household incomes of less than $30,000, and 27% say they have attained less than a high school education. Among evangelicals overall, the comparable figures are 34% and 16%. Members of black Pentecostal churches also tend to earn lower incomes and to have less education compared with the public overall.
from
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/949/palin-nomination-pentecostalism
One thing I have found is that it is better to avoid this type of person, if you don't share their views, than to to try to reason. What I've found is that most often the pentecostal Christian is not going to take your reasonable arguments to heart but instead they are going to be feeling sorry for you and trying to come up with another angle to hopefully reach you and save your soul. The biblical facts and anything else you might have to say just go right in one ear and out the other.
I met a young man a few months ago who was a Pentecostal evangelical Christian, probably in his late teens, who sat down next to me at one of my son's after-school activities. I happened to be reading a book on science, and this young man explained to me that he was "on fire for the lord." (sigh) He asked me what my book was about and when I told him, he said, "Oh, I'm not a science type. I'm a faith type."
Isn't that sad? I told him, as I do my own kids, that if he doesn't develop an interest in critical thinking and learn as much as he can about science and the way the world works, anyone can come along and tell him anything and he may be gullible enough to believe it. But nothing I said made any difference. What a travesty... to be a teenager and already convinced that you aren't a "science type."
As far as reasoning, he would ask me a question, "Why don't you believe the Bible is the word of God?" and I would point out that the Old Testament God is not a very nice character, etc., and I would realize that he was not really listening, just thinking of the next question he could ask me to give him a chance to quote more scripture and convert me. That's when I realized two things: First, that he is likely going to go and repeat what I've said to his youth pastor who will give him some evangelically correct "rebuttals," and second that he was never once swayed toward criticism of his own views, but instead was looking critically at ME, as if I was a poor soul who needed saving.
