Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 26, No. 3, Fall 2003 ( C  2003) Skirting the Instrumental Paradox: Intentional Belief Through Narrative in Latin American Pentecostalism David Smilde Research on the dramatic growth of Pentecostal Christianity in Latin America has centered on the idea that participation in Pentecostalism is a cultural strategy with which poor Latin Americans overcome substance abuse, step out of crime and violence, and address conjugal conflict. However, such “intentional” belief violates the idea of the relative autonomy of culture, and sociologists have generally thought that such an attempt would be self-defeating—falling to what is referred to as the “instrumental paradox.” Here I argue, with reference to data from fieldwork with Pentecostal men in Caracas, that three aspects of narrative—the play of canonicity and particularity, the predication of intention and agency, and the predication of temporality—permit actors to skirt the instrumental paradox. KEY WORDS: narrative; pentecostalism; religion; conversion; Latin America. A perceived contradiction between instrumental action and symbolic, cultural or moral action has long tenure in sociology. Emile Durkheim perceived a “dual- ism of human nature” in which egoistic sensory appetites were opposed to con- ceptual thought and moral activity. “Morality begins with disinterest,” he argued (Durkheim 1973, p. 151). 1 Among Max Weber’s “basic sociological concepts” (1978) was a distinction between “instrumentally-rational” and “value-rational” action. And Talcott Parsons, in his seminal work The Structure of Social Action (1937), confronted the “utilitarian dilemma” (how can “ends” have an independent influence on behavior if agents can choose them?) with the “voluntaristic theory of action” (in which “voluntarism” referred to the existence of semi-autonomous Correspondence should be directed to David Smilde, Department of Sociology, University of Georgia, Baldwin Hall, Athens, GA 30602-1611; e-mail: dsmilde@arches.uga.edu. 1 This runs through Durkheim’s (1915) distinction between magic and religion as well as Durkheim and Mauss’s (1963) analysis of classification (see p. 81). 313 C  2003 Human Sciences Press, Inc.