A PERFORMANCE MERCANTILISTA DAS TRÊS PRINCIPAIS IGREJAS NEOPENTECOSTAIS BRASILEIRAS

Abstract

In this paper I sought to combine the literature research to a field job experience that lasted one year and two months, during which time I attended worship services in churches Universal, Internacional and Mundial in the cities of Alegre and Vitória / ES, collecting data about the supposed trade faith practiced in these churches. I Researched about the genesis of Neo-Pentecostalism, with its matrix approach, classical Pentecostalism, including its historical origins in Europe in the mid nineteenth century, arriving to the United States at the end of that century, which took root in poor environments and blacks in cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, then coming to Brazil where it was implanted with the names Congregação Cristã do Brasil (1910) and Assembléia de Deus (1911). Classical Pentecostalism developed in Brazil with numerous divisions, especially from the 1950s. In 1977, within the classical Pentecostalism came the Neo-Pentecostalism, with the creation of the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus. The other two churches surveyed, the Internacional da Graça de Deus and the Mundial do Poder de Deus, arise, respectively, in 1980 and 1998, as the dissent Universal. The basis of the speech is Pentecostal Theology of Prosperity, an ideology created in the United States in the 1940s, which emphasizes the right of believers to be healthy and materially prosperous. The condition for receiving these blessings is faithfulness in the payment of tithes and special offers: the more you give more you are blessed. In Neo-Pentecostal cults there are a variety of symbols distributed. This is how this supposed trade is done in every service and when it gives the transformation of the temple in the market with a symbiotic appropriation of symbols and images of other religions, which are available to the faithful upon payment of offerings. This generates annual income of billions of dollars. So much money has led Neo-Pentecostal leader’s to illicit enrichment, and has been the subject of complaints by federal prosecutors against these same leaders on charges of alleged arbitrariness. Finally, I analyzed the issue of ethics - or lack thereof - in dealing with money from tithes and offerings. The discourse of these leaders influence the behavior objectively of Neo-Pentecostal believer, for whom total happiness is to do well here and now, unlike the traditional way the believer hopes to achieve happiness in this eschatological salvation. We can clearly perceive a disruption between the two modes of practicing the faith. The historical believer is more attached to the biblical tradition that shows a poor Christ who said he had not where to lay his head and posed himself as a role model. The way the Neo-Pentecostalism handles the money offered by the faithful and equips believers how to achieve it is a novelty. This is, in my view, the big news of the Neo-Pentecostalism.