“UMA IGREJA COM PROPÓSITOS”: ANÁLISE DO DISCURSO PENTECOSTAL DA IGREJA EVANGÉLICA AVIVAMENTO BÍBLICO EM FEIRA DE SANTANA – BA

Abstract

This work presents an analysis of the Pentecostal discourse of the Evangelical Church Biblical Revival in Feira de Santana in the state of Bahia and its relations with the church growth strategy denominated Church with Purposes. This denomination was founded in 1946 by seminarians of the Methodist Faculty of São Bernardo do Campo in the state of São Paulo that adhered to the Pentecostal doctrine. The Pentecostalisms in Brazil present themselves as a plural religious phenomenon, multifaceted and divided into several phases, from which flow diverse discursive formations. The need for an analysis of the genesis of the Pentecostal discourse of this church, its interdiscursivities, and how this discourse has been re-signified since the adoption of the growth principles of the Church with Purposes, a methodology created by the pastor north Rick Warren, founder of Saddleback Church. To make possible the scientific realization of the proposed analysis, the conceptual contributions of the French Discourse Analysis were used as a theoretical reference. Documentary research was used with a bibliographical survey, interviews and analysis of official documents of the denomination. From the collected data and its later analysis, it was verified that the ideas and strategies of the Church with Purposes incorporated by the Biblical Revival generate a new discourse, resignified and, in some aspects, different from the original discourse of the denomination. It was concluded that the Pentecostal discourse of the church, which maintains strong traces of the doctrine of Wesleyan holiness, in articulation with the discourse spread by the Purpose-Driven Church, is conducted in a more pragmatic and functional direction. This new discourse has a hybrid character, accumulating in its bulge both an emphasis on spiritual aspects and issues that point to holiness, as well as an emphasis on methodological points and church functionality.