Brajisalem: Biblical Cosmology, Power Dynamics and the Brazilian Political Imagination

Abstract

Based on fieldwork with Brazilian neo-Pentecostal pilgrims to the Holy Land and ongoing survey of social media in this article I argue that Brazilian neo-Pentecostals increasingly imagine Brazil as a Promised Land and the Brazilian People as the People of God. Here, different substances associated with the Holy Land, the Jewish People and Jesus Christ are used to disperse in Brazil divine power, which is seen to emanate from God. This imaginary seeks to replace the hegemony of the democratic ethos of power in Brazil, which is seen to emanate bottoms-up from the Brazilian People. I associate this process with the conservative wave sweeping through the Brazilian political system and show what a Brazilian political imagination whose spiritual and moral centre is located in Biblical Jerusalem may look like.

Democracy through the spirit: the Universal Church and its interconnections with Brazilian democracy

“…As pointed out by de Abreu (2020), this characteristic of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements not only anticipated but also mirrored the current political mood. When it was decided that the Raabe Project would shift "the focus to the spiritual part by the guidance of the Holy Spirit" (Mrs. Lucia, 65), the transition from the language of "political rights" to that of "religious power" (Shapiro, 2021) was evident. This reflects a gradual change that began in Brazil a few years before, reaching the wider population as well as members of Pentecostal churches.…”

Presidents, priests, and prophets: covenantal Christian nationalism and the challenge of biblical analogy

“…The notion of covenantal identity, expressed in an affinity for, and even an analogic identification with, biblical Israel, has indeed been an animating force in numerous nationalist projects (Kaell 2020). Examples here include colonial New England (Miller 1956), Afrikaner South Africa (Tamarkin 2020), contemporary Brazil (Shapiro 2021), and independent South Sudan (Tounsel 2021). However, in contrast to Smith's scepticism about the possibility of Christian nationalism, it is clear that in at least some of these cases the covenantal ideals of the Old Testament have been mobilized by Christian communities not despite the universalist ideals of their religion, but rather precisely because of them.…”

How Can You Know the Bible and Not Believe in Our Lord? Guiding Pilgrims across the Jewish–Christian Divide

“…This phenomenon awaits ethnographic research. 14 Whether Jewish ritual will continue to mark the border, given the tendency among some Evangelical congregations to adopt Jewish ritual (Dulin 2015;Shapiro 2019)-including the wearing of a tallit-remains to be seen.…”