Religion and the Pandemic—Latin American Responses

Abstract

The rapid global spread of the coronavirus in the last months has caused massive effects and reactions in all spheres of life including in the field of science where researchers of different disciplines are challenged to contribute from their specific disciplinary angel to solutions of the problems directly or indirectly associated with the pandemic. Since the true extend of the COVID crises has become clear, countless scientific essays, articles, and books have taken up virtually any aspect of the subject. With the present issue, the International Journal of Latin American Religions participates in this discussion-albeit with some delay due to its semiannual publication schedule (June and December)-and the expressive number of thirteen thematically relevant articles indicates both the pandemic's severeness and intellectual potential for scholars of religion whose majority lives and works in a region which is among the hardest hit by the corona crisis. The immediacy and impact of the current pandemic, however, must not distract us from recognizing that we are facing a particular expression of a constituent pattern of world history. Surveys indicate a steep rise of natural hazards during the twentieth century followed by an even more expressive increase at the beginning of the twentyfirst century (Gaillard and Texier 2010: 81). While it is an exaggeration to confirm that "on average, a disaster occurs somewhere in the world each day," it is fair to say that due to global media coverage, we are aware of the frequency of threatening occurrences such as "a flood, hurricane, or earthquake, a nuclear, industrial, or transportation accident, a shooting spree, or peacetime terrorist attack" (Noris et al. 2002: 207).

Globalized Religious Aftershock at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century—the Apapocúava-Guaraní Cataclysm and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

“…A separate thematic issue on religion and pandemics for example was recently published in the International Journal of Latin American Religions . In its introduction, the editors stated that global media coverage is an important role in the perception of environmental disasters (Usarski and Py 2020 : 165). In this article, I will present that the role of global knowledge transfers thru media coverage about earthquakes can be detected as early as the beginning of the twentieth century even among indigenous groups living in the interior of São Paulo.…”

Elastic Rituals: A Multi-Religious Analysis of Adaptations to the COVID-19 Crisis

“…Both in Social Sciences and Health-Medicine literature, the role of religion in the pandemic seems to be generally approached from two major themes that we can summarize as the theodiceal and the secular, or, as New York Times journalist Vivian Yee nicely put it: "In a Pandemic, Religion Can Be a Balm and a Risk" (Yee 2020). The theodiceal theme considers the idea of religions and spirituality helping people to deal with the anxiety of the COVID crisis, studying how religion might be (or not) a repertoire of coping mechanisms for resilience, mental and physical health (Levin 2020;Usarski and Py 2020;Huygens 2021;Giménez-Béliveau 2021;Jaysawal and Saha 2022), while the secular theme explores the idea of religions as a source of more or less irrational behavior that might lead (or not) people against health recommendations (Upenieks et al 2021;Baker et al 2020;Griera et al 2022). Often, some authors consider both perspectives at the same time (Schnabel and Schieman 2022) and both offer interesting insights into how religious beliefs, practices and institutions adapt themselves (or not) to the secular and post-secular context of contemporary societies.…”

Immigrant pentecostalism in the emergence of the COVID-19 crisis: reactions and responses from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Berlin

“…In the global context of the pandemic, however, protest against and even denial of the existence of COVID-19 became visible among religious actors (Usarski and Py 2020 , p. 165), especially the spectrum of North and South American evangelicalism and Pentecostalism increasingly moved into the focus of public media (Leśniczak 2022 , p. 182). In particular, those who preached divine protection for the nation and their own religious community within the framework of so-called Prosperity Theology were addressed and problematized (Levin 2020 , p. 2219).…”