Abstract
Transmitting the Spirit: Religious Conversion, Media and Urban Violence in Brazil, by Martijn Oosterbaan, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.
Highlights
Over the years, the scholarship that has tried to answer this question has tended to look at some combination of the following factors: Pentecostalism as refuge from and survival amid violence and adversity; as a source of individual and collective empowerment and self-esteem; as enabler of the attitudes required by neoliberalism
There can be no question that such experiences help us understand the continuing draw and character of Pentecostalism in Brazil
While the overall argument is convincing, Oosterbaan’s analysis provokes new questions that remain for future research. Though he focuses on media, I imagine that Oosterbaan would not deny that a key source of Pentecostalism’s growth and content continues to reside in, as it were, less physically remote and more face-to-face experiences – such as close interactions with co-congregants within small congregations, having hands laid on one’s body and being healed, hearing the up-close-and -personal testimonies of family and friends at the front of churches, having music-triggered conversions within church, and so forth
Summary
The scholarship that has tried to answer this question has tended to look at some combination of the following factors: Pentecostalism as refuge from and survival amid violence and adversity; as a source of individual and collective empowerment and self-esteem; as enabler of the attitudes required by neoliberalism. For example, that listening to religious music and talk shows on the radio resembles and taps into the experience of, and longing for, ‘intimacy’ There can be no question that such experiences help us understand the continuing draw and character of Pentecostalism in Brazil.
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