The Middle Line of Truth: Religious and Secular Ideologies in the Making of Brazilian Evangelical Thought, 1870–1930

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which Protestant ministers, laypeople and foreign missionaries mediated between religious and secular ideologies in Brazil and took part in international theological debates. It concentrates on a group of church pastors and lay writers based in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro who produced and circulated Christian literature widely across evangelical networks. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Protestants engaged with both the local reverberations of the Catholic revival, with its impact on the hierarchy and devotional practices of the Brazilian Church, and the secularist leanings of the Brazilian intelligentsia. Focusing on a variety of high- and low-level publications, including periodicals, tracts, theological compendia, religious controversies and sermons, the article examines how Brazilian evangelicals appropriated Protestant theology and channeled its concepts and ideas into local arguments.