Pentecostalism, Conversions, and Politics in Brazil

Abstract

The stereotype of all Latin American Pentecostals as political conservatives or apolitical has long been abandoned by scholars. But how Pentecostalism figures in the lives of Pentecostals so that some are indeed akin to stereotype and others are active, critical citizens involved in radical politics, remains a matter for debate. This paper argues that variation in type of citizenship among Brazilian Pentecostals may be understood not only in terms of variations in religious culture but also in terms of different types of conversion. It is proposed that reference to types of conversion, as distinguished by some theologians, helps explain why Pentecostals who share elements of a common religious culture nevertheless differ in type of citizenship; and why some Pentecostals and Catholics of the ‘base communities’, though different in their religious cultures, nonetheless share a common quality of critical citizenship.