This book explores the proliferation and spread of Brazilian-born religious forms and practices throughout the world. The global diffusion of Brazilian religions provides an excellent lens to understand contemporary religious forms. As the book shows, religious movements as diverse as Santo Daime, Candomble, Capoeira, John of God, and Brazilian style Pentecostalism and Catholicism, have become immensely popular in many places outside Brazil. This global spread is not merely the result of Brazilian migrants taking their religions abroad, it is also due to global media and to spiritual seekers, travelling to and from Brazil. Global Trajectories of Brazilian Religion demonstrates that in a dynamic space of historical and cultural production, Brazil is imagined and re-created as an authentic, spiritual, and sensual place that functions as the center for various global religions. To understand the new cross-fertilizations between religion, life-style, tourism and migration, this book introduces the notion of 'Lusospheres', a term that refers to the historical Portuguese colonial reach, yet signals the contemporary modes of cultural interaction in a different geo-political age.

This book explores the proliferation and spread of Brazilian-born religious forms and practices throughout the world. The global diffusion of Brazilian religions provides an excellent lens to understand contemporary religious forms. As the book shows, religious movements as diverse as Santo Daime, Candomble, Capoeira, John of God, and Brazilian style Pentecostalism and Catholicism, have become immensely popular in many places outside Brazil. This global spread is not merely the result of Brazilian migrants taking their religions abroad, it is also due to global media and to spiritual seekers, travelling to and from Brazil. Global Trajectories of Brazilian Religion demonstrates that in a dynamic space of historical and cultural production, Brazil is imagined and re-created as an authentic, spiritual, and sensual place that functions as the center for various global religions. To understand the new cross-fertilizations between religion, life-style, tourism and migration, this book introduces the notion of 'Lusospheres', a term that refers to the historical Portuguese colonial reach, yet signals the contemporary modes of cultural interaction in a different geo-political age.

Pentecostalism is one of the most rapidly expanding religious-cultural forms in the world. Its rise in popularity is often attributed to its successfully incorporating native cosmologies in new religious frameworks. This volume probes for more complex explanations to this phenomenon in the favelas of Brazil, once one of the most Catholic nations in the world. Based on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro and drawing from religious studies, anthropology of religion, and media theory, Transmitting the Spirit argues that the Pentecostal movement’s growth is due directly to its ability to connect politics, entertainment, and religion. Examining religious and secular media—music and magazines, political ads and telenovelas—Martijn Oosterbaan shows how Pentecostal leaders progressively appropriate and recategorize cultural forms according to the religion’s cosmologies. His analysis of the interrelationship among evangélicos distributing doctrine, devotees’ reception and interpretation of nonreligious messaging, perceptions of the self and others by favela dwellers, and the slums of urban Brazil as an entity reveals Pentecostalism’s remarkable capacity to engage with the media influences that shape daily life in economically vulnerable urban areas. An eye-opening look at Pentecostalism, media, society, and culture in the turbulent favelas of Brazil, this book sheds new light on both the evolving role of religion in Latin America and the proliferation of religious ideas and practices in the postmodern world.

Pentecostalism is one of the most rapidly expanding religious-cultural forms in the world. Its rise in popularity is often attributed to its successfully incorporating native cosmologies in new religious frameworks. This volume probes for more complex explanations to this phenomenon in the favelas of Brazil, once one of the most Catholic nations in the world. Based on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro and drawing from religious studies, anthropology of religion, and media theory, Transmitting the Spirit argues that the Pentecostal movement's growth is due directly to its ability to connect politics, entertainment, and religion. Examining religious and secular media-music and magazines, political ads and telenovelas-Martijn Oosterbaan shows how Pentecostal leaders progressively appropriate and recategorize cultural forms according to the religion's cosmologies. His analysis of the interrelationship among evangelicos distributing doctrine, devotees' reception and interpretation of nonreligious messaging, perceptions of the self and others by favela dwellers, and the slums of urban Brazil as an entity reveals Pentecostalism's remarkable capacity to engage with the media influences that shape daily life in economically vulnerable urban areas. An eye-opening look at Pentecostalism, media, society, and culture in the turbulent favelas of Brazil, this book sheds new light on both the evolving role of religion in Latin America and the proliferation of religious ideas and practices in the postmodern world.