Description
Book SynopsisCombining historical, political, and ethnographic research, the author shows that the relationship between faith healing and illness in the conversion process is integral to the popularity of Pentecostalism among Brazil's poor.
Trade ReviewProfessor Chesnut's succinct study should be required reading for all scholars of comparative religion, intellectual and social history, and Latin American culture. The fruit of an intensive field period of field research in the early 1990s...this volume manages in clear, unredundant, and highly readable style to synthesize the twentieth century history of four of the main Pentecostal denominations...of Brazil as well as exploring in depth the infrastructure and external politics of the largest of these denominations. * Luso-Brazilian Review *
This study makes a distinctive contribution to the understanding of these Pentecostal congregations, their members, and their leaders. Although the focus of this study is Betim, Brazil, the dynamic it describes and analyzes is pertinent to similar groups condemned to poverty throughout Latin America. * Journal of Church and State *
An exciting and provocative book! Without sensationalizing, Chesnut brings us to an understanding of the spiritual and emotional profundity of conversion. -- Virginia Garrard-Burnett * Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas, Austin *
An engaging case study of one of the most successful Pentecostal bodies in Latin America. Importantly, it focuses on what most Latin American Pentecostals doùpersonal healing. -- David Stoll * author of Is Latin America Turning Protestant? *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Part I. The Spirit of Brazil
1. A Prophetic History
Part II. Exorcising the Demons of Poverty
2. The Preconversion World of Illness
3. Conversion: Crisis, Cure, and Affiliation
4. Health Maintenance: Spiritual Ecstasy and Mutual Aid
5. Health Maintenance through Ideology and Morality
Part III. The Church as Institution
6. Authoritarian Assembly: Church Organization
7. From the Assembly of Saints to the Legislative Assembly: Pentecostal Politics in Para
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
