"Set in ancient Egypt and loosely based on the story of Moses, “The Ten Commandments” is billed as Brazil’s first biblical soap opera. Swathed in Egyptian robes and sporting lapis lazuli jewelry and Cleopatra wigs, some of the characters are based on biblical or other historic figures, while o
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thers are invented. The soap is taking the country by storm. It’s helped propel the Rede Record television network, owned by the founder of Brazil’s main Pentecostal church, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, into a showdown with top broadcaster Globo, which for decades has had a lock on prime-time soaps, known as novelas." (Introduction)
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"Overall, 84% of Latin American adults report that they were raised Catholic, 15 percentage points more than currently identify as Catholic. The pattern is reversed among Protestants and people who do not identify with any religion: While the Catholic Church has lost adherents through religious swit
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ching, both Protestant churches and the religiously unaffiliated population in the region have gained members. Just one-in-ten Latin Americans (9%) were raised in Protestant churches, but nearly one-in-five (19%) now describe themselves as Protestants. And while only 4% of Latin Americans were raised without a religious affiliation, twice as many (8%) are unaffiliated today. Much of the movement away from Catholicism and toward Protestantism in Latin America has occurred in the span of a single lifetime. Indeed, in most of the countries surveyed, at least a third of current Protestants were raised in the Catholic Church, and half or more say they were baptized as Catholics. For example, nearly three-quarters of current Protestants in Colombia were raised Catholic, and 84% say they were baptized as Catholics. The survey asked former Catholics who have converted to Protestantism about the reasons they did so. Of the eight possible explanations offered on the survey, the most frequently cited was that they were seeking a more personal connection with God. Many former Catholics also said they became Protestants because they wanted a different style of worship or a church that helps its members more. Smaller percentages of converts to Protestantism also cite other factors – such as health or family problems (a regional median of 20%) or marriage to a non-Catholic (median of 9%) – as important reasons why they are no longer Catholic." (Overview, page 4-5)
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"No campo de estudos de religião e mídia, a importância da comunicação de massa está bem estabelecida para as religiões globalizadas tais como o cristianismo e o islamismo, mas o mesmo não se verifica com relação às religiões nativas africanas. O presente artigo busca preencher essa lacu
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na investigando as atividades de mídia de um movimento religioso neo-tradicional em Gana, a Missão Afrikania. Ao analisar a posição cambiante de Afrikania na esfera pública em relação a mudanças nos cenários político, religioso e midiático de Gana, demonstro como novos constrangimentos e oportunidades levaram Afrikania a adaptar suas estratégias de acesso à mídia e seus estilos de representação. A política de representação da Afrikania é complexificada pela sua posição delicada entre uma esfera pública de hegemonia cristã e as práticas dos sacerdotes e sacerdotisas que ela visa representar." (Resumo)
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"The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a church of Brazilian origin, has been enormously successful in establishing branches and attracting followers in post-apartheid South Africa. Unlike other Pentecostal Charismatic churches (PCCs), the UCKG insists that relationships with God be dev
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oid of ‘emotions’, that socialisation between members be kept to a minimum and that charity and fellowship are ‘useless’ in materialising God’s blessings. Instead, the UCKG urges members to sacrifice large sums of money to God for delivering wealth, health, social harmony and happiness. While outsiders condemn these rituals as empty or manipulative, this book shows that they are locally meaningful, demand sincerity to work, have limits and are informed by local ideas about human bodies, agency and ontological balance. As an ethnography of people rather than of institutions, this book offers fresh insights into the mass PCC movement that has swept across Africa since the early 1990s." (Publisher description)
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"O presente artigo tem como tema central o programa Fala Que Eu Te Escuto, produzido pela Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus. Exibido diariamente no início da madrugada na Rede Record, trata-se de um programa em que o sagrado traveste-se de profano. Embora dê a impressão de ser um programa secular
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, se utilizando de todos os ingredientes típicos de um espetáculo televisivo, de forma subliminar veicula mensagens que buscam persuadir os telespectadores. Para tanto, tem como um de seus focos discursivos a demonização do cotidiano." (Resumo)
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"A comunicação cujo conteúdo é centrado nas qualidades e nos diferenciais da marca religiosa, exatamente como é recorrente nas ações da Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus, busca relacionar os benefícios do entretenimento a ela, possibilitando à igreja integrar sua imagem marcária ao discurs
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o, não eximindo o público receptor de desfrutar do programa no qual está inserida a branded content — comunicação por conteúdo. O presente artigo aborda o fenômeno religioso em curso que sobrepuja a categoria de religião perdida para o religioso por todas as partes-, cenário contemporâneo no qual a religiosidade é manifesta intensamente na vida privada das pessoas, em formas afetivas e emocionais, sem referência à doutrina ou à instituição eclesiástica." (Resumo)
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"A propósito das disputas entre a Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus e a Igreja Mundial do Poder de Deus no primeiro semestre de 2012, o artigo estuda a dimensão do espetáculo e do mercado cultural religioso nas mídias. Por meio de uma pesquisa exploratória dos principais escândalos e embates e
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nvolvendo igrejas e líderes religiosos nas mídias nas últimas décadas, o estudo busca (1) localizar o fenômeno da espetacularização da fé como uma estratégia de marketing, como resposta à concorrência, que inclui a visibilidade também por meio de conflitos; (2) indicar caminhos que instigam a novas investigações." (Resumo)
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"Charismatic-Pentecostal 'media ministries' have become very successful in Africa's new media fields. They shape new forms of public religiosity that spill over into various forms of popular culture and resonate with broad audiences. This article explores the emergence of new Pentecostal publics at
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the intersection of media, religion, and entertainment in Ghana, raising critical questions concerning the relations between these domains. It analyses two different religious television broadcasts: a television ministry by a well-known celebrity pastor and a gospel reality show featuring a preaching competition for youth. It also considers the debates and concerns such programmes evoke locally. The analysis shows that Pentecostalism's employment of popular media and entertainment styles is an effective source of persuasive power, but also poses challenges with regard to binding people as committed Christians. The blurring of boundaries between religion and entertainment business causes insecurities about the authenticity of religious authority and religious subjectivity." (Abstract)
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"It has not been uncommon in the history of Jesus in film for commercial movies of Jesus' life to be conscripted for Christian evangelism around the world. Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings (1927), John Krish and Peter Sykes' Jesus (1979), better known today as The Jesus Film, and Mel Gibson's Th
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e Passion of the Christ (2004) are but three notable examples. Each of those movies, however, was first produced in America for American audiences. In the case of Karunamayudu (1978), a Telugu commercial movie of Jesus' life, the target audience was South Indian viewers raised on a steady diet of mythological and social films and immersed in a pluralistic religious environment unlike any Western society at the time. In this essay I explain how and why this film, with its unique production history, was co-opted by evangelicals for Christian witness in India." (Abstract)
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"For many years now, the sphere of the main Pentecostal denominations has gone way beyond their physical churches and members. To some extent, they operate like businesses, and they use the media to exert a strong influence on society. Some of them own national TV stations and publish high-circulati
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on newspapers. Their direct influence on politics has also increased steadily. Many members of the state parliaments and the National Congress also hold positions in the Pentecostal churches. The churches have not yet succeeded in getting one of their members directly elected to the highest political positions, but they have been able to use their close ties with certain politicians to exercise significant indirect political influence for the benefit of their own clientele. The Pentecostals are particularly powerful in the favelas, which receive little assistance from the Brazilian welfare state. In many areas that are ruled by the drug gangs, the only safe way of getting out of the drug trade is to join one of the Pentecostal churches, as this is deemed acceptable by the gangs. In contrast, other churches or religions are being squeezed out – sometimes violently. The image of the Pentecostal Church is therefore something of a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it is often stressed that it provides its members with a sense of stability and direction. The strict ban on alcohol and drugs, the feeling of belonging to a strong community, and the inclusion of certain rituals from the Afro-Brazilian animist religions that can turn spiritual experiences into a state of religious ecstasy – all these elements can help the Church’s followers to feel they have the power to break out of the vicious circle of poverty and despair. On the other hand, however, Church members have to pay a high monetary price for this; money that is not only reinvested in social projects but which also goes to line the pockets of the Church’s leaders, who are often not whiter-than-white, despite expecting this of their congregations. The most extreme example of this must surely be that of the founder of the Universal, Edir Macedo." (Conclusion)
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"In the Republic of Benin, we are currently witnessing an enormous proliferation of religious radio broadcasting in various forms, especially with regard to Pentecostal churches. Apart from already established Christian broadcasters such as Radio Immaculée Conception, Radio Alléluia or Radio Maran
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atha, operating on a regional or even on a national scale, various smaller groups and individual pastors, mainly from evangelical and Charismatic churches, are increasingly contracting broadcasting hours with public, private or community radio stations. Furthermore, many pastors have started to record CDs with prayers and gospel sounds to broadcast, or hire professional media production companies to ensure a large media coverage of their appearances in various media. On the one hand, these strategies represent a particular form of media appropriation, an attempt to obtain a greater share in the changing public sphere, and are part of the growing competition between various religious media actors, especially with regard to their ambitions of moral guidance. On the other hand, these programmes could be seen as stages for creative individual religious actors, among them also laymen, offering moments of self-assertion and granting social prestige." (Abstract)
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"This article takes a critical look at Ghana’s rapidly evolving broadcasting scene and in particular at the expansion and popularity of religious broadcasting. Sketching the developments of the Ghanaian media landscape, it analyses the changing politics of representing religion in this field. The
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much-celebrated processes of media deregulation and democratization, and the new opportunities for ownership, production, and participation they entail, have led to a dominance of Pentecostalism in the public sphere. While this development has been analysed from the perspective of churches and pastors, this article explores the intertwinement of commercial media and Pentecostalism from the perspective of a number of private media owners and producers in Accra. Whether these media entrepreneurs are themselves Pentecostal or not, they all have to deal with, and commercially exploit, the power and attraction of Pentecostalism. Their experience that commercial success is hardly possible without Pentecostalism makes clear that the influence of Pentecostalism in the Ghanaian public sphere reaches way beyond media-active pastors and born-again media practitioners, and invites us to rethink the relationship between media, business and religion." (Abstract)
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"This issue of Australian Religion Studies Review examines the intersection of religion and celebrity, both major discourses in the modern world. The six articles examine the imbrication of celebrity with: three traditional religions, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism; the new religion of Candomblé;
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and contemporary spiritual trends such as spiritual tourism, secular equivalents of religion like the Olympic Games, and the veneration of sports stars by fans. The study of the impact of celebrity on religion is still in its infancy, and the contributions to this special issue of Australian Religion Studies Review demonstrate both the rich results that such studies can yield, and the range and diversity of subjects that would repay future research." (Page 227)
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"Às vésperas de completar 100 anos em 2010, o pentecostalismo no Brasil se mostra como um fenômeno complexo, multifacetado, desafiando comunicadores, empresários da mídia, sociólogos, pastores, crentes, ateus e também pesquisadores da comunicação social, já que na contemporaneidade as expe
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riências religiosas são impulsionadas pela adoção da cultura mediática. Essas experiências fermentam em programas como o Show da Fé comandado pelo líder da Igreja Internacional da Graça de Deus (IIGD), R.R. Soares, instituição religiosa objeto deste estudo. Visto acreditar que os fenômenos sociais não são uniformes e tampouco que os produtos religiosos sejam livres de contradições, a pesquisa busca compreender a visibilidade mediática religiosa no tecido das relações sociais dos adeptos que assistem o Show da Fé. Ou seja, a pesquisa analisa a comunicação religiosa sob um outro ângulo, distinto da visão linear da transmissão da mensagem, entendendo aquela comunicação como processo mediado pelas práticas sociais e culturais que se constroem no cotidiano, onde a constituição da subjetividade é resultado das maneiras pelas quais os sujeitos interagem entre si perante a mensagem. Assim, a pesquisa - um estudo de recepção na linha das mediações socioculturais - permitiu, entre outros aspectos, observar nos usos e hábitos de consumo televisivo a dialética denominada por Martín-Barbero consumo objetivação de desejos/lugar de diferenciação social e processo ritual, evidenciando que o grupo de pertença exerce influência para a ressignificação do desejo do adepto. Foi possível identificar que a chave do gênero do programa Show da Fé é o poder de acionar ou despertar no imaginário dos adeptos um outro mundo, cujo senso de ordem interna, integração e direção faz com que o homem se sinta mais forte para suportar as dificuldades da existência." (Resumo)
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