Page 189 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

174 Maria José A. de Abreu

Canção Nova’s spaces of celebration. As prefabricated hangars, these spaces
express adapt traditional church furnishing to gym-like arenas. The wired
fence that encircles the entire camp adds a new layer to the open-ended
architecture of the place as those on both sides are able to see through to
the other. In Canção Nova one is never exactly outside or inside. Entering
7
Canção Nova is to enter the province of the middle. Space is delimited by
a boundary that is at once everywhere and nowhere. Its beginnings and
endings, outsides and insides are interconnected in ways that exclude any
foundation upon which a community, imagined or constructed, could be
solidly framed.

Navigating through the Field

Padre Jonas was a native priest who, nevertheless, wanted to use televange-
lism. But he also was baptized in the Spirit who needed to conciliate his
peers’ objections to televangelism while tuning into the economic aspirations
of largely upper middle-class Catholics who felt rejected by Brazilian Catholic
liberationists. Well-to-do CCRs strongly resented Liberation Theology’s
alleged “preference for the poor.” It seemed to them a contradiction in terms,
and an altogether unchristian attitude, that Liberation Theology fought for
the socially excluded while excluding others spiritually.
At the same time, however, the CCR also came out as a critic to the
Church’s excessive control over sacred means, its hierarchies, and media-
tions. They argued for a more democratized distribution of charismatic
power and proclaimed that the body rather than still imagery ought to be
the site of sacred power (de Abreu 2002, 240–258). In order to become a
Charismatic one needed to be open and attune oneself to the transparent
and unmediated touch of the Spirit. Conceived in this way, Padre Jonas
envisioned media technology not as a medium that would mediate a cer-
tain doctrine—for that would undermine the very attempt to refute medi-
ation in favor of immediacy—but as an entity that could be identified with
the direct and immediate claims underscored by the Spirit of Pentecost. As

a weak agent in the market, Padre Jonas had to adopt a kind of guerrilla
warfare, build flexibility into his moves, so as to be able to quickly change
tactics. The issue was less to predict than to be able to absorb change.
Especially in the early years, Padre Jonas carefully avoided the possibility
of predatory remarks. First, by staying away from a direct confrontation
vis-à-vis the main forces of competition; second, by gradually moving
within the structure toward the more murky zone of a decentered center.
That meant finding the fine balance between left and right, and once