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Purity and the Devil 69

world and the other. It has become a reflexive project to learn to distinguish
between good and evil in all scapes and try to act appropriately. Watching and
listening to seductive worldly media can thus be exciting. It provides the reli-
gious audience a chance for self-confirmation that would be impossible with-
out the risk of transgression.

Notes

I wish to thank NWO for making this research possible and the members and
affiliates of our research program for their stimulating input. Parts of this chapter
appear in my dissertation and in several other articles.
1. Favelas can be translated as urban slums, shantytowns, or squatter settlements
depending on the various discourses that are related to these mostly “illegally”
occupied territories.
2. Baile can be translated as dance. Brazilian funk consists of electronic dance
music that bears some similarities with hip-hop.
3. The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.
4. Assemblies of God.
5. According to Karla Poewe Charismatic Christianity is postmodern: “it regards
the whole universe and the whole of history [be it personal, natural, or cosmic]
as consisting of signs. These signs are available to explore the meaning of life
in a concretely meaningful way. In other words, these signs are metonymic.
They are the current manifestations of the creative activity of the Creator. In
a high tech world not only the television or computer monitor, but also the human
being, are manifestations of signs or manifest themselves through signs” (Poewe
1989, 7, emphasis mine).
6. Such a fierce opposition against cultural practices that are deemed immoral
and un-Christian is in some aspects similar to the cultural opposition of the
religious right in the United States (Harding 1993, 2000; Schultze 1991;
Frankl 1997; Gormly 2003).
7. Encostar literally means “to lean on.” Encostos could be translated as spiritual
entities that “lean” on people.
8. Ex-feticeiras, ex-prostitutas, ex-ladrões, ex-matadores can be translated as ex-
witches, ex-prostitutes, ex-criminals, and ex-killers.

9. For very insightful readings on the relation between spiritual and spatial
“occupation” in relation to the workings of the Holy Spirit in contemporary
Latin America see the work of Rafael Sánchez and that of Zé de Abreu in this
volume.
10. The importance that Leonildo lays on his “threshold” remind us of the work
of van Gennep on the ritual significance of the crossing of limen (van Gennep
1960[1909]).
11. The purification rituals of the Igreja Universal underscore their seemingly
paradoxical projects in which they heavily oppose Catholic and Afro-Brazilian