Page 64 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

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Fig. 2.1. Interior of the Cathedral in Rio. Postcard sold in the cathedral’s shop.

try underwent signi¤cant upheaval. The continuous expansion of evangelical
religiosity in the media has given rise to new perceptions among much of the
populace concerning “who we Brazilians are”—a “we” that historically took
pride in its status as a Catholic nation. The country’s religious self-awareness
has been transformed by the gradual inclusion of this large group of believers
who project an image of themselves largely alien to the nation’s dominant self-
image. Focusing, in particular, on the Pentecostal media, this chapter provides
an account of some of the religious strategies that have wrought this turnabout
in the position of these churches in Brazilian society, as well as changes in what
it means to be an “evangelical” or indeed a “Brazilian” in contemporary society.
I shall describe how the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has worked
to integrate the secular and religious media into its ritual and symbolic activities
inside and outside the church. I intend to show that its ritual activities only take
on their full meaning when they start to appear in TV shows as well as the secu-
lar and religious press. Exploiting the media’s resources seems to be an essential
aspect of the church’s religious activities, including exorcism. This is part and
parcel of the symbolic transformation of its followers from poor individuals to
shareholders in a stock of social and religious capital that affords them effective
means of claiming greater recognition and rights in society. 1
These media incursions become even more interesting when we recall that
one of today’s key issues concerning the religious in public space is the con-
tested nature of its frontiers with other domains such as politics and econom-
2
ics. These frontiers provoke tension and con®ict and also form the subject of
Future in the Mirror 53