Page 74 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

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Fig. 2.2. Reproduction inside the Cathedral of “The Fire of Israel.” Photograph by
Edlaine Gomes. Used by permission.

tian is to travel to the Holy Land. . . . On this occasion, Bishop Macedo was re-
ceived by Israel’s Minister of Tourism, demonstrating his intention to bring “tens
of thousands of people” to Israel every year. . . . On its twentieth anniversary, the
UCKG took 2,300 followers from all over the world to Jerusalem. (Campos Gomes
2001, 23)

The production of this kind of chain is part of the routine activities developed
by the church in all its branches. Even if these productions do not all achieve
grandiose moments equal to the ceremonial burning of the petitions in Israel,
most are structured around some sort of spectacle involving the church’s fol-
lowers, or at least their donations, achieving what could be termed a politico-
religious appropriation of the world. As a consequence, the world is visually de-
picted as a huge area of circulation, connected to important social circles on a
global scale. The image of the church occupying an ever larger public space is
complemented with another image of its followers as people possessing reli-
gious attributes that enable them to take part in this expanded world. Embody-
ing the image of an exemplary follower, the pastors are people who act on a map
extending far beyond the local or even the national. The world in which they
live is offered to them through territories in the process of being conquered by
new branches of the church. In a UCKG report entitled “Brazil exports pastors,”
we read:

Can anyone imagine a Brazilian evangelizing in Russian, Afrikaans, Japanese or
any of the many other dialects existing on the planet, like Zulu for example? Liv-

Future in the Mirror 63