Page 80 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

gion’ is distinguished from and separated by the state in modern secular constitutions.
But formal constitutions never give the whole story. On one hand, objects, sites, practices,
words, representations—even the minds and bodies of worshipers—cannot be con¤ned
within the exclusive space of what secularists name religion. . . . On the other hand, the
nation-state requires clearly demarcated spaces that it can classify and regulate: religion,
education, health, leisure, work, income, justice and war.”
4. This was because of an arrangement that granted the Crown unusually autono-
mous control of the Church.
5. As Luis Eduardo Soares (1992) points out, the Universal Church, in conducting
its war against the possession cults, introduces a more egalitarian dimension into reli-
gious disagreement among the popular sectors: through their “holy war,” the attacks are
substituting a contest among equals in place of the hierarchical relationships associated
with allegiance to the Catholic Church.
6. The clashes between the UCKG and the media, and the accusations that devel-
oped in 1994 and 1995, have been examined in an article by Birman and Lehmann
(1999), and by other authors such as Giumbelli (2002) and Mariz (1999). See also Eric
Kramer’s (2000, 58) analysis of “religious freedom” in Brazil, which interprets these
same events from the juridical and political viewpoint. According to Kramer, “Harmony
among religious groups is taken to be a normative part of the public order guaranteed
by the Brazilian Constitution, not something that is negotiated through public discourse.
Religious con®ict at the level of ideological and vocal opposition is unacceptable” (ibid.).
7. There are various interesting articles about the so-called holy war during this pe-
riod, some of which align themselves with those who “combat” Pentecostalism by adopt-
ing a sociological slant that fails to disguise the militant position of the authors. Others
seek to respond to the social controversy created by critically analyzing it and putting the
“holy war” into the context of current social processes. For this kind of approach, see,
among others, Soares 1992; Sanchis 1994; Giumbelli 2002; and Birman and Lehmann
1999.
8. For an analysis of discourse relating to violence in the city, see Leite 1997; on the
relations between narratives about violence and youth manifestations, see Novaes 2000
and Herschmann 2000.
9. Recent research supplies us with the following data concerning the evangelical
share of television airtime: “In the ¤rst semester of 2000, the evangelical TV programs
in the city of Rio represented around 105 hours weekly of TV time—in 1992 this number
was less than 50. . . . Every day, churches lease airtime, buy radio stations and seek more
and more space on the media. . . . Currently around 10 percent of the content transmit-
ted weekly by Brazilian TV is produced by churches and evangelical organizations. In
this way the ‘evangelicals’ not only guarantee for themselves 10 percent of Brazilian tele-
vision programming, their participation as social actors in the rest of the media is also
growing” (Fonseca 2003).
10. Cecilia Mariz called my attention to the indiscriminate use, including by re-
searchers, of the term “evangelical” for groups that had previously been referred to as
“Pentecostals,” distinguishing them from the denominational Protestants such as the
Baptists or Presbyterians.
11. The start of the 1990s saw the emergence of a Presbyterian pastor, Caio Fabio, in
Rio de Janeiro who presented himself as a religious leader disposed to interfere pragmati-
cally in situations of con®ict with drug traf¤ckers in the city, as well as having allied
himself with NGOs involved in voluntary work in the favelas and in antiviolence cam-
paigns. At that very time the UCKG set up its own charitable organization which com-

Future in the Mirror 69