This article responds to the article by Kapoor and Fridell from this issue, "Reworking Development Today: What Drain Theory and Decoloniality Lack." Cet article est une r & eacute;ponse & agrave; l'article de Kapoor et Fridell de ce num & eacute;ro, "Reworking Development Today: What Drain Theory and Decoloniality Lack."

As the pioneer of neo-Pentecostalism, the Brazil-based Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG)/Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD), founded by Edir Macedo, has intensified the main features of Pentecostalism: fear of the forces of evil and the practice of healing and exorcism have been placed front of stage; tithing has become central to membership on pain of being accused of “stealing from God,” and additional donations are noisily demanded. The IURD has brought about a revolution within Pentecostalism because of its transnational centralization, its involvement in Brazilian politics, and the scale of its investment in the media in Brazil and beyond. Uniformity is ensured in ritual and church design. Pastors must be married but, following the church’s guidance, very few have children. In Brazil the church’s leader is straining the guardrails of laïcité, blurring the lines between his church, his media empire, and his political involvements.

A mensagem da Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (Iurd), organização transnacional centralizada, é sombria e nada otimista, com influência limitada, embora real, da teologia da prosperidade. Enfatiza as forças diabólicas e encoraja os seguidores a desconfiarem dos outros e até mesmo de suas próprias motivações ao orar, suplicar e doar. Nas performances rituais, os pastores alertam os seguidores para não esperarem nada em troca. O ritual é descrito como “disruptivo”. O texto compara a tratamento dado pela Igreja aos cultos de possessão no Brasil, Moçambique e África do Sul. A cura e o exorcismo são considerados no contexto das relações de reciprocidade, com exemplos de “psicoterapia popular” observados na televisão no Brasil. A pesquisa se desenvolveu em vários países.

Abstract: The message of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a centralized transnational organization, is gloomy and not at all optimistic, with limited, though real, influence from prosperity theology. It emphasizes diabolical forces and encourages followers to be suspicious of others and even their own motivations when praying, supplicating, and giving. In ritual performances, pastors warn followers not to expect anything in return. Rituals are described as "disruptive." The text compares the Church's treatment of possession cults in Brazil, Mozambique and South Africa. Healing and exorcism are considered in the context of relationships of reciprocity, with examples of "popular psychotherapy" observed on television in Brazil. The research was carried out in several countries.

This chapter concentrates on two major features of the transformation of Cuban society, and indeed of the mode of production prevailing within it: the place of private agricultural production in a centrally planned economy, the changing balance between private agricultural producers and the rural proletariat, and patterns of migration and urban growth. Urban volunteer labour emerged as a prolongation of earlier pre-Revolutionary seasonal movements, in a radically different institutional context. It is often claimed that in underdeveloped capitalist countries the peasantry plays two crucial roles: it reproduces its own labour force at little or no cost and it contributes to the reproduction of the labour force as a whole by producing wage goods more cheaply than capitalist producers would, especially food. Despite its fragmentary nature, the evidence indicates that the factors determining rural-urban migration have behaved in a radically different fashion in Cuba compared with other countries in Central and South America.

The objective of this essay is to review some key concepts in order to engage in a discussion between the theoretical proposals of decoloaniality and universalism. To this end, the author takes up some empirical cases to exemplify and support his thesis based on the fact that indigenous and Afro-descendant movements are as important as democratizing movements within and outside their fields of action.

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Cet article décrit comment l’Église universelle du royaume de Dieu (IURD) a puisé au-delà de l’héritage évangélique pour monter la chorégraphie et la scénographie de ses célébrations et de ses exorcismes. Les prescriptions de l’Ancien Testament y sont adaptées et vénérées, tandis que les esprits effrayants des religions de matrice africaine y sont soumis à des pratiques mélodramatiques de diffamation, d’apparition et d’expulsion (Birman 1998 ; 1996). Nous cherchons à savoir s’il est possible d’affirmer que cette Église pratique des rituels, au sens habituel du terme (Sperber 1996 ; Bloch 2004). La manière dont celle-ci, comme d’autres Églises et pasteurs pentecôtistes, rejette ou contourne les frontières conventionnelles entre les sphères religieuses et séculières, notamment celles de la politique, des affaires et des médias commerciaux, amène aussi à se demander si ces institutions sont fondées à bénéficier des protections et des exemptions qui leur sont habituellement accordées.

Involvement of drug dealers and gangs in evangelical churches in Latin America has been a subject of discussion for some time. This is not surprising: churches are easy to set up and there is no re...

The article describes how the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD) has looked beyond the evangelical heritage for the choreography and scenography of its celebrations and its exorcisms. Old Testament prescriptions are adapted and venerated, while the fearsome spirits of the religicies de matriz africana are subjected to melodramatic procedures of vilification, manifestation and expulsion (Birman 1998 ;1996). The article questions whether the church can be said to practice ritual in the usual sense of the word (Sperber 1996 ; Bloch 2004). The rejection or circumvention by this and other Pentecostal churches and pastors of conventional boundaries between religion and secular spheres, notably politics, business, and the commercial media, raises questions as to whether the IURD and other neo-Pentecostal churches are entitled to the protections and exemptions usually accorded to religious institutions.

In some ways, since the Second World War, Latin America has evolved in accordance with the pattern set out by the much-derided modernization theories of that period. The region has gone through the demographic transition from high death/high birth rates to low death/low birth rates; the Catholic Church has lost sway over culture, personal morality and religious observance; women have joined the (paid) labour force on a massive scale and have achieved parity or even superiority in education at all levels, if not in all disciplines; a substantial middle class has developed. But the region has also fulfilled the doomsday predictions of modernization’s leading critic – dependency theory. Capitalism has continued to dominate, inequality has deepened and raw materials exports continue to be almost the only engine of economic growth, which itself has been unstable (as predicted) and sluggish. China and South Korea, which at least on conventional measures of per capita GNP, were a long way behind Latin America in the 1950s, have long since leapt ahead, and China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty even while its inequality has also increased. Latin America also exhibits persistent inequality, but without the ‘saving grace’ of lifting such a high percentage of the population out of poverty.

O comentário retoma dois temas do artigo de Christina Vital: a laicidade e a questão da família. Pergunta-se se as ideias dos candidatos evangélicos de esquerda têm alguma chance de avançar num público que dificilmente entende porque as igrejas deveriam ficar fora das instituições políticas (laicidade). Também aponta a ausência do tema da família no discurso desses candidatos quando não seria difícil imaginar um enfoque de esquerda sobre os problemas de violência e abandono que sofrem as mulheres e seus filhos nas camadas de baixa renda que conformam a base das igrejas. O comentário parte do pressuposto de que a opinião política dominante do público evangélico é conservadora, sobretudo enquanto há questões que tocam a sexualidade e os direitos reprodutivos, mas o autor reconhece que diante de um universo tão grande e diverso como o evangélico se deve questionar a suposição de que existe uma hegemonia absoluta de ideias conservadoras, apesar das evidências encontradas em pesquisas de opinião.

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