Title: The Development of Religious Pluralism in Brazil
Abstract: This thesis considers the character and growth religious pluralism in Brazil and the direction and status this plurality has taken and acquired in the C20th. Attention is focused on the development and formation folk Catholicism, the Afro cults and Spiritualist oriented religions - Macumba, Umbanda and Kardecism. Primarily, it delineates and describes those specific historical and contemporary socio-structural and religious circumstances in which the differing religious groups have emerged, maintained themselves, and become modified. Secondly, it considers transformative implications that the various religious groups have had Brazilian society, and discusses the role these groups as initiators or mediators change. On the one hand, it explains the religions varied attempts to make paradoxical or incomprehensible aspects daily life intelligible and morally acceptable, and describee their efforts to relate both ordinary and unexpected occurrences in the natural and social universe to imminent or transcendent principles order. On the other hand, this thesis is also concerned with the politico-economic conservative or radical qualities these religious innovations. Although membership the various religious groups in Brazil does improve the social status the individual amongst his peers and often within wider society, I consider whether such improvements tend generally to act as bulwarks against change at a more extensive level, or can be explicitly directed to action in the political sphere. Initially, these above considerations are introduced through an analytical framework that uses the observations Peter Berger, Mary Douglas and Victor Turner as a theoretical base. Thus in chapters I and II, I explain how the specific, internal dynamic, or the internal articulation, construction and maintenance a religious organisation and its corresponding beliefs, is the focal point illustrating how a particular religious group is both a model of and a model for the social conditions out which it originally arose. In contrast, chapters IV, V, VI, VII and VIII describe the effect and impact that this peculiar development Brazilian Catholicism has had on the emergence alternative religious groups and their followings over the centuries. Finally, chapter IX assesses the main conclusions reached in this thesis. Although it is demonstrated that the responses alternative religious groups in Brazil have been limited and restricted by background socio-structural conditions and are constantly being modified in light differing socio-economic experiences, folk Catholicism, the Afro cults and the Spiritualist groups have all asserted alternative world views which reject the authority the Roman Catholic Church. All have their own religious framework beliefs about the supernatural and salvation, and all advocate correct patterns religious and secular social relationships and roles through which these concepts are made tangible and meaningful. These beliefs provide the ethical and intellectual grounds concrete existential and moral judgements on the appropriate action necessary to bridge the gap between experiences and aspirations. The problems associated with the former therefore become either tolerable or alterable, and moral imperatives make difficult situations endurable. This thesis affirms that a consonance structure exists between the actual construction a religious group (the articulation its beliefs and organisation) and the character its socio-structural origins. In general, the less structured a group people (e. g. folk catholics and the Afro cult members) in relation to the whole Brazilian society, the less formal and organised their religious response, and therefore the less influential their religion on wider social structures. For the most part, the consonance displayed between the internal dynamics these groups and their socio-structural origins brings about social change only at the individual level within the established status quo and acts as a brake or conservative force on religious resolutions or proposals change at the wider secular level. However, the Spiritualist religions Umbanda and Kardecism have a wider social influence and are currently gaining popular and middle class support, over and a gainst official Roman Catholicism. Although their political and economic transformative potential is limited by State surveillance, these Spiritualist groups today are beginning to gain a greater national following that fosters a growing awareness their adherents social and political positions within Brazil. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).
Publication Year: 1976
Publication Date: 1976-01-01
Language: en
Type: dissertation
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