Neopentecostalism, Marketing, and New Technologies of Self

Abstract

Chapter 5 explores the instrumentality of South America’s megachurches, with particular emphasis on how they have translated global Pentecostal doctrines, most notably the near-magical tropes of church growth and of prosperity gospel, to address culturally specific concerns within the larger context of late modernity and neoliberalism. The churches’ tropes of evangelization, church growth, education, improved family dynamics, and other capacity-building techniques, often framed in religious language and methods, can and often do provide believers with what I call “new technologies of self” that help them cope in a secular world that they philosophically abjure. In particular, the Brazilian megadenomination Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus uses modern R&D strategies to position itself in a given spiritual marketplace, as evinced here by a case study in the church’s work among Spanish-speaking immigrants in the United States.