The Holy and everyday life among Brazilian Lutherans: Syncretisms

Abstract

The article is a theoretical effort to understand the religious practices of “laypersons” in the submersed part of church institutions. Such religious practices, called “popular religiosity” by sociology of religion in Brazil, are exemplified by three different characters, one of whom is taken from a work of fiction of Brazilian literature. They do not break with the official political or ecclesiastical order but reinterpret institutional discourses in the pragmatic dynamics of the search for a religion of survival. The socio-existential dilemmas of their everyday lives mark their utterances in the search for meaning, particularly in the area of health and the precariousness of the world of labor. They navigate through the official utterances of institutions and express the worldview and the needs of the poor population strata, but not only of the latter. Persons of the affluent classes also turn to the religiosity of the underground of social life. They act on the margins of institutions and in many cases create their own churches or religious organizations or are committed to them in various ways. Finally, the article also points to a theological effort—still in embryo—to understand religious practices that coexist with official discourses.