A ética protestante e o espírito da Amazônia: os escritos, pensamento e obra de Leo B. Halliwell

Abstract

This study assumes the purpose of verifying in what sense the presence of Leo B. Halliwell in the Amazon is lined with purposes of expansion of the Protestant faith, under the nexus of the capital, with the strategy of social health care to the traditional peoples of the region. The Protestant missionaries of the Amazon came out of hiding in 1810, but it was only in 1824 that the first missions arrived in the region. Seventh-day Adventists (SDA) arrive late, almost a hundred years after their American compatriots, evangelizing initially through canvassing. It was only in 1928 that the Adventist mission in the Amazon came into force with the arrival of the couple Jessie and Leo B. Halliwell, who worked in the geographical area that surrounds the north and northeast of Brazil, whose experiences generated two books in English. Through an interpretation of Halliwell's text within its historical context in the manner of Ricoeur, we discuss the achievements of this traveler by pointing out various points of connection with the Amazonian knowledge. Fieldwork was carried out in the cities of Manaus and Belém, where Leo Halliwell Museum is located. The seecondary data by means of collating, concentrated on two books by Halliwell, published in English, whose reports served as field data, fundamental to our research, which followed the method of hermeneutics. Among the manifold aspects it has become clear that Halliwell's writings are connected with the universal themes of humanity, such as the records of the myths of traditional peoples, traditional practices of healing, the protopraxis of healing the body to receive the message of the Christian gospel from among others. He is a humanist traveler who records Adventist missionary practice through the creation of the Luzeiro I boat to bring health to people along the banks of the Amazon River. After 30 years of Amazonia, the Halliwell couple thought and dreamed in Portuguese, their customs had changed, evangelism became secondary, the social welfare of the people was very important. The Brazilian national congress in 1959 awarded the couple Leo and Jessie Halliwell the awarded with Medal Order of the Southern Cross, and today the Amazon is the region with the most members of Seventh-day Adventism in all the world.