Religião e política: agência religiosa e rede de tecnologia na Assembléia de Deus do Amazonas

Abstract

This thesis presents an anthropological view on the protagonism of the Evangelical Church Assembleia de Deus no Amazonas, in local and national party politics, through action in networks of technologies, media and education. The data presented are constituents of an ethnographic research, as an Insider researcher and from the perspective of interaction with interlocutors of the Church - religious and political leaders, in addition to the faithful. The ethnography of the denomination’s events allowed an examination of the practices and meanings of the speeches, connections and mobilizations that operate in the ecclesiastical and political environment. It was necessary to apprehend the church, no longer according to the traditional concept, an institution of only spiritual nature, of worship, performed by rites, but as a religious agency that produces technologies with the aim of mobilizing individuals, within a social structure of symbolic and material relations. As a religious agency, the Church conditions behaviors and standardizations, through its own belief, constituting structures that operate in networks. It forms consensus, determines processes, acting within the public sphere, in Amazonas, Pará and in Congress, with the Evangelical Parliamentary Front. The 2018 and 2022 elections showed the relevance of the Institution on the national scene, co-starring with the results of the right-wing candidate for President of the Republic. Thus, the number of faithful and the power of influence of the denomination also implies a (re)organization of the local religious field.