UC Davis

This dissertation seeks to understand the intensifying religious conflict in Brazil in which militant Pentecostals have been waging war on Afro-Brazilian religions, namely Candomblé and Umbanda. I focus on the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD), also known as the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), the notorious neo-Pentecostal megachurch that has led the charge against Afro-Brazilian religions. Scholars and journalists have pinpointed several key social and economic factors that have spurred and shaped this conflict, such as religious competition, moral disagreement, and racism. I acknowledge the significance of such factors in this violent encounter, but I align with scholars who recognize that cosmology also plays a key role here. Thus, I analyze the religious teachings, beliefs, and rituals that have justified and/or inspired Pentecostal violence against Afro-Brazilian religions. I use three key organizing lines of interrogation. First, what drives many churches and adherents of Brazilian Pentecostalism, especially neo-Pentecostalism and the UCKG, to practice spiritual (and physical) warfare? Second, why are the Afro-Brazilian religions, which are relatively small and vulnerable, targeted so heavily? Finally, how and why do Pentecostal worshippers internalize and reproduce the demonizing ideas about Afro-Brazilian religions espoused by religious leadership?

I approach the first question by tracing the UCKG’s spiritual warfare ideology and practices to premillennialism. Drawing on church media, especially recorded sermons from the UCKG’s streaming service, this dissertation presents an account of the UCKG’s eschatology to argue for an apocalypticism that scholars of this church have generally overlooked. Contrary to recent arguments that because the UCKG embraces prosperity theology, it must also have an optimistic–i.e., postmillennial–eschatology, I have found that the church embraces a doomsday premillennialist vision inspired by a literal reading of the book of Revelation. This vision bolsters Christian exceptionalism, ties salvation to spiritual warfare, and encourages militancy against anyone and anything deemed evil by the church, ultimately fostering conflict. To address my second research question, my analysis compares the cosmologies of the Afro-Brazilian religions and Pentecostalism using the lens of divine cure to illuminate the inverted roles possession and exorcism play for these groups in causing suffering or facilitating divine healing. I argue that cosmological overlap and inversion help explain why Afro-Brazilian religions are seen as a potent spiritual enemy within Pentecostalism’s apocalyptic scenario. In the context of an enchanted universe, Pentecostals believe in the spirits and the ritual efficacy of Candomblé and Umbanda, but contend that their spirits and rituals are demonic and bring illness and suffering to the Earth, which can only be cured by Pentecostalism’s divine cure of ritual exorcism. Inherent in this cosmological inversion are contrasting semiotic ideologies regarding human, divine, and spirit agency. Lastly, I demonstrate through semiotic analysis how UCKG exorcisms ritualize spiritual warfare against Afro-Brazilian religions. Understanding how exorcisms symbolically immerse participants in a world where Candomblé and Umbanda are “proven” to be evil–and where defeating them is a moral imperative–helps to explain how Pentecostal believers on the ground might become convinced to engage in violence against them.

Finally, this dissertation considers how the Brazilian conflict between Pentecostals and practitioners of Candomblé and Umbanda reflects and illuminates broader regional and global currents, such as militant religious responses to secularism, globalization, and cosmopolitanism; the explosive mix of religion and politics within and beyond secular countries in recent years, fostered by the ability of social media to magnify differences and foment division; and challenges to religious freedom norms and laws posed by proselytizing, universalist religions. The ideologies and tactics of absolutist Brazilian neo-Pentecostals–especially apocalypticism and a heavy reliance on media technologies to not only proselytize but also to disparage purported enemies–echo and shed light upon those of other militant religious groups around the world. Thus, this dissertation’s conclusion will consider how my analysis of this conflict offers lessons for understanding similar conflicts globally.