Traficantes evangelicos. Quem sao e a quem servem os novos bandidos de Deus

by Viviane Costa

Traficantes evangélicos é resultado de uma pesquisa que investiga o fenômeno da associação entre traficantes de drogas e a fé evangélica nas comunidades do Rio de Janeiro. Esse fenômeno narcorreligioso carioca instiga perguntas provocantes, é possível ser traficante e evangélico?

Paperback

Published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Joelendil · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who grew up in a somewhat rough neighborhood in Brazil, this book about “Evangelical drug traffickers” in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas (far worse conditions than my neighborhood!) caught my attention. Supposedly, the book was about drug-dealing gangs adopting a sort of Pentecostal Evangelical identity and how these violent criminals should be understood.

Unfortunately, the book felt like a poorly written Masters thesis bloated up into a short book. There was some good information, but it mostly consisted of the author stringing together other people’s ideas in a wandering, academic buzzword-laden tangle with frequent disclaimers that the data was incomplete because a lot of it was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

She starts out by spending far too much time on triumphantly describing how Pentecostalism has grown in Brazil as Roman Catholicism has declined. She then shows how its language and practices have also displaced the usual Roman Catholic/Candomblé iconography and rituals of narco-religion in the Terceiro Comando Puro gang. In doing this, she approaches religion in almost purely sociological and naturalistic terms and spends practically no time exploring how Pentecostal churches, pastors, and theologians deal with this appropriation/adaptation of their language and beliefs by violent criminals.

- Do they have a problem with it?
- Do they justify, excuse, or condone it on theological and/or pragmatic grounds?
- Do they see it as an opportunity to spread their beliefs?
- Do they view unrepentant criminals who “make a profession of faith” as true fellow-believers?
- Do they call for repentance?
- Do they expect professing believers to make a genuine effort to “walk as Jesus walked” (1 John 2:3-6)?

To me, these seem like crucial questions (especially since the author claims to be a Pentecostal pastor, not just some disinterested academic), and the failure to explore them in any detail makes for a weak book. I don’t feel like I got anything out of this that I couldn’t have gotten more concisely and less pretentiously from the Wikipedia article on Narco-Pentacostalism.

[José Luis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este livro me apareceu quando estava vendo uma entrevista no canal Inteligência Ltda. (Rogério Vilela) no YouTube. Com a participação da autora do livro, Viviane Costa. O relato me impressionou, pois foi a descrição do que eu timidamente imaginava que acontecia pelos morros do RJ. Impressionante o relato do livro, muito bem documentado (material extraido da dissertação de Mestrado da autora), e bem escrito. Valeu demais a leitura, hoje entendo um pouco melhor o jogo de forças e os caminhos das religiões evangélicas e pentecostais, inseridas nos contextos dos morros e favelas do RJ.

[dani fayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

abre caminhos pra discussão dessa virada evangélica brasileira, bom!