Religion, Secularity and Cultural Memory in Brazil

This article is devoted to issues of religion, secularity and cultural memory and the ways they are connected and determined by power relations and power structures. These connections and determinations are illustrated by the colonial history of Brazil and the postcolonial power structures this history gave rise to http://canadianviagras.com/pill/generic-viagra-canada/. The article explores several paradoxes of the contemporary Brazilian religious Gestalt and interprets them in relation to power and status hierarchies of the colonial and postcolonial periods. Special attention is devoted to the rise of Pentecostalism (since the 1970s) and the concomitant breaking of the long-standing “cultural agreement” that the Catholic Church would preside (benignly) over a harmonious religious arena.