If I Give My Soul

Faith Behind Bars in Rio de Janeiro
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-0-19-023899-5
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 389 g

Reihe: Global Pentecost Charismat Christianity

Pentecostal Christianity is flourishing inside the prisons of Rio de Janeiro. To find out why, Andrew Johnson dug deep into the prisons themselves. He began by spending two weeks living in a Brazilian prison as if he were an inmate: sleeping in the same cells as the inmates, eating the same food, and participating in the men's daily routines as if he were incarcerated. And he returned many times afterward to observe prison churches' worship services, which were led
by inmates who had been voted into positions of leadership by their fellow prisoners. He accompanied Pentecostal volunteers when they visited cells that were controlled by Rio's most dominant criminal gang to lead worship services, provide health care, and deliver other social services to the inmates.
Why does this faith resonate so profoundly with the incarcerated? Pentecostalism, argues Johnson, is the "faith of the killable people" and offers ex-criminals and gang members the opportunity to positively reinvent their public personas. If I Give My Soul provides a deeply personal look at the relationship between the margins of Brazilian society and the Pentecostal faith, both behind bars and in the favelas, Rio de Janeiro's peripheral neighborhoods. Based on his intimate
relationships with the figures in this book, Johnson makes a passionate case that Pentecostal practice behind bars is an act of political radicalism as much as a spiritual experience.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Johnson, Andrew

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Praktische Theologie Christliche Spiritualität, Christliche Mystik
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen Protestantismus, evangelische und protestantische Kirchen Pfingstkirchen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Kriminalsoziologie

Über Autor(innen)

Andrew Johnson is an Assistant Professor at Metropolitain State University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He held previous positions at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, and was a Foreign Service Officer at the United States Agency for International Development.