O amor no rastro do mal: conjugalidade, família e o feminino demoníaco na perspectiva da IgrejaUniversal

Abstract

The study aims to probe the discursive practices and rituals of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God around love life today, in order to contribute to the debate on the brazilian religiosity in the field of Social Sciences. This research ethnography is constituted by the participation in the cult of Love Therapy at two temples of the Church at Belo Horizonte, as well as interviews with pastors and couples, and the native information accessed from official videos and books. The focus of observation and analysis of the ethnographic experience is therelationship between love and evil. In this sense, we describe the character feminine and sensual of the evil in the Universal Church, strength that comes alive in pombagira, spiritual entity which derives from the african-brazilian religions. A series of management proceduresof love life are evident at Universal Church, through the control of women's demonic and emotional impulses. This happens according to a proposal of utilitarian administration of the marital relationship and the nuclear family that supports the basic difference between man andwoman, recovering the command power of the husband under a "wedding-company". Based on Foucault's notion of the power-knowledge-pleasure device, we analyze the pedagogicaldiscourses about love, family and gender, produced by the Universal, associated with a pragmatic proposal for enterprise management of relationships and the development of an specific economy of pleasures. We note, finally, that these operations of Universal Church convert, with sophistication, emotional gift relationships into financial relations, intended to control bodies and resources within the marriage and family.