Práticas religiosas, (homo)sexualidade e psicologia : política sexual e subjetivação entre a Igreja e o mundo

Abstract

The present dissertation is a study of practices of religious conversion of sexuality and the relations established between scientific and religious knowledge in its production. The prohibition is discussed as a form of discursive production to understand the public dispute over the "gay cure" and the ways in which homosexuality takes place as an experience within evangelical contexts. To this end, a theoretical review is prepared on Protestantism and the ascension of the Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal churches in Brazil during the twentieth century, and the theological peculiarities of the evangelical experience, focusing on its charismatic character and the centrality of the experience of revival, also called "Baptism in the Holy Spirit", and religious conversion. From the documentary analysis and the presentation of testimonies of experiences in an evangelical church in Belo Horizonte, the methodology of spiritual retreats and their theological and psychological foundations are presented. Religious conversion is defined as a process of moral transformation and a performative act, whose objective is to discursively inaugurate a new "sanctified" subject. At the same time, it analyzes the discursive construction of homosexuality as a "moral pathology" in 65 newsletters published between the years 2006 and 2015 in the same church church, and how the psychology is articulated in the ads of services of pastoral counseling and psychological care. It is argued that psychological and pastoral services acquire equivalence when articulated around the meanings of "healing", "wounds", "restoration" and "liberation", and the understanding of professional exercise as a gift given by God as means to fulfill a ministry call. Next, we discuss the inclusion and exclusion of homosexuals within the church, analyzing the public positions of an evangelistic ministry for homosexual persons, the testimonies and speeches of its leader, compared to the speeches of members of the family that held the presidency of the church since the 1970s. For the development of the research a qualitative methodology has been developed that combines data of ethnographic nature, documental analysis and historical reconstitution through testimony. The results of the research have pointed to the need to broaden the debate on "gay healing" practices beyond medical and psychological care, and to the importance of researching religion and sexuality as a psychopolitical phenomenon.