The No1 Ethical retailer for Books, CD’s, DVD’s & Games
30 Day Refund Guarantee

If I Give My Soul: Faith Behind Bars in Rio de Janeiro (Global Pentecost Charismat Christianity)

If I Give My Soul: Faith Behind Bars in Rio de Janeiro (Global Pentecost Charismat Christianity)

by Andrew Johnson (Author)

  • New

    Paperback 2017

    $31.65
Synopsis

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.

$31.65

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 224
 Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 03 Jul 2017
ISBN 10: 0190238992
ISBN 13: 9780190238995

Media Reviews

If I Give My Soul builds upon a growing subfield in sociology and anthropology, which increasingly examines the growth of Christianity in Latin America and notes both disturbing trends within such growth as well as its political implications. One of the great strengths of this book is its rich, ethnographic detail, as well as its conceptualization of the destabilizing forces of late modernity in Latin America (especially as a continuation of earlier marginalizing processes). If I Give My Soul also provides a clearly defined concept-the 'politics of presence'-which gives us a language for moving the debates about late modernity and Latin American evangelicalism forward With the commendable conceptualizations it affords the field, this book will be of value to undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology, religion, and Latin American studies. --Edward Orozco Flores, Sociology of Religion


Johnson's heroic research efforts garnered much primary information by getting close enough to see beyond stereotypes and facades in order to deconstruct the nuances of this complicated narco-gang/Pentecostal relationship. In so doing, Johnson has offered to the academy a wealth of information in a truly impressive work. --Margaret English de Alminana, Reading Religion


If I Give My Soul is a must-read for pastors, chaplains, and others involved in prison ministries here at home. --Chris Hoke, Christianity Today


Intimately researched, candidly presented, and crisply written, Johnson's book shows how, via their Pentecostal faith, the 'killable' black and brown urban poor incarcerated in Brazil's prisons find dignity and push back, subtly but persistently, against the injustice that engulfs them. --Joshua Dubler, author of Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in an American Prison


This book is an impressive accomplishment! Based on extensive research, it gives us an exceptionally rich and nuanced understanding of Pentecostalism in Rio's prisons and favelas. Readers will find much to contemplate here about incarceration and religion in the U.S. as well. --Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University


Author Bio
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.