A estratégia espacial da Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus na África: África do Sul, Angola e Moçambique

Abstract

Since the first years of its emergence in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, Pentecostalism has become a religious phenomenon with a global tendency. In addition to reaching new spaces, the movement went through a series of transformations, splits in its denominations and the emergence of new waves with innovative characteristics that enabled it to adapt to the main socio-spatial transformations observed in the world throughout its history, which despite containing many events, does not reach one hundred and twenty years. The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD), founded in 1977 by Bishop Edir Macedo in a peripheral neighborhood in the city of Rio de Janeiro, is iconic within the renewal of Pentecostalism, the wave that was called neo-Pentecostal. Its expansion dynamics mobilize the construction of temples, investments through companies that operate within and outside the religious sphere, presence in the media (television, radio, internet, social networks...), widespread action by groups of faithful led by people of trust at the top of the IURD and political influence through members elected to the Legislative and Executive powers and/or appointed to various political positions. The expansion of its network outside Brazil reached Africa in the 1990s. Currently, IURD is present in 3619 addresses abroad, of which 1091 are on the African continent. The only continent where Universal has more addresses than Africa is America, especially South America, where it emerged. The Church claims to be present in 39 of the 54 African countries, with more than a hundred addresses in three of them: South Africa, Angola and Mozambique, in descending order of establishments. This portion of the Universal Church's temple network that spans these three countries is the object of this research. We start from the hypothesis that the Universal Church, like other Pentecostal churches, spreads spatially in a spontaneous and flexible way, with greater intensity in more urbanized spaces or in the process of urbanization and among the most impoverished people. However, Universal does not renounce the rigidity of its hierarchy, whose power is centralized in the Brazilian leadership of the institution, led by Bishop Edir Macedo. Furthermore, the church mobilizes its influence on the Brazilian agenda for Africa to create conditions that are as favorable and as safe as possible for its operation and uses its presence in the media and social networks to expand its presence abroad. Our central objective is to collect and analyze data and academic and journalistic production sufficient for reflection and understanding of IURD's diffusion strategies on the African continent and the spatialization of its temples there. The methodology we employ consists of consulting IURD and census databases from South Africa, Angola and Mozambique and organizing them into maps, graphs, and tables. We also collected bibliographical production on the subject to provide theoretical and conceptual basis for our analysis and produce reflection.