Sheringham, O. (2013) ‘Brazilian churches in London and transnationalism of the middle’, in C....

© 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 23694 3

The Diaspora of Brazilian Religions

Edited by

Cristina Rocha and Manuel A. Vásquez

LEIDEN • BOSTON2013


CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ....................................................................................................viiList of Contributors ....................................................................................................ixAcknowledgements ...................................................................................................xv

Introduction: Brazil in the New Global Cartography of Religion ...................1Manuel A. Vásquez and Cristina Rocha

SECTION ONE

BRAZILIAN CHRISTIANITY: CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM

Edir Macedo’s Pastoral Project: A Globally Integrated Pentecostal Network ........................................................................................... 45Clara Mafra, Claudia Swatowiski and Camila Sampaio

Brazilian Churches in London: Transnationalism of the Middle ................ 69Olivia Sheringham

The “Devil’s Egg”: Football Players as New Missionaries of the Diaspora of Brazilian Religions............................................................ 91Carmen Rial

Brazilian Pentecostalism in Peru: Affinities between the Social and Cultural Conditions of Andean Migrants and the Religious Worldview of the Pentecostal Church “God is Love” ...............................117Dario Paulo Barrera Rivera

Catholicism for Export: The Case of Canção Nova ..........................................137Brenda Carranza and Cecília Mariz

SECTION TWO

AFRO-BRAZILIAN RELIGIONS

Umbanda and Batuque in the Southern Cone: Transnationalization as Cross-Border Religious Flow and as Social Field ..................................165Alejandro Frigerio


vi contents

Pretos Velhos across the Atlantic: Afro-Brazilian Religions in Portugal ............................................................................................................197Clara Saraiva

Transnational Authenticity: An Umbanda Temple in Montreal ................223Deirdre Meintel and Annick Hernandez

Japanese Brazilians among Pretos-Velhos, Caboclos, Buddhist Monks, and Samurais: An Ethnographic Study of Umbanda in Japan ..............249Ushi Arakaki

Mora Yemanjá? Axé in Diasporic Capoeira Regional ....................................271Neil Stephens and Sara Delamont

SECTION THREE

NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

Building a Transnational Spiritual Community: The John of God Movement in Australia .......................................................................291Cristina Rocha

The Valley of Dawn in Atlanta, Georgia: Negotiating Incorporation and Gender Identity in the Diaspora ................................313Manuel A. Vásquez and José Cláudio Souza Alves

The Niche Globalization of Projectiology: Cosmology and Internationalization of a Brazilian Parascience ................................339Anthony D’Andrea

Transcultural Keys: Humor, Creativity and Other Relational Artifacts in the Transposition of a Brazilian Ayahuasca Religion to the Netherlands ............................................................................363Alberto Groisman

Index ...........................................................................................................................387


BRAZILIAN CHURCHES IN LONDON: TRANSNATIONALISM OF THE MIDDLE*

Olivia Sheringham

Introduction

It’s in a space like this that the cultural shock alleviates. I don’t know any other community that is like the church – whether it’s Catholic or evangelical – where people meet so regularly. Maybe there’s a football group or something, but the church is, without doubt, the most important organisa-tion for the Brazilian community.1

While it is increasingly clear that Brazilians represent a highly significant ‘new migrant group’ in London, their strong presence is yet to be reflected within migration research or, indeed, the public consciousness. There are various explanatory factors for such ‘invisibility’ which include: the recentness of the flow; the fact that many Brazilian migrants are ‘irregular’ and so choose to keep a low profile (Evans et al. 2007); the tendency for migration research in the UK to focus on communities with direct colonial or historical links to the UK (Düvell and Jordan 2002); and the fact that, compared to many other migrant groups, there exist few examples of institutional or informal support networks to mobilize or unite the com-munity (Düvell and Jordan 202). Moreover, echoing the findings of studies of Brazilian migrants in the US (Margolis 1998; Martes 2000), there appears to be a relative lack of solidarity among Brazilian migrants in London, and many refer to the ‘lack of trust’ or ‘disunity’ among them (Sheringham 2013; see also Margolis 1994; Sales 1999; Martes 2000).

Yet despite the lack of visible interconnections among Brazilian migrants in London, a deeper look beneath the surface in fact reveals rich and complex networks of social interconnectivity.2 Particularly notable is the

* This chapter draws on research for a wider project, published as Transnational Religious Spaces: Faith and the Brazilian Migration Experience (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

1 Interview with a Brazilian member of an evangelical church in London.2 See Vasquez (2009) for a critique of the notion of community and solidarity among

Brazilian migrants and a call for a more nuanced approach to what he considers the more invisible processes of “infrastructural connectivity.”


70 olivia sheringham

role of churches in providing spiritual and emotional support for migrants, as well as spaces for the carving out of a collective identity (Vasquez 2009; see also Martes 2000). Just as migrants face multiple challenges on arrival in, and in adjusting to, a new environment in host societies, so too religious institutions and their leaders need to negotiate the new socio-spatial con-text within which they find themselves. Moreover, as well as acting within specific localities, religious institutions act transnationally, as they are shaped by and shaping migrants’ lives that cross national borders, and as they impact upon both sending and receiving contexts. However, as this chapter argues, the transnationality of these Brazilian migrant religious institutions does not fit neatly into a theoretical dichotomy of the ‘local’ and the ‘global’, between transnational processes ‘from above’ or ‘from below’, or between ‘here’ (in London) and ‘there’ (back in Brazil). Rather, I argue, they operate through the intersecting agencies of diverse actors, thus occupying the ‘thick middle ground’ of what Sarah Mahler and Katrin Hansing refer to as ‘transnationalism of the middle’ (Mahler and Hansing 2005).

Drawing on interviews with religious leaders in two churches in London, and with religious leaders and return migrants in Brazil (from November 2009 to September 2010), this chapter considers the ways in which religious institutions carve out transnational religious spaces ‘of the middle’ as they adapt and adjust to the challenges of a new context, negotiate spaces within an unknown environment and respond to the diverse needs of migrants. While concurring with many existing studies of migrant churches which highlight their supportive role, this chapter points to the need to ‘people’ these institutions and explore some of the ways in which they function through overlapping agencies acting across multiple scales, including the local, the transnational, the individual and the virtual.

After briefly providing some background to the study upon which this chapter is based, the chapter discusses the initial challenges faced by reli-gious leaders and argues that they themselves are migrants with their own migration narratives. The chapter then considers the ways in which the churches adapt in response to the new environment, and explores the con-trasting positions of the two churches in the case study with regard to migrants’ immigration status and, finally, civic engagement and integra-tion. While this chapter focuses predominantly on religious institutions, such a perspective does not overlook the fact that participation in a reli-gious institution is, for many migrants, just one element of the expression of (religious) faith, which is experienced throughout their everyday lives, and an integral part of their migration experience.


brazilian churches in london 71

From Brazil to London

In an analysis of the role of religion in the process of Brazilian migration to London, there are a number of contextual factors that need to be consid-ered. Firstly, the religious field in Brazil, which has undergone important changes in recent years (Freston 2008; Pierucci 2004). While Brazil remains the largest Catholic country in the world, recent census figures reveal a sig-nificant decline in Catholicism over the last twenty years, coupled with a striking increase in Protestantism – and in particular Pentecostalism. Moreover, within the Catholic Church there has been a growing adhesion to more charismatic movements, in particular the Charismatic Catholic Renewal Movement, whose worship style is very similar to that of Pentecostal churches – with its emphasis on the Holy Spirit, and the indi-vidual’s relationship with God.

A second important factor that needs to be considered is the receiving context. While there is still an absence of research into the lives of London’s Brazilians compared to other migrant groups, it is increasingly clear that they represent a significant ‘new migrant group’ in the UK. Unofficial estimates put the number in London alone at somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 (Evans et al. 2011), and they represent a highly diverse group (Ibid; see also McIlwaine et al. 2011.). However, despite differences in of gender, social class, region of origin, or religious affiliation in Brazil, a high proportion of the recent flow of Brazilians to London are ‘economic migrants’, the majority employed in low-paid, elementary professions (Evans et al. 2011). London’s sizeable Brazilian presence is reflected in the growing numbers of shops, restaurants, beauty salons and publications that exist, established predominantly by Brazilians, to serve Brazilians. However, despite the presence of these commercial spaces, there is a rela-tive lack of formal secular institutions that represent and mobilize the community.3

More significant, however, are the vast number of churches – of varying denominations – that seem to represent crucial spaces of support for Brazilian migrants. The emergence of a wide range of Brazilian churches in London in recent years has clearly had a major impact on the city’s reli-gious landscape, contributing both to the revival of a waning Catholic church in some areas (Davis et al. 2006), and the appearance of entirely

3 Two exceptions are ABRAS, set up in 2007, and Casa do Brasil, in 2009, both with the objective of providing social support for Brazilian migrants.



new religious institutions in unexpected locations. According to recent estimates by the Evangelical Alliance, there are at least seventy Brazilian Protestant evangelical churches,4 while Catholic Mass in Portuguese is held in eight different churches in London. Indeed, one of the most signifi-cant existing surveys of Brazilian migrants in London was conducted through distributing questionnaires among Brazilians attending religious services, as it was found that churches (Catholic and Protestant evangelical above all) were among the only spaces where large numbers of them would congregate (Evans et al. 2007).

The ‘religious field’ among Brazilians in London reflects both change and continuity in relation to the situation in Brazil (see Freston 2008). The somewhat disproportionate number of evangelical churches, and in particular Neo-Pentecostal denominations in London also illustrates the argument held within much of the literature that evangelical Protestantism travels more easily (Freston 2008; see also Corten and Marshall-Fratani 2001). On the other hand, as in Brazil, the Catholic Church has responded to global changes and a more complex and multifaceted religious arena within which it finds itself. Significant here is the increased number of branches of the Catholic chaplaincy across London and beyond (which now encompasses eight branches), and the strong influence of the Charismatic movement.

The following sections draw on empirical material from research in two Brazilian churches in London – one evangelical and one Catholic, which were used as case studies for a wider research project. While the Catholic Church is the base of the Brazilian Catholic Chaplaincy in London, the evangelical church is one among a diverse range of evangelical Protestant churches in London, ranging from the historical Protestant ones, to the more recent Neo-Pentecostal denominations; from intimate prayer groups, to imposing mega-churches, including several branches of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.5 The evangelical Protestant church selected for this study was chosen as it is one of the longest-standing Brazilian churches in London – established in 1991 – and has a large number of con-gregants. I use the generic term “evangelical church” when referring to it for reasons of confidentiality and also, as the founding Pastor explained, the

4 The Brazilian consulate also provides a list of Brazilian religious institutions, of which there at over fifty evangelical ones. See http://www.consbraslondres.com/_temp/Representacaoreligiosa.pdf, accessed August 23, 2011.

5 Igreja Universal do Reino do Deus.



church defines itself as an ‘autonomous’ Protestant church, despite its Baptist and Pentecostal influences.6 Since establishing the church in London, the pastor has set up branches of the church in three different towns in Minas Gerais (Brazil), and in Amsterdam.7 All interviews were conducted in Portuguese and the citations in the text are my translation. All names have been changed to protect anonymity.

Transnational Religious Leaders

Peggy Levitt’s (2007) work on transnational religious institutions among migrants in Boston examines how religious institutions operate and are reconfigured within broader processes of globalization and transnational-ism. She draws on theoretical concepts from the globalization literature to outline different patterns of transnational religious organization. These include the notion of the Catholic Church as a ‘transnational religious corporation’ comprising “discreet units that function independently and as part of the larger operation at the same time” (ibid: 117), and what she describes as the more ‘flexible specialization’ of some Protestant churches (124). While this use of economic language is helpful in differentiating between various organizational forms, there remains a sense of religious institutions as operating ‘from above’ and somehow separate from the actions of individual migrants and religious leaders themselves, whose transnational activities are seen as carried out ‘from below.’

My research findings were more in line with Vasquez and Marquardt’s (2003) notion of religion as occupying a space somewhere ‘in-between’ the micro- and macro- processes that characterise global shifts, and as thus enabling crucial connections between such processes and the multiple actors involved. Within such a framework, religious institutions occupy a more complex, unstable, “middle-ground” whose identities and practices, like those of individual migrants, are constantly refashioned and renegoti-ated in response to new circumstances. Similarly, Mahler and Hansing’s (2005) research into transnational religion among Cuban migrants

6 The term evangelical is used in its broader sense to refer to a broad spectrum of beliefs and practices that have emerged within Protestant Christianity within recent years, but which are linked through their emphasis on the Holy Spirit and religious “experience” (see Stalsett 2006: 1).

7 A long-standing member of the church in London moved to Amsterdam and, granted permission by the main pastor of the church in London, established a branch of the church there.



(or exiles) in Miami highlights the conceptual and methodological need for a ‘transnationalism of the middle’ since, they argue, “[m]ost people operate in and expand a very thick middle ground that links individuals to institutions” (128). While, in both cases, attention is drawn to the multiple scales within which transnational religious activities are carried out, they also highlight how such activities are ‘always situated’ (see also Vasquez and Marquardt 2003: 140). Unpacking and peopling these religious institu-tions themselves enables us to explore this ‘thick middle ground’ even further and reveals how they are constituted by the actions of their leaders and members, albeit within asymmetrical relations of power.

An important level of analysis within this unpacking, or ‘peopling’ of migrant religious institutions is a consideration of religious leaders, them-selves migrants with their own migration trajectories. Within existing research, leaders’ roles and experiences are often subsumed into discus-sions of their institutions and of more macro-level process of religious transnationalism. Yet closer attention to their migration experiences obvi-ates seeing them as synonymous with their institutions and, rather, enables a more complex reading of churches as spaces of ‘infrastructural’ intercon-nections (Vasquez 2009), as well as of more formal institutional ties.

Thus, with regard to the churches in this study, the pastor who founded the evangelical church and the first Brazilian Catholic priest who estab-lished the Brazilian Chaplaincy had already been religious leaders in Brazil, and their reasons for coming to London were primarily religious: their aim was to serve the spiritual needs of the growing Brazilian community in London. The Catholic priests, however, were clearly part of a wider ecclesi-astical framework and were sent to London to carry out important mission-ary work. Padre José, the first Brazilian Catholic priest in London, provided a brief history of the establishment of the Brazilian Catholic Chaplaincy. He explained how it was established in 1996 to celebrate Mass in Portuguese for Brazilian migrants across the city, and how, in May 2004, they obtained a more permanent base in a disused Catholic church in East London. While initially the priests working with Brazilians were not Brazilian, but rather a Portuguese-speaking Englishman and later a man from the Dominican Republic, in 2002 Padre José was sent over by the PBE (Pastoral for Brazilians Abroad), an organisation set up by the CNBB (National Council of Brazilian Bishops) in Brazil, to serve the rapidly growing Brazilian community. Since 2006, another four Brazilian priests have been sent to the UK, responding to the increasing demand for pastoral and social care among migrants.



For the Catholic leaders themselves, such dislocation has its challenges. As one priest, Padre Mauricio, described his experience of arriving in London and adjusting to the entirely new context:

Here in London it was … it’s another world. Because in Brazil I had my rou-tines, my way of living … but here it’s completely different. In my city … there are just 120,000 inhabitants, and everyone is from there. So coming here’s a real culture shock.

Padre Mauricio also recalled how he had been ill during his first year of liv-ing in London, and people told him that he was suffering from banzo or saudade – ‘longing’ or homesickness – for his home and his family.

The priests have to be prepared to move from one location to another as directed by the Brazilian Catholic Church (or the CNBB), and according to the perceived needs of migrants. One priest, Padre Omario, recounted how he came to London in 2002, having lived in the US for five years, working with Brazilian migrants in a suburb of Boston, where he had been sent by the PBE. He was supposed to go back to Boston again after one year in Brazil, but at the last minute was sent to London as one of the priests there was unwell and needed himself to return to Brazil. He described how difficult it was when he first arrived as, unlike his work back in Brazil and in the small community in Boston, London was a big city where Brazilians were dispersed and religion played a minor role in peoples’ everyday lives. He explained:

(T)he city is completely pagan and it doesn’t have that … that religious aspect. There are churches, lots of churches – you know, the physical, visible element – but it’s different in that you live here with so many people anony-mously … so for us as priests the religious aspect that you get in a small town or village is missing in a big city.

The Catholic Church in this study thus to some extent exemplifies what Levitt (2004: 6) refers to as an ‘extended transnational religious institution.’ Like the Irish Catholic church in Levitt’s US-based research, the Catholic Church in London reflects the ways in which this already global institution is extended and localised as it enables migrants to simultaneously main-tain transnational ties, while at the same time engage with the host society context. Yet despite being part of a global institution, the narratives of the Catholic leaders point to a more complex picture in which, as well as extending an already global institution, the church is also being constantly negotiated and reinterpreted through the intersecting actions and prac-tices of leaders and members, as well as wider structures. Thus, while the



Catholic priests are part of this global institutional structure which may represent a form of transnationalism ‘from above’, they are still individuals moving between different contexts and facing many of the challenges and needs of migrants themselves.

Pastor Marco, who founded the evangelical church, offers a contrast to the Catholic transnational pattern, although in both cases religious motivation plays a key role. He recounted his personal ‘call from God’, which brought him to London to establish a ‘community.’ He explained how at the time he was the vice-President of a large Baptist church in the city of Belo Horizonte, and he was earning the equivalent of ‘fifteen mini-mum salaries’, which in Brazil allow for a very comfortable living. So for him, coming to London had nothing to do with money and, moreover, the church he was working for refused to support, financially or professionally, his ‘decision’ to leave. Rather, his motivation came from God: “visions, mes-sages from God, many things which confirmed” that his mission was to go to England. To explain this personal journey, Pastor Marco wrote a short history of the founding of the evangelical church, which is given to all new members of the church as a part of their training as members of the com-munity. In it he explains how: “[t]hrough several means, God directed me towards England. So I began to get my things in order to obey the vision that God had given me.”

Pastor Marco also recounted the challenges he and his family faced when they first arrived in the UK with regard to obtaining visas and establishing a space for the church. They began their mission by organising prayer groups for Brazilian migrants in their small flat in Bayswater (West London) before eventually, in 1991, they managed to find a more permanent space in a Baptist church, which they rent – for services and other activities – along with three other migrant churches one Filipino, the second ‘Latino’, and the third, the original British Baptist church. The evangelical church was thus established through the personal faith of Pastor Marco and it remains free of denominational links with any other Brazilian churches in London. Indeed, it appears that Pastor Marco wished to distinguish his religious community from some other Brazilian evangelical churches, whose moti-vations were often, in his view, more material than spiritual, influenced by the widespread ‘theology of prosperity’, a vision he did not share for his community.

In contrast to the global framework of the Catholic Church, the presence of Pastor Marco’s church in London came from his extremely personal spiritual conviction, the consequence of an intimate accord with God. His decision to dedicate his life to God and the work of Jesus was something



beyond words, rather something embodied, felt “as deep as the last drop of blood in [his] body … right up to [his] last … breath”. Pastor Marco’s personal commitment to “God’s plan” led to the formation of a religious institution in a specific locale in London, and the subsequent expansion of this institution to localities in Brazil and elsewhere. In accordance with Levitt’s models, this evangelical church exemplifies what she calls a “nego-tiated transnational religious organisation”, which, she argues, “emerge from a set of personal and institutional relationships that emerge organi-cally, in response to the challenges posed by a particular context” (2004: 10). Yet despite responding to certain contextual challenges, the evangelical church is fashioned according to Pastor Marco’s own individual spiritual journey, which shapes some of the ways in which the institution functions transnationally. Despite emerging more organically than the Catholic Church, the evangelical church has, in fact, assumed a centralised form as prerequisite for ‘extending’ elsewhere. Pastor Marco remains the head pastor – thus leader of the whole structure – while the leaders of the branches of the church become ‘auxiliary pastors.’ Once again, the bound-aries between transnationalism ‘from above’ and ‘from below’ intersect and within a more blurred space in the middle.

Bringing the personal and spiritual experiences of church leaders to the fore, as opposed to privileging the institutional aspects, thus provides valuable insights for the analysis of transnational religion. These church leaders represent important actors in this middle ground of transnational-ism as they – neither poor migrants nor representatives of transnational elites – negotiate and the complex relationships between the local and the transnational, the personal and the institutional, the spiritual and the practical.8

Religious Institutions in New Environments

The above section reveals how a consideration of the experiences of religious leaders facilitates a more grounded approach to religious trans-nationalism, revealing that, although the priests and pastors may be representatives of larger organisational bodies, they, as individuals, also contribute to everyday, meso-scale forms of transnational change.

8 See Conradson and Latham (2005: 229) for a discussion of what they call “‘middling’ forms of transnationalism” by which they argue that transnationalism encompasses more than merely “transnational elites” or “developing world migrants.”



Yet religious leaders need not only to adjust to new environments within host societies, they also to adapt to the diverse needs of the migrants who frequent their churches and who find themselves in very different situations from those ‘back home’. Thus, as has been noted in existing studies, far from merely replicating churches in Brazil, religious institutions in the receiving society need to be flexible and to take on different roles in response to the new context (Martes 2000; Levitt 2007; Vasquez and Ribeiro 2007).

Padre José from the Catholic church described this process as a kind of “broadening”, not so much a theological broadening as a disciplinary one, whereby churches – and leaders – need to be open to different behav-iours, both with regard to migrants religious practices within the church, as well as their everyday lives outside. He said that while the doctrines of the Church could never be changed, the ‘disciplina’ (discipline) had to be loosened so as to address some of the challenges facing migrants. These included the fact that many members were ‘irregular’ and that there were couples living together outside marriage, as they were unable to marry legally in the UK. These were things that would have been con-demned by the Catholic Church in Brazil, but were everyday realities for large numbers of Brazilian migrants and thus had to be accepted. Furthermore, he remarked: “people come to church more here than in Brazil – out of need … The majority come to church because they feel a lack, be it of a sense of ‘Brazilianness’, of their language, of somewhere to live.”

The fact that a lot of migrants were short-term residents was another challenge underlined by the Catholic leaders in the receiving context, mak-ing it difficult to carry out any long-term ‘religious guidance’. According to Padre Omario, many people who had never been churchgoers in Brazil, began to frequent the church in London because of loneliness, or even depression. As such, the role of the priest in the receiving context often becomes that of providing more immediate “psychological support and advice”: a listening ear for people to recount the difficulties they faced in London, or a shoulder to cry on. Padre Mauricio, by contrast, described his function for Brazilian migrants, who frequented the church in London as:

something, well, truly Christian. It’s to provide – what’s needed … Today, for example, a woman called me – she never comes to church, she’s not from the church – but she\n badly into drugs, she can’t cope anymore. So – it’s the priest that she calls – it’s the priest who will listen to her.

Thus, even within the same institution, two very different understandings of what religion is – or rather, what the role of a religious leader is in this



context – emerge. While, on the one hand, Padre Omario suggests that the priest’s role is broadened to engage with more secular needs and expe-riences, for Padre Mauricio, the new role involves an expansion of Christianity, or a more universal application of Christian values. In both cases the leaders are negotiating the boundaries between different scales of experience: transnational and local, institutional and individual, spiritual and practical.

As mentioned above, Catholic leaders in London are also required to adapt to the growing influence of the Charismatic Catholic Renewal Movement among members of the congregation. While such a movement is increasingly popular in Brazil, the Catholic leaders, who described them-selves as adherents of the more traditional wing of the Catholic Church, explained how they had had little contact with it in Brazil. In London, by contrast, leaders had to engage closely with the movement as many mem-bers of the church were keen ‘Charismatics.’ They provided space for a weekly charismatic prayer group, and for visits from Charismatic Priests from Brazil and elsewhere. When I asked why the movement was so popu-lar among Brazilian Catholic migrants, Padre José responded:

[I]t works with your feelings. Although it is not explicitly social or political, it offers much more immediate answers to political and social problems – like if you want a miracle, if you want a cure.

The pastors at the evangelical church depicted the adaptation to the new context more in terms of a ‘theological broadening.’ Thus, while the church in London maintained ties with its sister churches in Brazil and Amsterdam and, indeed Pastor Marco was the ‘head Pastor’, he explained that these were ‘fraternal’, meaning informal, as opposed to institutional or denomi-national. Thus, the London-based church sought to remain theologically independent since, as Pastor Neilton commented, “We have a principle that all the churches that God gave the grace to my father to set up have no denominational link”. Thus, for example, although the church in London did not define itself as Pentecostal, the service style included elements of a Pentecostal service – such as speaking in tongues – and many of the new members had been Pentecostal in Brazil. As Pastor Neilton put it, members brought with them ‘theological baggage’ and the church needed to respond to their diverse expectations. Indeed, although Pastor Marco had been a Baptist pastor in Brazil, he explained that his church was not denomina-tionally Baptist, but rather modelled its style on the teachings of Apostle Paul and his concept of leadership. He explained that, while the Baptist church has a ‘democratic’ model of leadership in which everyone has a



vote, Apostle Paul teaches that the leader must not be a “novice, so that they do not become proud and fall into the condemnation of the devil.”

Reminiscent of the narratives of the Catholic leaders, Pastor Neilton also suggested that the main difference between the church’s role in London and Brazil related to the greater needs of migrants who were far from their families in Brazil. He said,

So peoples’ needs become greater here, because in Brazil, whether they like it or not they have their families … so that need for your family, you know, those things that have to do with the family – they are fulfilled by one’s own family there.

In London, the church thus becomes a surrogate family where migrants can feel safe and ‘at home’ in an otherwise unfamiliar environment.9 Pastor Marco explained that one of the main principles of the church (which was established for migrants) was the model of the Biblical family, in which the father figure ‘must be an example for people to follow.’ Members address each other as irmão/irmã (brother/sister), and, within the family structure, everyone has a role in what are called ministérios (ministries). There is a ministry of music (the largest and most important, which provides music for all the services), a ministry of multi-media (in charge of broadcasting the Cultos and maintaining the church’s website), and a ministry of teach-ing (in charge of organising English and Portuguese classes, although these were not running at the time of my fieldwork).

The churches thus represent important ‘in-between’ spaces which enable migrants to forge links with their families “back home” and their local environments in London. Yet a notable difference between the dis-courses of the two churches was with regard to migrants’ legal status. While the evangelical leaders mentioned the necessity for a certain doctrinal and practical flexibility in response to migrants’ needs, the church seemed somewhat less open when it came to acceptance of members’ behavior in a different context. In contrast to the narratives of the Catholic leaders who seemed to be openly supportive of irregular migrants, the agreed line among the evangelical leaders was openly against migrants being undocu-mented, and congregants were encouraged to ‘regularize’ their situation. Pastor Marco explained to me how such a stance had its roots in the Bible

9 During the course of the Culto there is a big slide which states, in large script, “faça parte da familia”, meaning “become part of our family.”



and the teachings of the Apostle Paul under Caesar during the Roman Empire:

Apostle Paul shows clearly that we must obey the authorities because there are no authorities that have not been established by God. So, based on these biblical teachings, we instruct people that they change their situations, that they regularize themselves.

My interviews with some return migrants who had frequented the church in London seemed to reveal how such a discourse had strong resonance in the consciences of church members. Wagner, whom I interviewed back in Brazil where he frequented the Brazilian ‘branch’ of the church, explained that he had returned home as his visa had expired and he could not live with the guilt of living in London ‘illegally’ especially knowing that this was condemned by the church. Juliana, another return migrant, had in fact been deported, having lived in London as an irregular migrant for three years. She explained how she believed that her deportation was justified in the eyes of Jesus, as well as the authorities in the UK, and spoke of the guilt she had felt knowing the church had disapproved of her status. Back in Brazil, she frequented the Brazilian branch of the church and believed she was on a more honest path. Thus, despite creating a space for the forging of a new family within the migration context, migrants faced barriers to their inclusion within this family structure.

Within the Catholic Church, leaders expressed a somewhat more compassionate attitude towards irregular migrants. As Padre Mauricio commented in relation to the number of people in the church who were irregular:

I always need to take a human attitude – always. Nothing can shock me or scandalise me. I can’t be shocked by anything because it could be me – I can also make mistakes. I do. So, above all, I cannot judge anyone … So my func-tion as a religious leader is to welcome people. Welcome them and show them the existence of God’s love, of the love of Christ – and make them feel this love in their heart. Any change will come from this discovery.

Sister Rosita from the Catholic PBE, whose role included helping to train priests who were going to work among the Brazilian diaspora, outlined the church’s position with regard to irregular migration which was, she said:

[T]o welcome the migrant and, within the pastoral work of the church, to facilitate their means to ensure a good quality of life and respect of their dig-nity as a human being. At the same time, the role and mission of the Church and its institutions is to create and/or communicate actions that can help the undocumented to get out of their “irregular” situation.



She also reiterated that the church’s function in the receiving context should be, “along with other organisations, to campaign to widen the legal framework so that migrants have better chances to ‘regularise’ their situa-tions within the country.”

The Catholic Church’s line thus seemed to be first and foremost to defend and support the rights of migrants to ensure their dignity and, sec-ond, where possible to help migrants to regularise their situation. The line of the evangelical church, in contrast, was above all to encourage migrants to regularise, which in turn would ensure their dignity and respect within a foreign environment. Perhaps not surprisingly, these different perspectives were reflected in the contrasting membership of the two churches, with far fewer ‘irregular’ members of the evangelical church compared to the Catholic one. As Pastor Neilton commented:

[w]e don’t have a large number of illegals [his term] in the church. Because it’s something we don’t support. We have some, but we don’t support it. Thus we don’t have anyone who is illegal in a position of leadership in the church – this is one of our main principles.

The divergent attitudes towards immigration status were also reflected in the leaders’ explanations of the political role of the two churches. Thus for Padre Mauricio from the Catholic Church, the church’s role was to rep-resent ‘the voice of the voiceless.’10 This defence of “the voiceless” was, he believed, the essence of being a Christian, of loving God. He used the example of a recent campaign in London for the recognition of Brazilians as an ethnic minority, in which, he said, “the church should be the first to protest.” Furthermore, he explained how the Brazilian Catholic Chaplaincy was at the forefront of a campaign for an amnesty for irregular migrants, Strangers into Citizens, as part of their involvement in the London-wide coalition of civil society and faith-based organisations.11

By contrast, the evangelical church preferred to maintain its distance from the political sphere for, as Pastor Marco explained, “we feel that it is not part of our mission to get involved with politics. Jesus Christ called us to bring the Gospel.” Indeed, while he recognized that there may well be some “unjust” laws, their institutional position was that the Bible teaches

10 This expression became popularised by Latin American progressive Catholicism, and particularly the movement of Liberation Theology, to which Brazil contributed greatly.

11 Strangers into Citizens is a campaign led by the civil society organisation London Citizens. It calls for a regularisation for irregular migrants for long-term irregular migrants. See http://www.strangersintocitizens.org.uk/, accessed August 07, 2010.



that we must obey the authorities, whether we agree with them or not. He commented, “the Bible tells us that we must respect those who govern. Whether they’re good or not, God gave them permission to govern.”

Such conflicting attitudes point to quite different interpretations of what it means to be Christian. While that of the Catholic Church was one of protecting, defending, welcoming everyone unconditionally according to Jesus Christ’s example, the evangelical church seemed to place more emphasis on teaching members to live their lives according to more spe-cific teachings of the Bible which imply abiding by the rules prescribed by those in authority. Furthermore, while the discourse of the evangelical church draws upon a notion of being Christian based upon the teachings of Apostle Paul and paying taxes to Caesar, the statements of the Catholic leaders often refer to Jesus himself as a refugee. As Sister Rosita remarked:

Important examples for Christians are the biblical narratives, which recount how Jesus himself experienced life as a refugee (when he was still a child and his family had to flee to Egypt), as well as his public life as a wandering preacher.

The discourses of the two churches are to some extent reminiscent of Vasquez and Marquardt’s (2003: 170) observations in their ethnographic comparison of two Latino Churches – one Catholic and one Protestant – in a suburb of Atlanta. While the Catholic church in their study had, they sug-gest, “created an alternative public … that challenges the discourses being articulated around the table from which its members are excluded,” the Protestant church had created, “an alternative to public space that teaches its members ‘table manners’ […] in the hope that such lessons will help members make a place for themselves at the table.” These ‘alternative’ spaces provided by religious institutions are thus important for the articu-lation of transnational and local ties. Yet despite representing important bridges between local and transnational actors, it is important not to lose sight of the new forms of exclusion that emerge and the differentiated access to such spaces.

Integration, Solidarity and Inclusion

This notion of a ‘place at the table’ points to the much-debated issue of the role of migrant churches in integration and the extent to which they can represent a ‘pathway to civil engagement’ (Levitt 2006), or conversely, how they have the potential of creating new forms of exclusion (Ugba 2008).



In the case of both churches in this study, conducting services in Portuguese and creating a familial atmosphere was considered essential in order to support new migrants and help them to cope with the struggles associated with life in London. As one Priest explained, there are three things that a Brazilian has to do in his own language ‘brincar, xingar, e rezar’ (‘joke, swear, and pray’). While leaders from both churches felt it was important for Brazilian migrants to conduct their everyday lives in English, the church was considered a space in which migrants could come to relax, to replenish themselves, or to find solace.

The evangelical church perceived itself as a ‘multicultural’, rather than a predominantly Brazilian, church. While the majority of its members were Brazilian, and such predominance created a strongly Brazilian atmosphere, Pastor Marco explained that there were also Portuguese, Cape Verdean, and even an Iranian member who had converted in London and conse-quently they made sure that the Cultos did not make exclusive reference to Brazil. Moreover, headphones were provided at the beginning of the service for simultaneous translation into English. Pastor Nielton explained that this was because there were some people who attended services at the church whose first language was not Portuguese, including English people married to Brazilians, or migrants from non-Portuguese speaking countries. The church thus sought to “reach out” beyond the Brazilian Community in London.

As well as English classes, the evangelical church offers a course for new arrivals in London called ‘Survive’, which provides practical advice on how to settle in London. Thus, the church positions itself as somehow more than a migrant church, a space for attaining the necessary tools – spiritual, practical, moral – to assist migrants’ eventual integration into wider society and acquisition of a ‘place at the table’ within mainstream society (Vasquez and Marquardt 2003).

Within the Catholic Church, by contrast, there was an emphasis on creating a specifically Brazilian identity, and thus enabling Brazilians in London to maintain close ties to Brazil. Indeed, this to some extent reflects the conflation of Catholicism with questions of national identity in Brazil, despite the declining numbers of adherents (see above). In the UK, on the other hand, the Catholic Church is a minority church, in tension with the Protestant mainstream. Such contexts thus strengthen the Catholic Church’s appeal to Brazilian migrant identity in the UK. Moreover, the position of the Catholic Church contrasts to the evangelical church since, as Pastor Marco explained, Brazilian Protestants do not see themselves in tension with the religious and cultural field in the UK.



At the Catholic church in London not only were the service style and songs very ‘Brazilian’, but traditional Brazilian celebrations took on great importance, and the church provided classes in Portuguese and Brazilian culture for children of Brazilian migrants. As Felipe, who worked at the church helping to organise Brazilian social events and Brazilian lunches after Sunday Mass commented, “the church becomes like a ‘little Brazil.’” During my fieldwork in London I attended a number of traditional Brazilian events at the church, including a day of celebrations themed around the state of Goiás – one of the principal sending states for Brazilian migrants. There was food and drink – including beer imported from Goiás – and tra-ditional music and dancing, choreographed by some of the many Goiano (from Goiás) members of the church.

Padre Omario explained how providing a cultural link with Brazil was a crucial element of the church’s role, especially for the children of migrants who may have been born in London, or been in London since they were very young. While they may go to school and speak English, coming to tra-ditional Brazilian festivals at the church enabled them to keep up their Portuguese, and to maintain ties with their ethnic roots. Moreover, Padre Mauricio responded to the question of why the church placed such a strong emphasis on maintaining a Brazilian identity by remarking, “there’s no way you can remove your cultural identity … It’s your essence, no one can take that away.” Thus, maintaining one’s cultural identity was, in his opinion, inevitable and did not automatically imply an impediment to integration. Sister Rosita argued that:

Maintaining one’s own culture – and religion is part of this culture – is not contrary to integration. Rather it is a necessity and, moreover, it is enriching. It can even have a positive effect on integration if migrants are conscious of what their being part of the Brazilian community can offer the local commu-nity in terms of mutual enrichment.

Such discourses reflect some recent scholarly and policy debates into the relationship between processes of transnationalism and integration which, it is argued, can be ‘complementary’ rather than contradictory, and combined in different ways (Ehrkamp 2005: 361; see also Morawska 2003; Sheringham 2010). Thus, as Sister Rosita suggests, the promotion of Brazilian culture within the Catholic Church does not necessarily impede integration and can in fact facilitate the process. On the other hand, Sister Rosita did also point to the possibility of the church becoming an ‘escape’ from the local context, and thus contributing to a kind of self-segregation:



If a migrant isolates him/herself from the receiving society, or refuses to learn about the realities of the local society, frequenting a church – with a service and preaching in Portuguese – could represent an escape from society and this would have consequences for their integration.

Hence the Catholic leaders were aware of the possibility of ethnic segrega-tion, or what one respondent referred to as the ‘risk of a ghetto.’ They there-fore emphasised the other key element of the church’s role, which was to facilitate migrants’ integration into UK society through providing free English classes ‘every day of the week’, as well as advice and information about jobs, housing, and visas.

However, the extent to which the church represents the root cause of this self-segregation is somewhat questionable, especially if one considers the “profound inequalities that create nonreligious barriers to inclusion” (Foner and Alba 2008: 384). The majority of migrants attending the Catholic Church were employed in low-paid, service-sector jobs, often living in over-crowded conditions and, given the ‘irregular’ status of a high proportion of them, lacked access to basic forms of welfare. So rather than being a hin-drance to integration, or exacerbating migrant segregation, one could argue that the church may represent an alternative to other potential forms of ethnic isolation for those already living at the margins of society. Thus, one priest explained to me that the majority of people who come to London were young and single and that “if they didn’t find an atmosphere here in the church they would end up falling into prostitution, drugs, sex.” For him, the role of the church in this context became “as well as evangelization and mysticism, to create alternatives for leisure, entertainment and sociability in a community where people can feel welcome and protected.” In this sense, church membership was regarded not necessarily as a way of directly facilitating integration, but rather of avoiding the opposite, that is, Brazilians losing themselves in what is conceived as London’s potentially dangerous underworld.

Once again, the notion of the church as an ‘alternative’ space emerges. In this case, however, as well as protecting migrants from the sense of lone-liness or lack that migration entails, the church is depicted as providing a moral framework in a context in which migrants may otherwise ‘lose them-selves.’ Moreover, as some scholars have observed, the amplified role of some churches is often in the absence of state or civil society organizations working to meet the diverse needs of migrants, who in many cases, con-tinue to live invisibly, marginalized, and outside the official reach of the nation state. These churches thus represent spaces which challenge any neat dichotomy between transnationalism from above or from below, as



well as between the sacred and the everyday concerns and challenges of migrants.

Concluding Remarks

It is high time for a transnationalism of the middle. (Mahler and Hansing 2005: 141)

Echoing existing studies of religiosity among Brazilian migrants in other contexts, this chapter has explored how churches – and by extension religious leaders – take on important, supportive, roles for migrants faced with the struggle of life in an unfamiliar, potentially hostile, city, and for their families back home in Brazil who are left to cope with the absence of their loved ones. Indeed, as the examples in this chapter suggest, religious institutions are required to be more flexible and open to the diverse needs of its new members, who not only represent a heterogeneous group, but who also have myriad needs that are very specifically related to the experi-ence of being a migrant – and Brazilian – in London.

I argue that rather than seeing migrant religious institutions as operating ‘from above’ and somehow separate from other migratory phenomena, it is important to consider how they are closely intertwined in such processes. The chapter has thus suggested that that it is important to consider how religious leaders themselves are migrants, whose experiences are often neglected in existing research on migrant religious institutions. Moreover, I argue that the spiritual conviction of religious leaders – neglected in much of the existing research on religion and transnationalism – needs to be considered as an important motivating factor. Thus, whilst the focus of this chapter is on the role of religious institutions in transnational processes, it suggests that the multiple activities and agencies that comprise them in fact blur the boundaries – both real and conceptual – between the institu-tional and the individual, the local and the transnational, the sacred and the practical. It also reveals the importance of a multi-scalar approach to the study of religious transnationalism.

While I have focused on two specific case studies, the narratives of the church leaders and the discourses of the institutions they represent provide some important insights with regard to how religion travels across borders, and thus how broader transnational processes interplay with local contexts. Thus, the evangelical church avoids political engagement, empha-sizing instead its commitment to serving God above all else. The Catholic example represents a global religious institution – the Catholic Church,



centred in Rome – but, at the same time, creates a ‘little Brazil’ with strong cultural ties to the migrants’ homelands. On the other hand, both churches are embedded in local contexts, having to negotiate the very real borders and boundaries within the new social, cultural, and political environments within which they find themselves. Thus in the UK, where Brazilian migrants often work in precarious conditions and have to negotiate the complex and restrictive migration regime, churches take on particular roles for migrants – in these examples either openly contesting in the case of the Catholic church, or adhering to, in the case of the evangelical church, state policies.

A study of the role of religious institutions in the lives of migrants thus requires us to explore in more depth the multiple agencies and actors at work within the somewhat murky ground of transnational religion in which global and local factors and actors intersect, converge or diverge.

References

Alves, J. C. S. and L. Ribeiro. 2002. “Migração, religião e transnacionalismo: O caso dos brasileiros no sul de Flórida.” Religião e Sociedade 22 (2): 65–90.

Amorim, A., C. A. Dias, and S. Siqueira. 2008. “Igrejas protestantes como espaço de sociabili-dade e fé para os familiares dos emigrantes em Governador Valadares.” Fronteiras (Campo Grande) 10: 251–276.

Conradson, D. and A. Latham. 2005. “Transnational Urbanism: Attending to Everyday Practices and Mobilities.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31 (2): 227–233.

Corten, A. and R. Marshall-Fratani. 2001. Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. London: Hurst.

Cwerner, S. 2001. “The Times of Migration.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 27 (1): 7–36.

Davis, F. et al. 2006. The Ground of Justice: The Report of a Pastoral Enquiry into the Needs of Migrants in London’s Catholic Community. Cambridge: Von Hügel Foundation.

Düvell, F. and B. Jordan. 2002. Irregular Migration: The Dilemmas of Transnational Mobility. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Press.

Ebaugh, H. R. and J. S. Chafetz. 2002. Religion across Borders: Transnational Immigrant Networks. California: AltaMira Press.

Ehrkamp, P. 2005. “Placing Identities: Transnational Practices and Local Attachments of Turkish Immigrants in Germany.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31: 345–364.

Evans, Y., J. Wills, K. Datta, J. Herbert, C. McIlwaine, J. May, J. O. Araújo, A. C. Franca, and A. P. Franca. 2007. Brazilians in London: A Report for the Strangers into Citizens Campaign. London: Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London.

Evans, Y., T. Tonhati, G. T. Dias, M. D. G. Brightwell, O. Sheringham, A. Souza, et al. 2011. For a Better life: Brazilians in London, 2010. London: Goldsmiths, University of London, Queen Mary, University of London and Royal Holloway, University of London. Her name is Maria das Gracas so I think M.G would be best.

Foner, Nancy and R. Alba. 2008. “Immigrant Religion in the US and Western Europe: Bridge or Barrier to Inclusion?” International Migration Review 42 (2): 360–392.

Freston, P. 2001. Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



——. 2008. “The Religious Field among Brazilians in the US.” In Becoming Brazuca, Brazilian Immigration to the US, eds. C. Jouët-Pastré and L. J. Braga. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hirschman, C. 2007. “The Role of Religion in the Origins and Adaptation of Immigrant Groups in the US.” In Rethinking Migration: New Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, eds. A. Portes and J. DeWind. New York: Berghahn Books.

Jouët-Pastré, C. and L. J. Braga, eds. 2008. Becoming Brazuca, Brazilian Immigration to the US. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Levitt, P. 2004. “Redefining the Boundaries of Belonging: The Institutional Character of Transnational Religious Life.” Sociology of Religion 65 (1): 1–18.

—— . 2006. Religion as a Path to Civic Engagement and Civically Infused Religion. Boston: Wellesley College. Available from http://www.peggylevitt.org/pdfs/Levitt.Imiscoe4.pdf (accessed August 29, 2011).

—— . 2007. God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape. New York: New York Press.

Mahler, S. and K. Hansing. 2005. “Toward a Transnationalism of the Middle: How Transnational Religious Practices Help Bridge the Divides between Cuba and Miami.” Latin American Perspectives 32 (1): 121–146.

Margolis, M. 1994. Little Brazil: An Ethnography of Brazilian Immigrants in New York City. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

—— . 1998. An Invisible Minority: Brazilians in New York City. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.Martes, A. C. B. 2000. Brasileiros nos Estados Unidos: Um estudo sobre imigrantes em

Massachussets. São Paulo: Editora Paz e Terra.Mcguire, M. 2008. Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.McIlwaine, C., J. Cock, and B. Linneker. 2011. No longer Invisible: The Latin American

Community in London. London: Queen Mary, University of London; Latin American Womens’ Rights Service; Trust for London.

Morawska, E. T. 2003. “Immigrant Transnationalism and Assimilation: A Variety of Combinations and the Analytic Strategy It Suggests.” In Toward Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation-States, eds. C. Joppke and E. T. Morawska, 133–176. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Orsi, R. A. 2003. “Is the Study of Lived Religion Irrelevant to the World We Live In? Special Presidential Plenary Address, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Salt Lake City, November 2, 2002.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42 (2): 119–174.

Pierucci, A. 2004. “‘Bye Bye Brasil’ – O declínio das religiões tradicionais no Censo 2000.” Estudos Avançados 18 (52): 17–28.

Sales, T. 1999. Brasileiros longe de casa. São Paulo: Editora Cortês.Sheringham, O. 2010. “A Transnational Space?: Transnational Practices, Place-Based Identity

and the Making of “Home” among Brazilians in Gort, Ireland.” Portuguese Studies 26 (1): 60–78.

Ugba, A. 2008. “A Part of and Apart from Society? Pentecostal Africans in the ‘New Ireland.’” Translocations: Migration and Social Change 4 (1): 86–101.

Vasquez, M. 2009. “Beyond Homo Anomicus: Interpersonal Networks, Space and Religion among Brazilians in Broward County.” In A Place to Be: Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Mexican Immigrants in Florida’s New Destinations, eds. P. Williams, T. J. Steigenga, and M. Vasquez, 33–56. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Vasquez, M. and M. F. Marquardt. 2003. Globalizing the Sacred: Religion Across the Americas. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Vasquez, M. and L. Ribeiro. 2007. “‘A igreja é como a casa da minha mãe’: religião e espaço vivido entre brasileiros no condado de Broward.” Ciencias Sociais e Religão 9 (9): 13–29.

Sheringham, O. (2013) ‘Brazilian churches in London and transnationalism of the middle’, in C....

Documents

Transcript of Sheringham, O. (2013) ‘Brazilian churches in London and transnationalism of the middle’, in C....