Resignification of the body’s function in ritual performance of the renewed protestantism

Abstract

This article aims to bring some notes about the body’s conception in the called Protestantism renewed in Brazil (arising from the movement of Spiritual Renewal in the 1960s and 1970s) as well as about the role of the body in the ritual performance in the cult's time which is used as an instrument of praise and worship and in artistic expressions such as dance, music and theater to promote an interface between religion and art. We will be attentive, yet, the processes by which such conceptions of the body are interconected with dimensions of media consumption and spectacle, dimensions that permeate the religious experience beyond the cult environment, reaching not only other church events (such as conferences and seminars), but also the called secular media. The Igreja Batista da Lagoinha (IBL) in Belo Horizonte-MG, Brazil, constitute the empirical material that will be discussed in this study.