A invenção da teologia: um estudo sobre a produção e mobilização da linguagem teológica no protestantismo brasileiro

Abstract

This thesis develops a study on the production and mobilization of theological language in Brazilian Protestantism. This is an empirical research with an ethnographic orientation whose theme includes the theoretical development of elements for a systematic theology. Protestantism is the main delimiting factor of the empirical and theoretical context of the research, so that it can be said that it is a study of the Protestant theological language in its empirical aspects of verification and analysis, and in its theoretical possibilities of systematization and articulation. Despite this, we deal with comprehensive concepts that go beyond this specific context, and can be useful for the investigation and analysis of religious language in general, beyond the Christian tradition, or as a tool for articulating it with other religious and cultural traditions. It investigates how theological language is produced and mobilized in the context of three different Protestant groups, contemplating different emphases of articulation of theological language in its varied modes of expression and use. We seek to understand how groups invent their theological languages, how their creative lines are articulated and what quality they present. What aspects motivate the production of their languages and what elements are chosen to mobilize their functions of signification and subjectivation, and what other aspects are chosen that make them vary or stabilize under a given configuration. In the final part, some concepts are developed to develop a systematic theory of theological language as a type of theology of the cross. It was called “minor theology”, but it could also be called paradoxical theology, differentiating theology, molecular theology, etc... Three elements are presented as language functions for the practice of such theology: The Abstract Machine Cross, the Body without Organs of Faith and the Ritorello Body. These are concepts that indicate a virtual conception of language, offering a possibility of understanding the ways in which theological language is updated and varies in its different contexts of production and mobilization.