(In)visibilidade dos corpos: racismo, branquitude e relações interétnicas nas comunidades da Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana No Brasil (IECLB)

Abstract

This thesis addresses the (in)visibility of black people within the communities of the Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB). To this end, racism associated with whiteness will be presented as determining factors for the invisibility of black people. In this sense, racism and whiteness are intertwined in the colonizing process that invaded territories located in Africa and America and promoted the enslavement of their peoples. During the colonization process, white people took upon themselves the mission of civilizing other peoples because white people believed that they were the representatives of progress and black people everything that was considered backward, imperfect and demonic. Thus, when the Brazilian government was forced by England to put an end to the enslavement of black people, it recruited white people from Europe to colonize areas considered empty and replace the labor of enslaved black people. Among these immigrants were people of Lutheran faith who were settled in colonies in the South and Southeast of the country. Thus, the first Lutheran communities in Brazil enjoyed the benefits of whiteness, such as receiving assistance to build churches and hire pastors. The first Lutheran communities were veritable ghettos, and it was only in the 1970s that thecommunities began to open up to the Brazilian reality. To prepare this thesis, ten black people were interviewed who reported their experiences of being black and Lutheran. They claim to notice the looks that indicate that they do not belong in that space. Therefore, they perceive covert racism and believe that the absence of the topic of racism in sermons and training, associated with the absence of black people in the higher echelons of the IECLB, generates their invisibility. In view of this reality, some assumptions of Black Theology will be presented as possible ways for the Church to decolonize its theological work and provide communities with resources to carry out the anti-racist struggle through biblical studies, lectures, and training, and to denounce racism as a sin and a crime. Ultimately, being a church in a multiethnic country requires a strong denunciation of racism, detachment from white privilege, and making visible black people who have been invisible for centuries.