“Outro gênero” de Igreja: Um estudo sobre a prática comunitária de Leitura Popular e Feminista da Bíblia

Abstract

Patriarchy has deep roots and the Popular and Feminist Reading is like the "ax" that seeks to identify and cut off those roots. The central argument of this Dissertation is that the community practice of Popular and Feminist Reading of the Bible, developed by Grupo Flor de Manacá, provoked ruptures with patriarchal interpretative models in the trajectory of the Igreja Batista do Pinheiro (IBP), contributing to the construction of "other gender” of church. This argument is developed in four chapters. The first chapter accomplishes a review in the field of biblical hermeneutics based on feminist criticism, identifying patriarchal roots and contributions of a Feminist Reading. This critical review revisited patriarchal processes since the selection and canonization of Scriptures, through the patristic-medieval interpretation until reaching the ruptures and continuities of patriarchal roots in the context of the Protestant Reformation and the biblical sciences in Modernity. Bringing the reflection to the Latin American context, the emergence of the feminist biblical hermeneutics and the Popular Reading of the Bible were highlights and their importance in the deconstruction of the roots of a colonialist and patriarchal biblical hermeneutics that prevailed in the continent. In the second chapter, a review of the Baptist tradition and of the trajectory of the IBP is presented, identifying patriarchal Baptist roots, debating issues around the Baptist historical principles, the centrality of the Bible, the interpretative freedom of the community and the congregationalist ecclesiology. In a second moment, it is shown that the Baptist Protestantism in Brazil, developed from the north-American fundamentalist and patriarchal Baptist roots, in which the IBP was formed. These reflections situate the context in which the interpretive practice of the Grupo Flor de Manacá was developed. The third chapter focuses on the description and reflection of the interpretive practice of the Grupo Flor de Manacá, constructed from the hermeneutic mediation of the Popular and Feminist Reading, which allowed the IBP women access to a new experience of biblical hermeneutics, provoking the deconstruction of patriarchal readings of Baptist biblical hermeneutics. The fourth and last chapter analysis if there were transformations arising from the introduction of the Popular and Feminist Reading of the Bible in the ecclesial praxis of the IBP, presenting six elements representing a hermeneutical process that points to the construction of an ”other gender” of church that breaks away from the patriarchal roots in the community biblical hermeneutics of IBP. The analysis of the interpretive practice developed by the Grupo Flor de Manacá at the IBP confirms the importance of the Popular and Feminist Reading of the Bible in the deconstruction of patriarchal models and interpretative practices of the Bible in religious communities such as the Igreja Batista do Pinheiro.