Abstract:
This dissertation seeks to discuss the presence of Lutheran confessionality in a school of the Rede Sinodal de Educação, linked to the Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB). The Associação Educacional Luterana Bom Jesus/IELUSC, which prior to December 2006 was called Instituto Superior e Centro Educacional Luterano Bom Jesus/IELUSC, is the school discussed in this paper. Bom Jesus/IELUSC began in 1866, with the building of the Deutsche Schule (German School). This school was closed in 1938. The building was rented to the Instituto Bom Jesus, which was founded in 1926 by a teacher, Ana Maria Harger. The Comunidade Evangélica de Joinville (CEJ), who owned the Deutsche Schule building, bought the Instituto Bom Jesus in 1963 and started a Church-school based on lutheran confession identity. This paper will describe the affects of introducing Lutheran confessionality from 1963 to the present on this school. Comunidade Evangélica de Joinville changed the name of the school to Colégio Bom Jesus. The union of the school yard with the yard of the Congregation, and its consequent common use, became representative of the new configurations and relationships of power. It has undergone remodelings, disputes, enlargement and attempts at new creations. These developments have produced tensions and disclosed conflicts between the objectives of a confessional school and a private school. The appearance of a confessional/congregational school is not always able to hide the values and priorities present in a private school. In order to present a confessional appearance and meaning, the Institute created a ministry for a School Pastor and a ministry for a College Pastor. Both ministries contributed to the dialogue between Lutheran theology and pedagogy as understood in the objectives of the Educational Politics of the IECLB. Both ministries were closed abruptly and in a conflictive manner. The tension provoked by the procedure used for closure of these ministries continues to reveal limits and disputes between the essence and the appearance of the Institute.
