Abstract:
This thesis analyzes the discourse in the relations between power-knowledge in
sexuality present in the religious institutions, especially in Christian churches, having
as a theoretical reference the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault.
Understanding the religious discourse about sexuality based on Foucault is to admit
that the religious discourse is an object of power present in the historicity of the
power devices which act on the body-sex of each individual-human, as well as in the
existence of pleasure, its unique, singular, particular way of life. One will also
examine the way in which sexuality was used as a power device throughout history
and how it is embodied in current times. One perceives few changes since the
implantation of Protestantism in Brazil, due to the strength with which the power and
the knowledge were established within the discourse elaborated by the religious
leaderships, which based themselves on a distorted interpretation of the Holy
Scriptures. The culture of each group needs to be analyzed as a reference to obtain
a better comprehension of the acts and behaviors of a certain social group and not
take it as a model. With regard to sexuality, one needs to understand why it is the
object which most perturbs the religious institutions and is used as something to
bind the individual to sin. Where are the concepts of sin? How can one understand
them, when one perceives that, in between lines, many Christian churches, when
preserving life , prohibit life, underestimating sexuality? There is not just one reason
or one truth which can be used to establish an authentic relation. The tradition or
subjection is nothing more than fact situations. What persists is that the church is
made up of subjects, subject-individuals .
