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Paper short abstract:

I will discuss the ethical subjectivation process among believers at the Universal Church of the Kingdom Church. Different levels of adherence to the Church contribute to different constitutions of the self along the buffered-porous spectrum. The ethical process involves constitute and of the world.

Paper long abstract:

This paper proposes to discuss the ethical subjectivation process among believers at the Universal Church of the Kingdom Church (UCKG). The UCKG is a Brazilian Pentecostal church founded in 1977 by Edir Macedo. 1% of Brazilians today declare themselves to be part of this church, and the many possibilities for interaction with UCKG beliefs and practices outside of institutional spaces render this church better known than this number shows. Furthermore, different levels of adherence to the Church contribute to different constitutions of the self along the buffered-porous spectrum. What I am proposing is to understand how this church becomes part of Brazilian society and public sphere, and becomes a source of morality and ethics.

The research that constitutes the paper here proposed occurred through fieldwork in three different temples of the UCKG in Brazil. Through my participation, I could see and be part of different ethical exercises. These experiences are part of the process that makes God real to the people who take part in them and enables them to constitute themselves and the world around them while waiting for Him. In Brazilian society in recent years, to engage with the UCKG's ethical project is to engage with a national project. Michael Lambek (2010) indicates that ethics is a way to be in the world, a social action. In this sense, I will argue that the ethical process involves not only a process of constitution of the self in relation to the world, but also of the world itself.