Religious Morality in Brazil

STEPHEN SELKA
Indiana University
Morality in the religious marketplace:
Evangelical Christianity, Candomblé, and the struggle
for moral distinction in Brazil
A B S T R A C T
Most of the research on the growth of evangelical
Christianity in Latin America and elsewhere has
focused on the distinctive products that evangelicals
bring to the “religious marketplace” and on other
competitive advantages that evangelical churches
have over their religious rivals. Alternatively, on the
basis of research among evangelical Christians and
practitioners of African-derived Candomblé in
northeastern Brazil, I examine the role of discourses
about morality in encounters between two religions
that, although often openly hostile to one another,
draw adherents from similar socioeconomic
circumstances. I argue that competing religious
discourses play a central role in struggles for moral
distinction in communities that are relatively
homogeneous in terms of their social compositions.
[Brazil, religion, Candomblé, Christianity, morality]
P
ublic Candomblé ceremonies in Bahia, known as festas or
toques,
focus on spirits, such as African orixás and indigenous
caboclos,
that incorporate in the bodies of their devotees. During my

field-
work in the town of Cachoeira, in the state of Bahia, I often vis-
ited terreiros (Candomblé temples) where initiates danced to the
rhythms of these spirits. Those who were playing the rhythms
sometimes
drew as much attention as the dancers, however. One who did
was Raul,
a virtuosic drummer with a distinctly frenetic style. Even when
he would
show up at a toque on a whim, he was often asked to take a seat
on the
drummers’ platform, much like a special guest who is invited
onstage to
perform with a jazz band.
In my time in Bahia, I also spent many Sundays attending
services at
evangelical churches. One afternoon, I thought I spotted Raul
sitting near
the front row in a Baptist church, but at first I figured I was
mistaken. Why
would a candomblecista attend an evangelical service? But
when the pastor
called the congregants to the altar to accept Jesus, I definitely
recognized
the drummer I had seen play in a Candomblé terreiro the week
before.
Dressed in a white button-down shirt, he strode down the aisle
to the front
of the church to receive the pastor’s blessing in front of the
congregation.
Not long after I saw him in church, I bumped into Raul at a
local bar.
He showed up with a group of friends from various Candomblé

terreiros in
town. He wore a gold cross around his neck, however, and a
Baptist Church
Mission T-shirt with a biblical passage on the back. When I
questioned Raul
about his shirt, he explained that he still attends Baptist
services. Puzzled,
I asked how he can frequent both the church and the terreiro.
Raul simply
shrugged and replied, “I go where people invite me.”
What is striking about Raul’s explanation is the apparent
nonchalance
with which he speaks about moving across the boundaries
between two
religious communities whose members are often hostile to one
another.
These boundaries are often defined in terms of opposed and
incompati-
ble religious practices, and discourses about morality also play
a key role
AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 291–307,
ISSN 0094-0496, online
ISSN 1548-1425. C© 2010 by the American Anthropological
Association. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1425.2010.01256.x
American Ethnologist � Volume 37 Number 2 May 2010
in their construction and maintenance. Evangelicals and
Candomblé practitioners (povo de santo, lit. people of saint)
in Cachoeira do not appear to be very different from each
other in terms of income, occupational type, or accumu-

lation of wealth.1 The differences in the ways that these
competing religions imagine the moral dispositions of each
other’s members are clear, however. For example, many
evangelicals speak in foreboding tones about the supposed
malı́cia (malice) of the Candomblé practitioner, and many
Candomblé practitioners bristle at what they perceive as
evangelical insinuations of moral superiority.
Much of the recent work on pluralistic religious fields,
such as those in Latin America, however, has focused less
on discourses about morality than on the stakes of compe-
tition in “religious marketplaces” (Chesnut 1997, 2003; Gill
1998; Martin 1991) or on the ways that religion intersects
with questions of identity and politics (Burdick 1993, 1998;
Cleary and Stewart-Gambino and Wilson 1997; Ireland
1991; Selka 2007). The marketplace approach emphasizes
the practical benefits and “spiritual compensators” that
competing religions offer and attempts to understand the
consumption of religious products and services according
to a rational-choice model (Stark and Bainbridge 1996; Stark
and Finke 2000; Young 1996). Andrew Chesnut’s work on
Brazil, for example, has focused on healing as the primary
product in the Brazilian religious marketplace and rightly
emphasizes the pragmatic orientation of Brazilian popular
religion. Nevertheless, the marketplace, or rational-choice,
model has been criticized as reductionist and for failing to
reflect the lived experience of religious participants (for an
excellent overview of debates about this model and its use
in the Latin American context, see Latin American Informa-
tion Center 2009).
Alternatively, others who have examined religious plu-
ralism in places like Brazil, such as Rowan Ireland (1991),
John Burdick (1993, 1998), and myself (Selka 2007), have
addressed the ways in which religious practice articulates
with questions of identity and politics. Yet moral discourse

is not generally a central focus in these studies either. Al-
though questions of morality often overlap with those of
social identity and political ideology, I maintain that it is
important to engage moral discourse and practice in their
own right. In fact, although social theorists have long been
concerned in varying ways with questions of morality, in
the past decade or so the study of morality has greatly
expanded as an explicit focus of anthropological research
(Barker 2007; Brodwin 1996; Browne and Milgram 2009;
Heintz 2009; Howell 1996; Lambek 1996; Robbins 2004a,
2004b, 2009; Rydstrom 2003; vom Bruck 2005; Zigon 2009).
In this article, I contribute to this scholarship by examining
oppositional moral discourses in pluralistic religious fields
as something more than boundary markers, recruitment
strategies, or ideological claims. As heirs to the “hermeneu-
tics of suspicion,” many social scientists are primarily con-
cerned with uncovering the true impulses behind moral
discourse and practice. I contend, however, that we should
attempt to see struggles over moral distinction as meaning-
ful in themselves, as enmeshed with but ultimately not re-
ducible to pragmatic concerns or identity politics.
With respect to Bahia’s religious arena, where many
people like Raul circulate between competing religions for
their own purposes, scholars need to explore why practi-
tioners stick with a particular practice in the midst of read-
ily available and analytically interchangeable alternatives.
This is a complex question, but part of the answer lies in
the fact that, just as the commodities that traditional con-
sumers use often have complex social meanings not ac-
counted for by their use value, religious consumers are con-
cerned with more than the immediate practical outcomes
of the religious products and services they use. The mar-
keting and consumption of many kinds of commodities are
often explicitly indexed to particular lifestyles and identi-

ties; likewise, religious practices are often keyed to certain
moralized conceptions of how one should act in the world.
The importance of moral discourse, however, is often over-
looked in approaches that focus on rational-choice models
or the politics of identity. It is crucial to attend to the ways
that religious practitioners become invested in the moral
orders that their religious practices construct.
As I illustrate in this article, moral discourse helps to
anchor people in particular religious communities, even
in the midst of constant circulation. That is, I emphasize
the centrality of moral discourses and practices to the con-
stitution and differentiation of communities of religious
practice. Furthermore, such discourses are rendered all the
more compelling because they are indexed to salient social
distinctions. Specifically, in the following pages I examine
evangelical churches and Candomblé terreiros as nexuses
of practice where discourses about morality are linked to
distinctions having to do with respectability and disrep-
utability. I am concerned with imagined differences be-
tween religious communities in religious arenas in which
the boundaries of affiliation and practice are blurry. At the
same time, I am concerned with the ways in which these
imagined differences contribute to the formation of shared
moral orders that eventually anchor many people in one
community or another. In focusing on these concerns, I
hope to shed light on the competition for moral distinction
in communities that are relatively homogeneous in terms of
their social compositions.
Evangelicals in the religious field
The rapid growth of evangelical Christianity is a global
phenomenon. Indeed, the spectacular growth of Pente-
costalism in places where “animistic” or spirit-possession
religions are practiced has been of particular interest

to anthropologists. With respect to Latin America, in
292
Morality in the religious marketplace � American Ethnologist
particular, studies of evangelical Christianity in relation to
African-derived religions or syncretic popular Catholicism
have offered a variety of arguments about the continu-
ities and divergences between these religions. Following a
Weberian approach, some have focused on how the cos-
mological differences between these religions contribute
to socioeconomic differentiation among their adherents
(e.g., Goldin and Metz 1991; Wedenoja 1980; Willems 1967).
David Martin (2001), for example, suggests that the growth
of evangelical Christianity stems from its connections with
and reactions to the processes of modernization and, to
some extent, from the promise of upward socioeconomic
mobility. Yet the majority of evangelicals in Latin America
and the Caribbean remain poor and largely marginalized by
modernization projects, and this must not be overlooked in
accounts of religious changes in the region.
Accordingly, other studies that also stress the cosmo-
logical differences between these religions emphasize the
socioeconomic similarity of their adherents (Bastide 1978;
Burdick 1993; Fry and Howe 1975; Gonçalves da Silva 2007;
Howe 1980; Ireland 1991; Verger 1992). Generally speak-
ing, evangelicals and povo de santo do not appear to dif-
fer significantly in terms of their rates of employment—
even though evangelicals may be represented in the service
sector of the economy more than nonevangelicals (Ireland
1991). With respect to Pentecostalism and Umbanda (a re-
ligion similar to Candomblé), for example, Peter Fry has

pointed out,
The coexistence of these two religious movements is
problematic in that, while it has been impossible to
distinguish sociologically the membership of the two
movements, they differ markedly in terms of organi-
zation and cosmology, representing two quite distinct
ways of interpreting and dealing with afflictions gener-
ated by the contradictions of the urban environment.
[1978:177]
Fry and Gary Howe (1975) see Pentecostalism and Um-
banda as “cults of affliction” that appeal primarily to those
who are sick, unemployed, or suffering from alcoholism.
They maintain, however, that these religions represent dif-
ferent ways of dealing with these afflictions. These scholars
argue that Pentecostals view the world in essentially ratio-
nalistic terms, for example, and that they understand their
relationship with the divine within a legalistic framework.
Alternatively, umbandistas presumably view the world as
something to manipulate and understand their relation-
ships with the spirits in terms of the reciprocal exchange of
favors. Although I do not focus on the same oppositions that
Fry and Howe emphasize, I share their concern with the dif-
ferences between competing religions that attract very sim-
ilar adherents.
Although the work I have discussed so far emphasizes
the cosmological differences between evangelical Chris-
tianity and African-derived religion, other studies stress the
cosmological similarities between evangelical Christianity
and Candomblé. Many maintain that evangelical Christian-
ity, Pentecostalism especially, mirrors the mystical world-
view of Candomblé and of popular religion in Latin America
and the Caribbean, in general (Manning 1980; Margolies
1980; Simpson 1978; Stoll 1990). As I discuss in more depth

below, this is particularly true of neo-Pentecostal churches,
many of which mirror the spirit-infused cosmologies of
African-derived religions. Moreover, people seek out evan-
gelical Christianity and Candomblé for similar reasons,
including healing and other immediate personal needs
(Burdick 1993; Chesnut 2003). Chesnut, for example, ar-
gues that it is no coincidence that these religions, both
of which strongly emphasize healing, have seen striking
growth among the poor, who not only suffer a higher inci-
dence of illness but also have limited access to other forms
of medical treatment.
In this article, I explore the many ways in which evan-
gelical Christianity and Candomblé converge and diverge.
Not only do many people circulate between these reli-
gions, blurring the boundaries between them and using
them for similar purposes, but the cosmologies of these re-
ligions also overlap and even intertwine. At the same time,
the practitioners of these religions often represent their
practices as categorically opposed to one another. So how
are the continuities and differences between evangelical
Christianity and Candomblé constructed and maintained?
Here I focus on the importance of moral discourse. Dis-
courses about morality are probably not a major factor in
initial affiliation for most people, as issues such as fam-
ily and peer affiliation and the particular kinds of prob-
lems for which people are seeking help are more relevant in
this regard. Moral discourse is most relevant after the fact
and helps to construct and maintain differences between
religions with overlapping adherents, cosmologies, and
purposes.
Competing discourses about morality underlie the dif-
ferences in how the cosmologies of these religions are
framed, including how the entities within each are clas-
sified. Evangelicals, for example, refer to Candomblé spir-

its as “demons,” which emphasizes their negative moral
valence and marks a clear boundary between Christianity
and Candomblé. These moral accusations are more than
boundary markers, however. For many, they also indicate
competing moral orders that are indexed to social concerns
and distinctions. Moreover, as I explore in the following
pages, evangelicals and povo de santo do not use moral dis-
course in the same ways, and the asymmetrical moral or-
ders they create help to differentiate religions that compete
with one another in the same social spaces.
293
Ethnographic background
Bahia is one of the poorest states in Brazil and home to the
highest proportion of people with African ancestry in the
country. In this article, I focus on the Bahian Recôncavo, a
vital center of Afro-Brazilian culture in Brazil. This cultur-
ally vibrant yet economically impoverished region encom-
passes Salvador, the capital of Bahia, and the rural town
of Cachoeira, each renowned for its deeply rooted Afro-
Brazilian traditions. The town of Cachoeira, with a popu-
lation of about 31,000 (Instituto Brasilerio de Geographia
e Estat́ıstica 2005), is located about one hundred ten kilo-
meters inland from coastal Salvador and sits in a valley
among rolling hills on the banks of the Paraguaçu River.
With its cobblestone streets, donkey carts, and unhurried
pace of life, Cachoeira remains decidedly rustic compared
with modern Salvador. The local economy is largely geared
toward agriculture, and many of the businesses in town
provide farming products or equipment repairs to the res-

idents of the surrounding rural areas. Recently, however,
an Italian-owned leather factory opened nearby and sev-
eral public works projects were initiated in Cachoeira, pro-
viding other sources of employment. In addition, the town
supports a modest tourist traffic that focuses on its colo-
nial architecture and Afro-Brazilian traditions, including
Candomblé.
This article focuses on my investigation of the traf-
fic between Candomblé and evangelical Christianity in Ca-
choeira against the backdrop of the imagined moral dis-
tinctions between religious practitioners in each group. It
is based on roughly two years of fieldwork in the Recôncavo
since 1999,2 during which time I myself circulated between
Candomblé terreiros and evangelical churches. This kind of
fieldwork, which was anchored in multiple sites, afforded
me a better sense of people’s trajectories across the religious
field than I would have gained working with only one reli-
gious community or another.
The religious field
Catholicism has long been an integral part of religious prac-
tice in Afro-Brazilian communities. Catholicism was the of-
ficial religion of Brazil from its initial colonization until
the proclamation of the Brazilian republic at the end of
the 19th century. According to Roger Bastide (1978), during
most of Bahia’s colonial history, Africans and their descen-
dants practiced their traditional African religions primarily
in the context of the Catholicism of the sugar plantation.
More-recent scholarship has demonstrated, however, that,
at least since the 18th century, Afro-Brazilian religions have
been practiced by groups of free, freed, or escaped Africans
and their descendants (Parés 2006; Wimberly 1988). From
this work, it appears that free Africans were generally more
important than enslaved Africans in the development of

Candomblé. Toward the end of the 1800s, slavery was abol-
ished and Brazil became a republic in which church and
state were formally separated. In this context, the devel-
opment of Afro-Brazilian religions accelerated in the cities,
which were primary destinations for freed slaves.
The Candomblé that is practiced in Brazil today is
a complex, hierarchical religion derived from a variety of
practices that Africans brought to Brazil. The initiates are
predominantly women, ranked by degree of initiation and
ceremonial function. Candomblé practice revolves around
the pantheon of African orixás and other spirits who pos-
sess their devotees in public ceremonies and to whom of-
ferings are made in both public and private rituals. Can-
domblé terreiros are found in cities throughout Brazil, yet
the oldest and most famous of them were established in the
Recôncavo region of Bahia.
Around thirty regularly functioning terreiros exist in
Cachoeira, several of which have histories that can be traced
back to the 19th century. Day-to-day life at terreiros in-
cludes fulfilling obrigações (obligations), such as animal
sacrifices, food offerings, and other such rituals, to the
orixás and other entities (Bastide 1958; Carneiro 1991).
These obligations are due on days that are dedicated to par-
ticular entities, before public celebrations, and as part of the
requirements of initiation. Other kinds of spiritual work, in-
cluding limpezas (cleanings) and ebós (offerings), are per-
formed for paying clients. These practices may be aimed at
healing, causing a person to fall in love, or harming some-
one, among other purposes.
According to research on the nationwide census, about
1.3 percent of the Brazilian population reports being in-
volved with Candomblé (Prandi 1995). This modest statis-

tic, however, probably only counts those who are formally
initiated. Initiation is a lengthy and expensive process, so
few participate in the daily activities of the terreiro, most of
which are not open to the public. A significantly larger num-
ber of people attend or have attended public Candomblé
ceremonies or have consulted with a Candomblé practi-
tioner for a variety of possible reasons, including problems
with health, money, or relationships. Judging from ques-
tionnaires I distributed and conversations with people in
the field, I would estimate that, at the time of my fieldwork,
somewhere between one-third and one-half of Bahians liv-
ing in Cachoeira had visited a terreiro at some point in their
lives.
Representations of Candomblé have long been indexed
to discourses about morality. In the context of Brazil’s mod-
ernization efforts at the turn of the 20th century, for ex-
ample, Brazilian elites denounced Candomblé, along with
Afro-Brazilian practices such as samba and capoeira (an
Afro-Brazilian martial art), as “unhygienic” and as “an of-
fense against public morality” (see Brown 1986; Johnson
2002). Today, however, Brazil has embraced Candomblé as
a valued part of its Afro-Brazilian cultural heritage. Paul
294
Johnson has used the apt phrase “from tumor to trophy”
(2002:79) to describe this transformation of the public per-
ception of Candomblé over the course of the 20th cen-
tury. Nevertheless, as I describe below, the practice of Can-
domblé still carries a stigma in many communities.

Catholicism and African-derived religions are not the
only religious influences in Afro-Brazilian communities. As
many as 20 percent of Brazilians are evangelical Chris-
tians, and evangelicals tend to be disproportionately Afro-
Brazilian (Freston 1994; Prandi 1995). At the end of the
19th century, the freedom of religion that came with the
proclamation of the Brazilian republic encouraged the early
growth of mainline Protestantism. Some proponents of
modernization at the time, including many immigrants and
members of the Brazilian middle class, embraced mainline
Protestantism as an alternative to the conservative world-
view of Catholicism and to the mysticism of Afro-Brazilian
religion (Da Silva 1998). In addition, in the early 1900s, the
Pentecostal movement reached Brazil and began to gain
many converts among mostly poor, nonwhite Brazilians. By
the second half of the 20th century, evangelical Christianity
had become a viable competitor to the Catholic Church.
Generally speaking, evangelical churches differ from
historical or mainline Protestant denominations in their
emphasis on the literal interpretation of the scriptures, the
imminent second coming of Christ, and the separation
of the faithful from the ways of this world (Costa 1979;
Freston 1994; Novaes and Floriano 1985). Those evangel-
ical churches that label themselves Pentecostal also em-
phasize the expression of certain “gifts of the Holy Spirit,”
such as speaking in tongues and faith healing by the laying
on of hands. Formal evangelical worship centers on church
services that are held from several times a week to several
times a day, depending on the church, as well as on weekly
prayer meetings held in members’ homes. Services in differ-
ent churches in Cachoeira vary in many details, but com-
mon elements include a relatively simple, if not spartan,
church design and decoration, in stark contrast to the of-
ten elaborately baroque Catholic churches in town. Worship
services emphasize hymn singing, impassioned sermons,

and spontaneous vocalized prayers from the congregation.
Visitors are almost always invited to come to the front of
the church to accept Jesus Christ as their savior, and, of-
ten, healing services are conducted during which the pas-
tor anoints or “lays hands” on the sick. Prayer meetings in
people’s homes involve Bible study and, sometimes, intense
prayer and healing sessions in which believers manifest the
gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Whereas the evangelical churches in Cachoeira share
basic beliefs and practices, they are formally differentiated
by their doutrina, or doctrine. In this context, doctrine refers
not to differences in theological beliefs but to customary be-
havioral regulations and practices derived from the scrip-
tures. Assembléia de Deus (Assembly of God) and other
traditional Pentecostal churches are known to be among
the strictest in their doctrine. In these churches, women
are not permitted to wear short skirts or makeup or to
have elaborate hairstyles, and individuals may only date
other church members. Members cannot drink, smoke,
dance, play soccer, perform capoeira, or participate in other
“worldly” activities. At the other end of the evangelical spec-
trum is the Baptist Church, which, although it does not al-
low body piercings or gratuitously revealing clothing, leaves
much up to the discretion of the individual church member.
Even though Baptists are not permitted to drink, smoke, or
take part in festivals, they may play soccer and engage in
capoeira in groups organized by the church.
Both the Baptist Church and the Assembly of God
have deep roots in Brazil. Baptist missionaries arrived in
Brazil in the 19th century, and missionaries from the As-
sembly of God arrived in the early 20th. The Assembly
of God, then, was part of the “first wave” of Pentecostal
churches that arrived in Brazil (Mariano 1999). Around the

middle of the 20th century, a second wave of Pentecostal-
ism emerged that was made up of homegrown churches
such as Brasil Para Cristo and Deus é Amor. A distinc-
tive feature of these churches is that they place even more
stress on divine healing than their first-wave predecessors.
In the past few decades, a third wave of neo-Pentecostal
churches has emerged, including the Igreja Universal do
Reino de Deus (IURD; Universal Church of the Kingdom of
God), which I discuss in more depth below. Neo-Pentecostal
churches are distinctive in the way that they relate both
to “the world” and to African-derived religions such as
Candomblé. Neo-Pentecostals place less emphasis on sepa-
ration from the world than other kinds of Pentecostals. The
IURD, for example, has a relatively lax doutrina; further-
more, in its emphasis on what has been dubbed the “the-
ology of prosperity,” particularly on how religious practice
can lead to benefits in the areas of “health and wealth,”
it brings the instrumental orientation of the second wave
of Pentecostals to a new level. Most importantly for the
purposes of this article, another distinguishing feature of
neo-Pentecostal churches is their preoccupation with as-
pects of Afro-Brazilian religions. Pentecostals, in general,
view Candomblé as demonic, but, as I illustrate below, the
IURD invites demons into its churches to be exorcised.
And the more the cosmologies of these religions intertwine,
the more the moral valences of the entities within them
polarize.
Morality
In Bahia, one often hears phrases such as pessoa de re-
speito (respectable person) and pessoa maliciosa (malicious
person) to designate specific moral dispositions. A pessoa
de respeito, for example, should work hard, avoid involve-
ment with illicit drugs, and take care of his or her family

295
obligations. The pessoa maliciosa often engages in the op-
posite behavior—the malandro, for example, is a classic
pessoa maliciosa, who studiously avoids work and hustles
his way through life. Yet malı́cia does not carry an en-
tirely negative valence. In certain contexts, especially within
the semiotic frames of capoeira and Candomblé, to have
maĺıcia means to have street smarts and to be able to fend
for oneself, in specific contrast to the otário (fool) who is
constantly taken advantage of by others.
As I illustrate in the following pages, povo de santo
and evangelical Christians often make moral accusations
against one another that articulate with these social distinc-
tions. Evangelicals represent themselves as respectable and
Candomblé practitioners as malicious, for example. A lo-
cal Cachoeiran anthropologist explained to me that evan-
gelical churches provide spaces where Afro-Brazilians, in
particular, can achieve a measure of respectability, whereas
they have virtually no place in the Catholic Church and
Candomblé offers them no prospect for social mobility.
This respectability may issue from a person’s position in
the church, and in many evangelical churches laypeople
are able, without extensive academic or ritual preparation,
to become pastor’s assistants (obreiros) or even appren-
tice preachers. Respectability is also derived from evangel-
icals’ avoidance of those aspects of life commonly glossed
as baixaria (lit. lowness), including drinking to excess, en-
gaging in casual sex in dimly lit alleyways, and dancing in
the streets to loud music with lewd lyrics until all hours of
the night. It also comes from stories of redemption such as

that of Seu Raimundo, an evangelical convert who drank so
much in the years before his conversion that he lost the use
of his legs. As a Christian, he was able to learn how to read,
and today he is a lay preacher and a proud father of six chil-
dren who is afforded much respect by all of the residents of
his neighborhood.
Candomblé is a central negative figure in the con-
struction of evangelical identity, and it is often evangeli-
cals who assert claims of moral superiority and Candomblé
practitioners who refute them. Moreover, some observers
have described African diasporic religions as “amoral” (e.g.,
Chesnut 2003), but this is only accurate to the extent that re-
ligions like Candomblé generally do not require their mem-
bers to adhere to a fixed set of ethical precepts. Povo de
santo are, in fact, centrally concerned with questions of
morality. In contrast to evangelical discourses focusing on
the battle between good and evil and between Jesus and the
devil, the discourse of Candomblé stresses a balanced and
pragmatic approach to such questions. Indeed, Candomblé
practitioners do not simply reject churchly moralities; they
create their own moral order.
In response to evangelicals’ accusations, for example,
povo de santo often argue either that Candomblé is, in fact,
as ethically oriented as Christianity or that Candomblé’s
ethical ambiguity more honestly reflects human nature.
Many povo de santo insist that they practice Candomblé for
good purposes (fazer o bem, to do good) and not to harm
anyone (fazer o mal, to do bad). This contributes to the no-
tion that there are two kinds of practitioners: those who em-
phasize that Candomblé is basically a religion of love and
harmony and those who are involved with forms of sorcery
that has malicious, or at least ethically ambiguous, aims.
But the dichotomy between those who work with good spir-

its and those who work with bad spirits is a false one. Al-
though certain of the orixás are concerned with harmony,
associated with each orixá is an exú (trickster spirit) whose
character is at least morally ambivalent, if not malicious
(Wafer 1991).
It is most often the exús and eguns (spirits of the dead)
who are called on to do work that causes harm to people.
Some practitioners emphasize their work with the orixás in
an effort to fazer o bem, but they still must have a working
relationship with exús and eguns. It is only through such re-
lationships that a practitioner who wants to heal a client can
undo someone else’s sorcery. In Candomblé, the ideal is for
the forces of harmony and malice and for communality and
instrumentality to reach equilibrium, although this equilib-
rium is elusive and unstable (Brazeal 2007).
Moreover, relationships in Candomblé—both between
members of the Candomblé community and between prac-
titioners and spirits—are grounded in reciprocal obliga-
tions that are often framed in terms of familial bonds. As
fellow anthropologist Brian Brazeal writes, “Initiation to the
cult of the Orixás is figured as rebirth into a ritual fam-
ily. It binds the new initiate to a temple community and
the service of a tutelary deity. The blood of sacrificial ani-
mals shed in initiation ceremonies becomes the metaphor-
ical blood of ritual kinship” (2007:2). Thus, Candomblé is
not simply associated with maĺıcia. Candomblé practice es-
tablishes networks of morally compelling reciprocal obliga-
tions along the lines of spiritual kinship. The word respeito
(respect), for example, is often explicitly invoked to empha-
size the sanctity of tradition and hierarchy in the terreiro.
Evangelical discourses about Candomblé
Evangelicals’ reactions to the subject of Candomblé are of-

ten very strong. Katia, who volunteers as an usher at an
evangelical church, told me that she is repelled by people
involved with Candomblé: “Listen, the people I know who
are involved with Candomblé are very reserved . . . as if they
lived in darkness.” According to many people with whom
I spoke in Cachoeira, Candomblé, or macumba (a term for
Candomblé that, at least in Bahia, calls up images of harm-
ful sorcery), promises the power to kill people through the
use of spells, and some are attracted by that kind of power.
They claim that the power of macumba is real and that
some Candomblé adepts can do magic that will “kill within
24 hours.” A practitioner, for example, might put an agent
296
in a person’s food—but no medical test will reveal a trace of
poison. For the evangelical, however, faith is stronger than
macumba and protects the believer from sorcery.
According to Pedro, a friend of mine who is a former
obreiro at a local evangelical church, Candomblé practi-
tioners use their religion for evil ends. Candomblé goes
against the will of God: Why, for example, would God want
a spirit to enter a person to make him or her drink? (Exces-
sive consumption of alcohol is often believed to be caused
by certain spirits.) Pedro contended that God wants people
to be happy and to get along with others, but in Candomblé
people pit themselves against each other.
Many Cachoeirans claim that macumbeiros also in-
volve themselves in such sinister deeds as digging up
corpses to use their bones in evil spells and tearing off the

heads of cats with their teeth. Furthermore, as many res-
idents of the town told me, those who try to leave Can-
domblé always end up sick or crazy. I met a woman, for
example, who had left Candomblé after many years of in-
volvement with it and who then spent most of her days ly-
ing on a cot in her son-in-law’s house taking medicine for
the various illnesses her relatives say she incurred when
she abandoned the service of her orixá. The common say-
ing “Quem está dentro não sai e quem está fora não entra”
[Those on the inside don’t leave and those who are on the
outside don’t enter] succinctly expresses the idea that con-
sequences follow those who leave Candomblé, and most
Cachoeirans I know can cite cautionary tales about relatives
and neighbors that corroborate this adage.
Other common criticisms of Candomblé concern
money. Cachoeirans often characterize mães and pais de
santo (leaders of Candomblé temples, lit. mothers and fa-
thers of saint) as they do evangelical pastors: as greedy and
conniving. Brazeal illustrated this with a comment he over-
heard about a pai de santo whose telephone was blocked
for outgoing calls: “Virou pai de santo, só recebe” [He be-
came a pai de santo, now he only receives]. In fact, this
joke has several possible and overlapping interpretations.
The first, which is how Brazeal presented the joke to me, is
that now this man “only receives” money. Another interpre-
tation, however, is that that he now “only receives” spirits
(receber santo).
In addition, this joke may be taken as calling this man
out as a passive homosexual (a common stereotype for
male initiates of Candomblé) because he “only receives.”
Although stereotypical images of male sexuality in Can-
domblé are problematic, it is true that Candomblé com-
munities are more tolerant of and open about homosex-
uality than evangelical communities (Natividade and de

Oliveira 2007; see Matory 2005 for an excellent discus-
sion of gender and sexuality in Candomblé). Evangelical
churches strongly stigmatize homosexuality, and, although
the Catholic Church’s position is typically more nuanced
than that of evangelicals, homosexual sex is considered a
sin in Catholic doctrine. This may come into play as a factor
guiding religious affiliation for some men.
Several recurring themes emerged in descriptions of
“the typical candomblecista.” Many told me that, in com-
parison with evangelicals, the typical Candomblé practi-
tioner lives a life that is more sporadic or spontaneous,
that he or she dresses more fashionably (including wear-
ing revealing clothing), often drinks and smokes, listens to
popular music (including reggae, pagode, and Axé music),
and uses street slang. Negative stereotypes portray povo
de santo as malicious, secretive, self-interested, and anti-
social. These characteristics are at odds with those of an
ideal community member, one who is sociable, upstand-
ing, and de respeito. And even when an adept is a good
neighbor and fulfills his or her family obligations, evangeli-
cals stress that he or she is still involved with things that are
not quite right. That is, those who practice Candomblé are
not fully trustworthy because, by the nature of their religion,
they engage with forces that are dangerous at best—and, in-
deed, diabolical, according to evangelical Christian teach-
ings. And no matter whether one considers Candomblé to
be divine or diabolical, it is true that potentially harmful or
at least morally ambiguous spiritual work is part of the prac-
titioner’s repertoire. This fact reinforces the association in
many people’s minds between Candomblé and maĺıcia.
Candomblé is frequently a subject of discourse in a va-
riety of evangelical settings. In worship services I attended
at churches affiliated with the Assembléia de Deus, for ex-

ample, I usually heard at least one testimony each night in
which a convert either talked about how his or her life had
improved—materially, emotionally, and spiritually—since
turning away from macumba or how Jesus had provided
protection against feitiço (witchcraft). One evening, for ex-
ample, an elder of the congregation testified that he once
shared a tainted meal (i.e., one that had been poisoned by
feitiço) with three nonevangelical men, all of whom ended
up sick or dead whereas he remained unaffected.
Discourses about evangelical Christianity among povo de santo
Not surprisingly, many Cachoeirans, particularly those in-
volved with or sympathetic to Candomblé, complain that
evangelicals have a strong prejudice against Afro-Brazilian
culture and lack respect for people’s cultural traditions and
practices. Ana, a mãe de santo, complained that Pente-
costals are intolerant and always putting down other reli-
gions. As she told me, “Look, the crentes [lit. believers; a
common term for evangelicals] like to humiliate people.
They want to be God, but they are not. . . . They do not di-
alogue with people, they separate from them.” Other Ca-
choeirans with whom I spoke commonly described evan-
gelical pastors as greedy. One friend of mine told me a story
about a woman who went to a pastor to get help for her dy-
ing father. When the pastor asked her for money, the poor
297
woman was reluctant to give what little she had. The pastor
asked her, “So how much do you think your father’s life is
worth?” According to my friend, the woman turned over all

her money and had nothing left even to buy food with, but
her father still died.
The following excerpt from one of my interviews with
Zé, a filho de santo (Candomblé initiate, lit. son or daughter
of saint), provides a good example of this kind of discourse
about evangelicals:
Zé: I came to not like the Protestant religion because of
people who like to stick their noses into other people’s
lives. They want people to follow the religion that they
follow, and I don’t accept this, I don’t agree with this.
Author: They are nosy.
Z: Nosy people. . . . They don’t want to see people better
off, they want to see them worse off. They want people
to make the pastor better off. . . . You see in Christian
churches, when they pray, when the pastor prays, they
don’t open their mouths without talking about money.
Every sentence that they say to the faithful is about
money—the church needs this, the church needs that.
Candomblé is not like that, Candomblé works. I have
observed that in Candomblé what a mãe or pai de santo
collects during one year, this gets spent in two or three
days during the festa. . . . Every toque that they give,
they make food, food and drinks, things that they dis-
tribute to everyone who arrives, not just to themselves.
As this interview excerpt indicates and as I illustrate in the
following pages, evangelicals and povo de santo commonly
hurl all sorts of accusations at one another. Some of these
accusations, such as charges of greed, are leveled against
all varieties of religious practitioners. In fact, discussions
of religion in Cachoeira frequently involve denunciations
of morally corrupt priests and pastors who are more con-

cerned with their own enrichment than with the well-being
of their followers.
Of more interest for my purposes here, however, some
kinds of accusations are usually leveled only at specific
religious groups. It is primarily evangelicals who are crit-
icized for “being nosy,” for example, and this criticism
largely stems from the evangelical practice of proselytiza-
tion (Candomblé practitioners, by contrast, are more likely
to be criticized for being too secretive than for being nosy).3
This is important, as the asymmetries apparent in these re-
ciprocal accusations reveal much about the ways in which
different religious communities seek to constitute and dif-
ferentiate themselves, morally and otherwise. That is, evan-
gelicals often use moral discourse to mark the boundaries
between themselves and others, and converts, in particular,
invoke discourses of good and evil and righteousness and
sin to highlight the disjuncture between their present and
past lives. In Candomblé communities, however, where dis-
courses about good and evil are rarely so dichotomous, the
emphasis is more on one’s specific reciprocal obligations
to particular entities. Here, membership is defined more in
terms of networks of obligation and belonging than by stri-
dent opposition to an Other. At the same time, as I discuss
in more depth below, povo de santo often respond to accu-
sations of malice using a moral vocabulary that is similar to,
and surely influenced by, that of Christianity.
Besides telling stories that exemplified the nosiness
of evangelical converts and the greed of evangelical pas-
tors, Catholics and povo de santo often mocked the loud
and dramatic sermons and songs that blare from evangeli-
cal churches. In impromptu performances, they often car-
icatured evangelical pastors by uttering stock phrases in

shrill tones accompanied by exaggerated gestures, eliciting
laughter from their friends. Some middle-class Cachoeirans
I knew, most of whom were Catholics, commonly made
comments about evangelicals that highlighted their lower-
class status. For example, I often heard middle-class
Catholics joke that although most evangelicals are illiterate,
they insist on carrying Bibles with them wherever they go.
Generally speaking, several recurring themes emerged
in descriptions of “the typical evangelical,” among them,
that evangelicals live according to an orderly routine,
dress conservatively, do not drink or smoke, listen to
Christian music, and use plain speech without excessive
slang or cursing. Negative stereotypes that emerged re-
peatedly painted evangelicals as judgmental, self-righteous,
hypocritical, gullible, and uneducated. Some of the char-
acteristics attributed to evangelicals overlap with those of
the pessoa de respeito and the pessoa direitinha (upstand-
ing person), such as living an orderly life, striving to ful-
fill one’s responsibilities, and avoiding substance abuse.
The evangelical emphasis on moral uprightness can cre-
ate tangible tensions, however. Evangelicals claim to pos-
sess the exclusive truth—namely, in the form of the Bible’s
teachings—and from this perspective, it follows that evan-
gelical views of morality are exclusively correct. This implies
that Candomblé practitioners are morally wayward, an im-
plication that arouses much ire among povo de santo. In
tight-knit neighborhoods such as those in Cachoeira, any-
thing that smacks of a claim to moral superiority is met with
strong resentment among people who consider themselves
equals.
At the extreme end of the spectrum of expressions of
moral superiority are acts of violence against Candomblé
terreiros perpetrated by some evangelicals. Several “in-
vasions” in Salvador involving evangelicals who threw

“bombs” filled with noxious substances have been reported
in the newspapers there (Gonçalves da Silva 2007). Natu-
rally, the povo de santo I spoke with in Bahia were out-
raged at these incidents. Although I was unable to corrob-
orate if invasions like this had ever occurred in Cachoeira,
the breaking of ritual objects has occurred in town in
the context of conversions from Candomblé to evangelical
298
Christianity. As I discuss in more depth below, such con-
versions are not uncommon but are often fleeting. As João,
whose family has close connections to Candomblé, ex-
plains, “And the person [the convert] gets scared and sud-
denly right in the middle of church the orixá shows up and
demands to be worshiped, so the person ends up desperate
and crazy and comes back again [to Candomblé].” In fact, in
some evangelical churches, Candomblé spirits—most likely
exús or eguns rather than orixás proper—regularly appear
in the middle of worship services.
The significance of these possessions differs depend-
ing on one’s point of view. For povo de santo, they represent
a summoning back to Candomblé. From this perspective,
the Candomblé initiate has entered into a morally binding
reciprocal relationship with the spirits that cannot be bro-
ken simply by converting to evangelical Christianity. Nev-
ertheless, the desire to be released from one’s obligations to
the spirits is common in people’s conversion narratives, and
evangelical pastors often preach about the relief that Jesus
can provide from macumba. From the evangelical perspec-
tive, of course, Candomblé spirits are demons that person-

ify wickedness, illness, and misfortune. Accordingly, posses-
sion by these spirits is an occasion for exorcism in many
evangelical churches. This practice implies, of course, that
macumbeiros engage in the worship of evil entities and
suggests that they are therefore morally depraved, a sug-
gestion to which Candomblé adepts, naturally, take great
exception.
Exorcism
The most vivid examples of the central role that Candomblé
plays in evangelical discourse come from the IURD, the
fastest growing evangelical organization in Brazil. The pop-
ularity of the IURD is partly due to its appropriation, to an
even greater extent than in most evangelical churches, of el-
ements and themes that are prominent in Candomblé, in-
cluding the importance of spirits and healing (Guimbelli
2007). In addition, the IURD owns several radio and tele-
vision stations through which it spreads its message. This
message often focuses on how believers can be freed from
poverty, sickness, and relationship problems by ridding
themselves of the evil spirits, often identified with the enti-
ties of the Candomblé pantheon, who are believed to cause
these misfortunes. In fact, some Cachoeirans, even mem-
bers of other evangelical churches, claim that the IURD is
obsessed with the devil and evil spirits. “All they talk about
is demons and money,” one resident complained. Like
the Ewe Christianity that Birgit Meyer (1999) describes in
Ghana, the devil and demons of Christian cosmology form
a bridge between Christianity and Candomblé in Bahia. As
Meyer points out, even as Christians cast the entities of lo-
cal religions as wholly evil, the intense focus on these spirits
also serves to affirm their power.
A clear example of this focus on demons in the IURD
is the culto de libertação (worship for liberation) held on

Fridays to rid people of evil spirits. One Friday afternoon,
a friend and I attended such a service at the IURD church in
Cachoeira. Soon after we arrived at the church, worship be-
gan with hymn singing, as in most evangelical services. Af-
ter the hymns, however, the pastor asked everyone to place
their hands on their heads and instructed us to walk to the
front of the church as he led the congregation in a prayer.
Several obreiros anointed the palms of our hands with oil,
then the pastor stepped down from the podium and, along
with several of his helpers, started to “lay hands” on peo-
ple. This involved him placing one hand at the back of each
congregant’s neck and another on the forehead while pray-
ing to God and asking evil spirits to leave. As this was going
on, one of the obreiros walked back and forth in front of the
congregation preaching loudly. A few members of the con-
gregation became possessed, signaled by guttural screams
and moans accompanied by shaking body movements.
The obreiros herded the possessed to the front of the
crowd, where they stood with their hands behind their
backs, eyes shut, swaying back and forth, exactly as they
would have if they had been possessed in a Candomblé ter-
reiro. The laying on of hands continued in the congregation
as the possessed stood in front. Eventually, we went back
to our seats, leaving only the possessed, all three of them
women, standing in the front of the church.
The pastor proceeded to “interview” the spirits pos-
sessing two of the women, asking each for its name, what
it had done to the person it was possessing, and why it had
come into the person’s life. The spirits answered that they
had made their hosts lose cars, houses, spouses, jobs, and
money and that they had come out of greed for obrigações
(in this context, ritual offerings). One of the possessed
women nearly became violent; when the pastor attempted
to speak with her, she pulled away from him and ran around

the front of the church. Eventually the obreiros secured the
woman, but she put up quite a struggle before she returned
to her subdued stance in the front of the church.
As the pastor railed against the demons, congregation
members raised their arms and made pushing motions, as if
ordering the spirits to leave. “SAI!” [Leave!], they yelled over
and over again as they pushed the air (in fact, Cachoeirans
often dramatize this chant and the accompanying gesture
to mock members of the IURD). Eventually, the possessed
women were taken away to rooms in the back of the church.
One by one, however, they returned to sit with the congre-
gation. They appeared relieved, except for the unruly one,
who kept getting up from the pews and wandering around
the front of the church. Yet, by the end of the service, she
seemed to return to her everyday personality and behavior.
After the women settled down, the pastor retook the
podium and preached about evil spirits and what they do
to a person’s life. The equation was simple: If you are having
299
problems—marital, financial, and so on—these troubles are
caused by demons. Likewise, if you get involved with evil
spirits, they will cause problems in your life. Furthermore,
only God can deliver you from these demons and relieve
your suffering. Jesus provides the only way out for people
who are trapped by evil spirits.
At the end of the sermon, the pastor held up the IURD’s
newsletter and instructed everyone in the congregation to

take a copy and place it on the floor under the feet of
someone doing evil. He explained that the evil of the per-
son would seep into the newsletter, which should then be
folded and brought back to church, where the evil could be
burned away through prayer. The IURD’s strong emphasis
on evil spirits, the manifestation of Candomblé spirits dur-
ing its services, and its view of good and evil as forces or
substances that can permeate materials highlight the extent
to which this evangelical denomination draws on the com-
mon themes of Brazilian popular religion.
In the context of the IURD, Afro-Brazilian religion is
more than something that is simply used as a negative and
contrastive figure in discourses about what it means to be
evangelical, as is the case in many Christian churches. Dur-
ing the IURD services, Candomblé spirits regularly become
embodied in members of the congregation and are subject
to inquisition and exorcism. This dramatizes the transfor-
mation of the believer’s body and soul upon entering the
community of evangelicals in a most striking and tangible
way. Pentecostal Christianity, as Joel Robbins writes, “elab-
orately ritualizes discontinuity; it maintains discontinuity
through an ascetic code embedded in a thoroughgoing du-
alism of great hermeneutic force; it preserves that which it
breaks from; and its dualism provides a flexible language of
satanic influence that is very sensitive to local social con-
cerns” (2004b:127). Such local social concerns in places like
Cachoeira include pervasive poverty and misfortune. These
problems and their solutions are often indexed to super-
natural agents in both evangelical and Candomblé com-
munities (cf. Birman 1997). Furthermore, what is also at
stake here is the maintenance of dignity and respectability
in the context of scarcity and injustice. There are, of course,
many possible ways one might seek such dignity and re-
spectability, including entering the extended spiritual fam-
ily of Candomblé and submitting oneself to the discipline of

service to the orixás. In evangelical discourses about moral-
ity, however, Candomblé often emerges as a symbol of all
of the vices and afflictions that plague communities af-
fected by poverty and marginalization. In this context, evan-
gelical churches promise relief not only from the tangible
“pathogens of poverty” (Chesnut 1997), such as illness, but
also from the inner turmoil one suffers from living a sinful
and disorderly life.
With its heavy emphasis on ritual–magical procedures
for warding off evil spirits, one might well wonder how cen-
tral discourses of morality are to the practice of Pentecostal-
ism. However, as Cecı́lia Mariz argues, “It is not the magi-
cal universe that is the fundamental factor for Pentecostal
success, but the way in which this religion articulates magic
and the supernatural with the ethical” (1994b:205, transla-
tion mine; cf. Gonçalves da Silva 2007). The concept of “lib-
eration,” Mariz maintains, mediates between the magical
and the moral. That is, Pentecostalism liberates its adher-
ents from evil forces that limit their ability to make their
own rational and ethical choices. Mariz contends that Pen-
tecostalism offers what she calls a “moral magic” (magia
moral) that entails “a clear morality, defined and governed
by universal and inexorable laws, in a world of flexible and
particular rules. It offers an order, a logic, that the individual
does not find in his life, especially in a society devastated by
economic crises, inflation, criminality, with fragile laws and
widespread impunity” (1994b:220, translation mine). From
this perspective, then, exorcism—understood as liberation
from spirits that constrain one’s moral autonomy—is the
first step in one’s integration into a community of moral
discipline and order set apart from the ways of the world.
Nevertheless, not all converts integrate themselves into the
moral order of evangelical Christianity. As I discuss below,
despite the special attention given to converts from African-

derived religions, it is not uncommon for converts to return
to Candomblé.
Circulation
There is a lot of traffic between the Catholic Church
and Candomblé. . . . But there is also traffic, not very
free or very intense, between Candomblé and the evan-
gelicals. And also, certain people that leave Candomblé
and go to the evangelical church become disillusioned
with the evangelicals and come back to Candomblé.
And there are people who leave Candomblé and go to
the evangelical church, they continue in the evangeli-
cal church but . . . for the Candomblé festa [at the ter-
reiro] to which he belongs, he secretly sends . . . for sac-
rifice . . . money, and so on. So, they maintain their pact
with the church that they belong to but secretly con-
tinue with Candomblé.
—Cacao, a Candomblé initiate, anthropologist, and
resident of Cachoeira
Several Candomblé practitioners with whom I spoke
claimed that although one “never” finds a Candomblé adept
in an evangelical church or an evangelical convert in a
Candomblé terreiro, some crentes continue to make se-
cret offerings—burning candles or paying to have an ani-
mal sacrificed—out of fear of the orixás. Thus, at the same
time Candomblé is a central negative figure in the construc-
tion of evangelical identity, some evangelicals feel com-
pelled to maintain their ties to their African-derived spiri-
tual patrons.
300

When I asked a neighbor of mine who is an obreiro in
the Batista Betel Church about this issue, he explained that
there are different kinds of crentes. On the one hand, crentes
firmadas, or crentes plantados, are firm in their convictions
and know what they want, and, on the other hand, crentes
vacillantes “go here and there” (vai pra ca e pra lá), with one
foot in the church and one foot in the world. Thus, a crente
vacillante might end up at a Candomblé ritual or someplace
else where he should not be because he is not plantado. As
another evangelical man explained to me, “In the Christian
[evangelical] community, lots of hidden things happen. But
those who do wrong things and hide them, they are not real
Christians, you see? What’s more, God above is watching.”
Not surprisingly, however, I never encountered an
evangelical who would admit to maintaining secret ties to
Candomblé. Raul, of course, who I mentioned at the begin-
ning of this article, makes no secret of his traffic between the
two realms. But he is a drummer, not an initiate (iaô) who
has established binding ties with the spirits. Drummers do
not become possessed and may not be fully integrated into
the ritual practices of the temples where they play. An evan-
gelical friend of mine who objects strongly to Candomblé
as a religion, for example, admitted to me that, in the past,
he had attended Candomblé toques because he enjoys the
drumming. He explained that even though a person who
has accepted Jesus should avoid terreiros altogether, theo-
retically one can play the drums at a toque without getting
involved with Candomblé.
In addition to the drummers with whom I spoke, I
interviewed Candomblé initiates who had converted to
evangelical Christianity but eventually returned to Can-

domblé. Dona Nilta, for example, is a well-known Can-
domblé mãe de santo who converted to the IURD in
the 1990s. Dona Nilta and the pastor gathered all her
Candomblé paraphernalia—drums, books, candles, and so
on—and threw them into a great bonfire. Within a year,
however, Dona Nilta had reopened her Candomblé terreiro
and has remained there since.
Many in the community claim that she missed the
money she made as a mãe de santo. Dona Nilta herself ad-
mitted that money was part of the reason she left the evan-
gelical church. Like many others in Cachoeira, she claims
that the evangelical church is more like a business than any-
thing else and complains that the church lays claim to all its
members’ worldly possessions. “What does Jesus need with
my stuff?” she asks.
Dona Nilta, like most Candomblé practitioners, be-
lieves that God and Jesus are supreme. For her, then, there
is no contradiction between Candomblé and Christianity
because “God is one” (Deus é só um). Dona Nilta says that
“things happen” in Candomblé because God permits it; oth-
erwise such things would not be possible. She insists she
was called back to Candomblé, which is her gift and her vo-
cation, and that she did not have a choice to refuse the call.
One evangelical friend of mine, however, claimed that her
orixá threatened to kill or cause an accident for her family
members if she did not return to Candomblé.
Here, one sees the juxtaposition of two popular dis-
courses in Cachoeira’s religious arena. The first concerns
evangelical hypocrisy: Although the IURD claims to be con-
cerned with saving Nilta’s soul, it is happy to deposit the
money she made doing feitiço in its coffers. The second is
the familiar depiction of orixás as vengeful, even malicious,

spirits. Often these depictions come from evangelicals, but
povo de santo also say that neglecting one’s obligations to
the spirits spells trouble. In any case, Nilta’s own explana-
tion for her return to Candomblé emphasizes her recipro-
cal ties to the orixás. Perhaps not incidentally, Candomblé
also provides prominent roles for women relative to those
offered by evangelical churches, in which most leadership
positions are filled by men. This may help explain why Dona
Nilta ultimately returned to her Candomblé practice.
Another narrative of circulation is that of Rosa, a Can-
domblé initiate I first met in 2001. In 2002, Rosa left Can-
domblé and became involved with the Assembléia de Deus
church. When I initially spoke to her about what prompted
her to leave Candomblé for the church, she highlighted
pragmatic factors, as can be seen in this interview excerpt
from 2002:
Rosa: I became evangelical because in the 12 years I
was involved in Candomblé—I think that we have to
have a religion and grow in that religion, see—and I saw
that I was not growing. When I was 15, when I was ini-
tiated . . .
A: Sorry . . . growing how so?
R: Growing in financial life and all, one needs to grow!
In Candomblé you have to have a position and I wasn’t
able to get one. Because for 15 years I was involved,
right? I did that for 15 [years], and, after that, I had a
family (my husband and my children). And we are un-
employed, we don’t have regular work. So, I thought
that the santo could help me get a job, could help my
husband get one, [so] I could have my house in order,
you see? So I might not lack food for my children, so
that I might not lack anything, but this did not come

to pass! We were unemployed, living an oppressive life
and I got sick of it. Because I called the santo, I asked, I
lit candles, I did it all. I said: “I want this,” I gave offer-
ings to him, I fulfilled my obligations and I saw noth-
ing, I saw no help! So, I opted to be a Christian so that
at least I will follow just one God, right? And in Can-
domblé there isn’t just one God, there are many. And
what I do in the church I didn’t do in Candomblé, it’s
different. In Candomblé, there has to be blood, you
have to have all those things, there has to be sacrifices.
Not in the church! In the church you just pray, glorify,
believe in the word of God and that’s it. And He helps.
He delivers everything to them and helps them.
301
Here, Rosa presents the Assembly of God as a sanctuary
from the obligations and sacrifices that are central to Can-
domblé practice. She also speaks of her desire to “grow in
life” and to improve her financial situation through her con-
version. At the time of the above interview, Rosa was unem-
ployed and taking computer classes, but she was confident
that God would “deliver.”
Eventually, however, Rosa left the church and returned
to Candomblé. One of her sons had become ill, and she
feared that he would die if she did not return. Here, in a
follow-up interview I conducted in 2008, Rosa explained
what happened:
R: I didn’t stay there [in the church] for long, because
soon various things happened. My son got sick, Ander-

son. At that time he had been initiated, he had been
confirmed [into Candomblé]. . . . At the end of Septem-
ber he started to get sick, he started seeing visions here
in the house, here in the house in front . . .
A: Visions?
R: Yes, seeing things. And he had a fever . . . I got des-
perate and Paulo [Rosa’s husband] took us to the hos-
pital in the middle of the night. The doctor said that he
[Anderson] didn’t have anything wrong with him but
when we got back home he started to see a woman, a
woman shouting, a woman there on the wall trying to
get him. I was desperate and I called my pai de santo
in Salvador at about four or five in the morning and he
said he’d be at his terreiro at around 8:00 a.m. Because
I was a crente I didn’t want to enter into his terreiro. I
called Maria [a mãe de santo who lives near Rosa] to go
with me and to take my son in to find out what was hap-
pening. When we arrived he [the pai de santo] threw the
shells [jogou os buizos; i.e., performed divination] and
when he did this he said that it was Iansã [Rosa’s orixá]
who was in my house, desperate because I was in the
church. So my son was having visions of her. . . . So I got
very scared because when the pai de santo threw the
shells he said it was Iansã, and that she could do some-
thing to my son. I got weak and scared and eventually
went back.
A: And in our first interview you told me that one of
your reasons for joining the evangelical church was that
you wanted to grow in life. You said that in Candomblé
nothing was working out for you and because of this
you left and entered the evangelical church.
R: It’s like this: at that time I was struggling a lot and

seeing nothing come of it. I thought that if I left Can-
domblé maybe my life would get better. Understand?
Because the path of the church is very different from
the path of Candomblé. To be honest, I really like Chris-
tianity.
A: How is it different?
R: It’s very different, the life . . . being Christian. . . . In
the church, I think, in my perception, you spend less.
The way . . . your whole psychology changes, you mind,
you stop believing in various things, you believe in one
God only. The way you talk, walk and dress, everything
changes.
A: And while you were in the church, did your life grow?
R: In that way, no. It didn’t grow.
A: Did it grow when you went back to Candomblé?
R: Look, Steve . . . I think it is unfair to say that, be-
cause everything that I have, God gave me—in spite of
my santo. Candomblé is the religion of my husband, of
my family. I tell you that I believe very much in God.
And one day . . . I will go back to being a crente. I liked
Christianity a lot. But seeing that I joined this family,
and I was already in this religion, what can I do? This
very house was bought with money made through Can-
domblé work.
Concerns about “growing in life” and healing are clearly
central to Rosa’s narrative. Yet, in the end, Rosa’s life did
not improve materially either because of her conversion to
Christianity or after her return to Candomblé. In fact, prag-

matic issues of money and healing figure prominently in
nearly all circulation narratives I heard, and both evangel-
ical Christianity and Candomblé promise a better life in the
material sense. Both appear to fulfill that promise in some
cases and fall short in others, resulting in no clearly obvious
differences in terms of practical benefits in the long run—at
least in places like Cachoeira, where opportunities for up-
ward mobility are limited for most people. Indeed, Rosa her-
self characterizes as unfair my attempts to reduce her move-
ments between the two religions to her desire for material
benefits. Rosa rents a stand in the market where she sells
clothing and does not appear to benefit financially from her
religious affiliation one way or the other. Rosa’s husband,
however, is a respected drummer and feared sorcerer in Ca-
choeira and makes a good amount of money performing rit-
ual work for clients.
The most immediate reason that Rosa returned to
Candomblé was to cure her son. From Rosa’s perspective,
her son’s illness was not one that could be cured by any
kind of practitioner. It was caused by a Candomblé spirit
for a particular purpose and had a specific remedy. The
purpose, of course, was to compel Rosa to return to the
spiritual obligations from which she thought her conver-
sion to evangelical Christianity would absolve her. But a
Candomblé initiate does not have the choice to simply
sever his or her relationship with the spirits if he or she feels
that the reciprocal balance is unfavorably tipped. There is
something beyond simple calculation, something morally
compelling, about one’s relationship to the orixás. Accord-
ingly, Rosa’s story unfolds as a gripping moral drama: Rosa
loves the evangelical church, in which her life is reoriented
and “everything changes,” but a threat to her son’s life
compels her to return to her obligations in Candomblé.
302

Her story shows how issues of morality and expediency
intertwine in narratives of circulation.
Although it is true that conversion to evangelical Chris-
tianity is often a way of working out one’s spiritual and
interpersonal conflicts within the Candomblé community
(see Richman 2005 for an excellent discussion of this is-
sue in the context of Haitian Vodou), it would be a mis-
take to categorically reduce conversions to expedient and
fleeting reactions to Candomblé. Although ethnographers
sometimes relish stories of conversions of convenience that
thwart the aims of the evangelist or missionary—this kind
of story is a classic ethnographic subgenre in itself—many
converts become deeply invested in their new religion.
Discussion
In my time in Cachoeira, I found that circulation between
Candomblé and evangelical Christianity is not uncommon,
even if most people remain grounded in one religious com-
munity or another throughout their lives. How can one ex-
plain this circulation in view of the persistence of opposi-
tional imaginaries that divide evangelicals and Candomblé
practitioners into distinct communities? Those who cir-
culate between Candomblé and evangelical Christianity
may undermine the notion that there are clear and tan-
gible boundaries between these religions, but they often
also sense a certain pressure to anchor themselves in one
place or another. Though explicit demands of exclusivity
are no doubt strongest in evangelical communities, those
who leave Candomblé for evangelical Christianity may feel

pulled back to their terreiros by spiritual forces and are
sometimes subject to the gossip and ridicule of their former
famı́lia de santo. In fact, circulators play a central role in
the construction of the oppositional imaginaries that work
to sharpen the blurry boundaries between Candomblé and
evangelical Christianity. In evangelical churches, for exam-
ple, no convert is prized more than a macumbeiro who
can testify to the sinister practices going on in Candomblé
houses.
The practice of both Candomblé and evangelical Chris-
tianity entails the construction of shared and compelling
moral orders into which adherents are integrated—or not,
as may be the case for those who convert in the short
term for pragmatic reasons. Candomblé communities, for
example, are grounded in relationships of reciprocal obli-
gations through which practitioners generally seek a con-
structive balance between fazendo o bem and fazendo o
mal. Outside of ritual restrictions, there are few moral ab-
solutes in Candomblé. From the perspective of many Can-
domblé practitioners, then, evangelical claims about moral
superiority appear unwarranted and hypocritical. From the
evangelical perspective, however, the precarious balance
between spiritual forces that Candomblé practitioners at-
tempt to negotiate is tilted toward malice. Only by leaving
everything to Jesus can one be truly happy.
Because evangelical Christianity and Candomblé are
so often represented as repellent to one another, it is re-
markable that, in many places in Bahia, these religions
draw from the same social sector: working-class people of
African descent with limited educational attainment, low
social prestige, and little political power. Or, rather, what
is remarkable is that these religions are at loggerheads pre-
cisely because they are drawing from people who live next

door to each other. In this context, religious practice is in-
dexed to processes of social differentiation operating within
such communities. As I have noted, evangelicals often cast
Candomblé as the religion of the devil and Candomblé
practitioners accuse evangelicals of moral hypocrisy. Al-
though, in practice, the situation is much more compli-
cated than can be represented by any simple dichotomy,
discourses about evangelicals as respectable and moral and
Candomblé practitioners as disreputable and immoral are
common themes in Cacheorians’ discussions of the reli-
gious arena.
A key characteristic that evangelicals and povo de santo
have in common is that they are relatively marginal in
Brazilian society and in Brazil’s religious arena.4 Yet they
are marginal in different ways. Evangelicals are marginal in
the sense that they voluntarily separate themselves from
“the world” to varying degrees. That is, many evangelicals
avoid participation in sports and popular culture, and all
are required to avoid engaging in debauchery during festi-
vals such as Carnaval. Candomblé practitioners, however,
are often labeled by others as marginal in the more pop-
ular sense of the term in Brazilian Portuguese: marginal
refers to a bad element in society, such as the malan-
dro (streetwise thug), piriguette (loose woman), vagabundo
(bum), maconheiro (pot head), viado (homosexual), and
macumbeiro (sorcerer). Female Candomblé practitioners,
who make up the majority of initiates, are often portrayed
as wicked women possessed by evil spirits (cf. Hayes 2008).
Whereas evangelicals and povo de santo in Cachoeira
are generally similar to one another in socioeconomic
terms, they are differentiated in a kind of economy of moral
distinctions, or through what Diane Austin-Broos has re-
ferred to in the Jamaican context as “the politics of moral
orders” (1997:7). Through an emphasis on moral distinction

(orderliness, sexual restraint, etc.), the evangelical gains a
certain kind of respectability that elevates him or her above
the marginal—at least in the eyes of the evangelical com-
munity. Insofar as it is equated with dignity, the desire to
be recognized and respected is particularly strong among
those who have been doubly disparaged as both poor and
dark skinned (cf. Appiah 1994; Fraser and Honneth 2003;
West 1994). It is as if the evangelical, who has limited ac-
cess to worldly status, compensates by drawing on a fund
of otherworldly prestige and by raising his or her level of
303
morality above that of others in the community.5 Neverthe-
less, it is not clear that this otherworldly prestige translates
into social capital outside of evangelical communities. This
is not to deny that some employers might see evangelical
sobriety and discipline as an advantage; indeed, I have of-
ten heard my Bahian friends suggest this in conversation.
As I have emphasized here, however, evangelical moral dis-
courses are also often suspect outside of evangelical com-
munities, especially among those who find themselves in-
terpolated into these discourses as villains.
Here I focus primarily on moral discourse and practice
as means of differentiation and subjection, in the sense of
constituting the member of the religious community as a
particular kind of subject. Accordingly, I maintain that the
forms of moral discipline that are practiced in evangelical
Christianity are not simple boundary markers but “tech-
nologies of the self” (Asad 1993; Foucault 1999) that can be
used for certain projects of self-transformation (cf. Csordas

1994). These disciplinary practices include abstinence from
drugs and alcohol, practices that create a space for peo-
ple to recover from addictions (Burdick 1993; Mariz 1994a,
1994b). Although there are many periods during which povo
de santo must refrain from drinking alcohol, this prohi-
bition is absolute for evangelicals, and testimonies about
leaving behind drug and alcohol abuse are common in con-
version narratives. Learning to properly enunciate and per-
form such narratives in public settings, for example, is part
of the process of reorienting one’s identity and subjectivity
in evangelical communities.
As Robbins points out in a review of the anthropolog-
ical literature on Pentecostalism, many observers see the
“reorientation of people’s moral fields” (2004b:128) as cen-
tral to the process of cultural transformation one undergoes
in the context of conversion to Pentecostalism and charis-
matic Christianity. The moral reorientiation that may occur
as part of the conversion process is usually indexed to lo-
cal social oppositions. As Paul Brodwin writes about Haitian
Pentecostal migrants to Guadeloupe, who find themselves
marginalized in Guadeloupan society, “As converts bring
their lives into accordance with Pentecostal doctrine, the
church provides them with not only a new reference group
and collective identity, calibrated to the specific social con-
tradictions they face, but also an explicit moral commen-
tary about their exclusion” (2003:90). Again, this group iden-
tity is calibrated to marginalization and engages its defining
features, including poverty and illness, in particular. More-
over, evangelical identities are linked to important social
distinctions among the marginalized and provide a sense
of separation from, but a commitment to the evangeliza-
tion of, those who suffer the most from the pathogens
of poverty. In addition to the work on recovery from al-
coholism that I have already mentioned, recent work on
the ways in which evangelicals strive to provide alterna-

tives to involvement with drug-traffic gangs provides an-
other excellent illustration of this process (e.g., Goldstein
2003).
The moral polarization that I have described here does
not fit with the popular image of Brazil’s religious arena as a
space characterized by permeable boundaries, rolling prag-
matism, and creative eclecticism. It is tempting to think that
evangelical Christianity brought this polarization to Brazil,
yet these tensions have a longer history. As I mentioned at
the beginning of this article, the Catholic Church and the
Brazilian government have, in the past, represented Can-
domblé as “immoral,” for different reasons (e.g., for pur-
poses of evangelization, because of racist assumptions, or
as part of the rhetoric of modernization). In the past, how-
ever, these tensions have played out in a variety of ways. Fre-
quently, tolerant priests and charitable patrons helped to
keep the boundaries between religions blurry, for example.
Yet the tensions I have described here are not between peo-
ple in different social spaces—such as between the Catholic
priest and the Candomblé priestess—but between people
who are very similar and are seeking to differentiate them-
selves from one another. Here one finds little room for
compromise.
Nevertheless, this tension may have helped to change
the way Candomblé represents itself and is represented by
others. As Johnson (2002) points out, public representations
of Candomblé have undergone a process of “protestantiza-
tion.” That is, Candomblé is increasingly spoken about in
terms of systematically elaborated and rationally justified
beliefs—as opposed to embodied forms of practical knowl-
edge, for example. In tandem with this rationalization of
public discourse about Candomblé, representations of Can-
domblé appear to increasingly engage issues of morality.

In a recent interview for Terra Magazine (“Candomblé não
é brincadeira” [Candomblé is no joke]), for example, one
of the most prominent Candomblé leaders in Bahia, Mãe
Stella, discusses topics ranging from the challenge of neo-
Pentecostalism to her recently published book of proverbs
and “moral lessons.”
One might wonder to what extent Mãe Stella’s con-
densation and textualization of Candomblé’s moral wisdom
was prompted by neo-Pentecostal representations of Can-
domblé as morally defunct. With respect to the evangeli-
cal side of the fence, for example, John Collins (2004) has
suggested that Pentecostals may be transforming their reli-
gion in creative ways in response to public representations
of Candomblé as a “symbol of national belonging.” Simi-
larly, in what ways is Candomblé changing in response to
neo-Pentecostal discourses about (its lack of ) morality? And
on a more global scale, how are the discourses and prac-
tices of local or traditional religions changing in response
to the ways in which they are represented in recent waves
of Christian, or Muslim, or Hindu evangelization? In the
context of the continuing expansion of religious fundamen-
talisms, on the one hand, and the revitalization (through
304
heritage development projects, social activism, and cul-
tural tourism) of competing religious traditions that oppose
these evangelizing projects, on the other hand, these ques-
tions appear central to the anthropology of religion in the
21st century.

Notes
Acknowledgments. I would like to thank Kristen Knutson,
Mauro
Porto, Justin Wolfe, Micol Seigel, Brian Brazeal, and Paul
Johnson
for their help with various drafts of this article.
1. I did not conduct a fully systematic survey of the socioeco-
nomic differences between people involved in different
religions in
Cachoeira. It is possible that a more in-depth study of economic
practices would reveal subtle differences between evangelicals
and
Candomblé practitioners. The residents of Cachoeira with whom
I
worked, however, are broadly similar in terms of their level of
edu-
cation, income, and type of work.
2. My fieldwork involved participant-observation, conducting
interviews, and administering questionnaires among the
members
of different religious communities. My interviews and question-
naires concerned how people perceive racism in Brazilian
society
and in their own lives, relate to antiracist organizations, and
inter-
pret different religious discourses about these issues. Most of
my
research activities took place in churches and temples, in
people’s
homes, and at public religious events and festivals.
3. Evangelicals often raise criticisms of Candomblé that are
reminiscent of Protestant objections to Catholicism.

Evangelicals
commonly emphasize egalitarianism and the “priesthood of all
be-
lievers” in contrast to the hierarchical structure of Candomblé
ter-
reiros, for example. Evangelical churches further emphasize that
all
of Jesus’s teachings are open to everyone and that they are
explic-
itly expressed in the Bible, which is understood as the Word of
God.
Many of the practices that go on in Candomblé terreiros,
however,
are closed to the uninitiated, and much of what can be
character-
ized as the Candomblé understanding of the world is implicit in
ritual practices rather than explicitly stated. Thus, in
comparison
with Candomblé—and, to a large extent, with Catholicism as
well—
evangelical Christian churches present their communities as
egal-
itarian rather than ranked, their teachings as an open book
rather
than esoteric knowledge, and membership as the result of a
simple
decision rather than of arduous ritual practices.
4. Although evangelical Christians and Candomblé practition-
ers can rightly be characterized as relatively marginal in many
ways, this is a complicated issue. Many observers have pointed
out
that evangelicals are entering the mainstream and that evangeli-
cals in Brazil and Latin America are by no means uniformly
poor
and powerless (Cleary and Steward-Gambino 1997; Freston

1994;
Garrard-Burnett and Stoll 1993). Likewise, as Candomblé has
be-
come Bahia’s “trademark” (Teles 2005), it has moved from the
mar-
gins to the center of representations of what it means to be
Bahian.
5. Max Weber (1978), following Nietzsche, suggested that
Chris-
tian morality was a form of resentment that provided a sense of
moral superiority over one’s dominators. By contrast, the
argument
I have elaborated here is that the moral distinction claimed by
the
evangelical is meant to differentiate him or her from those be-
low, not those above. I recognize that this argument overlaps
with
Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge’s theory of religion
as
compensation, which I criticized at the beginning of the article.
As I have shown, however, both evangelical Christianity and
Can-
domblé offer compensation for marginalization, and for most
prac-
titioners, these compensations are not equivalent or
interchange-
able. Accordingly, focusing on the notion of spiritual
compensation
in the abstract is unlikely to capture what is distinctive and
com-
pelling about the specific moral orders that competing religious
practices construct.
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accepted November 6, 2009

final version submitted November 20, 2009
Stephen Selka
Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies
and American Studies Program
Indiana University
1021 E. Third Street
Memorial Hall M30
Bloomington, IN 47405
[email protected]
307
1. Watch video entitled “Module 2 – Signal Operations in
MATLAB”
2. Work the following two lab assignments below.
3. Include answers for Problems and include MATLAB coding
along with any output plots that support solutions into a Word
document entitled “Lab2_StudentID”. Where your student id is
substituted in the file name.
4. Upload file “Lab2_StudentID”.
Work the following two lab assignments below using MATLAB.
Activity 1:
Consider the following continuous signal:
Plot the continuous-time signal over the range .
Also, break up the time range into two ranges t1=[-1 0] and
t2=[0:0.1:5]. Then concatenate the results, i.e. t=[t1 t2].
Activity 2:
Consider a finite-support signal
x(t) = t
and zero elsewhere.
. Using Matlab, plot x(t+1)
. Using Matlab, plot x(-t+1)
. Add the above two signals together and plot the new signal

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