Gender and Moral Transformation

This chapter focuses on the gender dimension of the Judaizing Evangelical change in the lives of female converts. By focusing on women’s moral transformation processes through their adherence to Judaizing Evangelical ethos—modesty rules, menstrual taboos, ritual roles, and more—it describes how women’s agency is articulated in their transformation. In a context where religious rules are not inherited or socially enforced, the chapter explores the ways in which Judaizing Evangelical women are willing to be the bearers and creators of this new religious identity. The chapter also discusses the cultural assemblages and the “moral torment” involved in the dramatic religious change project of Judaizing Evangelical women.

Conclusion

The conclusion summarizes the main arguments of the book. It explores themes such as the rationale of the Judaizing Evangelical revival and how it relates with wider discussions of religious change. It debates how social markers gender and ethnicity are intertwined in the case of the Judaizing Evangelicals in Brazil. At the micro level, it reveals how former Charismatic Evangelical women gradually adopt a set of religious norms in their daily lives through a curious negotiation of their Charismatic Evangelical pasts and the strict rules of Orthodox Judaism. At the macro level, describes the birth of a new tendency within Christianity that differs from similar Christian philo-Semitic movements such as Messianic Judaism and Christian Zionism. It concludes by stating how the rise of Judaizing Evangelicalism pushes forward key issues related to contemporary Christian philo-Semitism and World Christianities. Rather than an emic concept, it suggests that Judaizing Evangelicalism should be understood as an analytical concept that describes an unique interaction between Jewish and Christian monotheisms.

The Rise of Philo-Semitic Attitudes and Zionist Discourses in Christianity

This chapter explores the rise of philo-Semitic attitudes and Zionist discourses in World Christianity. By comparing the similarities and the differences between different Christian Philo-Semitic attitudes, it provides a categorization of Messianic Judaism, Christian Zionism, and Judaizing Evangelicalism. An overview of the Brazilian religious field is also offered, where particular focus is given to the growth of Charismatic Evangelicalism in the country. The chapter also investigates background information including the social structuration and the origins of “Judaizing Evangelical revival” within the community under study. The chapter concludes by situating the Judaizing Evangelical community within the emerging philo-Semitic attitudes and Zionist tendencies in World Christianities.

Religious Conversion

This chapter explores the theme of religious conversion. Drawing on current social scientific debates, it investigates the religious trajectories of Judaizing Evangelical women and their previous identification with Charismatic Evangelicalism. The chapter also examines the reasons behind these women’s estrangement from Charismatic Evangelicalism. It explores how their desire for Christian “purification” and “reformation” transformed them into willing subjects of a strict moral order characterized by ritual rigidity, intense biblical study, and a strong sense of communal identity. The chapter argues that these women’s incorporation of Jewish elements aims to rebuild the authenticity of Christianity while distinguishing them from Charismatic Evangelicalism and its perceived scriptural inaccuracy, moral permissiveness, and materialism.

Imagined Pasts, Identity, and Ethnicity in Religious Change

This chapter explains why this community’s attempts at Christian reformation have taken them down to the path of Judaism. By exploring themes related to imagined pasts, identity, and ethnicity, it investigates the sociocultural logics and historical arguments that support the community’s connection with Judaism. For instance, the chapter analyzes how the community mobilizes a Jewish ethnic identity, as descendants of the Bnei Anussim—Iberian Sephardi Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Inquisition, who migrated to Latin America in the seventeenth century. It is argued that the allusion to a hidden “Jewish” collective memory—either imagined or real—plays an important role in this community’s dramatic Judaizing Evangelical process. The chapter ends by problematizing the utilitarian reasons for this community’s identification with Judaism and Jewishness.

Introduction

The Introduction is a fieldwork extract exploring one day in the community that is the object of this study. The data highlight issues such as fieldwork access and description of liturgy and rituals among the Judaizing Evangelicals in Brazil. Research questions are introduced and include the following: How can one understand the adoption of Jewish rituals, dress, and even adherence to biblical Jewish laws by former Charismatic Evangelicals? What motivates this austere Judaizing tendency in Charismatic Christianity? This is followed by a discussion on research positionality and the research methodology utilized and a brief outline of the chapters.

Becoming Jewish, Believing in Jesus?

This chapter investigates the question of how the Judaizing Evangelicals appear to want to become Jewish, believing in Jesus. It carefully analyzes the social and cultural organization of the religious hybridization undertaken by the community of the Judaizing Evangelicals. Special attention is given to how Christian tenets are gradually understood in new ways and are replaced by Jewish ideas and practices within this changing religious community. The analysis indicates that religious change is an open dialectic process, challenging both clear-cut “continuity” and “discontinuity” arguments found in the anthropology of religion. By revealing the dialectic role of past structures in change processes, the theoretical framework expands current conceptualizations exploring cultural hybridity.