Les démons de la pauvreté. Ou la guerre néopentecôtiste contre les démons afro-brésiliens à Bahia (Brésil)

Whether pentecostalist or “neo”-pentecostalist, these evangelical Churches have undergone partial transformations. At the heart of their metamorphosis above all figures the priority henceforth granted to a socio-economic conquest that is promised to all the faithful. Whereas the latter are, in theory, slated for a prosperous future, the extreme poverty of most of them represents an unacceptable rupture with their destiny. There is just one drama causing them to be led astray : the Devil. His malignant influence explains every attitude of submission to poverty or to other authorities than God. In this context, the Afro-Brazilian cults, in refusing to change the world and in subordinating themselves to ancestral law, seem to form a basic obstacle to the expansion of the “Lord's Work”. Salvation is thus entirely based on this war against Afro-Brazilian demons aimed at “liberating” the individual from an ancestral tradition turned towards the past, replacing it for him with a spirit of conquest, turned towards the future