Religions and the neoliberal modus operandi: faith as an à la carte product

Abstract

The lasciviousness of religious discourses engenders an astonished capacity to attract and pervert the faithful. As the only interpreters of the sacred text, the orthodox version relies on a fundamentalism that dulls critical capacity. Anyone who dares to give another interpretation is considered satanic. One of the references of religious fundamentalism is European pietism, which gradually migrates to the United States. More recently, this religious fundamentalism has arrived in Latin America. In Brazil, it appears under the name “church”, with different and varied denominations. Currently, the notion of fundamentalism encompasses other sectors of social, political, cultural and economic life. On the horizon of a neoliberal economy, “everything”, at least implicitly, becomes a commodity. The triumphalism of the market now considers faith in an à la carte product. Neoliberalism is, then, the prospect for the increasing concentration of wealth, turning faith into an instrument that favors a minority, which is increasingly more advantageous. In the case of Brazil, the proliferation of “churches” further consolidates social and economic inequalities.

Keywords: Religion. Sacred. Faith. Entrepreneurship. Neoliberalism.