Overview

Pentecostal Christianity is flourishing inside the prisons of Rio de Janeiro. To find out why, Andrew Johnson dug deep into the prisons themselves. He began by spending two weeks living in a Brazilian prison as if he were an inmate: sleeping in the same cells as the inmates, eating the same food, and participating in the men's daily routines as if he were incarcerated. And he returned many times afterward to observe prison churches' worship services, which were led by inmates who had been voted into positions of leadership by their fellow prisoners. He accompanied Pentecostal volunteers when they visited cells that were controlled by Rio's most dominant criminal gang to lead worship services, provide health care, and deliver other social services to the inmates. Why does this faith resonate so profoundly with the incarcerated? Pentecostalism, argues Johnson, is the ""faith of the killable people"" and offers ex-criminals and gang members the opportunity to positively reinvent their public personas. If I Give My Soul is a deeply personal look at the relationship between the margins of Brazilian society and the Pentecostal faith, both behind bars and in the favelas, Rio de Janeiro's peripheral neighborhoods. Based on his intimate relationships with the figures in this book, Johnson makes a passionate case that Pentecostal practice behind bars is an act of political radicalism as much as a spiritual experience.

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9780190238995

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Reviews

Intimately researched, candidly presented, and crisply written, Johnson's book shows how, via their Pentecostal faith, the 'killable' black and brown urban poor incarcerated in Brazil's prisons find dignity and push back, subtly but persistently, against the injustice that engulfs them. --Joshua Dubler, author of Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in an American Prison This book is an impressive accomplishment! Based on extensive research, it gives us an exceptionally rich and nuanced understanding of Pentecostalism in Rio's prisons and favelas. Readers will find much to contemplate here about incarceration and religion in the U.S. as well. --Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University

Author Information

Andrew Johnson is Assistant Professor at Metropolitain State University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He held previous positions at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, and was a Foreign Service Officer at the United States Agency for International Development.

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