'Uma igreja como qualquer outra': trajetórias lgbtqiapn+ e reinvenção pentecostal na igreja cristã contemporânea em Salvador/BA

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the emergence of the Igreja Cristã Contemporânea (ICC) in Salvador, investigating how LGBTQIAPN+ subjects, historically marginalized by traditional evangelical Christianity, appropriate Pentecostal religious grammar to construct new forms of religious belonging. In a context where Pentecostalism is frequently associated with conservative discourses and the exclusion of sexual and gender dissidence, the ICC stands as a unique empirical case by articulating an inclusive theology with a Pentecostal aesthetic, liturgy, and cosmology. This research is based on ethnography, through participant observation and in-depth interviews conducted from 2017 onwards, intensified with the institutional consolidation of the church in Salvador in 2019. Organized into three chapters, the dissertation reconstructs the historical trajectory of inclusive Christian churches and situates the ICC within this movement, analyzes the Pentecostal ethos as a pedagogy of the body and emotions, and examines, through biographical trajectories, the processes of stigma management, institutional rupture, and reconstruction of the religious self. It argues that the ICC operates not only as a refuge, but as a space of symbolic suture, in which Christian faith and sexual dissidence can be articulated without exclusion, highlighting the capacity of Pentecostalism to renegotiate its moral boundaries in contemporary Brazil.