Protestantismo Terena: do protestantismo de missões ao protestantismo etinitizado, um estudo sobre a Igreja UNIEDAS (União das Igrejas Evangélicas da América do Sul)

Abstract

In this research we looked to study the Protestant faith among the Terena ethnic group. Since the beginning of our project we were aware of the difficulty entering in such a unique universe, but we sought this goal as a challenge to understand a little more of the Protestant faith in an ethnic setting.We wanted to understand if the gospel we have here in the city of São Paulo is the same as the Terena Indians have. And beyond, we sought for more elements of faith that could demonstrate uniqueness between these two very different communities geographically and sociologically speaking eg: the dogma of Trinity, baptism rites, liturgy, singing and preaching evangelistic message among other issues. We concluded the research strongly influenced by the beautiful images and pleasant readings and convinced that the Christianity taught and practiced by the early church as we can see in the book of Acts of the Apostles is very much alive in the 21st century between the Terena. We understand that the people and the cultures aren t the same, but the gospel and their practices are worked the same way. We found the Church UNIEDAS in the village of Bananal and we met with its leadership, the current cacique and former chiefs. Besides, we talked to many indigenous pastors. In doing that we realized that they have an immense gratitude to God because they are "true believers" of have a beautiful history and felling that they are determined to lead this process of evangelization to other "fellow countrymen". The UNIEDAS is present on Brazilian soil since the early twentieth century. The process began with the pioneers of ISAMU and SAIM men. There was conflict at the beginning of the Protestant formation of Terenas and the case of the chief Marcolino Wollily is well reported by Cardoso Oliveira e Silva Altenfelder in his work in the 50s and 60s showing some political issues involving SPI.