An unexpected fusion of two major western religious traditions, Judaism and Christianity, has been developing in many parts of the world. Contemporary Christian movements are not only adopting Jewish symbols and aesthetics but also promoting Jewish practices, rituals, and lifestyles. Becoming Jewish, Believing in Jesus is the first in-depth ethnography to investigate this growing worldwide religious tendency in the global South. Focusing on an austere "Judaizing Evangelical" variant in Brazil, Carpenedo explores the surprising identification with Jews and Judaism by people with exclusively Charismatic Evangelical backgrounds. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork and socio-cultural analysis, the book analyses the historical, religious, and subjective reasons behind this growing trend in Charismatic Evangelicalism.
The emergence of groups that simultaneously embrace Orthodox Jewish rituals and lifestyles and preserve Charismatic Evangelical religious symbols and practices raises serious questions about what it means to be "Jewish" or "Christian" in today's religious landscape. This case study reveals how religious, ethnic, and cultural markers are being mobilized in unpredictable ways within the Charismatic Evangelical movement in much of the global South. The book also considers broader questions regarding contemporary women's attraction to gender-traditional religions. This comprehensive account of how former Charismatic Evangelicals in Brazil are gradually becoming austerely observant "Jews," while continuing to believe in Jesus, represents a significant contribution to the study of religious conversion, cultural change, and debates about religious hybridization processes.
Industry Reviews
"As an ethnography of an emerging religious movement in contemporary Brazil, Carpenedo's work is excellent and bound to make a lasting impact on these conversations. It should appeal to anyone involved in the study of the mutations and hybridisations of contemporary global Christianities." -- Journal of Contemporary Religion
"Carpenedo has produced a highly lucid and rigorous account that will be broadly accessible to scholars, clergy, and undergraduate students." -- Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations
"This book renders visible the creativity and newness that we can find today in the study of religion while it deals with a situation in which both the research and those in the field were uncertain about how to name the experience in question. It is praiseworthy how the author dared to face this complex theoretical and empirical situation. The book initiates with the constant demand for definition: are they still Christians? Are they somehow Jews? Are they
authentic Jews? Is that even possible? How can they be Christians if they do not accept Jesus to be God, but a human being?" -- Religion
"This book renders visible the creativity and newness that we can find today in the study of religion while it deals with a situation in which both the researcher and those in the field were uncertain about how to name the experience in question. It is praiseworthy how the author dared to face this complex theoretical and empirical situation." -- Religion
"Carpenedo has produced a highly lucid and rigorous account that will be broadly accessible to scholars, clergy, and undergraduate students. The book strikes an elegant balance between detailing personal conversion journeys and mapping out the broader social trends that are transforming Brazil's Christian landscape. Her very thorough review of the literature on conversion throughout the book will be particularly useful to scholars working to conceptualize their
own studies of new religious movements." -- Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations
"The book shows the enduring influence of the Bible (mainly the HB) in society through the varied application in the life of believers, who, influenced by their context, apply the text in different ways. The book also has the potential of raising many questions about Jewish and Christian identity(ies). I congratulate Carpenedo for her work ..." -- Rodrigo Galiza, Berrien Springs, Michigan , Andrews University Seminary Studies
"This stimulating book should be read by scholars interested in exploring the ways in which different religious traditions, which tend to think of themselves as separate entities, are brought together in the contemporary world." -- Ira Robinson, Nova Religio
"Manoela Carpenedo's thorough and perceptive study is ground-breaking. First, because 'Judaizing evangelicalism,' a reaction to perceived doctrinal and moral laxity in the evangelical world, may portend further religious transformations, as the huge Brazilian evangelical community fragments and produces new hybrid forms. And, second, because Christian philo-Semitism, much researched in Africa, needs studies like Carpenedo's in Latin America for understanding
the interaction between monotheisms in the global South as a whole." -- Paul Freston, The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America
"Growing within Brazil and beyond, Messianic Judaism is a very complex and fast-changing religious field that really needs more exploration. Manoela Carpenedo offers a rich ethnography of a fascinating case study within Messianic Judaism. Drawing on a wealth of data gathered through rigorous and in-depth participant observation, her book makes significant contributions to several important debates within the sociology and anthropology of religionDL-syncretism
in relation to religious revival, conversion and the elaboration of religious and ethnic identities, and conservative gender roles and relations." -- Véronique Altglas, Queen's University Belfast
"This gracefully written and conceptualized book is the first truly classic study of a Charismatic Christian group in the process of adopting strict orthodox Jewish practices. Focused on a Brazilian congregation, and exploring in detail how women make the move from a more liberal Charismatic church to a Judaizing one that insists they follow strenuous codes of purity and modesty, this book is also a major step forward in the study of radical religious change."
-- Joel Robbins, University of Cambridge
