Comunicação visual e protestantismo no Brasil: evidências iconoclastas na implantação do Cristo Redentor.

Bibliographic-documentary study in the interstitial zone of visual communication and religiosity in Brazil. It address questions about the possibility of understanding Brazilian Protestantism as iconoclastic. The answer this question it focus on the events surrounding the building of the most famous statue in Rio de Janeiro, Christ the Redeemer, and in the political context of beginning of Brazilian Republic. It is from an analysis that we engage the discussion on the relation between religion and society in Brazil. The research strategy focuses on discursive and argumentative discourse pro and against the building of the monument. The discourse analyses of this religious dispute reveal a struggle for the social and political redefinition of the country; they also reveal iconoclasm in the Brazilian Protestant speech. The description of the iconoclastic operation by David Morgan (2005) provides the theoretical basis for the analysis. Another authors help to understand the Brazilian context, as Alberto Klein, Norval Baitello e Malena Contrera, besides authors of the Anthropology and Sociology of Religion. We conclude that Brazilian Protestantism does have in itself, an iconoclastic perspective. We also consider that the lack of separation between the public and the religious spheres of past are still relevant to understand today's social context in that country; and, finally, we affirm that visuality perfumes a central role in Brazilian religious practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]