Unspoken Ethics: A Multi-Religion Group and Building a Public Identity

Abstract

Dealing with the differences among its participants has been one of the most difficult aspects which the Council for Religious Studies (CONER/SC) has faced. Formed by different religions, the Council was founded in 1998 to assist the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil, in the implementation of Religous Studies in state run schools. As a public identity was necessary to legitimize its purpose to the state and to religious studies teachers, the group had to deal with tensions provoked by the differences among Christians of various denominations and representatives from Catholic and Protestant (among them only one Pentecostal), Hindu, Muslim and Afro-Brazilian religions. The strategies used to avoid conflict and produce an agreed discourse include resort to silence when hot topics were broached and discussion of issues which were considered to be possible to discuss. The article focuses on the ethical values expressed, but not spoken of in this process, and on some challenges to the group's unity.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank participants of the British Association for the Study of Religion (BASR) conference, held at Bath Spa University, 4–6 September 2006, where a first draft of this article was presented, for their stimulating comments. Suzana Coutinho Bornholdt and Luciano Bornholdt helped in the first stages of this research, with grants from the Brazilian National Scientific Council (CNPq). I would like to thank CONER for the warm reception and the many hours of interviews and conversations and Diana Brown and Mario Bick for helping with the English version of this article.

Notes

NOTES

1. In Portuguese, Conselho para om Ensino Religioso de Santa Catarina.

2. CIER stands for Conselho de Igrejas do Estados de Sta. Catarina, which translates as Council of Churches of the State of Sta. Catarina.

3. I shall used the term ‘State’ when referring to the general concept of state as opposed to civil society and/or religion, thus implying the Brazilian Federation. I shall use the term ‘state’ when referring to one or several of the 26 states which constitute the Brazilian Federation.

4. Law n. 9475 of 22 July 1997, art. 33. This article was modified to include the need of the public entity and the non-proselytizing character.

5. The divorce law was passed as late as in the 1980s because of the strong opposition of the Roman Catholic Church.

6. In the southern states of Brazil where German Lutherans had immigrated in the nineteenth century, the Lutheran Church also provided teachers of religious studies to ‘Protestant’ students in state schools.

7. In Brazil, universities offer undergraduate degrees for specific careers and students apply directly to these career paths, unlike the way universities operate in North America. The term ‘religious studies’ is used here to indicate the name for the career path in Portuguese, which could be more accurately translated as ‘sciences of religion’.

8. Translated from the original in Portuguese, which reads: “As Tradições Religiosas receberam a revelação de que o ser humano chega a sua plenitude na medida em que ele se reintegra a Deus, ao Absoluto, ao Pai Maior,  à Mãe Terra, ao Transcendente… as hipóteses cientificas que vêm oferecendo várias explicações da gênese deste principio não podem ser privilegiadas, conforme o mais correto espirito cientifico. Em razão disto,  é imprescindivel que o Ensino Religioso opotunize o conhecimento que as diversas Tradições Religiosas detêm do caminho de reintegração.” The fact that the text is somewhat imprecise is not due to the translation. The Portuguese text is quite imprecise, which may be the reason why it was acceptable to such different religious perspectives.

9. In the first two years of its existence, CONER shared an office and a secretary with CIER (Council of Churches of the State of Santa Catarina). However, CONER wanted to dissociate itself from CIER, as this was a Christian group.

10. In the first two years, Lutheranism, Islam, Roman Catholicism, and Afro-Brazilian religions formed the Board of Directors. Since then Hinduism, the Baha’i faith, the Four Square Gospel (a more recent Pentecosal participant), and Catholicism have formed the Board in rotation. In 2001, the Afro-Brazilian left CONER and in 2003 Islam also left.

11. A large contingent of German immigrants, most of them peasants, with some professionals and intellectuals, introduced the Lutheran Church in South Brazil in the middle of the nineteenth century. Because of the rapid social rise of these immigrants, Lutheranism has enjoyed the recognized position of the Protestant religion for over a century, despite historical tensions with the hegemonic Roman Catholic Church. Recent arrangements between the two Churches, under Pope John Paul II, have made co-operation between them evident to the other Religions; these see them as having privileged social status in State-Religion relations. Inside CONER, most of the ‘minority religion’ regard the two Churches as allies.