Bolsonarism, “Immanentist Pentecostalism,” and the future of religion and politics in Brazil

This article introduces "Immanentist Pentecostalism" (IP) to analyse the complex relationship between Bolsonarism and (Neo)Pentecostalism in Brazil. Based on in-depth interviews in Belo Horizonte, IP is defined as a lived theology characterised by a direct, constant relationship with an immanent divine active in all worldly life. The ethnographic findings reveal the primacy of personal faith over institutional loyalty; overt political discourse is largely absent from these accounts. The article argues that the link between IP and Bolsonarism is not direct ideological command but one of affective alignment. Bolsonarism's political imaginary, its moral dualism and messianic leadership, resonates with the pre-existing spiritual dispositions of believers. This dynamic, which re-embeds spirituality in human experience, re-enchants politics from within Charles Taylor's "immanent frame," representing not a pre-modern revival but an exhaustion of a modern logic.