In this dissertation, I analyze the practices of two large evangelical churches in Rio de Janeiro... more In this dissertation, I analyze the practices of two large evangelical churches in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that use combat sport for social outreach. In evangelical fight ministries, pastors combine worship and close-contact grappling to teach people about God. These programs bookend Brazilian jiu-jitsu sparring sessions with thirty-minute Christian worship activities, such as singing and praying.
Christian fighters, like most fight scholars, feel arête (excellence of any kind) is the moral basis of combat sport. However, my auto-ethnographic research with evangelical and fight communities showed me that the more ethically fraught principle of voluntarism—which ascribes moral transformation to any consensual interaction—actually provides the moral common ground between evangelical Christianity and fighting for sport. Each individual’s willingness to participate determines the moral status of every action taken in the name of combat sport or evangelicalism. Combat sport without consent is merely assault. Likewise, evangelicalism without evangelism or conversion is merely mainline protestant Christianity. Both practices require a struggle and expressed consent.
Evangelical fight ministries provide an opportunity to see how evangelicals can use voluntarism to adopt and imbue almost any transaction with moral significance.
The author discusses what she learned from her participation in evangelical fighting ministries, ... more The author discusses what she learned from her participation in evangelical fighting ministries, paying special attention to how these communities sought to connect with God through interacting with each other. In training with and interviewing the members of these ministries in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the author found that as evangelical Christians, many struggled to establish and maintain the primacy of their personal relationships with God over their interpersonal interests. Yet they also believed their relationships with God were meant to be witnessed and experienced by others. During moments of worship they shared emotional intimacy, granting each other opportunities to make outwardly perceivable their internally felt relationships with God. During their Brazilian jiujitsu training, they were encouraged to feel God's presence as they grappled with each other at very close contact. Using the concept of compartmentalisation, the author analyses how these evangelical fighting ministries demarcated their practices into emotional and physical forms of intimacy, thereby finding different ways to achieve what they perceived as personal contact with God in their intense interactions with each other. For years now popular culture has been used in church social programming in urban Brazil. One surprising development since the turn of the 21st century has been the popularising of evangelical fighting ministries. In this article I discuss how certain churches in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are using social outreach programmes that combine worship with close-contact grappling in an effort to help young people learn about God, each other, and themselves. In my own research I found that these programmes generally offered Brazilian jiujitsu -focused sparring sessions bookended with thirty-minute religious activities guided by leaders from their affiliated churches.
Brazilian evangelicals promote jiu jitsu, on the one hand, as a response to young, modern congreg... more Brazilian evangelicals promote jiu jitsu, on the one hand, as a response to young, modern congregants’ desire for flexibility of religious expression and sociability, and on the other hand, as an avenue for individual corporeal, psycho-spiritual, and mental empowerment. Both function as metaphors for spiritual, interpersonal and socio-religious survival strategies in twenty-first century city-living in Brazil. Yet they grow the church in potentially paradoxical ways. The former, epitomized by Bola de Neve, diversifies who all could be in the congregation by turning them into a mediatized, anonymous congregation – like any other audience – there for a good time. This strategy casts the net widely for potential followers and offers varying degrees of commitment to all. Conversely, for the actual jiu jitsu practitioners there can be no question of commitment. This requisite level of dedication is central to the work of Igreja Batista Betânia. For this congregation, daily practice, instruction, and corporeal conditioning test and require individual commitment, which feeds off of and back into the collective support of the church. Based on these churches’ websites, blogs and online forums, this paper moves through a series of tensions exposed in evangelicals’ choice to incorporate jiu jitsu in their daily programming.
ACked TIghTly TogeTher, We sAT AT golden gATe resTAurAnT In neW York City's Chinatown sharing twe... more ACked TIghTly TogeTher, We sAT AT golden gATe resTAurAnT In neW York City's Chinatown sharing twelve tiny dim sum dishes, cutting the last day of class to eat lunch together outside the familiar confines of a room we had shared from Monday to Thursday, nine am to twelve pm from September 2006 to June 2007. We were thirteen Chinese men and women varying in age and from all regions, one Puerto Rican grandmother of three, who had spent the last 50 years in the Lower East Side, a forty-something Polish computer repairman, whose wife and child still lived in Poland, and me, a New York University graduate student from South Carolina. Some, agile with their chopsticks, coached others as we ate. The conversation drifted from upcoming family trips to what we would do with our free time now that class was over to how and where we would find ways to speak English during the summer.
In this dissertation, I analyze the practices of two large evangelical churches in Rio de Janeiro... more In this dissertation, I analyze the practices of two large evangelical churches in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that use combat sport for social outreach. In evangelical fight ministries, pastors combine worship and close-contact grappling to teach people about God. These programs bookend Brazilian jiu-jitsu sparring sessions with thirty-minute Christian worship activities, such as singing and praying.
Christian fighters, like most fight scholars, feel arête (excellence of any kind) is the moral basis of combat sport. However, my auto-ethnographic research with evangelical and fight communities showed me that the more ethically fraught principle of voluntarism—which ascribes moral transformation to any consensual interaction—actually provides the moral common ground between evangelical Christianity and fighting for sport. Each individual’s willingness to participate determines the moral status of every action taken in the name of combat sport or evangelicalism. Combat sport without consent is merely assault. Likewise, evangelicalism without evangelism or conversion is merely mainline protestant Christianity. Both practices require a struggle and expressed consent.
Evangelical fight ministries provide an opportunity to see how evangelicals can use voluntarism to adopt and imbue almost any transaction with moral significance.
The author discusses what she learned from her participation in evangelical fighting ministries, ... more The author discusses what she learned from her participation in evangelical fighting ministries, paying special attention to how these communities sought to connect with God through interacting with each other. In training with and interviewing the members of these ministries in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the author found that as evangelical Christians, many struggled to establish and maintain the primacy of their personal relationships with God over their interpersonal interests. Yet they also believed their relationships with God were meant to be witnessed and experienced by others. During moments of worship they shared emotional intimacy, granting each other opportunities to make outwardly perceivable their internally felt relationships with God. During their Brazilian jiujitsu training, they were encouraged to feel God's presence as they grappled with each other at very close contact. Using the concept of compartmentalisation, the author analyses how these evangelical fighting ministries demarcated their practices into emotional and physical forms of intimacy, thereby finding different ways to achieve what they perceived as personal contact with God in their intense interactions with each other. For years now popular culture has been used in church social programming in urban Brazil. One surprising development since the turn of the 21st century has been the popularising of evangelical fighting ministries. In this article I discuss how certain churches in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are using social outreach programmes that combine worship with close-contact grappling in an effort to help young people learn about God, each other, and themselves. In my own research I found that these programmes generally offered Brazilian jiujitsu -focused sparring sessions bookended with thirty-minute religious activities guided by leaders from their affiliated churches.
Brazilian evangelicals promote jiu jitsu, on the one hand, as a response to young, modern congreg... more Brazilian evangelicals promote jiu jitsu, on the one hand, as a response to young, modern congregants’ desire for flexibility of religious expression and sociability, and on the other hand, as an avenue for individual corporeal, psycho-spiritual, and mental empowerment. Both function as metaphors for spiritual, interpersonal and socio-religious survival strategies in twenty-first century city-living in Brazil. Yet they grow the church in potentially paradoxical ways. The former, epitomized by Bola de Neve, diversifies who all could be in the congregation by turning them into a mediatized, anonymous congregation – like any other audience – there for a good time. This strategy casts the net widely for potential followers and offers varying degrees of commitment to all. Conversely, for the actual jiu jitsu practitioners there can be no question of commitment. This requisite level of dedication is central to the work of Igreja Batista Betânia. For this congregation, daily practice, instruction, and corporeal conditioning test and require individual commitment, which feeds off of and back into the collective support of the church. Based on these churches’ websites, blogs and online forums, this paper moves through a series of tensions exposed in evangelicals’ choice to incorporate jiu jitsu in their daily programming.
ACked TIghTly TogeTher, We sAT AT golden gATe resTAurAnT In neW York City's Chinatown sharing twe... more ACked TIghTly TogeTher, We sAT AT golden gATe resTAurAnT In neW York City's Chinatown sharing twelve tiny dim sum dishes, cutting the last day of class to eat lunch together outside the familiar confines of a room we had shared from Monday to Thursday, nine am to twelve pm from September 2006 to June 2007. We were thirteen Chinese men and women varying in age and from all regions, one Puerto Rican grandmother of three, who had spent the last 50 years in the Lower East Side, a forty-something Polish computer repairman, whose wife and child still lived in Poland, and me, a New York University graduate student from South Carolina. Some, agile with their chopsticks, coached others as we ate. The conversation drifted from upcoming family trips to what we would do with our free time now that class was over to how and where we would find ways to speak English during the summer.
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Papers by Jessica Rivers
Christian fighters, like most fight scholars, feel arête (excellence of any kind) is the moral basis of combat sport. However, my auto-ethnographic research with evangelical and fight communities showed me that the more ethically fraught principle of voluntarism—which ascribes moral transformation to any consensual interaction—actually provides the moral common ground between evangelical Christianity and fighting for sport. Each individual’s willingness to participate determines the moral status of every action taken in the name of combat sport or evangelicalism. Combat sport without consent is merely assault. Likewise, evangelicalism without evangelism or conversion is merely mainline protestant Christianity. Both practices require a struggle and expressed consent.
Evangelical fight ministries provide an opportunity to see how evangelicals can use voluntarism to adopt and imbue almost any transaction with moral significance.
Christian fighters, like most fight scholars, feel arête (excellence of any kind) is the moral basis of combat sport. However, my auto-ethnographic research with evangelical and fight communities showed me that the more ethically fraught principle of voluntarism—which ascribes moral transformation to any consensual interaction—actually provides the moral common ground between evangelical Christianity and fighting for sport. Each individual’s willingness to participate determines the moral status of every action taken in the name of combat sport or evangelicalism. Combat sport without consent is merely assault. Likewise, evangelicalism without evangelism or conversion is merely mainline protestant Christianity. Both practices require a struggle and expressed consent.
Evangelical fight ministries provide an opportunity to see how evangelicals can use voluntarism to adopt and imbue almost any transaction with moral significance.