A biography of Charles Miller, the man who taught Brazil how to play Football.

Evangelical and Catholic groups are transforming Brazilian politics. This book asks why, and what the consequences are for democracy.

Publisher description

This book investigates the growing number of Western followers of John of God, a faith healer who has drawn hundreds of thousands of people, including Oprah Winfrey, to his healing center in Brazil by purportedly performing miraculous surgeries on people with a kitchen knife and no anesthetics. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork throughout Brazil, the US, UK, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand, Cristina Rocha examines the social and cultural forces that have made it possible for an illiterate, mostly unknown faith healer in Brazil to become a global "guru" of the 21st century.

For a generation, the Catholic Church in Brazil has enjoyed international renown as one of the most progressive social forces in Latin America. The Church's creation of Christian Base Communities (CEBs), groups of Catholics who learn to read the Bible as a call for social justice, has been widely hailed. Still, in recent years it has become increasingly clear that the CEBs are lagging far behind the explosive growth of Brazil's two other major national religious movements—Pentacostalism and Afro-Brazilian Umbanda. On the basis of his extensive fieldwork in Rio di Janeiro, including detailed life histories of women, blacks, youths, and the marginal poor, John Burdick offers the first in-depth explanation of why the radical Catholic Church is losing, and Pentecostalism and Umbanda winning, the battle for souls in urban Brazil.

From prizewinning journalist and Brazilian native Juliana Barbassa comes a deeply reported and beautifully written account of the seductive and chaotic city of Rio de Janeiro as it struggles with poverty and corruption on the brink of the 2016 Olympic Games. Juliana Barbassa moved a great deal throughout her life, but Rio was always home. After twenty-one years abroad, she returned to find her native city—once ravaged by inflation, drug wars, corrupt leaders, and dying neighborhoods—undergoing a major change. Rio has always aspired to the pantheon of global capitals, and under the spotlight of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games it seems that its moment has come. But in order to prepare itself for the world stage, Rio must vanquish the entrenched problems that Barbassa recalls from her childhood. Turning this beautiful but deeply flawed place into a pristine showcase of the best that Brazil has to offer in just a few years is a tall order—and with the whole world watching, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Library Journal called Dancing with the Devil in the City of God “akin to Charlie LeDuff’s Detroit”—a book that “combines history and personal interviews in an informative and engaging work.” This kaleidoscopic portrait of Rio introduces the reader to the people who make up this city of extremes, revealing their aspirations and their grit, their violence, their hungers, and their splendor, and shedding light on the future of this city they are building together. Dancing with the Devil in the City of God is an insider perspective from a native daughter and “a fascinating look at the people who live in and aspire to change one of the world’s most impressive cities” (Booklist, starred review).

The searing novel on which the internationally acclaimed hit film was based. “A Scarface-like urban epic . . . punctuated with lyricism and longing” (Publishers Weekly). City of God is a gritty, gorgeous tour de force from one of Brazil’s most notorious slums. Cidade de Deus: a place where the streets are awash with narcotics, where violence can erupt at any moment over drugs, money, and love—but also a place where the samba beat rocks till dawn, where the women are the most beautiful on earth, and where one young man wants to escape his background and become a photographer. When City of God erupted on screens worldwide, it became one of the most critically and commercially successful foreign films of recent years. But few were aware of the story behind the film. Written by Paulo Lins, who grew up in the favela (shantytown) Cidade de Deus in Rio de Janeiro and who spent years researching its gang history, City of God began life as a coruscating, harrowing novelistic account of twenty years in the illicit pursuits of the youth gangs born from the favela. “With plot devices sometimes as minimal as the dawning of a new day, City of God seems more like a mosaic than a novel, but it’s a mosaic with unforgettably vibrant colors.” —Booklist

The End centers on five friends in Rio de Janeiro who, nearing the end of their lives, are left with memories—of parties, marriages, divorces, fixations, inhibitions, bad decisions—and the physical indignities of aging. Alvaro lives alone and spends his time going from doctor to doctor and bemoaning the evils of his ex-wife. Silvio is a junkie who can’t give up the excesses of sex and drugs even in his old age. Ribeiro is an athletic beach bum enjoying a prolonged sex life thanks to Viagra. Neto is the square member of the group, a faithful husband until his last days. And Ciro is the Don Juan envied by all—but the first to die, struck down by cancer. For all of them, successful careers, personal revelations, and Zen serenity are out of the question, blocked by a seemingly insurmountable wall of frustrations. Orbiting around them are a priest questioning his vocation and a cast of complicated women, neglected and embattled by these self-involved men. Edgy and wise, this tragicomic debut delves into taboo subjects—death, infidelity, impotence, the difficulties of marriage—with unsentimental honesty, and brings Rio and these characters to life in full color.

During the seventeenth century, English Puritan pastors often encouraged their congregations in the spiritual discipline of meditating on God and His Word. Today, however, much of evangelicalism is either ignorant of or turned off to the idea of meditation. In God’s Battle Plan for the Mind , pastor David Saxton seeks to convince God’s people of the absolute necessity for personal meditation and motivate them to begin this work themselves. But he has not done this alone. Rather, he has labored through numerous Puritan works in order to bring together the best of their insights on meditation. Standing on the shoulders of these giants, Saxton teaches us how to meditate on divine truth and gives valuable guidance about how to rightly pattern our thinking throughout the day. With the rich experiential theology of the Puritans, this book lays out a course for enjoying true meditation on God’s Word. Table of Contents: 1. The Importance of Recovering the Joyful Habit of Biblical Meditation 2. Unbiblical Forms of Meditation 3. Defining Biblical Meditation 4. Occasional Meditation 5. Deliberate Meditation 6. The Practice of Meditation 7. Important Occasions for Meditation 8. Choosing Subjects for Meditation 9. The Reasons for Meditation 10. The Benefits of Meditation 11. The Enemies of Meditation 12. Getting Started: Beginning the Habit of Meditation Conclusion: Thoughts on Meditation and Personal Godliness

Two decades before the Second Vatican Council, a section of the Catholic Church decided to enact sweeping reforms of its own. The Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, or I.C.A.B., abolished latin, celibacy and confession, embraced religious freedom, and redefined the pope as just another bishop. I.C.A.B. became the renegade church within a church. With over half a million members in Brazil, and up to four million in a complex worldwide network, I.C.A.B.'s offshoots are at the center of the hottest and most controversial clashes between Catholics and their hierarchy. Independent Catholicism, progressive Catholicism, women's ordination, celibacy, homosexuality, and church reform in general, cannot be fully understood without understanding I.C.A.B. Whether sect or schism, I.C.A.B. represents the most extraordinary attempt in modern times to defy the Vatican and reform the Catholic Church from below. God, Land and Freedom, The True Story of I.C.A.B., tells this remarkable story as it has never been told before. Much archival material has been translated for the first time. I.C.A.B.'s alleged links to freemasonry, communism, the occult, and the far right are investigated. I.C.A.B.'s theology is explained, and the exploits of I.C.A.B.'s founders are revealed. It is a story that can no longer be ignored.