ABSTRACT
The Protestant explosion in Brazil is not, then, merely numerical; it involves a rapid institutional inclusion of organized Pentecostalism at all levels of Brazilian society. The consequences of conversion in terms of quality of social participation and citizenship may be inclusive: By virtue of conversion the convert is incorporated as an endorsing, noncritical participant into the dominant economic and political projects of the society. This allows for two types of conversion that are to be found among Pentecostals in Brazil. This chapter concludes with a pairing of three types of conversion and three types of political citizenship found among Brazilian Pentecostals. The pragmatic political operator of third-wave Pentecostalism has experienced a once and complete conversion that includes him or her in would-be upwardly mobile postmodern Brazil. The chapter presents some conclusions about the likelihood of Pentecostals' being protagonists in movements for intended social change either in the formal political arena or, more widely, in civil society.
