Ser protestante sendo brasileiro: uma leitura “tillichiana” da vida e dos escritos do Pastor José Manoel da Conceição

Abstract

The aim of this work is to read the life and writings of the first brazilian protestant pastor, Rev. José Manoel da Conceição, through the hermeneutics key of Paul Tillich’s Culture Theology using core concepts such as the “Protestant Principle”. Living as a catholic priest for about twenty years, his life is an example of fight against the heteronomy represented by catholicism in the XIX century. By rupturing relations with the Catholic Church and his ingress in the protestantism of mission which, in this specific case, is represented by presbiterianism, his ordination as a pastor and his pastoral activities indicate a culturally conflictuous relation of a brazilian with protestantism in its initial fase in the brazilian society. We intend, with this research, to contribute with a more widened reading in Brazil’s history of the religious ideas, mainly with reference to the relation between catholicism and protestantism. By his experience, Conceição signalled the possibility of a spiritual reform that goes beyond the institution as he sought to conciliate the “Catholic Substance” with the “Protestant Principle”.