Why do young Brazilians chose to serve at Hillsong or a Brazilian Church in Australia?

What is it about?

This article analyses the ways in which Hillsong, an Australian Pentecostal megachurch, has been alluring young Brazilians to Australia. Hillsong has also influenced CNA, a Brazilian church that caters for the increasing number of Brazilian students in Sydney. Scholars have paid little attention to how religious institutions in the host country may influence rituals and facilitate the establishment of the new church. I argue that churches created by migrants are not established in a deterritorialized diasporic vacuum. Reterritorialization engenders hybridity. Following an admiration for Australian churches due to Australia being part of the English-speaking developed world, CNA is a hybrid of a conservative Brazilian Baptist church and the very informal Hillsong church. I contend that it is precisely this hybridity that makes young Brazilians adhere to it since the church works as an effective bridge between Brazilian and Australian cultures.

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Why is it important?

This paper demonstrates the polycentric nature of Pentecostalism. Australian Pentecostalism is not derivative of US Pentecostalism. The fast global growth of the mega-church Hillsong has shown that the country is a centre for the dissemination of Pentecostalism.

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