Images of Martin Luther in Brasilian lutheran church: policies and identity building in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brasil between the World War I and the Post-Military Dictatorship

Abstract

Our purpose in this article is to analyze through images of Martin Luther the dynamic of the politics and identities in movement in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil (Elcb) between the World War I and the Post-Military Dictatorship. Using both visual and discursive images, we will try to grasp how the pastors and leaders of the group have reacted to different social situations from within an orthodox religious tradition: confessional Lutheranism. We will be focused in the ways this kind of religion was reproduced, reinterpreted, reconstructed in Brazil; how it has sustained specific and differentiated actions and identities; and which meanings were or were not negotiated around the images of Luther in the changing context of the Brazilian society. Key-words: Identities; Politics; Images of Luther; Lutheranism.