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A poética de Rubem Alves e o discurso da religião vivida

Abstract

Facing the empirical turn that shifted the analytical focus from ecclesiastical structures to the daily lives of subjects, this article confronts the categories of theology of the everyday, coined by Rubem Alves, and lived religion, consolidated by Anglo-Saxon sociology. It defends the thesis that the lived religion approach, under a methodological guise, operates a concealment of the theology of the everyday that preceded it. To this end, the study recovers the understanding of Greek theology as poiesis, the poetic and inspired discourse about the divine, opposing it to the institutionalized dogmatism of the Middle Ages. By drawing parallels between the Alvesian theopoetics of longing (saudade) and the dimensions of faith mapped by Nancy Ammerman, and contextualizing them within the pragmatism and religious transit of the Brazilian scenario, it concludes that the academic rejection of the term “theology” renders invisible the agency and mysticism of the ordinary ground, reiterating the need for a living hermeneutics committed to human meaning and dignity