Abstract
In our contemporary socio-religious context, where Christian and non-Christian religions offer a wide and varied range of options, newly founded Pentecostal churches - like “Universal Kingdom”, “God Is Love” and others - occupy a prominent position. The continued growth in their membership arouses feelings of astonishment and concern among Catholics and Protestants alike. In contrast, not so long ago, joy and enthusiasm seized “Universal Kingdom” members, when called upon to fill the great Maracana Stadium in Rio. The sociological interpretation of these churches (mostly younger but one older), that we carry out here is merely an attempt to respond to the following question: how is one to understand a capitalistic society, tending towards socioeconomic expansion, based on technical-scientific rationality, but comfortably accommodating magico-religious expressions whose world view distances that society radically from capitalistic rationality? Clarification of this problem pivots on the central concept of world visions. Initially, we are dealing with a notion taken from Max Weber, but displaced to the level of relations between classes and the positions they occupy in the structure of capitalist society. These steps have led us to see the interaction between the pentecostal and the profane vision of society, that is, the ideology of the dominant class.