Abstract
This article attempts to shed light on the linguistic techniques at work in accounts of divine healing in a Brazilian Pentecostal Church of the “third wave”: the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. The principal part of the text is devoted to speech analysis. Based upon a study of these techniques, it is possible to formulate the hypothesis that the discourse of “divine healing” constructs a universe of verisimilitude inaugurated in a pre-accomplished rupture. This rupture results from a mirroring relationship between conversion and healing, a relationship proper to the functioning of theological discourse. But the discourse of divine healing is also a discursive machine succeeding through the incessant repetition of the same transformational account, as well as by its mode of absorption of scientific (biomedical) language. One may conclude that in adopting a singular syntax based on simplification, “phagocytation” and sudden rupture, the Pentecostal believer participates in the construction of a universe which will demand his obedience.