Abstract
The ongoing process of transformation of religion in Brazil is marked by two apparently contradictory tendencies. Whereas, on the one hand, there is an institutional pluralism with a multiplication of evangelical churches, there is a concomitant religious deinstitutionalization: one section of the population is abandoning its institutional religious identity to live a religiosity detached from all institutions. To understand these phenomena better, in this article, the authors analyse, on the one hand, the discourses of Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches and charismatic Catholic groups against other religions, as well as these groups' institutional development projects and their search for visibility within the public sphere; and on the other hand, the language of isolated individuals who, generally, do not identify themselves with any religion properly speaking and adopt a religious “eclecticism and/or hybridism”.