Hillsong arrives in Brazil: building a transnational religious field between Brazil and Australia

Abstract

Brazil is the largest Pentecostal country in the world and is home to several megachurches. However, the Australian megachurch Hillsong chose the city of São Paulo to establish one of its branches in 2016. In this article I investigate the transnational connections that led to the arrival of Hillsong in Brazil. I argue that the intensification of globalization processes of the past two decades (particularly new Information and Communication Technologies), and a desire to be part of the Global North played a key role in the presence of the megachurch in the imagination of young Christian Brazilians, which eventually paved the way for the megachurch to be established in the country. In particular, I analyze the existence of a transnational religious field between Australia and Brazil. This concept accounts for the way global religious institutions affect the everyday life of immigrants, those who stay behind, and those who return.