O CONPLEI e a terceira onda missionária: percepções do cristianismo entre os Ticuna na região do Alto Solimões

Abstract

The present study is situated within the field of the Anthropology of Religion and studies related to the Christian presence among ethnic groups, proposing an analysis of issues related to the insertion of Christianity among the Ticuna (Magüta people) in the Alto Solimões region. The Ticuna constitute the largest ethnic group in Brazil, with 74,061 individuals according to 2022 data (updated in 2025), inhabiting a tri-border area covering Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. The central interest of the study is to understand how the Christian faith was assimilated, reinterpreted, or reworked through processes internal to the group. The approach seeks to go beyond the analysis of the damages caused by the missionary presence, focusing on Ticuna agency and the process termed "Indianization" (or "Ticunization") of Christianity. Historically, the Ticuna have experienced the presence of Catholicism (since the mid-17th century, associated with catechesis and colonial projects), the emergence of internal and external messianic movements (such as the enduring Santa Cruz Movement, initiated in the 1970s), and the arrival of Evangelicalism (starting in the 1950s, including Baptist and Assembly of God Churches). The main focus of the research is the role of the National Council of Indigenous Evangelical Pastors and Leaders (CONPLEI) and the indigenous Christianity fostered by it. CONPLEI, founded in 1991, is an interethnic network of indigenous evangelical leaders aiming to promote evangelization through natives, theoretically respecting cultural and linguistic specificities. This dynamic is part of the context of the Third Missionary Wave, a strategic movement that transfers evangelizing protagonism to the indigenous themselves (native mission), constituting a response to the legal restriction on non-indigenous missionaries in indigenous lands and to tensions caused by the cultural imposition of previous missionary waves. A key notion associated with this movement is Ethnotheology, which proposes a dialogue between the Christian faith and the indigenous worldview. Ticuna leaders involved, such as the founders of the Indigenous Evangelical Church of Philadelphia (created in 2009), seek to formulate a "contextualized Jesus" aligned with Ticuna mythical heroes and cosmology, arguing that the new church must respect and value native culture, which was disrespected by foreign missionaries. The creation of these indigenous churches is seen as a form of power rearticulation and a path to indigenous protagonism. Based on informal conversations, direct field observation, web and social network research (netnography), and collected data, the research suggests that the negotiation between Christianity and culture is a Ticuna political strategy for maintaining and reiterating their Magüta identity in relation to the surrounding society, while the condition of "Christian" or "native missionary" grants prestige and social prominence. Thus, CONPLEI and the Third Missionary Wave not only transform the religious landscape but also act as complex instruments of identity and power in the Alto Solimões.