In this paper I aim to discuss the relevance of religious studies for understanding the dynamics of violent crimes in the suburbs and slums in the cities. The analytical approach I develop here is inspired, in part, in the stinging reflections made on adherence to evangelism not as a break with the previous semantic and symbolic universe. However, if these analyzes considered the combination of elements of other religions within Pentecostalism, I call attention to combinations, flows and passages between the Christian and criminal universe activated by evangelicals and drug dealers in the context of slums. Between the years 1980 and 2000 intense changes are observed in the contact between drug dealers and the local religious universe, as evidenced by religious symbols, messages and prayers arranged on the walls, on altars and on billboards in the slums, as well as in tattoos on the bodies of drug dealers themselves. The empirical data supporting my analyzes are based mainly on field research conducted in the slums of Acari (in the decades of 1990 and 2000) and Santa Marta (between 2005 and 2009).
slums; drug dealers; religion; Evangelicals; methodology
