Abstract
This book is being published six years after the Nagel Institute seminar whose focus was the roles played by evangelicals in Brasil’s ongoing processes of social transformation. This Brazilian “social Christianity,” described throughout this book as a commitment to “holistic mission” (missão integral), faced a strange situation in late 2018 in relation to the processes of electoral politics that resulted in the election of Jair Bolsonaro as President of the Republic.
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Notes
- 1.
It took voters two rounds to elect Bolsonaro with a 55% majority following a first round in which he and Workers’ Party (PT) candidate Fernando Haddad ran first and second, respectively. Even so, despite constant criticisms of the PT, voters elected more state governors and federal deputies from the PT than from any other party, suggesting continued widespread support for the party.
- 2.
L’Evangile face au désordre mondial (Paris: Fayard, 1997). Schooyans reflected further on the negative impact of the new “gender ideology” in an interview from 2000, available at: http://perso.infonie.be/le.feu/ms/framesag/zenit0ag.htm.
- 3.
See, for example, Anthony Boadle, “Lula’s Rising Star in Brazil Election Poll Rattles Markets,” Reuters, August 22, 2018, accessed December 2, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-election-poll/lulas-rising-star-in-brazil-election-poll-rattles-markets-idUSKCN1L715G. In addition, see Kenneth Rapoza, “Why Brazil’s Ex-President Lula Leads Polls in an Election He Cannot Even Run in,” Forbes, August 21, 2018, accessed December 2, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2018/08/21/brazil-lula-polls-election-petrobras-scandal-bans-him/#62773ab92941.
- 4.
For several chapters that address this matter, see Carol Proner et al., eds. Comments on a Notorious Verdict: The Trial of Lula, accessed at: http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/se/20180104045805/comments_on_a_notorious_verdict.pdf. In this edited volume, contributor Marcio Sotello Felippe describes “lawfare” as “the annihilation of a political person through judicial mechanisms” (p. 135). In his discussion of the Lula case, the same author went on to assert that, “[a]ll considered, what we have is typical lawfare. The destruction of the political enemy through an apparently legal process” (p. 138). For a more detailed analysis of the origins of the concept, see discussion by Ricardo Lodi Ribeiro in the same volume, pp. 182–85. On the judicial sentencing of Lula, carried out by Judge Sérgio Moro who will now become Minister of Justice for the new Bolsonaro government, see the article by Portuguese lawyer Rita Mota Sousa: “O Brasil não é para principiantes” [Brazil Is No Place for Beginners], Jornal de Notícias, April 17, 2018, accessed at: https://www.jn.pt/opiniao/convidados/interior/o-brasil-nao-e-para-principiantes-9264512.html.
- 5.
For an analysis in Portuguese of how the evangelical vote contributed to the election of Bolsonaro, see Alexandre Brasil Fonseca, “Foram os evangélicos que elegeram Bolsonaro?” [Did the Evangelicals Elect Bolsonaro?], available at: http://www.ihu.unisinos.br/78-noticias/584446-foram-os-evangelicos-que-elegeram-bolsonaro.
- 6.
Franklin Ferreira, Contra a idolatria do Estado [Against the Idolatry of the State] (São Paulo: Vida Nova, 2016). Ferreira defends classical economic philosophy and affirms that human solidarity is individual, not a matter for the state. Bolsonaro has endorsed Contra a idolatria do Estado on Facebook: see https://www.facebook.com/ProfFranklinFerreira/videos/contra-a-idolatria/1743775005696240/. For other evangelical justifications for embracing the politics of the right, see Yago Martins, “E se Deus for de direita?” [What if God Favors the Political Right], https://pt.scribd.com/document/276608326/E-Se-Deus-for-de-Direita-Teologia-Politica; Renato Vargens, “4 razões fundamentais porque os evangélicos estão aderindo à direita” [Four Basic Reasons Why the Evangelicals Are Turning to the Right], https://pleno.news/opiniao/renato-vargens/4-razoes-fundamentais-porque-os-evangelicos-estao-aderindo-a-direita.html; and Thiago Chagas, “Pastor comenta ‘marxismo cultural’ e diz que cristãos não podem ser adeptos da esquerda” [Pastor Describes “Cultural Marxism” and Says Christians Can’t Embrace the Political Left], https://noticias.gospelmais.com.br/marxismo-cultural-pastor-cristaos-nao-esquerda-96601.html. Coming from a different viewpoint, Ricardo Gondim argues in “A caricatura evangélica” [The Evangelical Caricature] that contemporary evangelical political theology in Brazil sustains “a caricature that becomes more bizarre every day,” accessed at: https://www.diariodocentrodomundo.com.br/pastor-explica-por-que-igrejas-evangelicas-embarcam-em-candidaturas-de-direita/.
- 7.
For examples of such tensions within denominations and congregations, see Arthur Stabile, “Evangélicos anti-Bolsonaro sofrem repressão em suas igrejas” [Anti-Bolsonaro Evangelicals Suffer Repression in Their Churches], October 15, 2018, https://ponte.org/evangelicos-anti-bolsonaro-sofrem-repressao-em-suas-igrejas/; Amauri Gonzo, “Igreja Renascer expulsa pastor por não pregar em favor de Bolsonaro” [The Renascer Church Expels Pastor for Not Preaching in Favor of Bolsonaro], October 5, 2018, available at: https://www.vice.com/pt_br/article/a3pydk/igreja-renascer-expulsa-pastor-por-nao-pregar-em-favor-de-bolsonaro.
- 8.
Antonio Carlos Costa [AntonioCCosta_], October 29, 2018, Vou morrer afirmando: o apoio ACRÍTICO, EFUSIVO, INSTITUCIONAL, da igreja a Jair Bolsonaro foi página mais triste da história do protestantismo brasileiro [I Will Die Affirming: The “The Acritical, Effusive and Institutional Support of the Church for Jair Bolsonaro Was One of the Saddest Pages in the History of Brazilian Protestantism” [Tweet], retrieved from: https://twitter.com/antonioccosta_/status/1057027831002210305.
- 9.
See the Bolsonaro campaign’s “Proposta de Plano de Governo” [Proposal for Plan for Government], http://divulgacandcontas.tse.jus.br/candidaturas/oficial/2018/BR/BR/2022802018/280000614517/proposta_1534284632231.pdf.
- 10.
- 11.
OXFAM, País Estagnado [Country in Stagnation], 2018, accessed at: https://www.oxfam.org.br/sites/default/files/arquivos/relatorio_desigualdade_2018_pais_estagnado_digital.pdf.
- 12.
Amir Timon, “Bolsonaro’s Son Meets Kushner to Discuss Moving Brazilian Embassy to Jerusalem,” November 28, 2018, available at: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-bolsonaro-s-son-meets-kushner-to-discuss-moving-brazilian-embassy-to-jerusalem-1.6698900; Josh Gabattis, “Brazil’s Far-Right Leader Jair Bolsonaro Threatens to Strip Powers from Government Environment Agencies,” available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-environment-climate-change-amazon-deforestation-a8663596.html.
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Fonseca, A.B. (2019). Afterword. In: Miller, E., Morgan, R. (eds) Brazilian Evangelicalism in the Twenty-First Century. Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13686-4_17
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