Abstract
This chapter considers the marked discrepancies in numerical growth among the movements from the early 1960s onward. While the Christian Congregation and Brazilian Assemblies of God chart a similar trajectory through the mid-century mark, thereafter, the former’s expansion tapers, while the latter’s rises steeply. I assess the respective growth rates (change over given timeframe) in view of three phases: initial expansion (from conception to the early 1930s); stable expansion (from the mid-1930s to mid-1960s); and variable expansion (from the late 1960s to 2010). I also consider competing religious markets such as neopentecostalism and the New Calvinism.
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Notes
- 1.
“Traditions over time,” WCD, accessed December 13, 2021, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/country/28/404-religions2.
- 2.
Read, “New Patterns of Church Growth,” 221–28. On the twentieth-century Protestant surge in Brazil, see also Donald Edward Price, “A Comparative Analysis of the Growth of the Brazilian Baptists and the Assemblies of God in Metropolitan São Paulo, 1981–1990” (PhD diss., University of South Africa, 2004); Reed E. Nelson, “Organizational Homogeneity, Growth, and Conflict in Brazilian Protestantism,” Sociological Analysis 48, no. 4 (1988): 319–27; and Joseph E. Potter, Ernesto F. L. Amaral, and Robert D. Woodberry, “The Growth of Protestantism in Brazil and Its Impact on Male Earnings, 1970–2000,” Social Forces 93, no. 1 (2014): 125–53.
- 3.
Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 12. Membership total for 1930 is based on Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 22–23, 29.
- 4.
Vingren, O diário do pioneiro Gunnar Vingren, 51; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 120.
- 5.
Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 30; Melton, “Christian Congregation of Brazil,” 2:621.
- 6.
Leonardo Marcondes Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” in Wilkinson, Brill’s Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism, accessed August 20, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1163/2589-3807_EGPO_COM_047967. The regional expansion of the AD is charted in Conde, História das Assembléias de Deus; Chadwick, “A Study of Iberic-America,” 9.
- 7.
Menna, “Recordando una fecha feliz,” 1; “Historia de las Asambleas Cristianas,” 1–3; Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 46–47.
- 8.
Saracco, “Argentina Pentecostalism,” 54.
- 9.
Tirabassi, “Why Italians Left Italy,” 124; Baily, Immigrants in the Lands of Promise, 59.
- 10.
Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 24; A. Palma, “CCNA Hymnal,” 76.
- 11.
Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 90. Italian migrants in the United States encountered a similar experience through the reading of scripture and the Italian hymnbook. A. Palma, “CCNA Hymnal,” 74; Cumbo, “Your Old Men Will Dream Dreams,” 43.
- 12.
Endruveit, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 45.
- 13.
See Eakin’s statistical compilation. Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country, “Appendix B.”
- 14.
Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 32. See also Randolph R. Resor, “Rubber in Brazil: Dominance and Collapse, 1876–1945,” Business History Review 51 (Autumn 1977): 341–66.
- 15.
Erika Helgen, Religious Conflict in Brazil: Protestants, Catholics, and the Rise of Religious Pluralism in the Early Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), 75–76.
- 16.
Davies, Embattled but Empowered Community, 92.
- 17.
Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 121; Freston, “Christian Congregation,” 119.
- 18.
Wylian DaCosta, interview with the author, December 3, 2020, e-mail, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA.
- 19.
Paul Washer founded a missionary society in Peru to support Indigenous ministers. Paul Washer, “History of HeartCry,” HeartCry Missionary Society, accessed August 1, 2021, https://heartcrymissionary.com/about/who-we-are/history-of-heartcry/.
- 20.
“Articles of Faith,” Christian Congregation in North America, art. 1, last modified May 2020, https://www.ccnamerica.org/articles-of-faith.html.
- 21.
“Pontos de doutrina,” Congregação Cristã no Brasil, art. 1, accessed August 22, 2021, https://www.congregacaocristanobrasil.org.br/institucional/doutrina. Emphasis added.
- 22.
W. DaCosta, interview.
- 23.
Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” 323; Monteiro, “Congregação Cristã no Brasil,” 142; Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil.”
- 24.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Volume I, Part 1, trans. G. W. Bromiley, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), 121.
- 25.
Jonathan Edwards, The Great Awakening, ed. C. C. Goen, vol. 4 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1972), 432.
- 26.
The definitive work on Oneness pentecostal theology is David K. Bernard, The New Birth (Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame, 1984), 156–85. In most CC churches, the baptismal liturgy merges the “Jesus Only” formula (Acts 2:38) with the trine Great Commission confession (Matt. 28:19). DaCosta, interview.
- 27.
John Calegari, interview with the author, September 10, 2021, audio recording, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA.
- 28.
See also Valente, “Articles of Faith, Twelve,” 114.
- 29.
BonGiovanni, “Missionary History of the Christian Church of North America,” 100.
- 30.
Johnson and Zurlo, “Asamblea Cristiana (Italiana),” WCD, accessed June 20, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/denomination/152/83-general.
- 31.
Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 197.
- 32.
Fernando J. Devoto, Historias de los Italianos en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos, 2006), 329–30.
- 33.
Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Assembleias de Deus,” WCD, accessed June 20, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/denomination/940/83-general; Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Congregação Cristã do Brasil,” WCD, accessed November 20, 2021, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/denomination/948/83-general.
- 34.
Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 130.
- 35.
Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 13; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 126, 131; Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?, 109–10; Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 121; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 41.
- 36.
According to the most recent Brazilian (IBGE) census in 2010, the membership of the AD is 12.3 million. Censo demográfico 2010, under “Tabela 1.4.1.” The significant variance between this figure and the WCD calculations can be attributed to the AD’s “cissiparity” (many schisms) since the 1980s, with new groups maintaining the AD name but only a loose affiliation with the core conventions. Francisco Cartaxo Rolim, O que é Pentecostalismo (São Paulo, SP: Editora Brasiliense, 1987), 34–38.
- 37.
Antonio Donizeti da Silva Santos, interview with the author, December 17, 2021, video recording, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA.
- 38.
On the egalitarian structure of the IURD, for example, see Patricia Birman, “Conversion from Afro-Brazilian Religions to Neo-Pentecostalism: Opening New Horizons of the Possible,” in Steigenga and Cleary, Conversion of a Continent, 120–23.
- 39.
John Burdick, Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil’s Religious Arena (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 144.
- 40.
David Van Biema, “#3 The New Calvinism,” Time Magazine, March 23, 2009, 50.
- 41.
Bill Barkley founded the publishing house in 1977, as reported by his daughter, Sharon (a publishing service provider). Sharon Barkley, interview with the author, Jan. 20, 2022, e-mail, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA.
- 42.
Freston, “Future of Pentecostalism in Brazil,” 79–80.
- 43.
Gutierres Fernandes Siqueira, “Pr. Geremias Couto - Assembleiano e Calvinista convicto é entrevistado pelo Blog Teologia Pentecostal,” Rhema, February 1, 2015, http://www.pointrhema.com.br/2015/01/pr-geremias-couto-assembleiano-e.html. Among the churches identifying with the movement are the Igreja Assembleia de Deus Reformada em Itaipuaçu and the Assembleia de Deus Confissão Reformada. “Assembleia de Deus Confissão Reformada,” accessed January 21, 2002, https://iad-reformada.blogspot.com/. On the Calvinistic roots of the CC, see also Corten, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 167 (n. 2).
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Palma, P.J. (2022). Brazilian Pentecostals and Church Growth: Variations, Trends, and Explanations. In: Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States. Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_6
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