In Depth:  Nelson Salviano

letter from Brazil

A deeply divided Brazil is going to the polls to choose its future president – hopefully putting an end to a combative campaign between two candidates: Jair Messias Bolsonaro (67) and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (76).

Lula entered the first round as the favourite, with opinion polls indicating a dominant lead in the first round. But the strength of Bolsonaro’s support and the close result dashed expectations of a quick resolution to the deep polarisation in the world’s fourth-largest democracy. The run-off between them takes place on Sunday October 30.

letter from Brazil

There is no doubt that the evangelical vote played an important role in Bolsonaro’s victory for the presidency of Brazil in the last election.

His campaign assumed, both in speech and in practical acts, a preference for this segment. Understanding the role that evangelical churches play in the lives of the faithful is crucial to understanding the growing power that the movement has in the country today.

letter from Brazil

Since the 1970s, a religious shift has taken place in Latin America. As a proportion of the population, Catholics have declined greatly and evangelicals have increased rapidly. These developments are causally linked.

In the course of this demographic transformation, the Catholic Church lost its privileged position in society and its privileged access to politics. It was replaced by a large number of diverse and autonomous evangelical churches, especially Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal ones.

The number of churchgoers in Brazil has increased 20 times in the last 15 years.

To support this great rise in demand, many churches were founded by leaders without any training in handling the word of God. The School for Training Evangelical Leaders (known by its Portugese abbreviation ESCALE) has provided Biblical training for grassroots pastors in Brazil for years.

Brazil is the fifth-largest nation in the world and the biggest country in South America. It has a population of more than 214 million, of whom around 31% are evangelical Christians. Brazil has extremes of wealth: the poverty of the favelas contrasts starkly with the beautiful mansions of the super-rich.

The Protestant church in Brazil is growing rapidly and chaotically, with small, unorganised groups breaking away from established denominations. People with limited knowledge of the Bible and no formal education often lead the small independent churches. The by-product of this phenomenon is the growth of churches where members do not understand the gospel and have a low view of Scripture.