JAIR BOLSONARO, Brazil’s recently elected president, chose as his campaign theme “Brazil above everything, God above everybody.” The first phrase is a shout from his days as a military parachutist and the second a nod to the growing power and influence of evangelicals in Brazil.
According to the 2010 Brazilian census, evangelicals—who control extensive media networks and are increasingly involved in politics—make up 22 percent of the population, up from only 9 percent two decades earlier.
Churches such as the Assemblies of God and the prosperity gospel-influenced Universal Church of the Reign of God have used various forms of media to reach larger audiences, starting with local radio stations in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1989, the Universal Church bought a national television network, Rede Record. It is now the second largest network in Brazil and strongly supports Bolsonaro. Today the Universal Church owns more than 20 television stations and 50 radio stations, as well as publishing companies and studios.
In 1986, when the first election after 20 years of military dictatorship was held, the number of Protestant lawmakers jumped to 36, with 20 Pentecostals joining the evangelical caucus. For the first time, a journalist used the term Bancada da Biblia (Bible Bench). Since then, the number of evangelicals has increased in each Congress, except in 2006 when several were involved in scandals ranging from a payment-for-votes scheme to the “Bloodsuckers Operation” that uncovered hospital payment fraud.
The Bible Bench’s political agenda includes keeping abortion illegal and removing current exceptions to the abortion ban, such as danger to the life of the mother, pregnancies caused by rape, and fetuses with anencephaly. The Bible Bench also seeks to teach creationism in schools, lower the age for children to be tried as adults in the judicial system, and remove rights from women and minority communities, including LGBT Brazilians.
Yet “more than [these] themes, it is institutional interests that most unites the evangelicals in Congress,” explains researcher Bruna Suruagy do Amaral Dantas. Concerted efforts have been made on behalf of tax-free status for churches, favorable radio diffusion laws, and national evangelical events and holidays. Evangelicals have also placed themselves on key commissions. In the last Congress, the strongest evangelical presence was on the commission that decides churches’ property-tax exemption, with 17 of 21 members being evangelicals.
Currently, the Bible Bench is the third largest caucus in Brazil’s Congress behind the Bullet Bench (former and current members of the police or military and others with pro-military/enforcement preferences) and the Bull Bench (big agriculture). These three form the “BBB Bench,” with depressingly similar agendas at times; all are key pillars of congressional support for Bolsonaro.
While U.S. influence was important in the general proliferation of evangelicals in Brazil, the connection between evangelical expansion into politics and U.S. influence is not as clear. Paul Freston, a sociologist of religion, points out “there is Pentecostal growth in many countries of the world ... but only in Brazil do you have this phenomenon of benches in Congress.” Instead, he notes that Brazil’s “electoral system of proportional representation with open lists ... favor[s] charismatic candidates, the ‘vote pullers’ that are so desired by the parties. ... In Chile, for example, where Pentecostalism also grew a lot, you almost don’t have evangelical politicians because it is a different electoral system.”
The Bible Bench continues to grow at the national, state, and local levels, with attacks on rights and attempts to impose “religious” mores on the state.
The Republican College in Brasilia was launched this year by the Brazilian Republican Party (PRB), a party built by the Universal Church. “The Republican Foundation belongs to the PRB, and the PRB is the first party in Brazil to have a college,” said senator and Universal Church bishop Eduardo Lopes. It is the first such school founded by a political party.
David Kane serves with Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns and lives with his family in Joao Pessoa, Brazil.
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