Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Can a Pro-Life Activist Defend The Inquisition?


Can a Pro-Life Activist Defend The Inquisition?

By Julio Severo
The answer to the title of this article is: Of course not! I, for example, have never defended any kind of Inquisition, and if I ever do it, obviously I will have to abandon the pro-life fight, because it makes no sense selectively to condemn a genocide and support another.
Pope John Paul II, author of the encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” was a pro-life champion and he did not defend the Inquisition. On the contrary, he had the honesty to ask forgiveness for what the Inquisition and its agents did.
The defense of the Inquisition, for any Christian who considers himself pro-life, is so shameful that the only option left to its defenders is to deflect the debate to other details that flee from the essential question.
Three hundred years ago, Jonathan Swift, in his “Gulliver’s Travels,” used the example of a cow, and how a malicious neighbor might, with the help of a dishonest lawyer, say that the animal belonged to him, not to Gulliver. The method is simple: instead of focusing on the central topic of who the cow really belongs to, the lawyer will make the judge digress into details consuming time and energy: the cow’s age, the nature of its pasture is, its size is, etc.
In the end, victory comes by fatigue and a heap of digressions.
There have been a number of digressions in response to my Portuguese article “A inquisição, o papa e o suspiro de alguns católicos conservadores” (The Inquisition, the Pope and the Yearn of Some Conservative Catholics).
The major digression in the issue of the Inquisition and a pro-life identity came with this comment:
In the subject of the history of the Inquisition, Julio is completely illiterate. The Protestant Reformation, in England, killed in a few months more people than the Inquisition did in four centuries.
Obviously, this comment did not respond to the main question in my article: How can those who defend the Inquisition fight against abortion?
Or, to be more precise: How do they want to fight the culture of death of socialism, homosexuality and feminism when they feel comfortable with the culture of torture and death of the Inquisition?
I do not mention the identity of the comment author in order to make it clear that I am attacking stances and ideas, not people. Moreover, the author is a man I respect, in spite of differences. I respect greatly his wife too, a very considerate woman. Yet, for literary convenience, I will call him in this text just Jack Man.
Sometimes, it is preferable not to mention real names to avoid embarrassment and personal attacks. In the case of his comment, Jack Man did not show this consideration, and many of his followers have interpreted his comment as a carte blanche to post aggressive messages both in my Facebook and in other forums, not sparing expletives and names such as “antichrist.” Some said, “The master has spoken, so shut up!” At least, the axes, sickles and hammers were only in very heavy and ugly words. (I’m already accustomed to this, coming from the Protestant Left, whose more frequent weapons are expletives.)
It is in a moment such as this that I give thanks to God that there is no more the Inquisition, because if there were, this rabid pro-Inquisition mob would come up to me with real axes, sickles and hammers to lynch me much before the tribunal of the holy office were able to pick me, judge me and condemn me to death by burning.
One of the strong Catholic reactions to my questioning if the pro-life identity can join the defense of the Inquisition was:
Seeing Julio Severo defaming and denigrating the Inquisition, I notice that he is an ignorant or acts in bad faith. If he is ignorant, he may still learn. If he acts in bad faith, he deserves to be execrated. Anyway, what he said does not offend me. I think that what is much more serious is that those who have an obligation to defend the Inquisition are shamed of it.
This explicitly pro-Inquisition Facebook comment could be seen as an isolated case, but it was “liked” (or signed) by some Midia Sem Mascara columnists.
If they want to accuse me of “defaming” and “denigrating” communism and its atrocities, I humbly accept this “shame” — which for me is a great joy.
If they want to accuse me of “defaming” and “denigrating” Nazism and its crime of the Holocaust, I humbly accept this “shame” — which for me is a great joy.
In a similar way, if they want to accuse me of “defaming” and “denigrating” the Inquisition, I humbly accept this “shame” — which for me is a great joy.
They can also add that I “defame” and “denigrate” the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). This is the largest organization of contraception, abortion and sex education in the world. Its founder, Margaret Sanger, came from an Irish Catholic family, and before the rise of the Soviet Union, she already preached feminism, socialism, abortion and anarchy. Her strongest opponent was evangelical Anthony Comstock.
There is a parallel between the Inquisition and IPPF. Both have varied torture tools. While the Catholic Inquisition tortured and killed presumably only adults, IPPF uses medical instruments to torture and kill babies: saline injection, partial abortion, dismemberment and decapitation.
Tony Man (not his real name, because he is a friend of Jack Man and wants to remain unnamed), calls IPPF “Planned Parenthood Inquisition.” He has this to ask to those who love and defend the Inquisition: They want babies Protestants to be aborted or merely tortured and killed after birth?
Following the excellent reasoning of Tony Man, I wonder: What about if IPPF had Vatican approval, as the Inquisition had, then it could kill only Protestant babies and other “heretical” babies?
For Tony Man and for me, it is very simple: if you can excuse or defend the Catholic Inquisition, what prevents you from condoning or defending the IPPF Inquisition?
The pro-abortion guy can coolly upbraid you: “Your Catholic Church had the Inquisition and we have IPPF. Leave us with our genocide and you stay with yours.” But, on both sides, there is denial, although on the Catholic side the pope has already asked for forgiveness. So the insistence of defending the Inquisition only exposes its defenders to ridicule.
The only difference between the Inquisition and IPPF is that one has a Catholic title and the other does not. Is this then the reason that those who defend the Inquisition condemn IPPF? But what moral ethics have the Inquisition defenders to attack IPPF?
The fact that there are Catholics today defending the Inquisition indicates only a reality: apostasy.
Tony Man brought to my knowledge that Malachi Martin, the well-known late Catholic theologian, was an adviser to two popes. Martin said in mid-1990s:
* The smoke of Satan is in the Vatican.
* The Catholic Church has come under the control of Satan.
* That the situation is irreversible.
* That both Pope Paul VI (in the mid-1970s!) and later John Paul II said that it cannot be reversed or even halted by anything man can do.
* That the only way to understand the Third Secret of Fatima, which Malachi Martin was allowed to read (most Catholics trust and revere that apparition) is to accept that the Vatican, the Roman Catholic hierarchy and almost all the Catholic laity in the world, are apostate.
* That Catholicism as we know it, as a religious institution, is spiritually dead and that this is God's will!
These comments by the late Rev. Malachi Martin, gathered by Tony Man through a Martin’s sermon, might explain perfectly why some Catholics who attack a genocide (abortion) are comfortable with another (the Inquisition).
According to Tony Man, looking carefully at the Protestant churches and their institutions in the Western countries, Rev. Martin also said that all of them are apostate. The exception is Protestant churches in the poorest nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
It is healthy to face reality, as Martin did. As an evangelical, I often go in the opposite direction of other Protestants, who see Vatican as the Great Babylon described in Revelation 17. Rev. David Wilkerson, an Assembly of God minister and the author of the best-selling “The Cross and the Switchblade,” said that Babylon the Great is America. I agree with him.
Encyclopedia Britannica, in its 11th edition which I used as the source for the Inquisition in my Portuguese article, is rejected by pro-Inquisition Catholics, because they prefer their own baseless books to an encyclopedia of one hundred years considered by pro-family groups as more reliable than modern encyclopedias. Even so, the pro-Inquisition Catholics close themselves in their denial, even after the pope had already asked for forgiveness. Encyclopedia Britannica also correctly describes the Holocaust. Do we have to accept the Nazi version only because the side guilty of crimes does not accept the official version?
Catholic denial, with its pro-Inquisition supporters, is no different from other historical denials, including Nazi and communist.
Is there a revolutionary mindset operating in these affinities? Deniers should answer it.
If I were an evangelical denier, I never would denounce what America, formerly a Protestant power, has been doing to impose abortion and the gay agenda on the world. In addition, I have also denounced the major role of America in the strengthening and funding of the persecution of Christians around the world. It is a sad reality, but truth is truth and it cannot be concealed. To deny, hide, varnish and cripple information about persecution of Christians is a practice of revisionists and other revolutionary mindset agents.
In the Catholic case, Pope John Paul II has already asked for forgiveness. Why then insist on denials and defense of religious genocide?
It makes no sense Catholics attacking a genocide (abortion) and being comfortable with another (the Inquisition).
Leone Lins, a Brazilian who read my original Portuguese article, understood this point. She said, “Until now, I don’t understand the fuss about this article. As I see it, Julio Severo says that those who defend the atrocities perpetrated by the Catholic Inquisition over the centuries have no moral ethics to say that they are against communist genocides. I agree with him.”
Let us return now to the comment by Jack Man, which shunned this central problem:
In the subject of the history of The Inquisition, Julio is completely illiterate. The Protestant Reformation, in England, killed in a few months more people than The Inquisition did in four centuries.
I will not try to respond to this comment which fled from the vital subject, because Jack Man judged me “completely illiterate.” The answer then comes from my friend Michael Carl, an Anglican Episcopal priest and WND journalist.  His response to me was as follows:
Your Catholic critic is confusing the English Reformation with the English Civil War, much of which was between the Protestant Roundheads (Parliamentarians) and the mostly Catholic Cavaliers who supported the king, mostly Catholic because the kings were the Scottish Catholic Stuarts.
There were more Anglicans killed during the brief reign of Catholic Mary Tudor, after the death of the puny Edward. This is the one nicknamed “Bloody Mary” (which is the origin of the cocktail of the same name) because she had Lady Jane Gray and other Protestant Anglicans executed.
There were also other deviations from the central topic. Some Catholics have tried to refute my Portuguese “A inquisição, o papa e o suspiro de alguns católicos conservadores” by appealing to a supposed “Protestant Inquisition.” Such “Protestant Inquisition” exists only in Catholic books. Searching Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 edition, I have found nothing on “Protestant Inquisition.” But I have found abundant material on the “Catholic Inquisition.” Anyway, even if there were a “Protestant Inquisition,” never in my blog or in my Facebook I have praised or suggested such Inquisition against Catholics.
This article was written in response to some Catholics who have for a long time, under my silence and the silence of many other evangelicals, been praising the Inquisition and, worse, implying that we, evangelicals, deserve it. Do these Catholics want to praise the Inquisition? They are free to do so. They want to say it publicly (as a Mídia Sem Máscara columnist did) that evangelicals are modern “Cathars,” who were considered by the Catholic Inquisition as worthy of torture and death? They are free to do so.
However, they can never say they are fighting the culture of death, because within the culture of death is not only communism. It is also, whether they accept or not, the Inquisition. Do they want to defend life? They cannot then defend the Inquisition. It is not impossible to do so. I have Catholic friends who do not defend the Inquisition. By defending the Inquisition, there is nothing that separates them from defenders of IPPF, the Holocaust and communism. What unites them — the slaughter of the innocents — is stronger than what divides them.
There is no difference between defending IPPF and the Holocaust and defending the Inquisition. But there is a vast difference between fighting against abortion and defending the Inquisition.
Having reaffirmed the main point of my anti-Inquisition and antiabortion stance, let me explain that the Catholic Church does not save. The Evangelical Church also does not save. Who saves? Only Jesus Christ.
But according to Tony Man, Jack Man thinks that the only salvation for Latin America is the Catholic Church. So his involvement in pro-life coalitions with Protestants has only one objective: to help the Catholic Church in a supreme role of spiritual and social salvation for all.
Unfortunately for Jack Man, the Catholic Church in Brazil and other Latin American nations is deeply involved in the Marxist Liberation Theology. Especially in Brazil, the largest Catholic nation in the world, no church has been so involved in the establishment of socialism than the Catholic Church has, because of massive apostasy through the Liberation Theology. So it has no salvation, even for itself, and you do not need to be a Malachi Martin to see it.
It is no wonder: any church, Catholic or Protestant, which thinks that it can bring salvation to this world, will commit atrocities. The Inquisition and pervasive socialism in Brazil are just two examples.
Don Hank has said, “This article points to an important reason why that is happening: sheer blind fanaticism. Any Catholic in this day and age who defends the Inquisition is helping to tear down what is left of the Church. I would also wonder if such a person is not a bit mentally unbalanced. I personally am thankful to God that I do not need a fallible human to intercede for me in the place of my personal Savior Jesus Christ.”
To save people, not apostate Catholic or Protestant institutions, God is pouring out His Spirit in these last days.
“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18 ESV)
With this Spirit, Jesus’ followers will be able to be victorious over the homosexualist, pro-abortion, socialist Beast, its image, and the number of its name (see Revelation 15:2).
Reviewed by Don Hank.
Portuguese version of this article: Um ativista pró-vida pode defender a Inquisição?
Source: Julio Severo in English: www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com
Recommended Reading:
Anthony Comstock: the first pro-life activist in the modern history

Monday, October 21, 2013

Homeland Security: More Insecurity for Christians?


Homeland Security: More Insecurity for Christians?

By Julio Severo
President Barack Obama on Friday nominated Jeh C. Johnson as the new secretary of Homeland Security, because of his “deep understanding of the threats and challenges facing the United States.” He credited Johnson with helping design and implement policies to repeal the ban on openly gay service members in the U.S. military, according to an Associated Press story.
Obviously, the main propaganda of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be what has always been: to fight terrorism — in a way that expands Islam! Since the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attacks and DHS “counter-terror” measures, many new mosques are popping up across the United States.
About 1,200 mosques are now operating in the U.S., and almost 80 percent of them were built after 9/11. The majority of those mosques are led by Wahhabi clerics — from the same branch of Islam that Osama bin Laden followed.
Muslims in the US have felt no insecurity from DHS to grow and expand. They have had no worries about DHS. But since especially the Obama administration, DHS has been a worry and insecurity for Christians. There is a number of reports of anti-Christian bias from DHS.
“DHS was caught monitoring a blog posted by a Christian who was forced to flee Brazil because of the conflict between that nation’s pro-homosexual ‘hate crimes’ agenda and his advocacy for traditional marriage. The Obama administration declined comment on its decision to monitor Julio Severo’s unabashedly Christian Last Days Watchman blog.”
If any indication, the dark credentials of the new DHS secretary of “designing and implementing policies to repeal the ban on openly gay service members in the U.S. military” only make darker how insecure Christians will be in an America, where mosques are spreading. Christian pro-family groups fought hard to repeal the homosexualist measure imposed in the US military, and Jeh C. Johnson prevailed. In DHS, will he achieve other similar homosexualist victories?
Jeh C. Johnson, new DHS secretary: gay agenda advocate
According to the AP story, Obama nominated him “to help craft the nation’s counterterrorism policy.”
Will Christians and their fight against gay dictatorship be targeted as “terrorist threats”?
Mohamed Elibiary, a DHS adviser since 2010, defends the Muslim Brotherhood and, according to WND, he accuses Egypt’s persecuted Christian minority of “inciting” against Islam. So if Christians are murdered by Muslims in Egypt, is it because they spoke about Jesus the Savior or other similarly “offensive” terms?
Mohamed Elibiary: a radical Muslim in DHS
Elibiary has warned the tea party against attempting to change the U.S. political landscape through “Christianist Xenophobia.”
The U.S. government wants supposedly to defeat terror by employing anti-Christian Muslims and supporting Muslim expansion in America. A nation in sin sows its own destruction.
The wicked U.S. example could infect other nations, including Brazil. “The United States is a global leader on everything, and that includes gay rights,” said Julio Moreira, president of the Rio de Janeiro-based Arco-Iris gay supremacist group. “This will force other nations like Brazil to move forward with more progressive policies.”
With America leading, international anti-terror measures could focus on Christians and their values. After all, to face Muslim terror brings bombs and other mortal consequences. To persecute Christians does not bring any of such consequences.
If DHS is a model for the international future, Christians should be prepared for a world with unsurprising mosque growth, funded by former Christian Western nations, and very predictable Christian persecution.
Source: Julio Severo in English: www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com
Recommended Reading:

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Free Masons Denounced on House Floor


Free Masons Denounced on House Floor

By Julio Severo
It took House of Representatives stenographer Dianne Reidy to denounce the Free Masons. She had no right to use the House microphone to speak what U.S. Representatives have never spoken, and the media has said that she “freaked out.” Fox News said that what has happened today, October 17, is very strange.
Reidy said, “Do not be deceived. God shall not be mocked. A House divided cannot stand. He will not be mocked. He will not be mocked. He will not be mocked. The greatest deception here is that this is not one nation under God. It never was. Had it been, the Constitution would not have been written by Free Masons… and go against God. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve two masters. Praise be to God, Lord Jesus.”
Reidy was taken to a local hospital for evaluation, given her unusual behavior, which many noted was completely out of character for the stenographer. She was also interviewed by police, but no charges are expected to be filed.
"She’s a well-known person, she’s a perfectly nice person, a good colleague, somebody who’s respectable and dependable, and this is very surprising to everybody who works with her,” CNN reporter Dana Bash said on-air.
For the media, it was just foolishness. But I wonder if there was Somebody behind it:
“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” (1 Corinthians 1:27 ESV)
With information of The Christian Post.
German version of this article: Freimaurer im US-Abgeordnetenhaus angeprangert
Recommended Reading:

Monday, October 07, 2013

Homosexual “Marriage” and the Last Days


Homosexual “Marriage” and the Last Days

Ancient Rabbinical tradition holds that homosexuality, more specifically “homosexual marriage,” was the “final insult” to God which caused Him to bring the Great Flood

By Dr. Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams
From a biblical perspective ritualized sexual perversion and especially homosexuality mark the furthest extreme of rebellion against God. Ancient Rabbinical tradition holds that homosexuality, more specifically homosexual marriage, was the “final insult” to God which caused Him to bring that Great Flood which only Noah and his family survived. In his book Ancient Post-Flood History theologian Ken Johnson cites three prominent Rabbinical sources on this point:
Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rabbi Joseph, “The generation of the Flood was not wiped out until they wrote marriage documents for the union of a man to a male or to an animal.” Genesis Rabbah 26:4-5; Leviticus Rabbah 23.9.
Rabbi Hiyyah taught: The passage reads “I am the Lord, your God” two times - I am the One Who punished the generation of the Flood, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Egypt; and in the future I will punish those who do as they did. The generations of the Flood were kings, and were wiped off the earth when they were soaked in sexual sin. Leviticus Rabbah 23:9 (commentary on Leviticus 18:3)
And what did they do? A man got married to a man, and a woman to a woman, a man married a woman and her daughter, and a woman was married to two (men). Therefore it is said, “And you shall not walk in their statutes.” Sifra Acharei Mot, Parashaw 9:8 (commentary on Leviticus 18:3.19)
Immediately following the Flood we find that the seed of homosexual perversion has survived in the human family through the line of Ham. In Genesis 9, Noah fell unconscious from drinking too much wine and while he was thus incapacitated Ham [or rather Ham’s son Caanan] “saw [or uncovered] his nakedness.” This term “uncovering nakedness,“ used primarily in the book of Leviticus, is a Hebraic euphemism for sexual intercourse.
In the New American Standard Bible, the passage reads
Ham, the father of Caanan, saw the nakedness of his father….When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest [grand]son had done to him. So he said, ‘Cursed be Caanan‘ (Genesis 9:22-25).
In Call of the Torah Rabbi Elie Munk cites Hebrew scholars who also interpret Caanan’s violation as “an act of pederasty” — (Munk:220).
Thus, as a result of his sexual attack on his grandfather, Caanan is cursed by Noah and banished from his presence. Caanan then takes possession of the very territory that would later be promised to Abraham’s descendants: the “Promised Land of Israel.”
Importantly, a few generations after Caanan’s banishment, four cities which his descendants had founded, including Sodom and Gomorrah, were destroyed by God because of homosexuality. Sexual perversion had so thoroughly corrupted the society that it rivaled the apostasy that had caused the Great Flood. Every single man of Sodom, both young and old descended on the home of Abraham’s nephew Lot with the intent to rape the two angels sent by God to judge the city. So insatiable was their lust that they continued to pursue their vile goal even after being stuck blind by the angels. Their destruction followed swiftly. (Genesis 19:1-11).
Taken from the Chapter Two: “Homo-Occultism” of “The Pink Swastika,” by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams.
Portuguese version of this article: “Casamento” homossexual e os últimos dias
Spanish version of this article: “Matrimonio” Homosexual y los Últimos Días
Recommended Reading:

Saturday, October 05, 2013

US, Europe, Brazil and Israel: Homosexualist Elite in the United Nations


US, Europe, Brazil and Israel: Homosexualist Elite in the United Nations

Comment by Julio Severo: Recently, Brazilian socialist president Dilma Rousseff “boycotted” a presidential meeting with Obama, allegedly because the US government has been spying her private communications. But the boycott was mere smokescreen. There is no ideological antagonism between the Brazilian socialist government and the American socialist government, at least not in regards to the gay agenda. In the backstages, America and Brazil are comrades in (gay) arms. Whatever America intends to do to impose the gay agenda around the world, Brazil (sadly) will be a faithful collaborator. The article I am bringing you was authored by C-FAM, and it is very important. Please, spread it. There is a homosexualist elite in the United Nations system. This elite, headed by the US government, has also Brazil and Israel. As a Christian, I am sad for Brazil and its role helping such a wicked elite. I am also sad for America and especially for Israel, because God has wonderful plans for this nation led stray by socialism.

Eleven Countries Promise to Keep Homosexuality on UN Agenda

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D.
NEW YORK, October 4 (C-FAM) Eleven countries announced they will continue to hoist the rainbow flag at the United Nations despite setbacks in recent years.
U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry and officials from ten countries promised to promote homosexuality at the United Nations in a declaration issued last week. The “Core LGBT Group,” as the eleven countries are called, committed to “concerted action” for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.
The statement commends countries that have repealed sodomy laws, enacted hate crimes legislation and have other special protections for homosexuals.
Kerry tried to be upbeat about the progress of LGBT rights at the United Nations, and described recent developments as “unfathomable” in a statement released through the U.S. State Department.
But the path to get nations to celebrate homosexuality remains a steep one, as homosexual groups have found out in recent years.
Despite intense efforts by the United States, the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” are part of only one General Assembly resolution. That resolution is about extrajudicial killings, and even so, it always comes down to a close vote.
In 2010, the United States promised a General Assembly resolution on homosexual rights. Such a resolution does not have enough support from UN member states. Skeptics say the recent declaration amounts to little more than a press release, and merely panders to constituents that want LGBT rights.
Most countries in Asia and Africa object to homosexuality. Globally, 80 countries have sodomy laws. Less than 20 recognize same-sex couples, and only 14 allow persons of the same sex to marry.
The UN’s top human rights official, Ms. Navi Pillay, who has spearheaded the LGBT cause at the United Nations in recent years, has met resistance at every turn. Countries resent that her staff receives earmarked funds for LGBT rights from Nordic countries and still asks for more money from the UN budget.
Aware of these challenges, the United States is funding homosexual activists abroad. The Global Equality Fund, which has disbursed $7 million since its launch in 2011, has expanded with the help of Nordic countries and private sector partners. Obama has announced an additional $12 million in the fund.
Only Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, the European Union, France, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States attended the meeting. They described it as a “groundbreaking” UN event. The event was not advertised in the UN Journal, which lists official UN meetings, and took place in a small room in the Secretariat building.
A spokesperson for the secretariat said the meeting had been “announced” and that any of the 194 UN member states could have asked to attend. Russian diplomats, who have been under fire for Russia’s laws to protect children from harmful sexual propaganda, reportedly said they were not aware the meeting was taking place.
The group of countries was joined by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
Even though no international treaty mentions LGBT rights, these groups say international law requires special new rights for homosexuals that include privileges for same-sex couples, recognition of transgender identities, and hate crimes laws with special enforcement mechanisms, among others.
Recommended Reading:

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

A Charismatic Response to “The Growing Crisis Behind Brazil’s Evangelical Success Story”


A Charismatic Response to “The Growing Crisis Behind Brazil’s Evangelical Success Story”

Julio Severo addresses misconceptions and missed targets on article by Brazilian Presbyterian theologian

By Julio Severo
In his The Gospel Coalition blog, Brazilian Calvinist theologian Augustus Nicodemus Gomes Lopes said, “When Paulo Romeiro wrote ‘Evangelicals in Crisis’ in the mid-1990s, a book that has remained a bestseller among Brazilian evangelicals, he addressed just one of the many ways in which evangelicalism had collapsed in Brazil, namely, its inability to halt the spread of prosperity theology.” (Link: http://archive.is/hjNXb)
He mentions “Prosperity Theology” three times. Strangely, Liberation Theology and its Protestant version, Theology of Integral Mission, are missing in his text.
Even though Theology of Integral Mission is a problem predominating among Brazilian Calvinists, Nicodemus focuses nominally only on the Prosperity Theology, which is loosely followed by neo-Pentecostal (neo-charismatic) churches.
In the simplest terms, Theology of Integral Mission, which is embraced by theologians and leaders mostly from wealthy Reformed churches, is an approach leaders employ to teach the poor to look to the State as a provider for their material needs. In contrast, Prosperity Theology is loosely followed and practiced in Brazilian neo-Pentecostal churches, where the poor are taught to look after God as a provider for their material and spiritual needs.
Basically, both theologies came from the United States. In the 1950s, Rev. Richard Schaull, an strong adherent of the Social Gospel and later a Princeton professor, taught in the largest seminary of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil — the same denomination of Nicodemus.
His influence, firstly in the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, was impressive, and he was a precursor of Liberation Theology. His disciple, then Presbyterian theologian Rubem Alves, was also instrumental in the birth of Liberation Theology in Brazil in the 1960s.
Neo-Pentecostal churches began to appear in Brazil especially in the late 1970s, when Brazilian evangelical audiences were largely under the influence of televangelists Pat Robertson and Rex Humbard and their famous shows in Brazil “The 700 Club” and “You Are Loved.” Further, many were converted to Christ through these shows.
By the mid-1980s, Protestant leaders, including Rev. Caio Fábio, were worried that the Prosperity Theology taught in neo-Pentecostal churches was weakening the advance of the Theology of Integral Mission throughout the Brazilian Church. You can find more information in my free e-book here: http://bit.ly/15AJmMC
Caio Fabio, who was the most prominent leader in the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, eventually fell from grace over serious sexual and financial scandals in the late 1990s, after his sordid assistance to former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his socialist Workers’ Party in drawing evangelical Christians.
The main enemies of neo-Pentecostalism and its Prosperity Theology have been leftist Protestants. Though not a leftist, Augustus Nicodemus finds it easier to attack nominally Prosperity Theology than the Theology of Integral Mission. When he was Chancellor of the Mackenzie Presbyterian University in São Paulo, Brazil, he admitted theology professors who were adherents of the Theology of Integral Mission, but no Prosperity Theology adherent was admitted.
Why has neo-Pentecostalism, not the Marxist Theology of Integral Mission, been his main bone of contention? Because of his theology, which has been in particular conflict with the vast evangelical majority in Brazil. Nicodemus is the leading cessationist voice in Brazil. Cessationism preaches that prophecy and other supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased 2,000 years ago.
He has had a hard time understanding how Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches have experienced such phenomenal growth. Nicodemus says: “According to the latest official census, evangelicals represent almost one-quarter of the total population of Brazil (22.5 percent). This is phenomenal growth, seeing that just 40 years ago they were only 2.5 percent.”
What he did not tell is that this massive growth has everything to do with supernatural gifts and the Holy Spirit. According to “The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: Revised and Expanded Edition” (Zondervan 2010), Brazil has the following evangelical profile:
Pentecostals 24,810,921 (31%)
Charismatics 33,970,683 (42%)
Neocharismatics 21,168,395 (26%)
Total Renewal: 79,949,999
According to the Portuguese Wikipedia, the Presbyterian denomination of Nicodemus in Brazil has 980,000 members. This figure does not mean that all Brazilian Presbyterians are cessationists. Many of them are charismatics.
His cessationism brings another problem: if current prophecy and other supernatural gifts among Brazilian Christians are not from God, who is provoking Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal growth in Brazil? Who is performing miracles among them? Satan?
Brazil is the largest spiritualistic nation in the world. Witchcraft, especially from African origin, is rampant. The clash between the dark powers of these occult religions and Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches and their spiritual gifts has resulted in massive conversions to Christ.
This clash is necessary. As Calvinist theologian Vincent Cheung said, “One answer to demonic supernatural power is a greater divine supernatural power. The Bible portrays numerous power encounters, where the miracle-working power of God overwhelmed the power of Satan. Consider the confrontations between Moses and the magicians, Elijah and the false prophets, Jesus and the demon-possessed, Philip and Simon, Paul and Elymas, and Paul and this girl with the evil spirit in our text. Paul cast out the spirit of divination, and the girl lost her ability. This is the biblical answer to the miracles of Satan. The solution is not denial, but discernment and domination.” (Sermonettes, Volume 7, Chapter Seven.)
As a cessationist, Nicodemus prefers denial and he sees many problems in the explosive Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal growth. He said, “How did evangelicalism reach this point of success and concurrent crisis in Brazil? Reformation theology and practice has never been fully known or adopted in our country, even among the Reformed churches.” So the evangelical crisis in Brazil stems from the fact that they have not, as he said, “known the doctrines of the Reformation in their fullness and power.”
But what is necessary to prevail in the clashes between dark spiritual powers and divine powers? To be filled with Reformation traditions or to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit?
Nicodemus also said, “By disdaining centuries of tradition and theological interpretation, evangelicals found themselves vulnerable to any new interpretation, such as open theism, theology of prosperity, a new perspective on Paul, and so on.” No mention about the most important threat to the Reformed churches in Brazil, namely, Liberation Theology and its Protestant counterpart Theology of Integral Mission.
The leading advocate of the Theology of Integral Mission in Brazil is Rev. Ariovaldo Ramos, minister of the Reformed Christian Church. Recently, he praised Hugo Chavez as a hero for the weak and poor. His prominent leftist activities have gone unchallenged by Nicodemus and other Reformed leaders.
At best, Ramos has been silent about attempts by the Brazilian socialist government to legalize abortion and pass PLC 122, a bill criminalizing Bible criticism of homosexual acts. He supported the election of this government. In contrast, Marco Feliciano, a congressman and Assembly of God minister, has been outspoken against abortion and PLC 122.
Feliciano also supported the election of this government. But when a clash between values and government came, he chose values. Because of his public moral stances, he has been consistently attacked by the secular and religious Left, including Ramos.
In a darker contrast, Nicodemus is a member of ANAJURE, a Christian group in Brazil created to defend Christians and their civil rights, whose president has issued a public statement against Feliciano. Also, in 2010, after gay activists protested a public manifesto against PLC 122 posted on the website of his university, Nicodemus ordered its removal, bowing to gay demands.
Apparently, nothing of this has been a concern for him.
As a cessationist, he is worried only about Pentecostals, especially because of their lack of theological direction. Even among neo-Pentecostal churches practicing Prosperity Theology, the diversity of interpretations and practices is gigantic. For example, the most aggressive neo-Pentecostal denomination in Brazil, Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), is cessationist, believes in miracles only by positive confession and prayer and rejects prophecy and other supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit for today. UCKG preaches that manifestations of these gifts today are demonic — a stance not differing from the stance of their cessationist Reformed counterparts. UCKG founder Bishop Edir Macedo has been an outspoken abortion supporter. But in these two points — cessationism and abortion — UCKG has been an exception among neo-Pentecostal churches in Brazil.
There is an explanation for these immense differences. According to “The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements”: “The diversity of global pentecostalism makes it impossible to speak of ‘a’ pentecostal theology, especially since a full-blown theology of the Christian faith from a classical pentecostal perspective has not yet been written.” This is especially true in Brazil.
Because he thinks basically in theological terms, Nicodemus probably sees little hope for such theology-less churches. In fact, for him this is a “crisis.” He said, “There is no easy way out of this crisis. However, there are some encouraging signs of change that I cannot leave unmentioned. One of them is the surprising growth of Reformed faith among Pentecostals. There are innumerable examples of Pentecostal pastors turning to the Reformed interpretation of the Scriptures. Sometimes even entire Pentecostal churches have undergone this change. I quote here an e-mail I received some weeks ago from a former Pentecostal pastor: Your book Spiritual Worship [first published in 1998 and now in its 5th edition] made our whole church stop speaking in tongues and changed our whole liturgy. We even had to change the sign on our building from ‘Assembly of God’ to ‘Reformed Church.’”
An Assembly of God church stopped speaking in tongues (and possibly stopped prophecies too), and cessationism won in the name of Reformation. But is this a spiritual victory?
Here is the Brazilian reality: Millions of lost souls are perishing. Spiritualism is widespread. Liberation Theology is rampant in the Catholic Church. Theology of Integral Mission is rampant in Reformed churches. And a Reformed theologian is interested on churches leaving charismatic experiences and becoming Reformed?
This is a very frivolous and irresponsible concern.
For decades, Theology of Integral Mission — not to mention free Mansory — has been a major problem among Reformed churches, and Nicodemus’ major worry is growth of Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches?
Recently, my blog exposed Nicodemus’ cessationism, and one of his fans commented that if the concern of Christians opposed to cessationism is healing, vision and prophecy, they should visit spiritualist temples to see all of this. So the false doctrine of Nicodemus and other Reformed theologians has inevitably led their followers to see just “spiritualism” in the Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches in Brazil.
This is a gross misrepresentation not only of God’s power, but also of His essential role in the phenomenal growth of the Brazilian Evangelical Church.
Would it make sense for a person living in France to see the most important problem of that nation as its language?
Why would you live in France if you disliked French? Would you try to convert French-speaking people into Portuguese-speaking people? Brazil is not France, but its evangelical population is massively Pentecostal, and Nicodemus wants to convert them to Reformed and, hopefully, to cessationists.
The prospect of Pentecostal churches turning into Reformed churches entails Reformed pitfalls.
Yes, Reformed contact could be helpful to Pentecostals in Brazil, but first Reformed leaders need to renounce, denounce and fight the Theology of Integral Mission prevalent among them. Otherwise, greater Reformed contact for Pentecostals will only bring more of the same crisis and confusion that started to defile Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches in the late 1990s by the literature and conferences of Caio Fábio, Ariovaldo Ramos and other Reformed leftist leaders advocating the Protestant counterpart of Liberation Theology.
Among Reformed (Presbyterian, Calvinist) churches, the defilement began in the 1950s! There is a liberal crisis plaguing Reformed churches in Brazil, but Nicodemus and other theologically trained leaders refuse to tackle it directly. Brazil is a cradle of Liberation Theology. Even so, Nicodemus never mentioned it in his article designed to point out only the crisis over Pentecostalism.
In the 1990s, I attended a Presbyterian church, of the same denomination as Nicodemus. They were greatly concerned about Prosperity Theology. To protect themselves, all the local Presbyterian churches encouraged collective subscriptions by their members to Ultimato magazine — the foremost Brazilian Presbyterian voice for the Theology of Integral Mission.
For years I have denounced Ultimato — which have consistently attacked conservatives. But Nicodemus and his cessationist comrades have never denounced it the way they denounce neo-Pentecostals.
There is a Reformed crisis in Europe and America, where mainline denominations are ordaining gay ministers and leading anti-Israel boycotts. Liberalism crept in largely unopposed, and the result is widespread apostasy. And since its beginning in Brazil, the Theology of Integral Mission movement has had prominent Reformed leaders.
If cessationism is a blindfold, this explains why even such non-liberal Reformed leaders as Nicodemus are unable to fight the Theology of Integral Mission the way they systematically fight Prosperity Theology and other Pentecostal practices, including the March for Jesus, which is led by Neo-Pentecostals opposed to abortion and PLC 122. The Presbyterian Church of Brazil (PCB) has a similar event in Rio de Janeiro, called “Caminhada Presbiteriana pela Cidadania” (Presbyterian March for Citizenship). This march has as its official mission to increase visibility for PCB and Mackenzie Presbyterian University, whose chancellor until recently was Nicodemus.
“Caminhada Presbiteriana pela Cidadania” has partnered with spiritualists and Afro-Brazilian religions. Its leader, Rev. Marcos Amaral, has publicly expressed his wish for a long life for Hugo Chavez and a stroke for Marco Feliciano, because the Pentecostal minister has been hated by secular and Protestant leftists over his conservative stances on abortion and homosexuality. In fact, Rev. Amaral has even joined prominent secular leftist Brazilians to protest against Feliciano. Nicodemus has an article blasting March for Jesus, but no article against the Presbyterian march led by Rev. Amaral.
Pentecostals do need help, especially because they are under heavy attack from leftist secularists and Calvinists. Yet, are Reformed leaders really the correct and complete answer?
What about cessationist blindness and the Theology of Integral Mission?
Is there deliverance from these Reformed pitfalls in Brazil? Yes — to be filled with the power and knowledge of the Holy Spirit.
Reviewed by Don Hank.
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