Amid Crisis in Brazil, Evangelicals Emerge as the Main Conservative Power

In the world’s largest Catholic country, the evangelical movement could select Brazil’s next president.

By Julio Severo

Introduction. The American Left is keeping an eye on the increasing influence of conservative evangelicals in Brazil. “The Nation,” the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States since 1865, produced this month a special article, titled “Amid Crisis in Brazil, the Evangelical Bloc Emerges as a Political Power,” about the political power of evangelicals in Brazil.

It is very important to see what “The Nation” is saying, not only because it is the oldest magazine in the U.S., but also because it is progressive and left-wing and it is worried about the Brazilian evangelical influence. If the American Left, which is the most powerful Left in the world, is worried about evangelicals in Brazil, it is an excellent sign for Brazilian evangelicals.

The following article, even though edited, corrected, adapted and “conservatized” by my view as a Brazilian evangelical insider, is largely based on the article of “The Nation”:

Although Brazil remains the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, in recent decades a massive growth among evangelicals has challenged Catholic hegemony. In 1970, the percentage of Brazilian Catholics stood at 90 percent; today, it barely clears 50 percent. During that same time span, the percentage of evangelicals has risen from 5 percent to roughly 30 percent, thanks to the aggressive evangelistic outreach efforts by Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal (charismatic) churches. Across the country, evangelical leaders are struggling to keep up with the growth of their flock. Abandoned shopping centers, X-rated theaters, and strip clubs have all become unlikely places of worship.

Such a radical transformation in Brazil’s religious landscape has given rise to discussions about the emergence of a “Brazilian Christian right” — a movement similar to the American Christian right in its ability to reshape politics. Evangelical leaders already played a crucial role in former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s ouster, and their influence appears set to increase for years to come. It was Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the Brazilian Congress) and one of Brazil’s most prominent evangelicals, who led the drive to impeach Rousseff for moving funds from several state accounts to conceal a budget deficit in the run up to the 2014 elections.

Although this was a violation of the law, the two previous presidents resorted to the same sort of budgetary tinkering without any consequences. “Cunha staged a constitutional coup,” according to Paulo Iotti, a constitutional expert at the Group of Lawyers for Sexual and Gender Diversity, a São Paulo–based homosexualist NGO. But in a fatality of destiny, Cunha himself was found guilty of corruption, money laundering, and illegally sending money abroad.

In March, a judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison, one of the stiffest sentences ever given to a public official in Brazil. Rousseff and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who have been embroiled in bigger scandals and corruption, have never been sent to prison. They have been completely free. Cunha was the first major casualty of “Operation Car Wash,” an anti-corruption dragnet that has so far ensnared some 60 percent of Brazil’s Congress as well as President Temer.

Cunha should be a cautionary tale for anyone harboring the illusion that the political rise of evangelicals will fix the ills of Brazilian politics. Corruption in Brazil is endemic since its discovery 500 years ago. It is a historic evil thought incurable. The Brazilian government has fully inherited the Portuguese system of pillage on Brazilians. The Catholic Portuguese crown was notorious for looting Brazil and its riches, especially through abusive taxes, and Brazilians are historically known for evading such government pillage.

The expansion of Protestant evangelism didn’t happen overnight. Protestants first landed in Brazil in the 19th century, with the establishment by European immigrants of mainline Protestant denominations, like the Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Anglicans. Classic Pentecostal churches, such as the Assemblies of God, soon followed. A second wave of Protestants arrived in the 1940s with the advent of the Foursquare Gospel Church, imported from California by preachers Harold and Mary Williams. From its base in São Paulo, Foursquare quickly became one of the fastest growing churches in Brazil. Key to their appeal was revival events inspired by the evangelical campaigns of Billy Graham. Reminiscing about the early days of his evangelism in Brazil, Harold Williams noted that while attending a Graham crusade it dawned on him that “Brazilians love circuses. I think they would be drawn to a circus tent for a revival.”

A third and final wave came in late 1970s and 1980s with the rise of the neo-Pentecostal movement, including many evangelical fellowships (comunidades evangélicas). U.S. televangelist Rex Humbard, whose TV programs were broadcast in Brazil since 1975, is thought to have had a decisive role in general evangelism and expansion of the neo-Pentecostal movement in Brazil. “The 700 Club,” presented by Rev. Pat Robertson, who prayed in the Brazilian TV with his gift of revelation, was also a powerful inspiration.

Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), founded by Bishop Edir Macedo in 1977, is an exceptional case, because it embraces practices rejected by all the other neo-Pentecostal churches. UCKG founder openly supports abortion and his denomination rejects prophecies and revelations as “demonic,” teaching that God only speaks through the Bible and nothing else. UCKG, whose founder lives in the United States, adhered to a pro-abortion and cessationist stance very common in the PCUSA, the largest Presbyterian denomination in the U.S.

Just as PCUSA supported left-wing Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, UCKG supported left-wing Lula and Rousseff in Brazil.

There is no shortage of explanations for why Protestant evangelism is thriving. The polling data suggest “a more personal connection with God,” a more active worshiping experience, and a church with a greater emphasis on moral values. Another school of thought emphasizes the more democratic structures of Protestant churches relative to those of the Catholic Church.

Like the rise of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority in the early 1980s, which ushered in the emergence of the American Christian right, Brazilian evangelical leaders have entered the political fray motivated by a sense of moral outrage. These leaders point to the moral decay that has taken place in Brazil under Lula and Rousseff’s Workers’ Party (PT). They condemn the rise in secularism; the advent of gay “marriage,” imposed by the Federal Supreme Court in 2011; the growing acceptance of abortion, although illegal; and the ubiquity of pornography. Their preferred venue for decrying Brazil’s descent into sin is the March for Jesus, an annual gathering that draws hundreds of thousands to downtown São Paulo. Held just ahead of São Paulo’s famed gay pride parade, the event showcases an evangelical agenda dominated by opposition to the gay agenda and abortion.

In constructing their advocacy against moral decline, Brazilian evangelicals take their cues directly from the American evangelical conservatism, a process facilitated by the many transnational ties linking the American and Brazilian evangelical communities. By the late 1980s, according to The New York Times, there were already 2,800 Protestant missionaries from the US in Brazil, and “dozens” of different US-based churches and missions. California-based Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN), the world’s largest religious broadcaster, reaches 220 Brazilian cities in 23 Brazilian states, covering 45 million people.

With American influence, the Brazilian branch of Bethany House Publishers published in 1998 for the first time in Brazil a book addressing the challenges of the homosexual militancy. Titled “O Movimento Homossexual” (The Homosexual Movement), the pioneering book, written by Julio Severo, was based on U.S. homosexualist actions that could be copied in Brazil — and eventually they were actually copied.

Severo’s conservatism is a result of his experiences with U.S. conservative missionaries, including TV shows of Rex Humbard and Pat Robertson, and books of U.S. conservative evangelical authors. His book was distributed freely among members of the Brazilian Congress in 2004. Bethany in Brazil was founded by American missionaries.

Severo delivered the opening speech at the first conference of the Evangelical Parliamentary Caucus in Brasilia, the Brazilian capital city, in 2004. He addressed the multifaceted threats of the homosexual movement. The conference was filled with evangelical congressmen and the most prominent evangelical leaders in Brazil.

The first magazine of the Evangelical Parliamentary Caucus also featured an article by Julio Severo against the homosexual agenda.

In 2012, Silas Malafaia, the most prominent Assemblies of God leader in Brazil, published in Brazil the Portuguese version of Louis P. Sheldon’s “The Agenda: The Homosexual Plan to Change America.” Sheldon’s book was also distributed freely among members of the Brazilian Congress.

Also significant is that in the last two decades several American Christian groups, many of the veterans of the American culture wars, have set up shop in Brazil. A notable arrival is televangelist Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), with the establishment of a Brazilian subsidiary, the Brazilian Center for Law and Justice, connected to Silas Malafaia. The ACLJ, a right-wing alternative to the far-left American Civil Liberties Union, is famous for upholding a biblical definition of marriage (it helped draft the Defense of Marriage Act) and for defending the First Amendment rights of Christians.

Despite their shared origins and mutual admiration, the Brazilian evangelical community is not a carbon copy of the American one. The American Christian right is remarkable for its ecumenism with the Catholic Church and the Unification Church, founded by Rev. Moon, who presented himself as a new “messiah” to fulfill what Jesus Christ was not supposedly able to fulfill. The reason for such union was that Moon was anti-Marxist and conservative. But such ecumenism is hardly the case in Brazil, where evangelicals are at war with the Catholic Church over the issue of “Catholic privilege.” Evangelical churches want the government to grant them the same tax breaks and benefits traditionally given only to the Catholic Church, such as support for Catholic schools, monasteries, and seminaries. Many Brazilian evangelicals also aggressively target Catholic doctrines, as Mary’s worship, as their main evangelistic concern.

The key vehicle for the evangelicals’ participation in politics is the Evangelical Parliamentary Caucus, arguably the most effective lobby in the Brazilian Congress. Its growth mirrors that of the evangelical movement. In 1985, the evangelical caucus had 17 members; by 2006, membership had grown to 57, or 12.5 percent of the 513-seat Chamber of Deputies. By 2014, 93 members or 15 percent of the Chamber of Deputies and five members of the Senate (a body with 81 members) belonged to the caucus. These percentages become more meaningful when considering the fragmentation of the Brazilian party system. The leading party usually commands less than 20 percent of the Congress. Most of the evangelical caucus’s members come from Pentecostal denominations. Most of them, if not all, are “pastors” or “bishops” of their respective denominations. Research suggests that having the title of “pastor” attached to your name enhances the political fortunes of the candidates “by making the religious connection more visible.”

The evangelical caucus has been the only power in the Brazilian Congress to block the homosexual agenda. Evangelical leaders argue pro-homosexuality bills grant special rights to gay supremacists and harm religion freedom, such as the liberty of pastors to quote Bible verses that condemn homosexuality. While the Brazilian Left copies the American Left in its efforts to impose the homosexual agenda in Brazil, the evangelical caucus has been encouraged by Malafaia, Severo and others to copy the American evangelical conservatism.

With general elections scheduled for next year, a stampede of candidates is already jockeying for the presidency, and evangelical voters could end up crowning the winner. But this will hinge on the capacity of the evangelical community to rally around a single candidate. Unlike American evangelicals, Brazilian evangelicals are not wedded to any particular party. During the last election, for instance, the evangelical vote went to the evangelical Marina Silva, a former environmental minister in the Lula administration running under the banner of the Brazilian Socialist Party, who came in third.

Pentecostals are generally conservative on abortion and homosexuality, but Silva is a special case. She was converted to the Assemblies of God, but her ideological roots in the Catholic Church, especially the Liberation Theology, were never abandoned. Even so, she was mistakenly portrayed in the U.S. evangelical media in 2014 as “conservative.”

Silva will likely make another run, as will her old boss, Lula, assuming he can successfully appeal the graft conviction that could send him to jail for nearly 10 years. Another possible contender is Sergio Moro, the federal judge in charge of Operation Car Wash, who actually sentenced Lula. Yet another serious candidate is João Doria, the millionaire media mogul and former star of Brazil’s “The Apprentice,” who last year shocked the political world by getting himself elected mayor of São Paulo, South America’s largest city.

Doria is very similar to Trump, having the same liberal history and both were stars in “The Apprentice.” The evangelical worry is that he is not against the homosexual agenda, just as Trump has not opposed the homosexual agenda. U.S. embassies under Trump continue promoting this dark agenda, even though he had issued, under evangelical pressure, an order barring transgender soldiers in the military. Malafaia and other Pentecostal leaders think that they can exert the same pressure on a possible President Doria.

Another possible candidate for evangelicals could be Congressman Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing politician who compared same-sex “marriage” to pedophilia. Bolsonaro, who is known for praising the military rule in Brazil, is admired among evangelicals for his opposition to the homosexual agenda. But he is best known for his uncontrolled words and temper. Even though he was baptized in Jordan River, in Israel, in 2016 in a political stunt to signal a conversion to evangelicalism, time has been enough to disprove it. There is no sign of an “evangelical” Bolsonaro and the Pentecostal minister who baptized him, Pastor Everaldo, is a shrewd political strategist. Since the “evangelical” baptism, their relationship and stunt soured and both have parted ways. Among evangelicals, Bolsonaro’s main negative point is his strange connections to the Brazilian Rasputin, Olavo de Carvalho, a self-exiled Brazilian immigrant in the United States who has consistently advocated the dark idea that evangelicals, especially the Protestant America, invented an alleged “myth” of the Inquisition, which tortured and murdered Jews and Protestants. For Carvalho, the Inquisition was good and necessary, a real human-rights “champion.” He became notorious in Brazil in the 1980s for his astrological activities and for having founded the first Brazilian school of astrologers.

Whether Doria or Bolsonaro, both Catholic, could find support among evangelicals remains unclear. Yet, if the American experience with Trump is any guide, Doria in his entrepreneurship and Bolsonaro in his opposition to the homosexual agenda are eligible to receive evangelical support. If a Pentecostal candidate emerges, Doria and Bolsonaro will have no chance. But whatever happens, a clear paradox is already on display: In a country famous for its hedonistic culture, its Catholic syncretism with African religions and its sex-charged Carnivals, Christian conservatism has among evangelicals its most powerful representation.

With information from The Nation.

Portuguese version of this article: Em meio à crise no Brasil, evangélicos destacam-se como a principal força conservadora

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Financial Times: Brazil’s Evangelicals Push Politics to the Right

President’s Impeachment Shows Growing Evangelical Power in Brazil

Brazil, the Next (Regional or Global) Threat to the U.S. Economic Supremacy?

Anti-Marxist Conscience of the Brazilian Evangelical

The Religious War between CIA and KGB in Latin America

The Religious War between CIA and KGB in Latin America

How the U.S. Supported the Protestant Advance against the Liberation Theology Promoted by Catholic Bishops and KGB

By Julio Severo

The information and disinformation war by the Soviet Union and the United States in the Cold War days was not limited only to the political sphere in Latin America. According to two Catholic bloggers, while the Soviet Union supported the advance of Liberation Theology, the U.S. supported the advance of evangelicals and Pentecostals.

The Soviet Union saw the Catholic Church in Latin America as a natural ally of Marxism and the U.S. saw Protestant and Pentecostal churches, which have always resisted Marxism, as natural allies of the U.S. government.

In his article entitled “La Expansión del Protestantismo Fue Parte del Plan de Guerra de la CIA para América del Sur” (The Expansion of Protestantism Was Part of CIA War Plan for South America), Catholic blogger Jorge Rondón Santos mentions a 1969 memorandum addressed to President Richard Nixon. Drafted by Republican Nelson Rockefeller, Baptist and U.S. vice-president, it said about Latin America: “the Catholic church has ceased to be an ally in whom the U.S. can have confidence.” It is confirmed by Wade Clark Roof, in the page 84 of his book “World Order and Religion” (1991 SUNY Press). Roof was Professor of Religion and Society in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Santos said that Rockefeller and the U.S. government supported the Protestant advance in Latin America. Their strategy was to counter Liberation Theology by promoting Protestant churches that were rivals to the Catholic Church.

Santos uses as special example Guatemala, which according to him will be the first mostly Protestant nation in Latin America. He declares that to counter a devotional revolutionary Catholicism, the U.S. government’s plan was to stimulate Protestant missions, “which with a ‘bread and dollar’ speech drew to themselves thousands of poor people in the countryside and cities who sought spiritual power.”

Former general and former Guatemala President José Efraín Ríos Montt used, during his administration, the national broadcasting network on Sundays to preach and say that the Guatemalan people were the “elected people” and accusing the Catholic Church of being a “collaborator of Marxism,” Santos complained. Montt was a member of a Pentecostal church.

The connection between Protestant missions and CIA was more exposed in the 1980s, when several Latin American military governments expelled the Summer Institute of Linguistics (connected to Wycliffe Bible Translators), accusing its missionaries of being CIA operatives. Nevertheless its anti-Marxism and its pro-U.S. position, the Brazilian military government did not want such intrusion of missionary spies, especially in the Amazonian region, suspecting that these missionaries, funded by the Rockefeller family (unprincipled capitalist executives), were spying on the natural resources of Amazon.

In that time, I thought it was greatly unfair for the Brazilian military government to expel the U.S. missionaries and I wrote a supporting letter to the Summer Institute of Linguistics. I still support their work, but only years later I learnt, through U.S. and Brazilian sources, that actually there were and there are in Brazil American missionaries connected to CIA.

Even though it was very helpful the financial, strategic and logistic support of Nelson Rockefeller for the Protestant and Pentecostal advance in Latin America to counter the religious leftist advance from the Catholic Church, it should not go unnoticed that he was also behind the infamous NSSM 200, or the Kissinger Report, a confidential document written by the U.S. government in 1974 addressing the keeping of resources of other nations for the U.S. interests having as a focus the population reduction of those nations. The purpose of this reduction was to weaken opposition to the U.S. interests.

The harmful effect of Rockefeller’s strategy in NSSM 200 is that the goal of population reduction did not hit only leftist Catholics, but also Protestants and Pentecostals he said that he was supporting and who became equally victims of population reduction propaganda and politics disguised as “family planning.”

Rockefeller’s only success was to identify Liberation Theology as a threat. According to the American leftist Catholic blogger Mike Rivage-Seul, in his article “The First Religious War of the 21st Century”: “The Rockefeller Report of 1969 already identified liberation theology as a threat to the national security of the United States… The [Reagan] administration heeded the advice, and responded both militarily and ideologically.”

According to Rivage-Seul, there was an agreement in which Ronald Reagan would help Pope John Paul II in the campaign against communism in Poland and, in return, the pope would remain silent about U.S. campaigns against Latin American leftist Catholics. The papal collaboration happened also through the gradual replacement of pro-Liberation Theology bishops for conservative bishops. But over three decades later, huge is the number of pro-Liberation Theology Catholic bishops. The substitutions were not enough.

The anticommunist fight itself of John Paul II was imperfect, because he was a great supporter of Yasser Arafat, the founder of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a terrorist Islamic group fighting the State of Israel. In this fight, the Vatican was more comfortable with PLO, which promoted a Palestine version of Liberation Theology.

Today, the Vatican under Pope Francis is much more aligned with the leftist ideology, having approved the sainthood process for Helder Camara, the founder of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil and patron of the Brazilian Catholic Left.

As if the Brazilian Catholicism were not plagued enough by the leftist ideology, U.S. Catholic missionaries coming to Brazil brought the same ideology. In 2005, U.S. nun Dorothy Stang, who was a Liberation Theology adherent, was murdered in Brazil. She was allegedly killed for political and environmental activities in Brazil since the 1970s.

With the picture of religious war during the Cold War in which the Soviet Union used Catholics and the U.S. used Protestants and Pentecostals, I am surprised then that a Brazilian Catholic blogger said that “Marxism is a Protestant product,” when the reality is that the most Catholic region in the world, Latin America, has been mostly a garner and ally of Marxism, while Protestantism, especially its Pentecostal variants, has mostly resisted Marxism.

Another Brazilian Catholic says that the first totalitarian society (of a Marxist kind) in the Modern Age was Protestantism in Geneva under Calvin.

Yet, by considering the Latin American population growth, especially in Brazil, as a threat to the U.S. national security, Nelson Rockefeller and the U.S. government, as made evident by NSSM 200, harmed both pro-Marxism Catholics and anti-Marxism evangelicals.

NSSM 200 was produced by a U.S. Republican administration, the Richard Nixon administration, in which abortion was nationally legalized from conception until childbirth in 1973. In fact, Rockefeller was also a member of the Republican Party, which supposedly is conservative and does not want to meddle in the internal affairs of other nations.

Even though it has brought huge benefits to Protestants and Pentecostals in Latin America (not in the population control issue), the fight of those worldly-minded Republicans helped in no way to change the fate of the U.S., which has as its current president Barack Obama, raised up as a Muslim and posteriorly mentored in a Liberation Theology Black Protestant church.

Besides, the U.S. government gave support not only to anti-Marxist Protestants (and also Catholics). In the administration of Jimmy Carter, who as a progressive (leftist) Baptist, great was the U.S. support for the World Council of Churches (constituted by leftist Protestants) and Brazilian Catholic bishops. Papers gathered by the Carter administration against the Brazilian military government were used two years ago by the Obama administration to help Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to strengthen her socialist administration against military attempts to destabilize it. But the destabilization, and especially her impeachment, is coming exactly from Pentecostals, traditional enemies of Marxism and friends and allies of U.S. administrations that are honestly conservative.

In fact, Pentecostals can be friends and allies of any government, regardless it is American or not, that are honestly conservative. If a today’s ruler is brave to resist the politically correct trends of valuing abortions and homosexual “marriages,” he will receive support from conservative Christians, especially Pentecostals.

Today’s religious war is not any longer between CIA and KGB. It is not any longer between the Soviet Union and the U.S. Now, it is between pro-life values and pro-abortion impositions; pro-family values and homosexual “marriage” impositions. Pentecostals are more than willing to support the right side in this war.

Yet, Catholics in Brazil, the largest Catholic nation in the world, remain confused by being led for decades by mostly Liberation Theology bishops.

Times have changed. There is no longer a Soviet Union. But the U.S. government, under Obama, could be more than wiling to take advantage of their confusion, a confusion that is engulfing also Pentecostals increasingly mesmerized by the Protestant versions of Liberation Theology.

Portuguese version of this article: A guerra religiosa entre CIA e KGB na América Latina

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Anti-Marxist Conscience of the Brazilian Evangelical

Liberation Theology and Neo-Pentecostalism: A Leading Challenge to the Evangelical Churches in Brazil

President’s Impeachment Shows Growing Evangelical Power in Brazil

Guatemala Lessons for Brazil in the Midst of a Powerful Political Crisis

Liberation Theology, a KGB Invention? That Is Way Too Simple...

Vatican Approves Sainthood Process for Helder Camara, Patron of the Brazilian Catholic Left

End of communism not good for Catholicism?

U.S. Betrays Military Men Who Protected Brazil from Communist Threat

Exposing the Global Population Control Agenda

President’s Impeachment Shows Growing Evangelical Power in Brazil

CBN News

Comment by Julio Severo: Last year, the most significant position paper of the ruling socialist Workers’ Party in Brazil declared that Eduardo Cunha, a Pentecostal leader, is the most dangerous man in the Brazilian Congress, because Cunha has been advancing, as no one else, a conservative agenda. Under his leadership, the pro-abortion and homosexualist agendas are being weakened and pro-family and pro-life interests are a priority. Above all, Cunha is the man behind the impeachment. Read now the CBN report:

Dilma Rousseff

The impeachment of Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is being led by a Pentecostal Christian and the speaker of Brazil's lower legislative house, Eduardo Cunha.

Some say it shows evangelical influence is rising inside the traditionally Catholic country.

Brazilian historian Karina Bellotti told the Christian Science Monitor that "during the last roll call vote for the continuation of the process of impeachment in the lower house, several politicians dedicated their vote 'for God.'" 

"Some of them were Catholic, but most were evangelical, from the Pentecostal churches," she added.

Estimates put the number of Pentecostals in Brazil at about 45 million.

"Brazil is at the vanguard of the global trend of the Pentecostalization of Christianity," as well as "the epicenter of world Christianity, with the largest Pentecostal population," Andrew Chesnut, author of Born Again in Brazil, told CSM.

The impeachment proceedings against Rousseff stem from allegations that illegal accounting tricks allowed her administration to maintain government spending to shore up flagging support.

Her critics contend that she also hid deficits that contributed to the country's worst recession since the 1930s.

Rousseff has defended such fiscal maneuvers as common practice in Brazil. She insists the accusations are a flimsy excuse by the traditional ruling elite to grab power back from her left-leaning Workers' Party, which has governed for 13 years.

The lower Chamber of Deputies didn't agree. On Sunday, the body voted in favor of impeachment. The measure is now in the Senate, which is expected to decide by mid-May whether to put the president on trial.

A simple majority vote by senators is needed to approve a trial, and Rousseff would be suspended for up to 180 days while it was conducted.

During that time, Vice President Michel Temer, a Lebanese-Brazilian Maronite Christian, would take over.

But the impeachment leader, Cunha, is also under a cloud after his name appeared in the recently disclosed Panama Papers. An opinion poll showed 77 percent of people believe he too should be impeached.

Source: CBN News

Divulgation: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Guatemala Lessons for Brazil in the Midst of a Powerful Political Crisis

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

Brazil, the Next (Regional or Global) Threat to the U.S. Economic Supremacy?

Brazilian Crisis Sparks Chances for Socialist Marina Silva in the 2018 Presidential Election

Understanding Anti-Government Protests in Brazil

Were Brazilian Protests an Anti-Marxist Counter-Revolution?

Anti-Marxist Conscience of the Brazilian Evangelical

Lula, the Ugliest Face of “the Brazilian Way of Doing Things”

Justin Peters in Brazil: God Does Not Speak to You Today Through Prophecy and Revelation

By Julio Severo

There was a lot of confusion among some experts on Christian apologetics in Brazil early this year about whether Justin Peters preached or not cessationism when, as a VINACC guest speaker, he taught against prosperity theology preachers by calling them “heretics.”

Justin Peters

Actually, he wanted also to call believers in supernatural charismatic gifts of “heretics,” but he was hindered from doing so in his VINACC public meetings.

He was prevented from teaching his cessationist gospel in VINACC.

How did Peters become an intransigent cessationist?

Apparently, after attending several meetings of prosperity theology proponents and receiving no miracle, Peters, who is a disabled man, let his bad experience create a bad theology: If he received no miracle in these meetings is because God gives no supernatural gifts in our days.

Today, he is an avid cessationist — a theological jargon to design adherents of the theory that says the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased 2,000 years ago and that they are no longer available today. In fact, his non-healing experiences have been used by Calvinist theologian John MacArthur to back his anti-Pentecostal “Strange Fire” conferences, where Peters is one of the speakers.

In Campina Grande, Brazil, where the VINACC meeting was held, Peters was recorded as saying,

“Anytime somebody says God has spoken to me and has given me a word, has given me a new revelation, has given me a prophecy, that you automatically write that person off as a false teacher as a false prophet. And we could talk for an hour at least about how God does or does not speak to people. Hebrews 1:1,2 pretty clear: God long ago spoke through the fathers in the prophets in many portions in many different ways, but in these last days has spoken to us in His Son Jesus who is the final speaking of God. We have the perfect, inerrant, infallible and sufficient record of that. So God is not giving certain individuals special revelations, special insight into His future plans. He’s not doing that anymore. Everything that we need is right here in the Word of God. We’re the dwell of the Spirit who illumines the meaning of this Word in our hearts and minds. That’s all we need. The second thing: anybody who claims to be an apostle or a prophet, write that person off immediately.”

After reading Peters’ words, Dr. Michael Brown, author of “Authentic Fire” (a book that exposes the fallacies of “Strange Fire,” a book by MacArthur), said to me:

“What a bizarre statement about God not speaking today. The Word plainly says that Jesus, by the Spirit, continues to speak. If I believe the Word, then I must believe the Spirit is still speaking today. It’s troubling to see how Mr. Peters terribly misuses the Bible to justify his claims and rather than dealing with the detailed scriptural evidence I provided in my Authentic Fire book, he dismisses it all because I accepted Benny Hinn’s invitation to appear on his broadcast and preach the gospel to millions of viewers.”

With his words, Peters showed that he has not a problem just with prosperity theology preachers. His problem is with all people professing Pentecostalism or charismatic experiences. In fact, his main foundation to attack Pentecostal leaders seems to be his fierce opposition to the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit today.

By the way, Brazil was a huge challenge for him, because most Brazilian evangelicals are Pentecostal. Brazilian evangelicalism is basically Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal.

Peters would get a good audience among followers of Bishop Edir Macedo, the founder of the Kingdom of God Universal Church (KGUC). Macedo also believes that God gives no prophecy or revelation today. He said, “In former times, God used to speak through dreams, visions or prophecies, because there was not His written Word. Today, He speaks through His Word.”

What is to be done to people today who say that they had a prophecy or revelation? Macedo answers, “If someone learns that there is a ‘prophet’ or ‘prophetess’ in KGUC, denounce it immediately to the minister and also to the regional leader, so that we may take immediate measures.”

It would sound ok for Peters, wouldn’t it? After all, this is his theology!

Macedo is relentless in his anti-prophecy stance. Incredibly, he is a neo-Pentecostal (neo-charismatic) leader who preaches the prosperity theology. Yet, whether or not you bring Macedo a prophetic revelation or God’s Word about the value of life, he remains fierce and equally relentless in his defense of abortion and birth control.

If Peters’ attacks were directed to this real strange fire (abortion, birth control, partial cessationism and the Gospel together), it would be fair. But his attacks are directed to other issues and against all Pentecostals. For Peters, all gifts of prophecy and revelations today are “strange fire,” are demonic. Of course, Macedo would say, “Amen!”

There are false gospels and false miracles, but you should never use the false gospels and the false miracles to disqualify the true Gospel and the true miracles.

Because I am charismatic Christian, should I accept all manifestations of supernatural gifts coming from Christians? No. Some years ago, an American preacher said that he received a prophecy about Brazil winning the 2014 World Cup and also about an evangelical woman getting elected as Brazilian president in the 2014 election. His prophecy was interpreted as God supporting Marina Silva, a socialist militant who began in the Catholic Church and today is an Assemblies of God member.

Brazil suffered its worst defeat in the 2014 World Cup. I knew that his prophecy was not correct, especially for its interpretation favoring Marina, who has solid socialist stances. While many evangelical leaders were supporting her because of the prophecy, I was, before the election, exposing Marina and her avid socialism. Eventually, she lost.

Apostle Paul, who had many charismatic gifts, never taught that you should reject prophecies, but that you should be free to prophesize and free to evaluate what each person says in prophecy: “Two or three people should speak what God has revealed. Everyone else should decide whether what each person said is right or wrong.” (1 Corinthians 14:29 GWV)

To reject all prophecies is not the Bible way. To accept all prophecies is not the Bible way. The Bible ways is freedom to prophesy and freedom do evaluate.

In Campina Grande, Brazil, Justin Peters lambasted prosperity theology preachers. He also lambasted the VINACC organizers because he wanted to teach cessationism (the strange doctrine that says God no longer grants supernatural gifts today), but they did not allow him. Even though several VINACC speakers are cessationist Calvinists, its public is mostly Pentecostal. Peters’ cessationism would have been extremely offensive to this public.

Peters’ declarations against prophecy and revelation were recorded in an interview with him in Campina Grande and show how eager he was to teach the VINACC public to reject “heresies,” misinterpreted by him as an acceptance of prophecy and revelation for today.

In his recorded declarations, Peters also attacked Dr. Michael Brown, a Jewish charismatic leader who has been prominent for his defense of the Gospel and Israel. He said,

“A lot of pastors will have invite questionable people to come to their churches to preach. They will go on to questionable or maybe I should say questionable because it could sound like mad, television programs associated with false prophets. One good example is Dr. Michael Brown, who is considered to be one of the intellectual leaders of the charismatic movement. He blasted the Strange Fire Conference that was held at John MacArthur’s church, because he claimed that the Strange Fire Conference plained all charismatics with raw brush and it was really as if the Strange Fire Conference should talk about the strange time fringe of the charismatics. He said that is not who we are. So he blasted the Conference and then three months later he goes on Benny Hinn’s television program and records five programs with Benny Hinn who is one of, if not the world’s most infamous bad influence, that’s the bad way influence in believers. If you can’t tell Benny Hinn is a false teacher then something is really wrong. And so associations pick volumes about who we are and what we believe.”

In answer, Dr. Michael Brown clarified that, because Peters tried to misrepresent him in Brazil, he is open to a public debate about these issues. The debate could happen in Brazil. Brown said,

“1) I invited Pastor MacArthur to private discussion or public debate on numerous occasions, but he refused to engage in private or in public; 2) I would debate Justin Peters in a heartbeat as to what the Bible says about divine healing; 3) I exposed false accusations made against Benny Hinn by Justin Peters; 4) my appearance on Benny Hinn’s show is not an endorsement of his theology any more than my appearance on Piers Morgan. Instead, I was able to reach his audience with the message of Jesus the Messiah. Is this wrong? 5) I have exposed errors in the Charismatic church for decades, and I continue to do so to this day, but I am Charismatic because of the plain teaching of Scripture and again. I would gladly debate what the Scriptures say with any qualified non-Charismatic leader.”

Dr. Brown is willing to debate John MacArthur and Justin Peters, in Brazil or in the U.S., about their stance against prophecy, revelation and other supernatural gifts for today. He said:

“I invite Mr. Peters to have a formal, moderated debate with me on what the Bible says – not what people say – about the gifts of the Spirit, including healing and prophecy, being promised by God in His Word for today. Let’s not engage in rhetoric. Let’s look at the Word.”

I do not know if Brazilian charismatics are prepared for such debate.

CPAD, the biggest Pentecostal publishing house in Brazil, has published several books by anti-Pentecostal Calvinist John MacArthur, but it has not published “Authentic Fire,” by Dr. Brown. In contrast, cessationist Calvinist publishers in Brazil will never publish any book by Dr. Brown or by any other charismatic, even though there is no anti-Calvinist Pentecostal version of John MacArthur in Brazil.

CPAD belongs to the Assemblies of God, which has over 12 million members in Brazil. The Presbyterian Church of Brazil, the first Calvinist denomination in Brazil, has 1 million members, but not all of them are cessationist.

MacArthur’s “Strange Fire” has been published in Brazil by Thomas Nelson. Both Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, the two largest Protestant publishing houses in the world, belong to HarperCollins, which publishes the Satanic Bible, by Satanist Anton LaVey.

So the publisher and promoter of “Strange Fire” in Brazil is owned by HarperCollins, which publishes and promotes satanic books. This is satanic fire!

Yet, the publisher and promoter of other books by MacArthur in Brazil is Pentecostal giant CPAD. Does it make sense?

A schizophrenic contrast. Brazilian Pentecostals promote MacArthur. MacArthur does not promote Brazilian Pentecostals. MacArthur uses and abuses the Gospel to attack Pentecostals. Brazilian Pentecostals do not use and abuse the Gospel to attack MacArthur. Are Brazilian Pentecostals spiritual masochists who love to be labeled “heretics” for believing in supernatural gifts for today?

There is a real strange fire when “Strange Fire” and the Satanic Bible are published and promoted by the same source.

There is a stranger fire when books of an anti-Pentecostal Calvinist author are published and promoted by the biggest Pentecostal publisher in Brazil.

Portuguese version of this article: Justin Peters no Brasil: Deus não fala com você hoje por meio de profecia e revelação

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Justin Peters: an American Cessationist Teaching “Apologetics” to Brazilian Pentecostals

The Perfect Revival?

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

Liberation Theology and Neo-Pentecostalism: A Leading Challenge to the Evangelical Churches in Brazil

Brazilian Pentecostals: Church Growth Endangered by Socialist Embrace

R.C. Sproul: There Is No True Prophecy Today

Inflamed by American Prophecy, Brazilian Evangelicals Want a Woman for Brazil Presidency

Justin Peters: an American Cessationist Teaching “Apologetics” to Brazilian Pentecostals

By Julio Severo

A guest speaker of VINACC (a Brazilian conference of evangelicals), an American evangelical made headlines by blasting preachers of the Prosperity Gospel as “false prophets.”

Justin Peters

Justin Peters gave his apologetics lecture at an Assemblies of God church in Campina Grande, Brazil in February 16, 2015. VINACC held in this church its Second International Apologetics Meeting of Paraiba.

In the event, Peters said, “Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, Myles Munroe, Joyce Meyer and others are, all of them, false prophets. What they teach is not the Gospel preached by our Lord Jesus Christ, but a teaching with no Bible basis.”

Yet, his criticism did not stopped at the “false prophets.” He also taught, in the name of Christian apologetics, about the gift of tongues and “how God does not speak to us” through prophecies and revelations.

In the Doctrinal Statement of his website, Peters says “the miraculous gifts of tongues, interpretation of tongues, divine revelation and physical healing” were gifts only to Jesus’ Apostles. He also says that these “gifts are no longer in operation today… and they are, therefore, unnecessary.”

Unnecessary? Power evangelism was an essential and vital component of the ministry of Jesus and his disciples. Supernatural gifts are tools of Jesus for spreading his Gospel. These gifts have been vital for effective evangelism in Brazil, to equip Christians to confront dark forces and deliver people from Satan’s claws.

If they were extremely necessary for Jesus and his disciples, why would they be unnecessary today? Have the dark forces died away?

To treat the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit as “unnecessary” has never been a part of the true Gospel. Cessationism (the heretical doctrine that says the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased 2,000 years ago and that they are no longer available today) has never been a part of the ministry of Jesus and his Apostles.

If Peters taught such “apologetics” in an Assemblies of God church in Brazil, surely he offended many Brazilians! Pentecostals, neo-Pentecostals and charismatics comprise most of Brazilian evangelicals.

I have no hard time with criticism at abuses by Calvinist, Lutheran, Pentecostal and charismatic preachers. But to label Pentecostals as “false prophets” or “heretical preachers” just because the critic’s main motivation is cessationism is hypocrisy. To teach against the Holy Spirit is a heresy.

Justin Peters eventually showed in Brazil that Myles Munroe, Kenneth Copeland and believers in prophecies, tongues and revelations are all headed to Hell. Apparently, the motivation for his opposition to Pentecostalism and the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit for today is his love for his petty human religious doctrines that limit God and his power and actions — disguised as love for “truth.”

This kind of “apologetics” — deserving a fair title of false apologetics — would have caused trouble in the churches of Apostle Paul, who saw a lot of abuse of the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit in the church of Corinth, but his answer was not to ban them or to preach cessationism. His answer was to correct the abuses. Never did he condemn, criticize or lambaste these gifts. Never did he discourage his people from seeking more supernatural gifts.

Unsurprisingly, the false apologetics of Peters caused confusion among Brazilians. And his ministry gave a public report of what happened:

“At the end of his session, to give a preview at the next session Justin spoke about the abuse of tongues and how God does and does not speak to us. Apparently that rattled some cages so to speak. Some folks apparently confronted the organizers and convinced them to require Justin to adjust/modify his message as to not mention tongues and the abuse of tongues, under the premise that speaking on such things would offend many. Of course Justin explained that he cannot, in good conscience and before God, adjust his message or water it down to suit the proclivities of an audience. In reality the only thing which can help folks get out from under false doctrine is not placating, but speaking the truth in love. Justin told them this and they forbad him from speaking the rest of his seminar… shame on the organizers for having so little apparent backbone. Of course I am sure that ardent sheep among the organizers did strive to not allow compromise to happen. Alas it did. This is another reason why we ought not, as believers, to yoke with reprobates. Better to have a small conference holding to the truth than a huge gathering which compromises truth. Those under false doctrine will not bend easily because false doctrine is a spiritual battle.”

“False doctrine”: to believe in the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit for today.

“Speaking the truth in love”: to teach cessationism.

The VINACC public was not upset because Justin preached against Benny Hinn and others. In fact, they were there to hear him attack these preachers. They got upset because he wanted also to attack their personal experiences with God.

There are many Calvinists apologetics experts in Brazil who love cessationism. With the same passion, they love to lambast Pentecostals, charismatics and neo-Pentecostals. At the same time, often they hide their true motivation. At least in this, Peters is more honest than Brazilian Calvinists. In fact, I have an e-book (“Theology of Liberation versus Theology of Prosperity”) exposing their duplicity.

Because Peters is an American and does not know that Brazilian evangelicalism is essentially Pentecostal, he was unable or unwilling to conceal his motivation for blasting Prosperity Theology preachers.

For his human theology, Christians who speak in tongues, hear God’s voice and have spiritual prophecies and revelations are as “false Christians” as all the other preachers condemned by him.

I disagree with Peters’ theology. In my view, his cessationism is a heresy. Yet, I applaud his sincerity and honesty. In this respect, anti-Pentecostal Calvinist critics in Brazil have a lot to learn from him.

Portuguese version of this article: Justin Peters: um cessacionista americano ensinando “apologética” aos pentecostais do Brasil

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

The Perfect Revival?

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

Liberation Theology and Neo-Pentecostalism: A Leading Challenge to the Evangelical Churches in Brazil

Brazilian Pentecostals: Church Growth Endangered by Socialist Embrace

R.C. Sproul: There Is No True Prophecy Today

“Homosexuality is Unnatural”: The Last Great Message of Myles Munroe on the Gay Agenda