Brazilian Presidential Election: Fernando Haddad Acknowledges that the Biggest Responsible for His Defeat at the Polls Was “Evangelical Phenomenon”

By Julio Severo

In an interview with the prominent Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo this week, former presidential candidate Fernando Haddad, from the socialist Workers’ Party, which ruled Brazil from 2003 to 2016, has acknowledged that the biggest responsible for his defeat at the polls was the “evangelical phenomenon.”

Fernando Haddad and evangelicals

He said, “There are studies showing that if I had in the evangelical world the same percentage of votes I had in the non-evangelical world, I would have won the election,” adding, “There is an evangelical phenomenon we have to deal with.”

He blamed especially neo-Pentecostalism, or charismatics, for his defeat.

“Brazil, structurally, is a hybrid between castes and meritocracy. It is admitted that the individual may go up, but alone, as long as the distance between classes remains. Neo-Pentecostalism and the Prosperity Gospel are compatible with that,” Haddad said.

While historic Protestant churches overwhelmingly affected by the Theology of Integral Mission (the Protestant version of Liberation Theology, very similar to the Social Gospel) blame the Prosperity Gospel for all the problems in the Evangelical Church in Brazil, Haddad has directly blamed neo-Pentecostalism and the Prosperity Gospel for his defeat!

He hit the spot. When the initiative of the ruling Workers’ Party for imposing homosexual indoctrination on schoolchildren began to move forward in 2011 during Haddad’s term as minister of education, the largest opposition came not from Catholic bishops nor from historic Protestant churches like the Brazilian Presbyterian Church. It came from neo-Pentecostal leaders, who eventually pressured the Evangelical Parliamentary Caucus in the Brazilian Congress, which in turn pressured leftist President Dilma Rousseff to veto it.

Haddad is not the first leftist leader to identify neo-Pentecostalism as an obstacle to leftism. In 2016 Brazilian Marxist philosopher Marilena Chaui said that the main threat to Brazilian leftism is the Prosperity Gospel from neo-Pentecostal churches.

This theological modality, which was born in the United States and is spreading as a wildfire in Brazil, has great affinity with American capitalism and aversion to the socialist system. The growth of neo-Pentecostalism creates natural friction with socialism. The more neo-Pentecostalism, the less socialism. Venezuela, which is being ravaged by socialism, is an example. There are very few neo-Pentecostal churches in Venezuela, whose population is 96 percent Catholic.

Although Haddad attributed his defeat to neo-Pentecostalism and although the U.S. and Israeli media reported that Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro’s greatest conservative force were evangelicals, Bolsonaro has so far given priority to cabinet appointments to suggestions coming from Olavo de Carvalho, whose adherents believe that without he Bolsonaro would not be president.

Although the name of Rev. Silas Malafaia appeared several times in the big U.S. media as a prominent influence that led evangelicals to vote for Bolsonaro, the new president, when receiving the name of Guilherme Schelb coming from Malafaia for minister of Education, preferred to welcome the indication of anti-Trump Ricardo Vélez, coming from Carvalho, although the name of Carvalho was not mentioned once in the big U.S. media as having had any influence in the election of Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro also appointed as Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, the name indicated by Carvalho. Araújo has an article in a diplomatic magazine by Itamaraty, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, extolling the Islamic occultist René Guénon, who for many years has been propagandized by Carvalho in Brazil.

While Haddad has expressed explicit acknowledgment that his defeat was due to evangelicals, specifically to neo-Pentecostals, from Bolsonaro has not yet come any acknowledgement that his victory was due to them. On the day of his victory, Bolsonaro thanked Brazilians in general and Olavo de Carvalho in particular.

However, from Carvalho, who has been abundantly recommended by Bolsonaro and his sons in highly flattering Twitter and Facebook messages, came a bizarre acknowledgement suggesting that evangelical churches should be fought more than socialism has been fought. Carvalho said: “Evangelical churches have done more harm to Brazil than the entire left did.”

Therefore, both Haddad and Carvalho see evangelical churches as major obstacles, threats and evils.

But who has been an influence, with his advices, in Bolsonaro’s politics is not Haddad. It is Carvalho himself, who became a Rasputin in his life.

With information from GospelPrime.

Portuguese version of this article: Fernando Haddad reconhece que o maior responsável pela sua derrota nas urnas foi o “fenômeno evangélico”

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Jair Bolsonaro’s Rasputin? How to Weaken a Right-Winger

Brazilian Foreign Policy: From Marxism to Occultism

New Brazilian Education Minister: Hostile to Socialism and Trump, Friendly with Bolsonaro and Hillary

Right Wing Watch, of People for the American Way, Attacks Jair Bolsonaro: “U.S. Right Helps, Cheers Rise of Brazilian Authoritarian”

Supported by Evangelicals Angry with the Left and Its Anti-Family Attacks, Jair Bolsonaro Is Elected Brazilian President

Evangelicals Can Put a Right-Wing Candidate in Brazil’s Presidency

Evangelicals Represent the Greatest Conservative Force in the Brazilian Elections

Evangelicals Can Put a Right-Wing Candidate in Brazil’s Presidency

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

Evangelicals Represent the Greatest Conservative Force in the Brazilian Elections

By Julio Severo

After the U.S. Big Media, including the right-wing Fox News, said that Brazilian evangelicals are a powerful conservative influence in the elections (see the report: Evangelicals Can Put a Right-Wing Candidate in Brazil’s Presidency), now is Europe’s turn. Reuters, a London-based service that was the first international news service in the world, has published the headline “Brazil’s evangelicals say far-right presidential candidate is answer to their prayers.”

In this Sept. 2, 2018 photo, evangelicals raise their hands in prayer as they listen to a song during a service at the Assembly of God Victory in Christ Church in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Besides, Deutsche Welle, of Germany, said in a headline “Brazil’s growing evangelical movement to shape election.”

Why do evangelicals have huge conservative impact in the Brazilian elections, but not in the European elections?

The explanation may come from an uncommon source: Marilena Chaui, a Brazilian Marxist philosopher. She stated in 2016 that the main opposition to socialism in Brazil is the Prosperity Gospel, known in Brazil as Prosperity Theology. What is destroying the left-wing hegemony in Brazil is, as she said, a “day-to-day, meticulous operation that has been done in the ideological realm to convince people through the Prosperity Gospel…”

So it is no wonder that the main leader leading evangelicals in the political conservative wave in Brazil is Silas Malafaia, an Assemblies of God minister who has espoused important tenets of the Prosperity Gospel. The Assemblies of God is the major evangelical denomination in Brazil.

Neo-charismatics, or neo-Pentecostals, are the overwhelming majority of the conservative leaders among evangelicals in Brazil.

Because Europe has an overwhelming majority of Protestants who are Lutheran and Presbyterian, there is no such conservative force in elections or in their internal battles to halt socialism and other evil ideologies in their midst.

In Brazil the traditional Protestant churches suffer the same spiritual malady. The Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil (ECLCB, the largest Lutheran denomination in Brazil) adheres to Liberation Theology and its Protestant version, Theology of Integral Mission, similar to the Social Gospel. The Presbyterian denominations in Brazil have for decades embraced, in a lesser or larger measure, Theology of Integral Mission, loved by many of their ministers, including Caio Fábio, a former minister who was a Presbyterian superstar who eventually got involved in sex and political scandals with powerful left-wing leaders.

While Pentecostals and mainly neo-Pentecostals are recognizing the evils of socialist administrations in Brazil, the Lutheran church remains recalcitrant. In fact, the president of ECLCB has sent a letter to all Lutheran ministers in Brazil threatening to sue any Lutheran member who shares my articles denouncing Liberation Theology in his denomination.

The Catholic Church in Brazil is not much different from the Lutheran denomination. Its most prominent leaders do not support conservative candidates.

By conservative I mean stances against the homosexual agenda, abortion and supportive of life and family. Socialist candidates, even when they are Catholic or Protestant, have a hard time to embrace such stances.

Over one year ago, The Nation, the oldest progressive magazine in the United States, had already recognized the conservative impact of Brazilian evangelicals in a headline titled “Amid Crisis in Brazil, the Evangelical Bloc Emerges as a Political Power.”

The Prosperity Gospel is a neo-Pentecostal theology imported from the United States, the largest capitalist and Protestant nation in the world. Even though there may be some exaggerations in its teaching, its basic message is that the source of health, prosperity, job, marriage and happiness is God, while progressives, both Protestants and Catholics, tend to believe that government should be such source, and Christian Marxism (Liberation Theology, Theology of Integral Mission, Social Gospel, etc.) exerts its pressure to make the government to be a provider of people’s needs, despising God’s role as the ultimate Provider.

Rodrigo Constantino, a Brazilian conservative writer, published an article titled “Democracy and the Prosperity Gospel,” written by Claudir Franciatto, who said,

“While the large part of the Brazilian society that is not evangelical restricts itself to call ministers, bishops and apostles of neo-Pentecostal (charismatic) churches ‘thieves’… [those ministers, bishops and apostles] are bringing to Brazil — secretly and imperceptibly — certain ‘Anglo-Saxon spirit’ of courage, pioneerism and positive individual attitude, which shaped a nation like the United States. This spirit was and is very necessary.”

Franciatto added,

“Neo-Pentecostal ministers do not stimulate members to pray and remain sitting on their pews, but to act — within and outside the church.”

This action outside the church is largely conservative and capitalist.

The Catholic Church, ECLCB and other traditional Protestant denominations in Brazil hate much more the Prosperity Gospel, which is not embraced by them, than they hate Liberation Theology and Theology of Integral Mission, which are embraced by them. They prefer any other option, including occultist, than facing an evangelical reality different from their particular “evangelical” delusion.

Yet, who is leading the conservative revolution in Brazil are not Catholics or traditional Protestants. Neo-charismatics, or neo-Pentecostals, are leading it.

Even though Brazil is the largest Catholic nation in the world, the Catholic Church has not the conservative force that neo-Pentecostals, who inherited such force from the United States, have to stem the socialist tide in Brazil.

Venezuela may be a hard lesson to Brazil. With a population 96% Catholic and a Catholic Church largely supportive of Liberation Theology, Venezuelans elected about 20 years ago socialist Hugo Chavez, who promised to take care of their needs. He promised to turn the Venezuelan government in the provider of the Venezuelans’ needs. Today, Venezuelans are starving. If Venezuela had a significant neo-Pentecostal population, they would resist the socialist revolution embraced by the Venezuelan Catholic Church.

The reality in Latin America is: the more Catholic a nation is, the more socialist or inclined to socialism it is. Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela have all a common denominator: a massive Catholic population. In the Cuban case, they had a massive Catholic population during the communist revolution in the 1950s. Even today, Cuba is largely Catholic: 85% of its population is Catholic.

As the Latin American example shows, Catholicism seems naturally to facilitate socialism. So it is not hard to understand why in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s while the KGB supported the Catholic Church, the CIA supported Pentecostal movements.

In Brazil Catholics are now some 60% of the population and evangelicals, whose overwhelming majority is Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal, are some 30%.

If Brazil were 96% Catholic as Venezuela is, the Brazilian people would be starving under socialism.

Other difference is sensitivity to pro-life and pro-family values. For decades, the Catholic Church, backed by the Lutheran and other traditional Protestant churches, has consistently supported socialism in Brazil. Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches supported it — but much inconsistently —, because of the bad influence of former Rev. Fábio. Yet, when neo-Pentecostals saw socialists in the government advocating abortion and homosexuality, they changed course. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church and many Presbyterians did not learn from their sins: They have largely kept their course loyal to socialism even after they saw their favorite socialists promoting abortion and homosexuality.

The Catholic Church and ECLCB have never learnt from their bad experiences with socialism. Meanwhile, neo-Pentecostal televangelists learnt the hard way. But they did.

In spite of the neo-Pentecostals’ weaknesses, especially in theology, Brazilians should praise God for neo-Pentecostals and the Prosperity Gospel they brought from the United States. They are saving Brazil from the socialism of Catholic Venezuela and the secularization of Europe, where its traditional churches, both Catholic and Protestant, are powerless to resist evil forces.

This is the difference of neo-Pentecostal churches: They seek power from God and use it to influence the society. They do it while antagonized by socialists, secularists, Catholics and traditional Protestants.

It is this power that the Big Media in Europe and in the United States is seeing in action right now in Brazil.

This power is in action even in the United States, where President Donald Trump, who was brought up as a Presbyterian, has as his advisers Paula White and other adherents of the Prosperity Gospel. In fact, the same evangelical power that helped Trump in the United States is helping Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, even though he is a Catholic. Evangelicals are now the dominant conservative power in the United States and Brazil. And the same left-wing forces attacking in the U.S. elections are also attacking in the Brazilian elections.

If Bolsonaro is going to win or not, I do not know. But I know for sure that in the next elections, in the next years, the evangelical power will be increasingly bigger, including in politics. Brazil is going to have, sooner or later, a neo-Pentecostal president.

Where traditional Protestants and Catholics are failing badly and even losing to socialism, secularism and occultism, charismatics are advancing and conquering, even in politics. I do not agree with everything of their theology, but I cannot deny that they are impacting positively where no one else is having similar impact.

Thank God for charismatics, Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals and their love to seek God’s power and spiritual gifts!

Portuguese version of this article: Evangélicos representam a maior força conservadora das eleições brasileiras

 Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Evangelicals Can Put a Right-Wing Candidate in Brazil’s Presidency

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

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

Bishop Edir Macedo: Jesus Never Talked about Homosexuality

By Julio Severo

Protestant denominations are divided, especially in the United States, between the liberal stance, prevalent among mainline Protestant churches, supporting the gay agenda and the conservative stance, prevalent among evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic churches, countering this predatory agenda.

The division is so intense that recently when Rev. Eugene Peterson, creator of “The Message” Bible, tried to support homosexual “marriage” (a liberal stance already common in his denomination, the Presbyterian Church USA), the conservative backlash was immediate, making Peterson backtrack. But the Presbyterian Church USA, which is the largest U.S. Presbyterian denomination, insists on the stance.

Other mainline Protestant denominations are also embracing a liberal stance regarding the homosexual sin.

In Brazil, the only neo-Pentecostal exception has been the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), which does not criticize the liberal stance, but has attacked the conservative stance.

The official website of UCKG announced in 2015 that its founder, Bishop Edir Macedo, said,

“There are many evangelicals, ministers and churches raising a flag against the homosexual movement and against homosexual marriage. I ask: Would Jesus do it if He were living in our time? I do not believe that He would do it, because in His time there were homosexuals and Jesus did not speak anything. Jesus did not raise a flag, saying, ‘Look, you should speak up against homosexuality, that it is forbidden, that it should not be done.’”

After this comment, Macedo was awarded the Gay Oscar 2015, from the Gay Group of Bahia, founded by Luiz Mott, the most prominent homosexual activist in Brazil.

Macedo could also say, “How many times did Jesus talk about child abuse? How many times did Jesus talk about child sex abusers? Jesus did not raise a flag against child sex abuse, saying, ‘Look, you should speak up against child sex abuse.”

Actually, Jesus never talked against child sex abuse and child sex abusers.

Should you then remove the gay agenda and child sex abuse from Christian concerns just because Jesus never mentioned them directly?

Jesus just did not attack head-on the homosexual agenda because this was not the obsession in the Jewish society where he preached the Gospel. Each generation has its own challenges and special attention. Without the Holy Spirit to guide us in God’s Word, it is impossible to give an answer to these challenges and special attentions.

In this point, it is important to give attention to Luther’s words,

“If I declare openly, with the loudest voice and the clearest expression, each portion of God’s truth, except precisely the tiny portion that the world and the devil are, in this time, attacking, then I am not really confessing Christ, however much I may cry aloud that I am confessing Him.”

The necessary question is: Why does not Bishop Edir Macedo criticize the liberal stance, but has attacked the conservative stance against the gay agenda?

Apparently Macedo made his controversial comments for sheer provocation, to be not seen as imitating Assemblies of God minister Silas Malafaia and other Brazilian neo-Pentecostal leaders who are spearheading (“raising a flag”) the fight against gay “marriage” and other gay agenda’s demands, including homosexual indoctrination of children demanded by gay predators. He does not want to be seen as an imitator of conservative evangelicals.

But the UCKG founder is not a pioneer when “supporting homosexuals.” The Presbyterian Church (USA) has been doing much more than this for years. It marries homosexuals. It supports abortion — just as Macedo does.

Even if UCKG begins to marry homosexuals, there will not be anything new in this apostasy. The Presbyterian Church USA is in the forefront and vanguard.

Macedo is just a cheap imitator. He has a fancy apartment in the U.S. and he has lived several years in the U.S. It seems that in his stay in the U.S., he chose the influence of more liberal Protestants, even though the U.S. has many fine conservative evangelicals.

Macedo has also imitated cessationism, a heretical doctrine predominant in the Presbyterian Church USA. This extra-biblical doctrine teaches that God does not speak today through prophecies, revelations and dreams. Calvinist theologians as John MacArthur in the U.S. and Augustus Nicodemus in Brazil believe and promote this doctrine. Even not being a Calvinist, Edir Macedo also believes and promotes this doctrine.

In fact, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, where Nicodemus was a chancellor, has homosexualist professors and it is defended by gay activists.

So Macedo’s cessationist stance is mere imitation of radical Presbyterians’ and Calvinists’ cessationist stances.

What is left of “Pentecostalism” in UCKG is perhaps just demon-expelling. Its prosperity gospel is totally based on “determining” with Sola Scriptura (totally rejecting prophecies and revelations), highly reminding old Calvinism, which actually saw prosperity as a sign of election.

UCKG totally rejects the possibility of a Christian to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit today because it believes in Sola Scriptura.

UCKG totally rejects the gift of prophecy today because it believes in Sola Scriptura.

UCKG totally rejects the possibility of a Christian to receive revelations from the Holy Spirit today because it believes in Sola Scriptura.

UCKG totally believes that prophecies and revelations today are demonic because it believes in Sola Scriptura.

UCKG says that it believes “only in the Bible,” whose Latin translation is “Sola Scriptura” — the form preferred by Calvinists, because it seems intellectually more elegant. At the end, UCKG and the Presbyterian Church USA use Sola Scriptura to support what God has never supported and will never support: abortion and cessationism.

Abortion is to kill an innocent life in the mother’s womb. Cessationism is to kill spiritual life in the church. No Christian has authority, theological or otherwise, to kill what God gives.

Macedo’s pro-homosexuality and pro-abortion stance is mere imitation of the Presbyterian Church USA’s left-wing stances.

Even though imperfectly, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God is, as far as cessationism, homosexuality and abortion are concerned, a cheap imitation of the Presbyterian Church USA.

Coincidentally, Marcelo Crivella, mayor of Rio de Janeiro and former UCKG bishop, chose to head a LGBT advocacy department Nélio Georgini, a Presbyterian homosexual activist, who has a male sexual partner. Crivella is a Macedo’s relative.

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God is a syncretic chimera: It is the first and only pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality cessationist neo-Pentecostal church in Brazil.

Yet, if Macedo wants to be a perfect imitator, he will have to do much more than just “supporting homosexuals,” which for him means not to fight gay “marriage” and other gay agenda’s demands, including homosexual indoctrination of children demanded by gay predators. The Presbyterian Church USA has already been holding gay weddings and it has already been ordaining homosexual ministers.

When will UCKG begin to hold homosexual weddings and ordain homosexual ministers?

Portuguese version of this article: Bispo Macedo: Jesus nunca falou contra o homossexualismo

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Bishop Edir Macedo and Homosexuality

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

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

Radical Gay Activist Defends Brazil’s Mackenzie Presbyterian University

Brazil’s Mackenzie Presbyterian University and Its Gender Ideology Professor

“Message” Bible Creator Eugene Peterson Says Homosexuality Is Not Wrong — and Then Backtracks

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

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

By Julio Severo

According to Charisma magazine, Calvinist theologian Dr. R.C. Sproul says he was “deeply immersed” in charismatic circles in the 1960s and that after receiving about 50 false prophecies, he said to himself, “You know, I’m going to live my life by what it says in the Word, because I know the Spirit has superintended that.”

So, with his bad experience with prophecy, Dr. Sproul concluded that there is no genuine gift of prophecy for today.

By coincidence, his personal bad experience aligns itself with a strong theological view in many Calvinist circles: the belief that God does not grant today supernatural gifts as healings, speaking in tongues, prophecies and other miracles. Cessationism. Apparently, all because they had bad experiences.

Have Calvinist theologians bad luck?

I see Calvinist churches ordaining gays, supporting abortion and boycotts against Israel, especially in Europe and America. Should I conclude that Calvinist churches are not genuine Christian churches?

I have often heard Bible misrepresentations by Jehovah’s Witnesses and similar groups. Should I conclude that the Bible leads to heresy?

Twenty years ago, I received a prophetic word in a prayer meeting in Brasilia. The word said that my name would be known throughout Brazil. I had never asked for it. Even after this prophetic experience, I did not begin to pray for it.

But it came to pass. Years later, I had a book published by the Brazilian branch of Bethany House Publishers. My book, “O Movimento Homossexual” (The Homosexual Movement). was written under prophetic inspiration.

Of course, I have heard misrepresentations of the gift of prophecy, in the same way I have heard misrepresentations of the Bible. My way to deal with misrepresentations is to know how to test and examine. After all, the Bible teaches us: “Do not despise prophecies, but a test everything.” (1 Thessalonians 5:20,21 ESV) It teaches to examine what is preached in the name of the Bible and what is prophesied in the name of God.

The cessationist stance has strong disagreements among Calvinists, because there are Calvinists who believe that God has never ceased His gifts.

Calvinist theologian Dr. J. Rodman Williams, in his “Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology from a Charismatic Perspective” (Zondervan), said, “God, the living God, is the God of revelation. He is ready to grant through His Spirit a spirit of revelation and wisdom for a deeper knowledge of Christ and also through revelation and prophecy to speak to His people. God has not changed in His desire to communicate directly with those who belong to Him.”

His stance open to the Holy Spirit is a stark contrast with the cessationist stance of Dr. Sproul. There are Calvinists in both camps.

I am not a Calvinist, but I am in Dr. Williams’ camp.

I find no Bible support to reject when God wants to direct or speak to us today through prophecy. I follow a “Sola Scriptura” which means “only the Bible,” but I fear that when some theologians mention “Sola Scriptura” (only Scripture) what they mean is “Sola Theologia” (only theology). Nothing else.

After years living only in Sweden, you begin to speak Swedish. After years living and believing only in God’s Word, you begin to live its reality, especially the reality of its Author. This is real “Sola Scriptura.” But after years living and believing only in theology, you begin to think and speak it. This is “Sola Theologia,” often misunderstood as “Sola Scriptura.”

Outside the arid fields of certain theological misinterpretations of God’s action and guidance, opportunities are vast for people open to Him and His living Word.

Years ago, I met George Otis. His father had met Ronald Reagan in his ranch in 1970. In the presence of singer Pat Boone, a charismatic Christian, he delivered a prophetic word to Reagan: “God will raise you up as president of the United States.” If Reagan had had bad luck, later he could also tell about his bad experiences with prophecy.

Yet, false prophecy never nullifies true prophecy. False Bible teaching never nullifies true Bible teaching. Bible misrepresentation or false prophecy is no excuse to annul God’s Word and prophetic guiding.

There is no president, in Brazil or other nation, that I admire most than Reagan. As a teen in the 1980s, I defended Reagan while my peers were taught by media to hate him. Poor Reagan was portrayed as the cause for all problems in the world. Yet, he was my hero. I had always felt something from God about him, and when I met Otis, I had a confirmation about my inklings.

In the words of Paul Kengor, Reagan was a “crusader” against communism. How could not I admire such brave man when I also fight the Marxist heresy in Brazil?

But I doubt that I would be able to nurture this admiration among Brazilian Calvinist apologists today.

In the Brazilian Protestant churches, the defense of socialist ideology has been spearheaded by Calvinist apologists. By contrast, the conservative resistance has been spearheaded by neo-charismatics, who are fearlessly fighting the abortion and sodomy agenda.

One of the leading Calvinist leaders in Brazil is Ariovaldo Ramos, who is a former director of World Vision in Brazil. He has publicly praised the late Venezuelan Marxist dictator Hugo Chávez, whom he said he met sometimes. Ramos has led efforts to criticize neo-charismatic leaders, including Pentecostal minister Marco Feliciano, who has been viciously attacked by the mainstream media in Brazil for his vocal stances against abortion and sodomy. Ramos is considered by the Brazilian evangelical Left as a “prophet” of the Theology of Integral Mission, the Protestant version of the Marxist Liberation Theology.

There are not many neo-charismatic theologians in Brazil. In fact, I do not know anyone. But there are many conservatives among them. On the other hand, there are many theologians in the Calvinist churches in Brazil, but not many conservative leaders. Should we conclude that Calvinist theology brings bad luck to churches?

Calvinist apologists in Brazil have spearheaded the fight to promote liberalism and socialism and, at the same time, the fight against neo-charismatics. Cessationism and Theology of Integral Mission are their passion, and the neo-charismatic growth is their hate. So should we conclude that Calvinism is false Christianity by their bad example in Brazil?

The largest Presbyterian denomination in America is ordaining homosexuals and committing other abominations. Should we conclude that Calvinism leads to apostasy?

You do not need prophetic guiding to understand that Marxism is a heresy. In Brazil, it is the most powerful heresy affecting the churches. Orestes Brownson (1803–1876), who was raised a Calvinist and converted himself to Catholicism, was probably the first Christian to warn America about the perils of the Marxist heresy.

If church leaders do not want to hear what God has to say in His own terms and conditions, they will see their flocks leaving, as Brownson did.

Regardless the bad experiences of Sproul and other Calvinists, God speaks today. If they gave more attention to God through His gifts, they would be more able to resist to the socialist onslaught against the church and society.

If you want to know this fight in Brazil, download my free English book here: http://bit.ly/1a6brwP

Portuguese version of this article: R.C. Sproul: Não há profecia verdadeira hoje

Spanish version of this article: R. C. Sproul: No existe profecía verdadera hoy

Source: Julio Severo in English: www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

Recommended Reading:

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