Brazil’s evangelical temples are increasingly filled with police and military personnel

By Gustavo Veiga

Brazil is witnessing the advent of a medieval liturgy that fuses evangelical religiosity with the doctrine of the security forces.

A return to the cross and sword communion, but in its neo-pentecostal version of the bible and the rifle.

The temples of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD) are increasingly filled with uniformed people.

Police officers, military, and firefighters receive spiritual assistance in ceremonies repeated since 2018 in most states.

Under the FPU program, the organization led by pastor Edir Macedo, founded in 1977, promotes its electronic creed among military members.

It uses as an excuse the help of those souls who followed former president Jair Bolsonaro as if he were the pied piper to occupy the Planalto.

Four years later, on January 8, 2023, among the carefree invaders of the Government Palace, there were active or retired members of the Army.

The IURD congregation celebrates Soldiers’ Day every August 25 as a tribute to the nation’s armed wing.

Its sanctuaries are filled with troops seeking God’s blessing in ultramontane times.

A fact that no longer surprises but casts thick clouds over the nation’s future with the most Catholics on the planet.

EVANGELICALS GAINING GROUND

The flock following Pope Francis declined from 70% to 54% in ten years between 2002 and 2012.

The reverse process occurred among Brazilian evangelicals in a similar decade (2000-2010).

Its growth reached 61%, with the Neo-Pentecostal movement as the most numerous.

There are local studies that estimate a change of era for 2040. Evangelicals will surpass the Catholic faithful.

In a self-proclaimed secular state that guarantees religious freedom, this statistic should not be worrying.

But the use of the Universal Police Forces Program (FPU), which according to Macedo’s church, is voluntary, “is developed in the 27 federative units of the country, to provide spiritual and social support to men and women who day by day put their lives at risk to protect and serve the population”.

Under this proclamation, the military police of Goiás, one of the many that participated in the neo-Pentecostal and military movement, explained the program.

An investigation of the Brazilian digital site The Intercept, published last May 29 by the journalist Gilberto Nascimento and the general editor of the media, Tatiana Dias, gives an account of this large-scale operation.

The text describes an event on March 14 and 15 this year in the IURD temple on Guaicurus Street, in Lapa, west of São Paulo.

According to the authors, the place was “crowded with uniformed police from the Metropolitan Area Police Command 5,” and the parking lot was full of vehicles.

On that day, according to the church, Bishop Júlio Freitas, son-in-law of Bishop Edir Macedo, married to Viviane Freitas, one of the daughters of the Universal leader, held a “moment of reflection” and prayer.

The church publication also says that the commander, Colonel Forner, “thanked the Universal Church for the help given to his troops…”.

The IURD calls spiritual assistance to what is proven in several images as indoctrination.

The IURD calls spiritual assistance to what is proven in several images as indoctrination.

The newspaper report shows several photographs of hundreds of police officers dressed in uniform while attending the religious service and dozens of police vans parked inside the temple.

The church released the images.

Acts like those in São Paulo were repeated in other states: Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio Grande do Norte, Roraima, and Goiás.

A paper published in 2021 by Rodrigo Lentz and Ana Penido in the Journal of Brazilian Studies (With the Bible and the Rifle: exploratory notes on the rise of evangelicals in the armed forces) is based on “quantitative data related to the religion of the cadets of the Agulhas Negras Military Academy (2002-2012) and of the qualitative examination of the religious influence on the doctrine of the Superior School of War (1974-2016).”

It is remarkable how the Neo-Pentecostal creed has penetrated the military and police world.

The results of this latest research, still exploratory, “point to more similarities than discrepancies between military doctrine and evangelical religion, and in relations with what the military calls the civilian world,” say specialists Lentz and Penido.

SECULAR STATE

Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas, the current governor of São Paulo, ex-military and former minister of Infrastructure of Bolsonaro, who is also the politician with the best expectations of future votes in the ultra-right, maintains a strategic alliance with Macedo.

A bond that extends to the political force he represents, the Republicans.

A relationship that can further enhance the electoral competition of the forces that governed Brazil between 2019 and 2022.

And that, as verified in judicial files, encouraged the storming of the main government buildings in Brasília a week after President Lula took office for the third time in its history.

The Brazilian state declares itself secular in the Constitution and guarantees religious freedom.

But in practice, churches such as the IURD have colonized large sectors of the armed and police forces to become a center for producing doctrine for the repressive apparatus.

So far, in 2023, according to The Intercept, more than seventy meetings of pastors and their congregation in uniform have been organized.

There were bible handouts and pastoral prayers with the smell of mothballs.

Some were held in the ABC region of São Paulo, the industrial heart of Brazil.

In 2023, more than seventy meetings of pastors and their parishioners were organized uniformly.

On February 2, a medal was awarded to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God at Battalion 12 of the Metropolitan Military Police.

It was one of the many recognitions for its FPU program, whose objective is to “provide spiritual, social and human improvement assistance not only to law enforcement officers but also for their families through conferences on topics such as corruption, ethics, drugs, family structure, marriage, children’s education, book and Bible donations, recreation, free breakfast meetings and the main thing: guidance through faith in God, which encourages and gives freedom and strength to so many professionals”.

With information from Público

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