Is There No Sense of Shame among Evangélicos? The Idolatry of Bolsonaro and the Constraints of the Gospel

Abstract

The growing political influence of evangélico Christians in traditionally Catholic Brazil has caught the attention of social and political scientists as well as theologians. What are the reasons for two thirds of the mainly Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal electorate voting for Jair Messias Bolsonaro, the representative of an extreme right? This article explores traditional positions aligned with Bolsonaro’s morality, but also those that are contrary. The government’s blatant failure to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic has given, and indeed should give, rise to what the author calls an “evangélico sense of shame” as a consequence of the incompatibility of many of that part of the electorate that explicitly identified its faith convictions with Bolsonaro’s stances and actions. At the extreme end of an uncritical adherence is idolatry, visible, in the president being anointed by Edir Macedo, the supreme bishop of the Universal Church of God’s Kingdom. A genuinely theological dialogue and criticism is needed that would evaluate not only cognitive, but also affective and spiritual arguments and aspects.