美国国家公共电台 NPR--Evangelical Christian churches gain ground in majority Catholic Brazil

（单词翻译）

Evangelical Christian¹ churches gain ground in majority Catholic Brazil

Transcript²

Brazil is the world's largest Catholic country. But evangelical Christian churches are popping up everywhere, even in the jungle, and now about one-third of Brazil's population is evangelical.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Evangelical Christians³ now make up the fastest-growing religious movement in Brazil. And Brazil's president is counting on their support to win reelection. NPR's John Otis has more.

UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR⁴: (Singing in non-English language).

JOHN OTIS, BYLINE⁵: This is the Assembly of God Evangelical Church in Madureira, a working-class neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. About 500 people - the men in suits and ties, the women in dresses - are packed in here for the Sunday night service.

ABNER FERREIRA: (Non-English language spoken).

OTIS: Pastor⁶ Abner Ferreira works himself into a frenzy⁷ describing the power of God to save souls. He also delves⁸ into politics.

FERREIRA: (Non-English language spoken).

OTIS: In a quieter moment, Ferreira describes his recent meeting with President Jair Bolsonaro. He's a former army captain and right-wing populist who was elected in 2018 with massive support from evangelicals. After the service, I asked Ferreira about the president's appeal.

FERREIRA: (Non-English language spoken).

OTIS: He says that, like evangelicals, Bolsonaro supports conservative family values and opposes abortion⁹ and gay marriage. Last year, Bolsonaro named the first evangelical pastor to Brazil's Supreme¹⁰ Court. In Congress, about 20% of legislators are now evangelicals.

FERREIRA: (Non-English language spoken).

UNIDENTIFIED CHURCHGOERS: (Non-English language spoken).

OTIS: Until recently, however, evangelicals had almost no political power. The Catholic Church has always been by far the largest denomination¹¹. Evangelicals, who believe the Bible is the ultimate moral authority and that lives must be transformed through a born-again experience, made up just a tiny fraction of the population. But amid mass migration¹² from the countryside to Brazilian cities that started in the 1950s, evangelical churches began sprouting¹³ up in poor, urban neighborhoods.

JULIANO SPYER: People are coming from all different sorts of places. They're disconnected from their families. And the church becomes this substitution for a family.

OTIS: That's Brazilian anthropologist¹⁴ Juliano Spyer. He says that in impoverished¹⁵ areas ignored by the government and the Catholic Church, evangelicals have stepped in to provide everything from spiritual guidance to daycare and afterschool sports programs.

SPYER: If you lose your job, there is an infrastructure¹⁶ for you to receive help. If your kid is involved with drugs, you can find a lawyer. So it's huge attractive being part of that organization.

OTIS: Among the faith's best known projects are drug rehabilitation¹⁷ centers.

(CROSSTALK)

OTIS: This one, about an hour west of Rio, houses more than 100 patients. One of the supervisors¹⁸, Carlos Faria (ph), is a former drug addict¹⁹ who was treated here. Faria says he was living on the streets of Sao Paolo when evangelical pastors²⁰ invited him into a church. Soon afterwards, he was admitted to the rehab center, where, Faria says, through the help of God, he kicked his cocaine²¹ habit.

CARLOS FARIA: (Non-English language spoken).

OTIS: "I was going through some very hard times," he says, "but I found refuge in Jesus Christ." Evangelicals now make up 31% of Brazil's population, according to the Datafolha polling firm. They're still outnumbered by Catholics, who make up 51%. But evangelicals are growing at a much faster clip. They're also more politically active than Catholics, says Anna Virginia Balloussier, who's writing a book about Brazilian evangelicals.

ANNA VIRGINIA BALLOUSSIER: The evangelical community is more engaged in everything they do. And so it's easier to mobilize people in evangelical churches right now.

OTIS: President Bolsonaro needs them to mobilize in October, when he's up for reelection. But largely due to Brazil's stagnant²² economy, polls show him trailing the main opposition²³ candidate, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. So Bolsonaro is ramping²⁴ up his efforts to court evangelicals.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT JAIR BOLSONARO: (Non-English language spoken).

OTIS: At this recent meeting with evangelical pastors, he insisted that God entrusted²⁵ in him a hard mission, the mission of leading Brazil.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PASTOR: (Non-English language spoken).

OTIS: The pastors responded with a standing²⁶ ovation²⁷ for Bolsonaro, and then by praying for him.

John Otis, NPR News, Rio de Janeiro.