From: CBN News
Brazil is witnessing a seismic shift in its religious landscape that’s rapidly reshaping the country’s spiritual and social fabric.
CBN News discovered evangelicals are poised to outnumber Catholics as the largest faith group there.
“We are on the verge of a religious change in Brazil’, said Brazilian sociologist Dr. José Alves.
For nearly 100 years Rio de Janeiro’s towering Christ the Redeemer statue has symbolised the country’s rich Catholic heritage as does the Cathedral of Brasilia in the nation’s capital.
But despite these historical landmarks, Dr. Alves says the faith’s dominance is rapidly declining.
“In 1950, 93% of Brazilians identified as Catholics. The Church was losing about 1% of followers every decade,” he noted.
“However, from 1991 onwards, the Catholic Church started to lose 1% of followers every year, resulting in a dramatic drop.”
Evangelical Christianity, once a minority faith in Brazil, is growing at unprecedented levels.
Surveys show that what was once the world’s largest Catholic nation, will be overwhelming evangelical by 2030.
CBN News reports signs of this growth are everywhere with megachurches filled with thousands of worshippers each week.
That includes Pastor Andre Fernandes’ Lagoinha Church in São Paulo.
“We are living in the fulfillment of a promise,” he explained.
“For many decades, we have heard that Brazil would experience a wave of revival that would be exported around the world, and I believe that this is what we are experiencing at this moment.”
Lourival Pereira is the pastor of a Foursquare Church in Belem in the Amazon region, boasting more than 10,000 members across roughly 600 cell groups.
“The foundation of our growth is these cells,” he said.
“The real revival is taking place outside the church walls. Every day, people are meeting in small groups in homes; it’s the Biblical model.”
Pastor J.B. Carvalho’s Community of the Nations Church in Brasília began with 25 people two decades ago.
Now the congregation numbers 12,000.
“We also have another 15,000 people in Fortaleza. Our churches are spread throughout Brazil,”
he added.
The Assembly of God Victory in Christ Church in Rio de Janeiro is one of the largest and most influential Pentecostal churches in Brazil with more than 100,000 members.
“In the next seven years or so, we will be the majority in the country,” declared its leader Silas Malafaia.
“Today, we make up about 35% of the population, and God’s Kingdom has influence in every corner of Brazilian society.”
Marcelo Crivella, a well-known evangelical pastor turned politician, once served as mayor of Rio de Janeiro.
He says that years ago, evangelical Christians hesitated to get involved in politics, but that’s no longer the case.
More than 30% of the country’s legislators are now evangelical.
“We are more than 140 deputies and more than 20 senators,” said Congressman Crivella.
Many of them gather each Wednesday in the halls of Brazil’s Congress for worship and prayer.
Celina Leão, the vice governor of Brasília, told CBN News that God is also at work in other branches of the government.
“Every month in the governor’s office, we meet for prayer, and people come to my office.”
“It’s a wonderful time to see friends and be in communion.”
The country’s first evangelical church opened in 1922. By 1990, the number had grown to more than 7,000 congregations.
More than 30 years later, it is well over 100,000.
One study found 17 new evangelical churches opening every day across Brazil.
One of the country’s best-known intercessors Ezenete Rodrigues believes this dramatic transformation is all thanks to prayer.
“I’ve always believed that prayer is like planting: You plant, plant, plant, and at some point, it will sprout, and then the explosion will come,” she told CBN News.
“Brazil has been hungry and thirsty for God, and the key has been intercession — bending our knees, seeking God, and letting the Spirit of the Lord guide us in everything we do,” she explained.
“Today, we can look back and see so many beautiful fruits of this commitment.”
Worship leader Ana Paula Valadao has a been at the centre of it all.
From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, her group’s music became synonymous with a powerful worship movement that emphasised intimacy with God, passionate worship, and personal revival.
“As I was songwriting, the Lord always made me very intentional,” Ms. Valadao said.
Her songs played across Brazil, helping many experience a deeper connection to their faith.
“It was about healing the land, and we started seeing amazing salvation numbers,” she observed.
She held concerts in strategic locations, drawing millions of people, many of whom were Catholics.
“Like the carnival sight in Rio de Janeiro and in the soccer stadiums, Jesus broke every record, gathering more people than any soccer tournament,” the singeer recalled.
Because of her songs, many Catholic services in Brazil today have embraced a more evangelistic style of worship, shifting away from traditional liturgies to incorporate contemporary music.
Father Antonio Luiz Catelan Ferreira, who leads the Cathedral of São Sebastião in Rio de Janeiro, says the change is part of an effort to encourage former Catholics to ‘come home.’
“People are attracted to environments where worship celebrations and moments of prayer are done in a more charismatic way,” he told CBN News.
“Today, a growing number of Catholics are returning precisely because prayer meetings are conducted in a more Pentecostal style.”
Source: CBN News
Image: Shutterstock
