Evangelicals and politics in Brazil: the relevance of religious change in Latin America

In: SWP research paper 2020, 1 (January 2020)

Abstract

Since the 1970s a religious change has occurred in Latin America. As a proportion of the population, Catholics have greatly diminished, and Evangelicals rapidly increased. These developments are causally linked. In the course of this demographic transformation, the Catholic Church has lost its special position in society and its privileged access to politics. It has been replaced by a large number of diverse and autonomous Evangelical churches, above all the Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal. The substantial social weight of the Evangelical churches is connected, inter alia, to their importance as "problem solvers" in precarious sections of society. Faith communities are increasingly extending this commitment into the political sphere. The increasing social relevance and political power of the Evangelical churches has come to prominence in a particularly striking way in Brazil. Since 1 January 2019, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, a former soldier who was baptised in the Jordan by an Evangelical pastor, has been heading its government.