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All over the world, all over the world
Your Spirit is moving, all over the World
Your river is flowing, Your presence has come
Your Spirit is moving, all over the world
Divisions are falling, You’re making us one
Your Spirit is moving all over the world1
When the Spirit of Pentecost fell on the people of Azusa Street, Pastor William Seymour
was convinced that the Holy Spirit was uniting everyone together as one body. He looked
forward to the time when all different ethnic groups and cultures learned to speak the same
language of God while Jesus’ Kingdom on earth was becoming a reality. All over the world
news spread of the Baptism of the Spirit and as soon as one received it, they could not keep this
good news for themselves but told everyone and anyone who would listen to them. There were
outbreaks of speaking in tongues and healings in all corners of the earth and it didn’t seem that
there was anything that could keep the Body of Christ from working together to convert the
whole world so they would be ready when Jesus came back to judge and claim His own.
Unfortunately, this did not happen. Politics, class, and guarding one’s flock got in the
way of true unity. It appears that although the same Holy Spirit is in all Christians, and there is
much talk about ecumenism in many churches, people are reluctant to leave their comfort zones
and venture into people’s churches other than their own. Because of this, there is still distrust
among the different denominations. Brazil is particularly interesting to study because while it
has the largest amount of Catholics in the world with 123 million, it has the second largest
1 Terry Butler, “All over the World,”in Songsof Renewal, Vineyard Publishing,1995.

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number and the fourth highest percentage of renewalists in the world (tables one and two). Even
more surprising is that most of these numbers are comprised of Charismatic Catholics.2
In light of the recent drop of membership in the Catholic Church in Brazil and that 50%
are involved in the Renewalist (CCR) movement, the difference in worship style and
demographics between Classic Pentecostals and this group in Brazil needs to be studied.
Specifically, I will explore the Pentecostal movement and Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR)
in Brazil during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. After an overview of the changing
demographics of the Brazilian Roman Catholic Church, a history of Pentecostalism’s beginnings
in Brazil is presented. Third, because Catholicism held a virtual monopoly on religion in Brazil
until Pentecostalism burst onto the scene, an overview of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal
(CCR) will be related. Next, an overview of the people living in poverty is related. Last, the
effect Pentecostalism has had on the culture and people of Brazil is discussed.
I. The Arrival of Catholicism in Brazil and Its Changing Demographics from 1970-2010
The Iberian Catholic religion traveled across the Atlantic from Portugal to Brazil in the
early sixteenth century and spread quickly. Rome drafted Papal Bulls that gave this country to
the Iberian Crowns and they were told to evangelize the inhabitants. The proselytizers ventured
into different parts of the country but they were not interested or could not help the marginalized
and poor of these areas. For example, in the Northeast, priests ministered to the big sugar
plantation owners and their families but excluded their slaves. The Jesuits, on the other hand,
2 Renewalists refers to the collectivegroup comprised of the firstwave of ClassicPentecostals in which its
members left their denominational church to form new denominations,the second wave of Charismaticsthat
remained within their denominations and the third wave of Neocharismatics or Independent Charismatics. For the
purposes of this paper, Pentecostals will refer to the firstwave ClassicPentecostals and the Catholic Charismatic
Renewal, which was part of the second wave of Charismaticswill bestudied as a separate entity apartfrom the
Protestant Charismaticswho remained in the denominations. Todd M. Johnson, “The Global Demographics of the
Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal,”(Springer Science + Business Media,LLC 2009),479-483. “Tabela 1.4.1-
Populacao residente,por situacao do domicilio esexo,Segundo os grupos de religio-Brasil-2010,”Censo 2010.
ftp://ftp.ibge.gov.br/Censos/Censo_Demografico_2010/Characteristicas_Gerais_Religiao_Definciencia/tab1_4.pdt
Accessed 5 December, 2013.

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worked with the indigenous Amazonian people and tried to protect them from slave raiders.
While that was helpful, they could not cure the illnesses that affected them. Perhaps since the
African-Brazilian Spiritualist religion, mostly Umbanda, practiced healing arts, the recent
converts were comfortable with mixing Catholicism and their folk religions, particularly
Umbanda, that they relied upon to cure their sicknesses. Therefore, since the priests were not
under the control of Rome, they allowed this type of Portuguese Catholicism to flourish.3
Even though this synchronistic Catholicism was the only legally recognized religion in
Brazil, many people continued to solely practice the folk religions of their country.
Consequently, although it appeared that almost 99% of the inhabitants of this country were
practicing Catholics, the number of active parishioners may have been much lower because
people would register as a member of the official church instead of the spiritualist religion that
they regularly practiced. This was because the country became so enculturated by Catholicism
in the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries, if one did not belong to this church they “risked
social ostracism and sometimes even violence” at the hands of the church of the “One True
Faith.”4 Therefore to avoid persecution, they would proclaim allegiance to the official religion
until Emperor Dom Pedro II made other religions legal in 1888.
Before loosening up the restrictions on religion, earlier in the middle of the nineteenth
century, the Roman Catholic Church wanted to organize the church in Brazil so they began to
romanize it. They wanted to change the focus of belief from myth and emotion and body to
mind, reason and logic because they believed that this would ensure that the “faith” was being
taught and upheld in an orthodox manner. Although Rome wanted the members of the church to
3 R. Andrew Chesnut, “Chapter 13, Brazilian Charisma: Pentecostalized Christianity in Latin America’s Largest
Nation,” Introducing World Christianity, ed. Charles E. Farhadian (Sussex,England: Wiley-Blackwell,2012),186.
4 R. Andrew Chesnut, “Conservative Christian Competitors: Pentecostals and Charismatic Catholics in Latin
America’s New Religious Economy,” SAIS Review of International Affairs vol 30 (2010),93.

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become more like Europe so they would have more control over the doctrine and structure of the
church, it also lost its spiritual power among the adherents. Perhaps because of this, the attempt
to centralize the Brazilian church in Italy, it has been estimated that 80-85% of its members were
still not romanized even by the late 1980s, with most of this occurring in the rural areas of this
country.5
With most inhabitants of Brazil not culturally or religiously romanized, it is no surprise
that only about 20% attended weekly mass in 1990.6 Because they are not actively involved with
their church, they may be more likely to switch to another faith tradition to meet their needs.
According to the Pew Research Center, this is exactly what happened. In 1970, 92% of Brazil’s
population identified themselves as Catholic while in 2010, that figured dropped to 65%. In
contrast, Protestant adherents, of which about 60% are Pentecostal, increased form 5% to 22% of
the population. In addition, for the first time in recent history the number of Brazil’s Catholic
members not only dropped by percentage of population but the total number of Catholics fell
from 125 million to 123 million between 2000 and 2010. Meanwhile, the Protestant adherents
increased from 26 million to 42 million people (charts one and two).7 Apparently, the relatively
recent emergence of the Spirit and healing centered Pentecostalism in the early twentieth century
has had a strong impact on the religious economy of Brazil from the time it landed in this
country.
II. The Beginning and Growth of Pentecostalism Through the Twenty-first Century
On November 19, 1910, two Swedish immigrants arrived from New York on a third-class
steamer in Belem, Para in Brazil to fulfill a prophecy a parishioner had spoken about them a few
5 Celia Loreto Mariz, Coping with Poverty (Philadelphia,Temple University Press,1994),14.
6 Ibid,12.
7 “Brazil’s ChangingReligious Landscape,” Pew Research: Religion and Public Life Project (Washington,DC: 2013).
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/07/18/brazils-changing-religious-landscape/ and “Tabela 1.4.1,” Censo 2010.

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months earlier in South Bend, Indiana.8 They were probably very hot in their wool suits in this
80 degree weather but that was not important. 9 They were there to proclaim the Baptism of the
Spirit to anyone who would listen. Baptist Pastor Gunnar Vingren and his friend, Daniel Berg,
also of the same denomination, were going to begin a Pentecostal explosion that broke the
monopoly of Catholicism within sixty years of its arrival. Although they were the second to
arrive in Brazil to preach of the Baptism of the Spirit, Vingren and Berg were the first two that
taught it to the indigenous peoples.
Italian immigrant Luis Francescon evangelized a group of Italians in San Paulo while
preaching in a Presbyterian Church in Bras. As was the case with many people who taught the
Baptism, he was thrown out of the church for teaching what was thought to be wrong doctrine, at
best, or worse, demonic. He left with about twenty converts and started the first Pentecostal
church in Brazil in 1910 called the Christian Congregation. Although they eventually started to
worship in Portuguese, this church did not have as great of an impact as Vingren’s.
Vingren was a gardener in his homeland of Sweden before he moved to Chicago and then
was a laborer in America before becoming a Baptist pastor. He “received the Baptism,” or was
“baptized in the Holy Spirit”, in William Durhams’s Chicago mission where he met Daniel Berg,
who was already baptized in Sweden before arriving to the United States.10 While pastoring his
church in Indiana, one of the parishioners Adolfo Ulldin prophesied that they should go to a
place called Para to preach of the Holy Spirit Baptism. The legend says that they did not even
know where this was and had to look on a globe to find it.
8 R. Andrew Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom and the Pathogens of Poverty (New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press,1997),26.
9 Laura Premack, “’The Holy Rollers areInvadingOur Territory’: Southern BaptistMissionaries and theEarly Years
of Pentecostalismin Brazil,”Journal of Religious History 35 (2011): 1.
10 Edward L. Cleary and Hannah W. Stewart-Gambino, “Pentecostalismand Women in Brazil,” Power, Politics and
Pentecostals in Latin America (Colorado: Westview Press,1998),124.

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When they landed in Belem, Vingren and Berg went to the only Baptist Church in the
area that was pastored by Erik A. Nelson, another Swedish immigrant. Because of this Swedish
connection, Laura Premack suggests that it was not as much of a surprise that these two went to
Belem as had been previously thought. Nelson was a childhood friend of Berg’s and he probably
knew that Nelson was in Brazil evangelizing.11 Be that as it may, they believed they were
following the will of God and Nelson allowed Vingren to preach in his church. Even though the
doctrine of the Baptism and speaking in tongues was against Baptist doctrine, Nelson ignored it
until someone spoke in tongues during a service. While Nelson was away on a trip, Celina
Albuquerque spoke in tongues during an unsanctioned prayer meeting in May of 1911. Vingren
and 18 of his followers were subsequently excommunicated on June 13, 1911, so they left and
founded their own church, the Apostolic Faith Mission. Later, in 1918 they registered it in
Belem as “Assembleia de Deus” (AD), or Assembly of God.12 This denomination is not related
to the Assemblies of God, which entered Brazil in 1914, and is still in existence with three
million members as of 2003.13
From the beginning, this movement emphasized healing more than speaking in tongues.
Brazil had a long list of diseases that harmed people: malaria, yellow fever, cholera,
tuberculosis, meningitis and even leprosy. Many people traveled to Belem because it was
rumored that the root of the rubber tree plant that grew there had medicinal properties. When
these failed to work, they turned to the church for help. The people that Vingren ministered to
were extremely poor and marginalized and they had access to health care and the Catholic
Church ignored them.
11 Ibid,3 (fn).
12 Chesnut, Born Again, 27.
13 Robert M. Levine, The History of Brazil, (no address: PalgraveMacmillan,2003),27.

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Although Vingren performed baptisms at 11:00 at night to avoid clashes with the
Catholics, they had a many people join. The first year they had 13 baptisms and by 1914, they
did 190 in one year! By 1930, they had 1000 converts and at 50 churches around the
neighborhood of Belem.14 This alarmed the Catholic Church, and in 1939 the bishops started the
Defense of Faith department to compile demographic data on Protestant churches, mostly aimed
at Pentecostalism.15 After being the only Christian Church in Brazil for four hundred years, they
were scrambling to keep their authority and protect their flock from these new “sects.”
The second major growth in the Pentecostal movement was in the 1950s. This was a
time of modernization and urbanization in Brazil and people were moving around a great deal.
The Catholic Church was not able to travel and build large churches so when people migrated
from what was historically the Catholic northeast to the agrarian area of the Center-West Brazil,
the AD was prepared to welcome them. The church continued to grow and when Paulo
Machado became president in 1968, he started to institutionalize the church. He built the
Amazonian Seminary of the Assembly of God in Belem in 1973. He also set out to have an
organized evangelistic campaign and wanted to double the number of AD congregations because
“the followers of Satan are expanding,” referring to Umbanda spiritualists.16
While the Assembly of God in the Belem was flourishing, the advent of the National
Evangelization Crusade launched by the International Church of the Four-Square Church in
1953, brought Harold William, a Hollywood film actor, and his non-denominational crusades to
Sao Paulo. In 1955, Manoel de Mello became the first Brazilian founder of major Pentecostal
church which he named Brazil for Christ (Brasil para Christo). Their crusades were in
14 Chesnut, Born Again, 29.
15 Ibid,33.
16 Chesnut, Born Again, 44.

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auditoriums, theaters and gymnasiums and had up to 100,000 people at his meetings and he used
modern radio to broadcast his message.17
This church spawned another Brazilian church named the God is Love Pentecostal
Church (Igreja Pentecostal Deus E Amor) started by former parishioner of BPC named David
Miranda. He had such a large healing ministry that some historians call his church an “agency of
divine healing.” Like his mentor Mello, he also used radio and by the 1980s, he had a radio
show called the Voice of Liberation that was broadcast on more than 500 stations.18 Media had
been important to spread the gospel but the years from the 1980s forward, called the Postmodern
Era by some, has shown infinitesimally large growth.
The most famous church is the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD) that
was started in 1977 in San Paulo by Edir Macedo who was a former employee of the Rio de
Janeiro state lottery. He was raised in the Umbanda tradition but his deepest needs were not
being met. In his search for peace, he walked into a Pentecostal church pastored by a Canadian
when he was 18. He was eventually baptized with the Spirit and he said “the feeling is
indescribable. Peace, security, confidence, cheer…as if a light turned on inside of me,
illuminating my whole body.” He decided to quit his job at the age of thirty to go into ministry
full-time after his second daughter was born with a cleft lip.19
The Theology of IRUD has been described as having “the hegemonic beliefs and
practices of classic and modern Pentecostalism …syncretized with elements of Umbanda and
reinterpreted through the lens of television culture.”20 Although it is mostly known for its
17 Ibid,37.
18 Ibid,38.
19 Alex Cuadros,“Edir Macedo, Brazil’s BillionaireBishop,” BloomsbergBusinessweek Global Economics, April 25,
2013,3. www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-25/edir-macedo-brazils-billionaire-biship#p3
Accessed 09 December 2013.
20 Chesnut, Born Again, 45.

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“prosperity theology,” Macedo and his followers primarily regard this as a healing ministry as
shown by the bright red letters on the church walls, pamphlets and newspapers that say para de
sofrer (stop suffering).21 The idea is that if one gives the God-commanded tithe then God will
“pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need” (Mal 3:10). In one of his recent
Wednesday night services, when each parishioner placed there offering at the altar, Mercado
placed his hands on his or her head and said “I want you to be rich, just don’t let money be your
master. Let it always be your servant.”22 However, one of the more disturbing qualities of this is
that you should gain spiritual and material wealth if you follow this “program” and if you do not
it is supposedly because you do not have enough faith.23
For all of that, Mecado offers a common sense approach to living. The feeling is that
once one is empowered with the Holy Spirit there is no reason that someone cannot quit his job
to start his own business and then not be able to be oppressed by their boss. A parishioner
named Carlos did exactly that when he quit his minimum wage job and with a “brother-in-faith”
started his own business.24
That being said, as with any church with no denominational standards, this is a type of
theology that can be easily abused. While he is thoroughly postmodern in his use of media, he
has been likened to the disgraced American Televangists Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. He
has the second largest media empire in Brazil that he started when he purchased Rede Record
from Silvo Santos in 1989 for 45 million dollars. He is now worth 1.1 billion dollars and is
#1268 on Forbes Billionaire list as of March 2013.25
21 Chesnut, “Conservative Christian,” Sais,99.
22 Cuadrus,“Edir Macedo, 5.”
23 Chesnut, Born Again, 46.
24 Ibid,116.
25 Chesnut, “Conservative Christian,” SAIS,99-100 and “Forbes BillionaireList,”(Forbes.com LLC, 2013).
www.forbes.com/profile/edir-macedo/ Accessed 9 December 2013.

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Mecado has been indicted over 20 times for crimes such as charlatanism and
curandeirismo (witchcraft) but despite his legal troubles Chesnut says that this common sense
theology has enabled people to improve their lives, “there are a lot of people who feel they have
been able to turn their lives around, and they gladly donate or tithe.”26 Worshiping in a
Brazilian Pentecostal church offers much to the parishioner in that the Holy Spirit drives out evil
spirits so they are able to turn their lives around and take care of themselves and their families.
III. Catholic Charismatics in Brazil
Even though the institutional Catholic Church in Brazil has been losing members, the
Holy Spirit has not been idle. A movement started in 1967 when a group of 30 students from
Duquesne University in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania gathered together to seek Jesus’ will for their
lives. They were led by two lay faculty members that had been baptized with the Holy Spirit by
Presbyterian charismatics and received the Spirit. These professors had read The Cross and the
Switchblade by David Wilkerson and They Speak in other Tongues by John Sherrill. The first
book chronicles Wilkerson’s experience with youth in inner city New York and how the Holy
Spirit transformed their lives and Sherrill’s book describes miracles and speaking in tongues.
These teachers of Duquesne realized that this “renewed Christianity” could help combat the
world’s problems. At the retreat that they organized, many students received the Holy Spirit
baptism and then the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement (CCR) was born.27 This spiritual
movement spread quickly among the middle class students and was brought to Brazil soon after
the movement started, mainly by Dominican and Jesuit priests, including Father Edward
26 Forbes and Business Week.
27 Richard J. Bord and Joseph E. Faulkner, The Catholic Charismatics: The Anatomy of a Modern Religious
Movement (University Park,Pennsylvania: ThePennsylvania StateUniversity Press,1983),10, 11 and Chesnut,
“Brazilian Charisma”, World Christianity, 188.

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Dougherty who started Catholic (Charismatic) TV in 1983 called the Association of Lord
Jesus.28
Rome supported this lay movement. As early as 1973 at the first International Leaders’
Conference held in Grottaferrata, Rome, Italy, the then Pope Paul VI addressed the spiritual
renewal in the church with these words:
We rejoice with you,dear friends, at the renewal of the spiritual life manifested
in the Church today,in different forms and in various environments: the taste
for deep prayer, personal and in groups,a return to contemplation, an openness
to the Holy Spirit…In all this, we can recognize the mysterious and hidden
work of the Spirit, who is the soul of the Church.29
Pope John Paul II concurred at his First Audience with the Italian Renewal. He said that
“rightly, therefore, your movement pays particular attention to the action, mysterious but real,
that the third person of the Holy Trinity plays in the Christian’s life.”30 So much did he believe
in this movement that the ICCRS (International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services) was
recognized by the Holy See to represent the CCR as a legitimate body in the Church in1993.
The charismatic Catholics met in groups at one another’s homes and did not attend church so
part of the reason for this recognition was to get them back into the Sunday services and exert
ecclesiastical control over them.
In the beginning of the CCR in Brazil, Pentecostals and Catholics worshiped together.
Even though CCR members were solidly middle class, the poor Pentecostals and they were tied
together in the Spirit despite the different type of healing among the two. The Catholics
experienced spiritual and psychological help while the Pentecostals received deliverance from
28 R. Andrew Chesnut, “A Preferential Option for the Spirit: The Catholic CharismaticRenewal in Latin America’s
New Religious Economy,” Latin American Politics and Society, 45 (2003),60 and Chesnut, “Conservative Christian
Competitors,” SAIS, 101.
29 Pope Paul VI,“FirstInternational Leaders’Conference,” “Then Peter Stood Up…”: Collection of the Popes’
Addresses to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal From its Origin to the Year 2000 (Vatican City: International
Catholic CharismaticRenewal Services,2000), 15.
30 Pope Paul II,“FirstAudience of Pope John Paul II with the Italian Renewal,Rome, 23 November 1980,Peter
Stood Up, 27.

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illnesses caused from poverty and evil spirits but they still felt tied together to Jesus as their
healer during worship.31 However, Rome was not interested in ecumenism because, as Pope
John Paul II famously said in reference to Acts 20:29, the “sects,” including Pentecostal, were
“rapacious wolves” raiding the Catholic flock.32 To be clear, this was not to denigrate the Spirit
in the Pentecostal churches or its congregants but is a reflection of the fact that the Roman
Catholic Church views itself as the “One True Church” ordained by God to spread the Gospel
and protect the faithful believers. In fact, to differentiate the Catholics from Pentecostals, the
Latin American Bishops put Mary in the center of the CCR because “she is best equipped to
guide and direct the movement…And may Mary, full of grace, help us all to be truly faithful to
the Holy Spirit and to support her inspiration for a renewal of our church.”33
The most impressive, manifestation of the Spirit in the CCR in Brazil today is the
ministry of Padre Marcelo Rossi in San Paulo Brazil. He is the “wildly charismatic…former
aerobics instructor” who once celebrated Mass on a Formula One race course for around two
million people.34 He is part of the Church’s Charismatic Revolution that encourages singing,
contemporary and gospel rock style music. The liturgy is still familiar to the members but
Rossi’s sermons are punctuated with lively music. Although the main event of the service is still
the Eucharist, there are speaking in tongues and healing in Rossi’s weekly “liberation masses”
held to deliver people from demons. His services are probably as large and lively as Mecado’s
31 Chesnut, “Conservative Christian,” SAIS,98.
32 Pope John Paul II,“Fourth General Conference of Latin American Bishops in Santo Domingo, 1992”, in
“Preferential Option,” Latin American Studies, 78.
33 Ibid,76.
34 John L. Allen, Jr, “In Brazil,a Catholic Mass you’ll never forget,” National Catholic Reporter, September 11, 2009.
http://ncronline.org/news/global/brazil-catholic-mass-you’ll-never-forgetAccessed 8 October 2013.

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healing services. In fact Rossi once quipped that “it was Bishop Edir Mecado who woke us
up.”35
Like Mecado, Rossi has written two books: Kairos and Agape but unlike the IRUD
Bishop, his books are short versions of Bible stories instead of about himself. His CD, DVD and
book sales have brought in more than ten million dollars with which he used to build his new
church, the Sanctuary of the Byzantine Rosary, which seats 8,500 people. He believes that
because he is able to work so there is no collection plate passed in any of the services.36
Although progressives and conservatives alike are uncomfortable with the style of his services,
Rome and Pope Francis especially see value in them for the shrinking flock and Pope Francis
showed his support for the priest who is drawing people into his services by the power of the
Holy Spirit.
Culture in the Barrios of Belem
While the CCR’s demographics include 70% women as do Pentecostals’, the Catholic
Charismatics appeal to middle class women who attend mass regularly and other activities of the
church, such as the cursillo. This is a retreat designed to bring participates into a closer
relationship through quiet time, reflection, prayer and meditation to improve one’s spiritual
relationship with the Lord.37
In contrast, the Assembly of God Church flourishes among the most poor in the Barrios
in and around The Amazonia. As such, this denomination works within the community to help
the people survive their day to day trials and tribulations of living in extreme poverty. People in
this socio-economic stratum in Brazil have very little hope of improving their station in life
35 Chesnut, “Pentecostalized Christianity,” World Christianity, 194.
36 Mac Margolis,“Brazil’s Celebrity Priest,” Newsweek, (IBT Media, Inc.,2013).
http://mag.newsweek.com/2013/07/17/father-marcelo-rossi-brazil-s-celebrity-priest
Accessed 9 November, 2013.
37 Chesnut, “Preferential Option,” Center for Latin American Studies, 67.

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financially. However, this culture’s quality of life revolves around having good family
relationships. As such, people are more concerned with the spiritual and physical healing of the
individual along with the entire family. Consequently, the type of healing ministry that the
Pentecostal church offers must be considered in the context of families living in extreme poverty.
Men and women have two different realms that they are supposed to interact within. The
male fulfills his “manhood” out on the street and the female is responsible for things in the home.
The male machismo is considered an essential trait of men within the Brazilian society. This is
the belief that men must display physical strength and one of the rituals of this is for men to
frequent the barzinho, which is an open-air bar, and drink with their friends. They usually talk
about work, soccer and sex and, of course, exaggerate the last two topics as they play a game of
“one-upmanship” to show how manly they are.38 Because sexual conquest is part the male
prestige complex, men have many extra-marital affairs or go to prostitutes.
This causes conflicts within the family because while women are expected to fulfill their
traditional gender roles of being a homemaker and the nurturer and caregiver of the family, she is
not supposed to be her husband’s primary sexual partner according to the rules outside of the
home. Even so, the husband should still act as the head of the household and is responsible for
providing for and protecting his wife and family.39 To add to the confusion, men who are
oppressed spiritually, economically and socially feel emasculated and take this frustration home
to their families, many times resulting in domestic violence. So, the man has proven his
manhood by fighting but committed a serious moral crime because the machismo code says that
a man is never supposed to hit a woman.
38 Chesnut, Born Again, 56.
39 Ibid,60.

15. Veilleux15
In this culture there are three manifestations of illness with which women are concerned.
They are physical, alcoholism and domestic strife. When a poverty stricken person in Brazil has
physical health issues and needs to be healed, they may first try medicinal herbs, then a
municipal clinic or pharmacy if they have enough money. In the early twentieth century, there
were not many health facilities and because the Catholic Church was ignoring the poor, many
people went to the curanders of the African-Brazilian spiritualists.40 Even today that is a
common thing to do and if that doesn’t work, people turn to the Pentecostal church. The
Pentecostal evangelists do not even wait for the sick to come into church, they go to their houses
and hospital beds and pray for them. Even if the person dies “the therapeutic value of prayer,
anointment with oil, and laying on of hands proved real.”41
A second type of illness is domestic strife. The Brazilian mother is responsible for taking
care of the family and the house, but the husband is also supposed to provide for and love the
family. However, machismo is responsible for much arguing and violence in the home. For
example, some women can ignore the extra-marital affairs of the husband, but many cannot and
that leads to arguing and time away from the family for the husband. The third problem, which
is the main cause of to domestic strife, is the evil of alcoholism. Not only does drinking
sometimes lead to violence, it also takes money away from the household. So, he is unfaithful to
his wife and a bad provider for his family.42
IV. The Pentecostal Church and Healing
Women have found that they can escape this feeling of oppression in the home and be
empowered by God when they become a member of a Pentecostal church. One view of this is
40 Chesnut, “Conservative Christian Competitors”, Sais, 97.
41 Chesnut, Born Again, 28.
42 Ibid,52.

16. Veilleux16
that this is symbolic power that compensates for her lack of material things. Other evidence
suggests, however, that there are not just natural forces at work in the Pentecostal church, but
that the women feel a very real supernatural being in the Person of the Holy Spirit and are
empowered because they feel they have gained power from Him to resist the Devil and his
temptations. This empowerment allows wives to overcome unacceptable male prestige complex
that is detrimental to keeping the family intact. In fact, it defends many good male values and
brings her husband back into the fold of the family. While the church teaches wives to be
submissive to their husbands, she feels it is her duty to “domesticate” her husband and get him
off the “evil” street and into the sanctuary of the home. With the Holy Spirit working in the
women, they are able to restrict “male behavior detrimental to women, such as alcoholism or the
irresponsible fathering of children.” In other words, the Holy Spirit creates a “New Woman” and
“New Man”. 43
The “Old Woman” put her family first but now with her conversion and empowerment
from the Holy Spirit she is free to put God first. Because the Lord has even each of her hairs
numbered (Matt 10:30), she knows that God views her as an individual and she now demands
respect from others around her. She also feels culpable and empowered to work and does not
hold her husband responsible for making all the money. Even more, freedom is found because
the Spirit gives her immunity from the natural passions controlled by the Devil. In fact, she
views her husband as a victim rather than an oppressor because he is a sinner that needs to be rid
of the evil spirits in him. Her most important role as wife is no longer to raise her family but
“the dearest hope of a Pentecostal woman is to convert her husband and her entire family” so
they can enjoy the freedom that she experiences.44
43 Cleary and Stewart-Gambino, “Women”, Power, Politics, 42.
44 Ibid.,46.

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In contrast to the Marianistic Catholic tradition in which the woman’s strength is found in
suffering and enduring pain, the Pentecostal woman finds strength in toleration. For example,
one woman said “you have to have a balance. If your husband goes to a dinner at work, as a
Christian woman you also go to dinner…You don’t have drink or dance, but you go to honor
your husband.”45 So strong is the need for a conflict free household that a woman will respect
the wishes of her husband because they are taught and also empowered to accept people as they
are. As a testament to that, while 45% of the women who joined the Pentecostal church for
healing, almost 30% of them cited it was because they wanted healing from domestic strife.46
This, however, does not mean that women change their traditional roles as female
liberationist philosophy posits.47 For example, even though the women may have leadership
roles in the church, such as preaching, teaching and healing, they are not to allowed to place
more importance on these things than her family because “in order for the woman to do the work
of the Lord, she must be united with her family.”48 That is why when potential conflict arises,
she puts it in the hands of the Holy Spirit and acts as a mediator by prayer between her husband
and God because she believes these roles are divinely commanded.49 The evils of alcohol must
be purged from her husband and if she is viewed as respecting her husband and see the change in
her, he may go to church with her and have the Holy Spirit come upon him, too. If he gives up
drinking and carousing in the streets, much of the abuse stops, the children do not have an
absentee father anymore and the he no longer fathers children irresponsibly by having extra-
marital affairs.
45 Ibid.
46 Chesnut, Born Again, 59.
47 Cleary and Stewart-Gambino, Power, Politics, 51.
48 Ibid,46.
49 Ibid,44.

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In the world of machismo, however, retreating to the household and going to church
could be construed as emasculating to the men because these two areas are in the realm of
women. The wives are supposed to nurture and care for the physical and emotional needs of the
family in the home as well as church. Pentecostal churches hold to this strict dualism also
however, instead of the outside being a place where a man shows his masculinity, it is now
considered the “Devil’s playground” while the church and home are sacrosanct places.50 This
also explains why when women join the church they do not view the moral codes, such as
dressing modestly in public, as oppressive but as setting themselves apart for God. From a
purely practical perspective since poor women live in dangerous parts of Brazil, if they do not
dress provocatively, it can protect them from sexual harassment. Women from the middle class
do not have this issue to contend with so churches found in these areas are much more lax in
their dress codes.
Pentecostalism helps relieve the sting of poverty because a woman is free from the devil
and is now able to provide for her family by praying for them. She is now in control of these
conflicts because she feels that her husband is not oppressing her on purpose but because of the
evil spirit within him. Therefore, he is dependent on her to become well. This freedom is also
experienced because women are now capable of changing their lives because of their relationship
with God. Lastly, because the Holy Spirit enables them to refrain from overindulging, their
ability to cope with their lack is another sign of freedom because wanting more than you need to
survive is not the will of God, but the will of the Devil.
However, people do not automatically go to the Pentecostal church to ask for healing and
then become members. There are six steps that most people go through before they are fully
immersed in the culture of the Pentecostal church and feel empowered and free. These are 1) a
50 Chesnut, Born Again, 113.

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crisis in one’s illness, 2) contact with the church, 3) the cure, 4) seal the vow, 5) water baptism,
and 6) baptism in the Holy Spirit.51
Many people suffer from poverty and illness in Brazil but not everyone finds solace in
the Pentecostal Church. People will try home remedies and Umbanda or even a medical clinic if
it is available and then wait for the next problem to arise while they keep trying to survive.
However, some sicknesses, like alcoholism can only be cured by a miracle. For many years
Alcoholics Anonymous was the only organization equipped to deal with this disease. The
alcoholic male is very unlikely to enter a church but the battered woman might. While the
immediate danger of abuse is not taken away by praying for the woman, the inner peace she
receives is real. She doesn’t fight back anymore and she may decide to leave because she is
empowered psychologically. It is the hope of the woman that if her husband goes with her to
church, however, he may be healed.52 Most people go where they know a relative, friend or
neighbor. In fact, it is usually one of them that convinces them of their need and takes them to
the church. These proselytizers are passionate in their beliefs because they see a hopeless
situation and believe that only God and the Holy Spirit can help.
Once they are healed, they must go to the altar in the church to publicly declare their
commitment to Jesus. This leads to the next step which is water baptism. They prepare for three
to six months by prayer and study to engage in a full immersion baptism. But effective and
committed church members do not stop there. They will continue to go to church for their
“health maintenance.” This is being baptized with or in the Holy Spirit to empower one to serve
Jesus and one another.53
51 Chesnut, Born Again, 73-107.
52 Ibid,74.
53 Ibid,92.

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This is a unique experience to Pentecostals and charismatics. For the Brazilian, it can be
described as an ecstatic state like being on drugs. They also may be in a trance. For women, it
can be an extremely sexual experience because the Holy Spirit is considered a male Spirit. This
Spirit “penetrates the believer, injecting her with seminal power.” For women, Jesus is the
“consummate husband, the loyal spouse who would never abandon his wife and, despite great
hardship, always provides for the family.”54 Because of the male prestige complex, men would
never explain it as such because of its obvious homoerotic over tones.55
The Holy Spirit endows people with power and they are now free to separate themselves
from the world. If one is still not convinced or feels like they cannot leave the “sinful” outside
world, the threat of Hell is usually enough to convince the convert. As one person said, “when
this world is infernal enough, why risk eternal damnation in the next?”56
Worshiping in a Brazilian Pentecostal church offers much to the parishioner. The Holy
Spirit drives out evil spirits so they are able to turn their lives around and take care of themselves
and their families. Although they may not become middle class in the process, they may be able
to overcome strife and alcoholism in order to rise to the upper stratum of the poverty level.
Thus, God is placed in the center of their lives as the source of healing and sustenance.
VI. The future of the Pentecostalism and the CCR in Brazil
The Holy Spirit is alive and well in Brazil. From Pentecostalism’s small beginnings to an
explosive movement of the Spirit here, Brazilian people have been healed and the culture has
been shaped to bring peace to people’s homes as they continue to worship Jesus through the
Holy Spirit. In addition, this Latin American country claims 61.4% of the world’s Charismatic
54 Chestnut, Born Again, 95.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid,111.

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Catholics as well as the most Pentecostals.57 While the CCR has historically served the middle
class, Pope Francis has made it a priority to help the poor. It is the fervent hope of this author
that while the Pentecostals and Catholic Charismatics work to help the poor, differences between
their doctrines can be overcome to bring all people together to worship their Lord without
conflict. The rest of the world, and especially the United States and Europe, should take note of
this revival of Christ’s faithful because as Pope Francis said recently “A conversion of hearts is
needed which would permit everyone to recognize in each other a brother or sister.” Then
maybe we can truly have peace on earth and good will toward men.58
57 David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, “Growth of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal on the 7 Continents, AD
1970-AD 2000,” World Christian Encyclopedia, 2nd edition,2000. http://iccrs.org/en/index/php/ccr/ Accessed 9
December 2012.
58 “Pope urges social ‘fraternity’after economic crisis,”AFP on Yahoo news. http://news.yahoo.com/ Accessed on
12 December 2013.

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Appendix
Chart 1

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Chart 2
Table 1

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Table 2