Anti-left evangelicals hope for Jair Bolsonaro – 03/26/2023 – Politics

After a noisy participation in the electoral campaign, in which he even lied about a subpoena from the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) that never existed, Pastor André Valadão lowered his tone for a while. The enthusiasm for Jair Bolsonaro (PL) faded in his social networks.

Valadão even said he was disappointed with the ally’s lethargy after the defeat to Lula (PT), weeks before Bolsonaro’s trip to the US in the epilogue of his term, and from which he has not yet returned.

In February, a follower wanted to know on Instagram: “Would you baptize Lula?” A leader at Lagoinha Baptist Church, based in the same Florida where the former president currently resides, he answered yes. “But leave about 30 seconds there under the water to give it a strong cleaning, right?”

Ambiguous enough to mix an apology for violence and an evangelizing proposal, the reaction revived something in the bowels of Bolsonarism. To those who wondered if the Lulista triumph would mark the return of an old physiological disposition in the segment, the joke showed that this is not the case. The persistent sulking in churches with the left could signal a point of no return in that relationship.

Although there remains a certain discouragement with what is seen as Bolsonaro’s apathy in these first months out of office, the anti-PT speech still stirs up pulpits.

Silas Malafaia was one of those who went public to criticize his friend. But the hand that stones also caresses. “I’m an ally, not alienated. I don’t have Bolsonaro as an idol. I know he has flaws, that he has mistakes, but put what he did in the four years of government in the balance. He has much more credit.”

And the former representative achieved a feat, says the leader of the Assembly of God Vitória em Cristo. “It’s a rare thing: the guy is defeated and continues with an absolute majority in the segment.”

Malafaia, like Valadão, tends to take a more bellicose position than other colleagues, it’s true. As it is also a fact that some leaders tried a truce. Bishop Edir Macedo, for example, spoke shortly after the election of pardoning Lula, elected “by the will of God”. The blows that his church newspaper, Folha Universal, had been giving to the left also withered.

But “viable spaces for conciliation” are off the horizon, says sociologist Ricardo Mariano, who researches the rise of evangelicals. “The alliance with Bolsonaro strengthened the political radicalization of a large part of the leaders, and this intensified the opposition to the PT.”

For political scientist Ana Carolina Evangelista, executive director of the Institute for Religious Studies, Bolsonarist pastors may even be “more silent about supporting a former president who left the country and never came back”, but they did not silence their disapproval of Squid. “This element is new. In previous PT administrations, the voicing of these criticisms cooled down as soon as the governments were elected.”

Beating candidacies seen as progressive is nothing new. Lula himself got hit a bit in the past. Edir Macedo’s Universal compared him to the devil in 1989. In 1994, he placed him on the cover of his newspaper and captioned it: “No order and no progress”.

As soon as the PT arrived at the Planalto Palace, in 2003, several leaders suspended their belligerence and embraced the PT, courtesy that was extended to the Dilma Rousseff government. Among the factors that contributed to the erosion of this relationship were the imminence of the loss of power, as Dilma’s impeachment approached, and also the advance of the identity agenda.

It is necessary to consider that Bolsonarism fed back on this relatively new phenomenon, says Mariano.

“Moral disputes have gained prominence in the last two decades. In response to feminist and LGBTQIA+ movements, claims for gender equality and the approval, by the STF, of same-sex civil unions and abortion of anencephalic children, evangelical actors have radicalized their political activism, especially since the first Dilma government, in defense of conforming the legal system to biblical values.”

They thus made quite a contribution to the avalanche of right-wing demonstrations that would flow in the following years, according to the sociologist. Bolsonaro hitched a ride on this Zeitgeist in the making, such as by spreading the false thesis of the “gay kit”.

At first, the return of Lulism seemed to bewilder the evangelical leadership. Finding honorable ways to ally with the current ruler used to be the norm in the middle. Compasses for the battalion of small and medium-sized pastors spread across the country, leaders of national stature bet heavily on Bolsonaro’s reelection. He lost, and they found themselves in an unfamiliar position: opposition.

For Evangelista, the debate “is less about how Bolsonarism is maintained and more about how, and if anti-leftism is maintained”. Pastors, after all, guide the base, but they are also guided by it. It becomes unsustainable to persist in the discourse of fear if, at the end, the faithful are seeing real improvements in their daily lives.

“What policies of this government are also at the service of this population and concretely improve their living conditions as workers, mothers of families, young people entering universities and the job market? Regardless of whether they are evangelicals.”

We then reached an impasse. There is still no sign in sight that the PT will manage to regain the partnership with the churches. Bolsonaro is still a beacon, but his morale in the segment has dropped in the last quarter.

Casa Galileia, which monitors evangelical social networks, noticed this retraction, says its campaign advisor, anthropologist Flávio Conrado.

The encampments in front of the barracks, which finally led to the coup attacks on January 8th, drove away part of the believers.

“Some have already said ‘we lost’ and so let’s pray for Lula, put the guitar in the bag and deal with the loss. Bolsonaro’s candidacy was worked on as a fight between good and evil, and the defeat caused great frustration among the faithful .”

The departure for the US, however, left a vacuum in conservatism, says Conrado. “It seems to me that there is a rearrangement of this field, this ebb. Will he continue to be the leader of the extreme right?”

Deputy Otoni de Paula (MDB-RJ), who even posed with PT members and said that the former president’s omission in recent times “borders on cowardice”, is a good example of this pendulum between political pragmatism and ideological obstacles.

“Without a doubt”, says the member of the evangelical bench, Bolsonaro is still the big name for 2026 in temples. “He has the capacity of the Phoenix. When everyone bets it’s gone now, he manages to resurface. The criticism he suffered, and I was even part of some of them, is not a breaking factor.”

Resuming an accommodation with progressives seems unlikely, he says. “Before, you didn’t have a very good understanding between the right and the left. With the dissonant voice of Bolsonarism, it became clear what one is and what the other is. That’s why I think it’s very difficult for Lulism to be able to do it within of the church what Bolsonaro did. It was necessary for the PT to die and rise again with a new ideological guise.”

“In future elections, we will continue to be guided by the same principles that brought us here, that is, more to the right”, says Bishop Eduardo Bravo, head of Unichurjas, an arm of Universal.

That name may be Bolsonaro, but not necessarily. “For me personally, I only myth the Lord Jesus.”

Meanwhile, the rebound effect comes to a thousand. Hence the strengthening of guidelines such as the prejudice seen in deputy Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG), who wore a wig to mock trans women on Women’s Day, and in the transphobic reinforcement of the also evangelical senator Magno Malta (PL-ES). At an event with Michelle Bolsonaro, he said that men will never have a uterus, a clear attack on trans women.

Valadão, the pastor who suggested leaving Lula under the water for a while to baptize him, embarked on the same wave. He posted a montage of the “trans picanha”, which “was born hard but feels like picanha”.

“It’s like that,” he commented. The future of Bolsonarism among evangelicals is in the hands of leaders like him.