Evangelicals ‘did to deserve’ bad reputation, says Caio Fábio – 04/15/2023 – Politics

Guided by pastors with “ayatollah vocation”, evangelicals “deserved” the bad reputation so often attributed to them by secular society.

Who says it is the Reverend Caio Fábio D’Araújo Filho. Colleagues such as a then-young Silas Malafaia considered him the number one pastor in the country in the 1980s and 1990s. With acid criticism of national evangelicalism, the manauara became persona non grata in the segment and is today a beacon among the progressive minority.

In an interview with Sheetthe member of the Presbyterian Cathedral of Rio attacks former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), a “perverse despot” who “fits like a glove” in the churches, and talks about the to-and-fro relationship with his friend Lula (PT).

Caio Fábio’s name was linked to the Cayman dossier, a tangle of fake news to try to incriminate the PSDB leadership in the 1998 campaign. He was even convicted of the fact.

Pastor and politician resumed their friendship in the 2022 election, and the idea, according to the pastor, is to talk to “dissolve this coup plotter that Bolsonaro made grow”.

Mr. he has been evangelical since the 1960s. What has changed in the segment since then? My grandmother had been a Presbyterian since the end of the 19th century. Her father’s family was Catholic. I was baptized into both faiths. I went back to the Presbyterian church when I was 19 because I had a strong experience with Jesus, it was a bomb that exploded inside me. Preached to friends and hippies in Manaus. That’s not [evangelicalismo] historic.

On the Pentecostal side, it was all very fervent and customary. Woman couldn’t cut hair, wear makeup. Men went to worship in suits. In addition to the very intense screaming. I thought it was very weird, but sincere. You knew you were dealing with honest people, who didn’t meddle in politics, minding their own business.

Do you think a not always generous perception of secular society for evangelicals is fair? Before, [pentecostais] kept to that line of discretion. In the 1980s, Pentecostals were deeply influenced by American televangelists such as Jimmy Swaggart. Women now paint themselves, cut their hair. It felt like an evolution. Malafaia, for example, was already Jimmy’s puppy.

I have to admit that society’s view of evangelicals is not overly negative. They’ve earned it over the last 40 years. They have developed sufficiently, numerically and with regard to political ambitions and their emphasis on money, that God does not hear prayers if the individual does not make financial sacrifices. There are exceptions, but they are unfortunately just that.

Have agendas like abortion and LGBTQIA+ always been a point of honor in the segment? Evangelicals were becoming more and more fanatical. Conservatism used to have to do with other things, [o pentecostal] who doesn’t smoke, doesn’t dance, doesn’t drink.

There was, already in the late 1980s, a very strong emphasis on gays. Many children of pastors began to not bear to live with secrets any longer and began to frequent gay nightclubs. Then the churches raised this issue.

When Neo-Pentecostalism was established, many people told me that they would imitate the Universal Church with less aggressiveness, so as not to scare the original believers. But it was there that the canoe capsized. A tragedy announced.

Does the left know how to dialogue with the group? In my view, no. Especially because there isn’t much to talk about if you are a lucid left-wing person, with whom you propose the opposite of that. Has Bolsonaro changed the minds of evangelicals? Of course not. Evangelicals were prepared for a person like him, they just didn’t have the courage to declare it. I remember well, when the process of political opening began, I was still a respected Christian leader throughout the country… I heard many pastors saying that they were very worried about this redemocratization thing, because everything was very good with the military.

Many leaders have a vocation for ayatollah, coronelismo, they have always been in this situation of communitarian despotism. A guy like Bolsonaro, a perverse and insane despot, fit like a glove. It doesn’t have to be logical. All it takes is for someone to arrive trembling and say “the Lord gave me an order” and everyone runs after it.

Why did evangelicals vote en masse for Bolsonaro? He promised to give all favors to the evangelical church. And he even introduced the history of weaponry. Evangelicals never emphasized this, civilians with guns said it was the Devil’s thing. I led the disarmament campaign in 1994. The most supportive audience was evangelicals.

Mr. he had a friendship with Lula for years. We met at Congress, in the early 1990s. I was organizing an event for the Associação Evangélica Brasileira. We started meeting for lunches, meetings for six, seven hours. Lula assured me, from the first moment, that he was a figure much more full of ideals than ideologies.

What was bad between us was the entry into politics. In 1998, a person came from Florida, who knew me from there and knew Lula from here. Arrived at the Hope Factory [ONG de Caio] with a history of dossiers, advantages and possibilities. He wanted to involve me anyway. Practically all the candidates came looking for me because that guy said I was the one who knew the story.

That created an imbroglio that ended up harming my relationship with Lula. But I voted for him in 2002.

Did they get weird again? I started talking publicly about him in 2007, when I felt that there were some deviations from the original purpose, that the worldwide welcome had messed with his head a little. But, in my heart, I never disliked Lula.

When Lava Jato came, I saw that it would go far, with good reasons and others not so much. I made a statement. Deltan Dallagnol [então procurador da operação] at the same time he sent WhatsApp calling me to meet Lava Jato in Curitiba. I went. I asked him if he saw Lula in conditions to be arrested. He said no, if the facts they had were just those. When I saw Moro’s judgment, I got scared. Absolute nonsense. I was losing faith.

On the day Lula was arrested, my concept grew immensely again. He didn’t run away, he went into jail and did the best he could. I wanted to visit, but I thought PT would judge it as a kind of opportunism.

They resumed relations, right? In the election, friends of democracy, knowing my friendship with Marina Silva [eleita deputada e hoje ministra]They asked me [para fazer uma ponte entre ela e Lula]. I called, and she said, “He knows how to find me, he has my number.” They met, it was really good. She thanked him and said she wanted to make a wish in return. “I would love to see you two together again.” A week later, I received a video call from Waguinho, Dani’s husband [prefeito de Belford Roxo e ministra do Turismo]. Lula was with him. We talked as if nothing had ever happened. What is forgotten is forgotten.

Mr. he said he would talk to Lula about evangelicals. We talked a few times. When he returns from China, let’s chat about what the State needs to do to dissolve this coup plotter that Bolsonaro made to grow enormously.

Lula must try to recreate links with pastors who supported him and then sided with Bolsonaro? You can create a bridge with new leaders. With the ones from the past, no, it’s people who climbed the tower and threw all the feathers in the air, you can’t add more. These are people who made their hatred of Lula very explicit. Like any organism, the evangelical church is renewing itself, and it has a lot of new, better leaders.

Mr. said after the 1/8 attacks in Brasilia: “Evangelicals are the worst threat to democracy”. Do you think that statements like this run the risk of generalizing and increasing the prejudice? It’s not by doing average that you’re going to conquer a group. Such an approach reinforces the aggressive expectation that any government has to treat evangelicals in the palm of its hand, or they could turn the future of an election. My biggest concern: there is no group in Brazil that is more organized and capillarized than the evangelicals.

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X-ray | Caio Fábio D’Araújo Filho, 68

He was a Presbyterian pastor for three decades and published more than 180 books. He started preaching on TV in 1974 and became known for social projects such as Fábrica da Esperança. He also founded the Associação Evangélica Brasileira and the Caminho da Graça and Fraternidade do Gospel Movement. Today he does not preach in a specific denomination, but retains the title of reverend.