PT buries project to get closer to evangelicals with recent gestures

During the 2022 elections, then-presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other prominent figures from the Workers’ Party (PT), supported by councils of left-wing intellectuals, set a goal: to get closer to the country’s growing evangelical audience. , which represents almost a third of the population, to attract voters from the right.

The recent statements about Israel practically buried that PT electoral project. The comparison made by Lula between Israel’s attacks on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Nazi Holocaust, supported by other members of the government and important PT members, is, for experts consulted by the People’s Gazettethe shovel in an attempt to court the evangelical public.

Guilherme de Carvalho, public theologian and religious scientist, highlights that the recent speeches by PT members practically definitively call into question the possibility of dialogue that was envisaged in 2022. “A new point of friction was officially opened by Lula. And the probability of evangelicals reversing from this position, in my opinion, it is close to zero, it is almost zero. Whoever thinks that, if there is good negotiation between Lula and evangelical leaders, this can soften… No, it will not happen. This position is not based on manipulation from megachurch leaders, from national leaders, that’s not it”, he observes.

The connection with the Jews, highlights Carvalho, is ingrained in the imagination of the evangelical people, and is independent of what even church leaders say. “The dream of the common believer is to go for a walk in Israel. People keep saying that the pastors are taking believers in their pockets. That’s not it. It’s a question of imagination. That’s what has to be understood. It’s not a question of political, denominational, church leadership… It’s a question of imagination”, explains the theologian.

Thiago Vieira, president of the Brazilian Institute of Law and Religion (IBDR), highlights that, for many evangelicals, “Israel plays a central role in the prophetic events of the end times.” “They see the return of the Jews to the Holy Land as a fulfillment of biblical promises and covenants and a preparation for the second coming of Christ,” he says.

Furthermore, there is a historical and cultural connection between Israel, the Jewish people and the Christian faith. “They [evangélicos] they value the preservation of the Jewish heritage and recognize Israel as the spiritual and historical home of the Jewish people”, explains Vieira. On this same point, Carvalho adds: “Jesus is a Jew, that’s it. It’s that simple.”

As for the current State of Israel, Vieira recalls that Christians in general tend to value the fact that it is the only democracy in the Middle East and the only place in the region where there is religious freedom. “There is admiration for Israel’s commitment to democratic values ​​and the protection of religious freedom, especially in contrast to many of its neighbors,” he says.

The bond between evangelicals and Israel is reinforced by a shared vision of confronting terrorism and religious intolerance in certain countries. “Many evangelicals see Israel as an ally in a shared fight against terrorism and Islamic extremism, especially experienced by Christians in the 10/40 Window,” says Vieira. (“10/40 Window” is an expression used in the context of Christian missions to describe a geographic area on the world map that extends from the 10th to the 40th degree north latitude, encompassing parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. This The region is considered strategic for Christian missions because it is home to some of the countries with the largest populations not reached by Christianity.)

Other gestures by the Lula government help to bury the relationship with evangelicals

Not only the recent declaration, but several gestures throughout the current government have made PTism scare away evangelicals who could still give it credit, starting with its position on issues such as gender ideology and abortion.

In January this year, the change in legislation on tax collection from pastors also caused controversy with evangelical groups and was yet another element of separation.

Lula’s recent decision to increase funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), even after the body was accused of collaborating with Hamas, and the promise to defend the creation of a Palestinian state at the UN, they only served to broaden the perception of antagonism towards Israel and, by extension, towards Brazilian evangelicals.

For Carvalho, the issue of Israel “is not at the same level as customs, but it comes close, because it is in the structure of the evangelical social imaginary.” “There are other issues that are not like that. For example, this issue that moves pastors about taxes and tax waivers affects large churches, but not so much with the Christian masses. Now, the issue of Israel is on another level”, he observes.

“In the typical evangelical view, even of churches that are not neo-Pentecostal and that do not adopt the syncretism of mixing things from Protestant Christianity with Judaism, the salvation of Israel still needs to happen, and Christians have to pray for the Jews; even if they do not believe in Jesus, they are still, in some ways, as Paul talks about in Romans, the people of God. It’s in the bloodstream [dos evangélicos]”, he adds.

Therefore, Carvalho believes that the project imagined by the left to create bridges with evangelicals to attract voters from the right, including calling for the public promotion of pastors with a leftist bias, can now be buried.

“This more secularized elite that is represented in the mainstream press, which I call the ‘GNT elite’, had, until the elections, the illusion of showing a left-wing pastor, a left-wing guy who said he was an evangelical pastor, because that would mess with the feelings of evangelicals. But I think that, at this point, everyone knows that this is a hoax. Those who like these evangelicals are usually people on the left, not evangelicals. They are more of a sounding board for the elite themselves. They make almost zero difference “, he comments.

As to why Lula and the PT would have decided to abandon once and for all the attempt to politically recruit evangelicals, Carvalho still does not have an answer. “I’m still trying to understand the government, but I suspect they have become discouraged with the idea of ​​building rapprochement with evangelicals, or are designing some strategy that hasn’t been revealed yet. And, on the evangelical side, I think that now believers will raise government anti-Semitism until Jesus returns. Now it’s over.”