Evangelicalism & Brazil: The religious movement that spread through a national team

Marcus Alves
BBC Sport
March 21, 2022

It was derby day in Belo Horizonte, but that wouldn't change anything. Joao Leite believed he had a mission assigned to him by Jesus Christ: to spread God's word among other football players.

So that afternoon in December 1982, just like he'd done for every match for the past three years, the Atletico Mineiro goalkeeper randomly approached an opponent before the big game started.

"Jesus loves you and I have a gift for you," he told Cruzeiro keeper Carlos Gomes as he presented him with a copy of the Bible.

At the time, Gomes found it all a little strange given the circumstances. He even admitted to feeling in some way angry as he was handed the book.

But that initial feeling later changed and he did actually join Leite's religious movement - Athletes of Christ. He was far from the only convert.

An association of evangelical Christian sportspeople, Athletes of Christ counted some of the most influential people in Brazilian football among its membership.

At their first meeting they were four in number. That would grow to about 7,000 across 60 countries, including high-profile footballers such as 2007 Ballon d'Or winner Kaka and ex-Bayern Munich centre-back Lucio.

"It all began with Alex Dias Ribeiro, a Formula 1 driver who competed with 'Jesus Saves' slogans on his cars," Leite, who played five times for Brazil, tells BBC Sport.

"I decided to do the same and played with 'Christ Saves' on my shirt, but then the Brazilian Football Association banned it and threatened my team Atletico with a points deduction.

"It was then that I started to give Bibles to other players. But they were difficult times - there was so much prejudice against evangelical players. Not even the national team felt like a comfortable environment. It was not easy for me."

In 1980, around when Leite set out on his "mission", 88.9% of Brazil's population identified as Catholics. Evangelicalism - a movement within Protestant Christianity - accounted for 6.6%.

The balance has since changed considerably. Research from Datafolha, a polling institute, put those respective figures at 50% and 31% in 2021.

Brazil remains the world's largest Catholic nation, but by 2032 it's predicted evangelical churches will be drawing more worshipers in the country.

From 2018: Evangelical Brazilians to make or break presidential election

When Leite retired from football in 1992, the Athletes of Christ movement was going from strength to strength.

The association had its own TV show in Argentina, presented by ex-Brazil midfielder Paulo Silas and aired three times a week. They even tried, in vain, to convert Diego Maradona.

One of their most prominent figures, Brazil right-back Jorginho, also handed out Bibles to opponents when captaining his club side Bayer Leverkusen, whom he left for Bayern Munich in 1992.

Two years later during the 1994 World Cup, he was one of six evangelical footballers in the Brazil team that beat Italy in a shoot-out to win the final. Five of them formed a circle in the centre of the pitch and thanked God after Roberto Baggio's penalty flew over the bar. The sixth member was celebrating in his six-yard box.

"When Baggio picked up the ball I had no doubt we would win," goalkeeper Taffarel said afterwards. "Anyone who believes in God will never lose to someone who believes in Buddha."

The image of Taffarel, now a Liverpool goalkeeping coach, celebrating with his arms raised to the heavens in front of a dejected Baggio, a practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism, served as the cover of the book 'Quem Venceu o Tetra?' (Who won the fourth title?).

It included testimony from the players giving credit to God for the victory, which was criticised by legendary coach Mario Zagallo. It marked a turning point.

The Athletes of Christ movement no longer enjoys the popularity it once had. But evangelicalism continues to spread rapidly within Brazil and its influence within the national team has only increased since 1994.

Whereas Leite encountered some hostility towards his faith within the national set-up in the 1980s, nowadays evangelical pastors are granted special access to team camps. They rely on donations from players to travel and hold services in separate rooms designated by the Brazilian FA. In some cases, pastors have even become part of players' entourages.

During the 2002 World Cup - which Brazil also won - defender Lucio, Kaka and ex-Barcelona defender Edmilson would join in prayer.

"You could do whatever you wanted on your days off," Lucio told the magazine Revista Trip in 2010. "For me, those were moments of faith.

"We tried to discuss positive ideas on how to handle the enormous pressure we had to face in those games."

After winning the 2009 Confederations Cup in South Africa, Lucio and other players wore white shirts with devout slogans such as 'I love God' and 'I belong to Jesus'.

Officials told them to remove them, but Lucio resisted and draped his around his shorts as he raised the trophy. The Danish FA publicly complained about the image and a warning letter was sent to Brazil by Fifa, whose rules ban "political, religious or personal statements".

The following year, voices from within Brazil started to question whether evangelicalism had too much influence on the national set-up.

Amid growing pressure for Ronaldinho, then playing for AC Milan, to be called up for the 2010 World Cup, ESPN magazine wrote on its cover page that he wouldn't go because "to play for the Selecao, football is not enough. You have to be a member of the 'igrejinha' (literally 'little church', also meaning 'clique' or 'closed shop')".

Ultimately, Ronaldinho wasn't included in the squad and after Brazil were knocked out by the Netherlands in the quarter-finals there were claims that a long-serving performance analyst had been replaced with somebody who had "more evangelical experience".

A few years later in 2015, the chief of security was fired by the Brazilian FA for allowing an evangelical service to take place inside the team's hotel without coach Dunga's knowledge.

"Today heaven was celebrating during our meeting because three lives accepted Jesus Christ and made the right decision," the pastor posted on social media. Liverpool duo Alisson Becker and Fabinho, former Chelsea and Arsenal defender David Luiz and Tottenham's Lucas Moura were among those present.

It's not only in football that evangelicals have grown in number and power in Brazil. It's also in politics.

Far-right president Jair Bolsonaro won the 2018 elections with the support of almost 70% of the evangelical community, including football stars like Neymar and Rivaldo.

Bolsonaro, who was born into a Catholic family and later re-baptised in the Jordan river by an evangelical pastor, promised to appoint a Supreme Court judge who was "terribly evangelical". And he has delivered.

When in December 2021 Andre Mendonca, an attorney and evangelical pastor, was confirmed for the role, a video of first lady Michele Bolsonaro shouting 'Glory to God' and speaking in tongues went viral.

While acting as attorney general, Mendonca had used verses from the Bible to defend the reopening of churches during the Covid-19 pandemic. He said his appointment was, "one small step for man, one giant step for evangelicals".

The evangelical expansion in politics can be traced back to 1986, when a rumour that Brazil was considering making Catholicism its only official religion started to spread. That year, 32 evangelical federal deputies were elected. Now there are 105 such deputies, as well as 15 senators.

It's not unusual to find some of them holding services at the Chamber of Deputies. When former leader Dilma Rousseff was impeached in 2016, 58 legislators dedicated their vote to God.

Critics link evangelicalism in politics with a strengthening of the conservative agenda and a rise in intolerance that does not leave room for those of other religious beliefs, especially those of African origin, to express themselves.

While Bolsonaro's national approval rating recently dropped to 22%, with the next presidential elections set for 2 October, many evangelical footballers like Neymar remain loyal and are seen as playing a key role in boosting his appeal.

Former Brazil international Walter Casagrande, now a pundit, has criticised the Paris St-Germain forward, claiming he's become Bolsonaro's "vassal".

So when Bayer Leverkusen striker Paulinho scored for Brazil in a 4-2 win over Germany at last year's Olympic Games, it was interesting to note his celebration.

Taking a stand against religious persecution, the 21-year-old made the gesture of an archer in homage to Oxossi, his orixa (a spirit deity) in the Candomble religion.

A mixture of traditional Yoruba, Fon and Bantu beliefs originating from different regions in Africa, Candomble has long been practised in Brazil, in the past often in secret. Even now it still comes under occasional attack from radical evangelicals, who regard the religion to be satanic.

But Paulinho seemed determined to remind others back home that there is still room for all religions in Brazil - and in the national team.



https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/60483820

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/14/2021 (Flat Earth, Video, Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa, India, Legal, Spain, Evangelicals)

Flat Earth, Video, Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa, India, Legal, Spain,  Evangelicals

Talk Beliefs: Flat-Smacked - Inside the Mind of a Flat-Earther ~ with ALEX OLSHANSKY

"What would make anyone think the earth is flat? What is at the core of the conspiracy mindset? ALEX OLSHANSKY, M.A., is a Doctoral Candidate in the College of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University. Alex examines how people cognitively process science misinformation and conspiracy theories, with a special interest in Flat Earth conspiracies.

MARK from Talk Belief delves into Alex's amazing research, research which took him and his colleagues to Flat Earth conferences and to dedicated Flat Earthers themselves. But what is the psychology behind it all? What makes a Flat Earther tick?"

Indian Express: Weeks before govt's FCRA move, Missionaries of Charity nuns booked for 'forcible conversion'

"Almost two weeks before the Union Ministry of Home Affairs refused to renew the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) status of the Kolkata-based Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa, the Vadodara city police had booked a case against the NGO under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act for allegedly "hurting Hindu religious sentiments" and "luring towards Christianity young girls" in the shelter home run by the organization.

On Friday, a Vadodara court adjourned for the third time the anticipatory bail plea filed by two nuns of the Home for Girls, with the court directing the city police to 'clarify' the use of Sections 3 and 4 of the Act, whose application had been stayed by the Gujarat High Court in August.

Section 3 of the Act prohibits conversion "by use of force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage or by getting a person married or by aiding a person to get married" while Section 4 prescribes the penal provisions.

District Government Pleader (DGP) Anil Desai, who appeared for the Vadodara city police in the case, informed Additional Sessions Judge R T Panchal that an intimation from the office of the government pleader in the High Court was awaited.

Police has resisted the anticipatory bail plea by the nuns while alleging that a woman was "forcefully converted" in the institution, that the girls in the shelter were being served "non-vegetarian food" and were being to read books on Christianity, according to Desai.

The Vadodara police FIR, lodged on December 12, is based on a complaint by District Social Defense Officer Mayank Trivedi, who had visited the Home for Girls run by the Missionaries of Charity in Makarpura area of the city along with the Chairman of the district Child Welfare Committee on December 9.

According to the complaint, Trivedi found that the girls inside the Home were being allegedly 'forced' to read Christian religious texts and participate in prayers of Christian faith, with the intention of "steering them into Christianity".

A release from the Vadodara city police on December 13 said, "Between February 10, 2021, and December 9, 2021, the institution has been involved in activities to hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus intentionally and with bitterness (towards Hindu religion). The girls inside the Home for Girls are being lured to adopt Christianity by making them wear the cross around their neck and also placing the Bible on the table of the storeroom used by the girls, in order to compel them to read the Bible… It is an attempted crime to force religious conversion upon the girls."

The Vadodara Police are also investigating a specific case of a Hindu woman from Punjab, who was allegedly married into a Christian family by the organization after being allegedly forced to convert to Christianity."

Religion News Service: A surge of evangelicals in Spain, fueled by Latin Americans

"When Kent Albright, a Baptist pastor from the United States, arrived as a missionary to Spain in 1996, he was unprepared for the insults and threats, or the fines from the police for handing out Protestant leaflets on the streets of Salamanca.

"Social animosity was big — they had never seen a Protestant in their life," said Albright, recalling one woman who whispered, "Be thankful we don't throw stones at you."

He couldn't have imagined that 25 years later, he would be pastoring an evangelical congregation of 120 and count about two dozen other thriving Protestant churches in the northwestern city. And there's a distinctive feature to the worshippers: Most of them are not Spanish-born — they're immigrants from Latin America, including about 80% of Albright's congregation.

The numbers reflect huge surges in Spain's migrant population and evangelical population in recent decades, producing profound changes in how faith is practiced in a country long dominated by the Catholic church."

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A surge of evangelicals in Spain, fueled by Latin Americans

The numbers reflect huge surges in Spain's migrant population and are producing profound changes in in a country long dominated by the Catholic church.

Alberto Arce
Religion News Service
January 4, 2022

SALAMANCA, Spain (AP) — When Kent Albright, a Baptist pastor from the United States, arrived as a missionary to Spain in 1996, he was unprepared for the insults and threats, or the fines from the police for handing out Protestant leaflets on the streets of Salamanca.

“Social animosity was big — they had never seen a Protestant in their life,” said Albright, recalling one woman who whispered, “Be thankful we don’t throw stones at you.”

He couldn’t have imagined that 25 years later, he would be pastoring an evangelical congregation of 120 and count about two dozen other thriving Protestant churches in the northwestern city. And there’s a distinctive feature to the worshippers: Most of them are not Spanish-born — they’re immigrants from Latin America, including about 80% of Albright’s congregation.

The numbers reflect huge surges in Spain’s migrant population and evangelical population in recent decades, producing profound changes in how faith is practiced in a country long dominated by the Catholic church.

“The Bible says there are no ethnicities, there are no races. I don’t go down the street asking, nor do I ask for passports at the church door.” Albright said. He marvels that in a course he teaches for deacons, his six students include one each from Peru, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.

One of the newest members of his congregation is Luis Perozo, 31, a former police officer from Maracaibo, Venezuela who arrived in Spain in February 2020 and applied for asylum with his wife, Narbic Escalante, 35.

While the couple wait for their status to be resolved, Perozo works in the laundry of a hotel. His wife does nursing in a retirement home.

“I was a lifelong Catholic,” says Escalante. “When I arrived in Salamanca, I entered the church, looked everywhere, said hello, and they ignored me. I went to several churches — I felt absolutely nothing.”

Perozo and Escalante soon visited Albright´s church — one of Perozo´s uncles had emigrated earlier and was already a member.

“The next day, Pastor Albright was helping us find a house, appliances and kitchenware. He moved us with his van,” Escalante said.

She commended Albright’s approach to pastoring, including services with lively music and less emphasis on repetitive prayer.

“I definitely feel better here than in the Catholic Church,” she says. “It allows me to live more freely, with less inhibitions.”

Before she and her husband were baptized at Albright’s church, she visited a Catholic priest. She recalls him responding, “If it makes you feel at peace with yourself, go. You’re not committing any sin.”

Albright sees similar reactions among other Latin American immigrants.

When they go to a Catholic church, he says, “they don’t feel that their problems are understood.”

“Latinos generally have a desire to participate in worship,” he added. “They need to have an active part in the celebration. The Catholic church feels static to them.”

___

With the arrival of the euro currency two decades ago, Spain experienced an economic boom that fueled migration. In 2000, there were 471,465 legally registered migrants in Spain; there are now about 7.2 million.

Albright was so intrigued by this phenomenon that he wrote a Ph.D. thesis about it at the University of Salamanca. He estimated that 20% of the migrants are evangelicals.

The last official census conducted by the Justice Ministry’s Observatory of Religious Pluralism found 1.96% of Spain’s population was Protestant in 2018 — more than 900,000 people. That’s up from 96,000 tallied in 1998.

The steady growth of the Protestant population coincides with a steady drop in the number of churchgoing Catholics. According to the Sociological Research Center, a public institute, 62% of Spaniards define themselves as Catholics, down from 85% in 2000 and 98% in 1975. Only about a third of those Catholics say they’re actively practicing the faith.

It’s a striking development in a country where Catholicism, for centuries, was identified with near-absolute power — from the long, often brutal era of the Spanish Inquisition to the 36-year dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, who called his regime National-Catholic, in the 20th century.

Of the 23,000 Catholic parishes in Spain at present, more than 6,000 have no full-time priest. Some churches had to close when a priest died or retired, or be grouped together with other churches served by traveling priests who minister to multiple parishes.

The church’s challenges are evident in the province of Zamora, just north of Salamanca, which has lost 16% of its population since 2000. There are 304 parishes and only about 130 priests serving them.

One of the traveling priests, the Rev. Francisco Ortega, manages six parishes — trying to adapt as the number of churchgoers steadily declines. At age 40, he has been active on YouTube since the pandemic began, and is now back on the streets trying to stay up to date with his parishioners.

It’s a hectic agenda, but Ortega recently received some help — Rev. Edgardo Rivera, a 42-year-old missionary from El Salvador, joined him in November. It’s a reversal of the pattern several centuries ago, when hundreds of Catholic missionaries embarked for Latin America from Spain.

“Now it is the other way around,” Rivera said. “I saw the need for priests in Spain and I thought of offering myself. I never liked easy things.”

Overall, about 10% of the Catholic priests now serving in Spain were born elsewhere. The influx is welcome, given that the average age for a priest in Spain today is about 65.

How is it difficult for Rivera? “I am a missionary priest announcing the Gospel in a place that is not my culture,” he said. “I have to learn.”

He and Ortega strive to be good teammates. While Ortega blessed parishioners during one recent celebration, Rivera managed the church’s sound system via Bluetooth and changed the music tracks and volume from his phone.

They’ve both gone dancing with some residents of Morales del Vino, a small town where Ortega is the parish priest, winning praise from one of the revelers, 23-year-old lawyer Juan Manuel Pedrón.

“If the church wants to support us it has to be normal, it has to be with us, with the young people and do what we do,” Pedrón says.

His girlfriend, Tania Rey, 27, was on her first visit to Morales del Vino.

“In my town, the priest circulates with old ladies,” she said. “I am very shocked to see these two priests like this.”

She and Pedrón teased Rivera, saying he dances better than they do.

The next day, after Sunday Mass, Rivera organized a gathering at the community center where he officiated. The official church building, 300 years old, is falling down.

“The walls of the church are giving way inward, the roof is in danger. We need to see what the strategy is for repair,” he says, explaining that gifts from parishioners will be needed to supplement the diocese’s repair budget.

The group then heads to the village bar; Rivera orders a glass of chilled white wine and sits with some of the parishioners.

His challenges are varied, he says. “I have to see how to ask for help to repair the church … and get used to coming to the bar.”

He couldn’t imagine drinking a beer at a bar in his Salvadoran hometown after Mass. “But if this is where people gather and how people socialize here, this is where I have to be too.”

___

But the momentum — in terms of church attendance and energy — is going in the other direction, toward the burgeoning ranks of Pentecostal and other evangelical congregations.

Many of those congregations rent space in industrial buildings on the outskirts of cities and towns — often filling them with zealous worshippers even as many large, centuries-old Catholic churches empty out.

One such Pentecostal venue in Salamanca has as neighbors a large carpentry shop and another evangelical church. On a recent Friday night, it hosted a rite of passage for Melanie Villalobos to celebrate her turning 13.

Two of her friends escorted her in a slow dance to a wall where a video was projected. There, her father appeared from Venezuela, wishing her a happy transition into adolescence. Onlookers from Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Brazil, seated at tables, were moved to tears.

Pastor Nedyt Lescano, 62, who came from Argentina in 2000, was mostly silent during the ceremony, but invited everyone to meet again Sunday morning.

Among those greeting the faithful was Roberto Siqueira, 32, a Brazilian who works in a cheese factory on the outskirts of Salamanca. On Sundays, he plays guitar and sings in a Christian rock band that performs dance-inducing songs in the Pentecostal church.

“This life is worth very little and the relationship with God is worth everything,” goes one of the lyrics.

It’s a bit like karaoke. The lyrics are projected on the wall, people sing along, gesturing and gyrating to the rhythm. Some seem in a trance, others cry out with emotion.

About 50 people are on hand, trying to comply with coronavirus social-distancing restrictions.

Lescano doesn’t say much during the ceremony, letting the worshippers testify about challenges they faced and prayers that were answered.

In Lescano’s services, there’s a moving moment when she asks for help in paying the rent for the premises, along with other expenses, and the faithful, one by one, put an envelope in a cloth bag.

“Unlike the Catholic church, we don’t receive any subsidies. We do it all by our own efforts here,” Lescano says.

Indeed, Spain’s Catholic church — though no longer recognized as the official national faith — received 301 million euros (about $340 million) in 2020 under an agreement with the government. Spain’s evangelicals — though now accounting for more than 4,500 registered places of worship — received a symbolic 462,000 euros (about $523,000).

Lescano often feels like a psychologist, as well as a pastor, for those flocking to the makeshift church.

“Immigrants feel lonely and isolated, in a strange country, and here they receive love and hugs,” she said. “Here they come and share, take pounds of weight and anxiety off their bodies and minds.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.





https://religionnews.com/2022/01/04/a-surge-of-evangelicals-in-spain-fueled-by-latin-americans/

Former evangelicals find trauma and media spotlight

Religion Watch
Volume 36 No. 5


Ex-evangelicals are becoming a recognizable and influential social movement with its own political and psychological critique of evangelicalism. “After Trump was elected, many young evangelicals began to leave their churches altogether,” writes Stephanie Russell-Kraft in The New Republic (March 23). “The same year Trump won, former conservative evangelical Blake Chastain created the #exvangelical Twitter hashtag, which went viral and became a loose social movement of former evangelicals speaking publicly about leaving their faith communities.” One narrative that unites these ex-evangelicals is that they have experienced some sort of trauma. The trauma often referred to is similar to “brainwashing,” as Laura Anderson, an ex-evangelical leader and licensed therapist put it, pointing to “doctrines taught over and over and over with consequences that are eternal and terrifying.” In 2019, she and fellow therapist Brian Peck started the Religious Trauma Institute, which seeks to develop resources for mental health professionals to recognize and work with survivors of such trauma. Peck said he and Anderson want religious trauma to be considered a type of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, “because that allows us to be taken seriously.”

The self-help therapeutic nature of the current ex-evangelical movement has its roots back in the 1980s with the formation of Fundamentalists Anonymous. Kraft notes that in 1993 psychologist Marlene Winell published Leaving the Fold, a self-help book for former Christian fundamentalists deciding to forsake their religion. Winell coined the term “religious trauma syndrome,” defining it as “the condition experienced by people who are struggling with leaving an authoritarian, dogmatic religion and coping with the damage of indoctrination.” Like Fundamentalists Anonymous, which emerged during the rise of the Moral Majority in the 1980s, the current movement of ex-evangelicals is shaped by and engaged in politics in the Trump and post-Trump era. Kraft cites political scientist Paul A. Djupe, who estimates that just over 20 percent of American evangelicals, or eight million people, left their churches between 2016 and 2020. “It’s a pretty sizable number, and of course they’re really loud on Twitter,” Djupe said

Anderson and Peck stressed that the Religious Trauma Institute is not anti-theist, and Peck is concerned that religious trauma syndrome has been co-opted by the atheist movement seeking to discredit religion. Yet ex-evangelicals are often called on by the media, especially such outlets as Religion News Service, and secular critics to critique evangelicalism and its political implications. This was clearly seen in the coverage of the recent Atlanta shootings, where ex-evangelical critics were widely quoted about the role of evangelical “purity culture” in the. suspect’s desire to rid himself of temptation and his “sex addiction” by killing the women at the massage parlors. The ex-evangelical movement also dovetails with evangelical “deconstructionists,” mainly academics (often based in evangelical colleges) who seek to critique. the conservative gender norms and alleged racist complicity of evangelicalism past and present. The trend is led by such books as Jemar Tisby’s history of white Christian racism, Color of Compromise, and Kristin Du Mez’s book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, and has led to the formation of book clubs by liberal evangelicals and ex-evangelicals to discuss these issues, reports the Denver Register (March 30).

(New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/161772/can-religion-give-ptsd)

http://www.religionwatch.com/former-evangelicals-find-trauma-and-media-spotlight/

Disinformation Fuels A White Evangelical Movement. It Led 1 Virginia Pastor To Quit

DALIA MORTADA

Rachel Martin.

RACHEL MARTIN

NPR

February 21, 2021

Jared Stacy is still processing his decision to leave Spotswood Baptist Church in Fredericksburg, Va., last year. Until November, he was ministering to young parishioners in their 20s and 30s.

But in the four years since he had joined the church as a pastor, Stacy had found himself increasingly up against an invisible, powerful force taking hold of members of his congregation: conspiracy theories, disinformation and lies.

Stacy has seen the real consequences of these lies build up over the years; he says it has tainted the name of his faith.

"If Christians in America are serious about helping people see Jesus and what he's about and what he claims, then the label 'evangelical' is a distraction because it bears, unfortunately, the weight of a violence," he told NPR. "I would not use that term because of its association with Jan. 6."

That's the day the U.S. Capitol was attacked and invaded by a violent mob driven by what's commonly known as "the big lie": that President Biden wasn't legitimately elected. The rioters moved toward the Capitol following a rally held by then-President Donald Trump, during which he repeated that big lie. Rioters say they were compelled to stop Congress' certification of Biden's election, which was happening at that time at the Capitol.

The lie is so powerful that a recent survey by the conservative American Enterprise Institute shows that 3 in 5 white evangelicals say Biden was not legitimately elected.

Among them is Pastor Ken Peters, who founded the Patriot Church in Knoxville, Tenn., last year.

"I believe that right now we have an illegitimate president in the White House and he was not elected by the people," Peters told NPR. "I believe the truly 'We the People'-elected, should-be president is residing in Florida right now."

On its website, the Patriot Church is described as a movement: "a church interceding on behalf of her nation." That movement has a name: Christian nationalism. Some conservative evangelical circles have incubated and spread these kinds of conspiracy theories — some of which have led to violence – for years.

Andrew Whitehead, who has spent several years researching Christian nationalism at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, defines it as the belief that America is a Christian nation, one that should privilege white, native-born politically conservative Christians.

"We do find evidence that Americans who embrace Christian nationalism are much more likely to embrace conspiratorial thinking," Whitehead told NPR. "The leaders of those movements have continually cast doubt on who you can really trust or even the federal government."

Trump seized on the opportunity to exploit their distrust for his own political survival. He made himself a champion for evangelical social issues — abortion being at the top of the list. He won their confidence — and their blind loyalty.

For Stacy, the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 is not something he fathomed when he decided to step away from his mainstream church in November.

Rather, it was a slow burn of other conspiracy theories that had been churning at his church and others for years.

The danger of ambivalence

During the protests last summer after George Floyd's killing, Stacy noticed his congregation making a turn toward a conspiracy theory about child sex trafficking.

"I began to see on social media people ignoring or pushing away Black Lives Matter by saying, you know, oh, well, no one's over here talking about trafficking," Stacy told NPR. He said the concern about child trafficking started out as legitimate — it is an awful truth that exists. But he quickly noticed that his parishioners started using it as shorthand for a lie: that Democrats with prominent roles in business, media and government are running child trafficking rings.

It was that conspiracy theory that compelled a man named Edgar Maddison Welch to fire inside a family pizzeria in Washington, D.C., in December 2016.

That false notion became prevalent again nearly a year later at the center of QAnon, an umbrella of conspiracy theories that has amplified false ideas about an evil liberal agenda and that casts Trump as a savior. QAnon has coalesced since then, perpetrating the lie that President Biden's election was illegitimate.

Stacy was afraid of what he saw taking root in his church. "This is about a wholesale view of reality — what is real, what is true," he said.

He saw some people in his own congregation — mostly the parents or elders of the young adults he worked with — elevating the idea of sex trafficking of kids and what he called "Democrat pedophilia."

"It was people who I respected, and that's even more complicated because they were [my] elders," Stacy said.

"The crack, the split was kitchen tables, where you have two completely different information streams, one that the parents use and one that their kids use," he said. Those two streams of information divided families: Older members of the church were entertaining conspiracies, and younger members were pushing back.

Stacy tried to have conversations with the members who believed these falsehoods. He saw it as his duty, even though the church he worked for avoided these discussions.

"As a church we're not in that discussion," a member of Spotswood Baptist Church leadership told NPR. "We have no interest being involved in that. It's not something that's been in any way discussed or on our agenda."

But Stacy couldn't separate his role as pastor from the conspiracy theories that were putting a strain on the younger parishioners he worked with. "The danger was of them being given a co-opted Jesus, a Jesus who believed in Q, a Jesus who believed in deep state, a Jesus who automatically voted Republican."

He said he could see several outcomes, none of which was any good: Either the younger members would leave the church altogether, or they'd buy into the conspiracy theories or they'd just learn to tolerate them.

That tolerance — and ambivalence — could be what do the most damage. They're how conspiracy theories spread.

A threat to democracy

When asked about the QAnon conspiracy theory that political leaders run a sex trafficking ring, Peters of the Patriot Church in Knoxville, Tenn., wouldn't disavow it.

"I don't know if they're right or wrong — I have no evidence personally to go one way or the other," Peters said. "Let's investigate that instead of investigating preachers who were at the [Jan. 6] rally as if we started some sort of insurrection." Peters was among those who participated in the Jan. 6 rally with Trump.

What can come off as a benign plea of ignorance and a feigned desire to learn the truth is enough to keep the theory going — and have it gain steam. According to a recent study by Lifeway Research, 49% of Protestant pastors say they frequently hear members of their congregations repeating baseless conspiracy theories.

The recent study by the American Enterprise Institute showed that 27% of white evangelicals — the most of any religious group — believe that the widely debunked QAnon conspiracy theory about political leaders running a child sex trafficking ring is "completely" or "mostly accurate," and that 46% say they're "not sure."

'How Did We Get Here?' A Call ignorance about that conspiracy theory, he fully embraces the big lie that led to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. In a video of a sermon on Jan. 24, he shouts from the pulpit, "Biden was illegally put in as president, [the] fake president of the United States."

Mixing God and country in this way is a danger to the American way of life as we know it, researcher Whitehead explained.

"Christian nationalism is a threat to a pluralistic, democratic society because it sees particular ends, like keeping a certain person in the presidency, as that is what God has desired and that God wants. It's really difficult to ever come to the conclusion of 'We should share power or compromise or even abide by the democratic process' because if God does desire to, who are we to stand in the way of that?"

Taking distance to gain clarity

Stacy needed distance to figure out what was happening in his church. He's living in Scotland with his wife and kids and earning a Ph.D. in theology at the University of Aberdeen.

He eventually wants to come back to the U.S. and pastor a church again.

He reflected back on the conversations he had with his older parishioners: "It's almost like putting a pebble in someone's shoe, and eventually you just got to stop walking and you've got to sit down. You have to take your shoe off and you have to figure out what in the world is it that is making me limp forward here?"

"That is what those conversations were designed to do."

But he's going to have to figure out if planting pebbles of truth is enough to dismantle a mountain of lies.

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/21/969539514/disinformation-fuels-a-white-evangelical-movement-it-led-1-virginia-pastor-to-qu

How right-wing extremists, libertarians and evangelicals built Quebec's movement against COVID-19 restrictions

They may appear to make strange bedfellows, but experts say they share some fundamental values

Jonathan Montpetit

CBC News
September 25, 2020

The main event at a demonstration protesting COVID-19 restrictions last weekend north of Montreal was a speech by Steeve L'Artiss Charland, one-time leader of a far-right group that has since faded from view.

In a parking lot in Mont-Tremblant, Que., Charland told a crowd of around 75 about his miraculous recovery from a childhood illness that had stumped doctors. He then told them they were part of a cosmic struggle of good against evil.

"It's us against them," Charland said to applause. "We're in a spiritual war. We're in a war of darkness against light."

The opposition to public health measures in Quebec has given many figures in the province's foundering far-right movement a chance to re-invent themselves, and to find new audiences.

Charland had been one of the leaders of the Islamophobic group La Meute before leaving last year amid an internal power struggle.

The infighting, according to researchers who monitor the group, contributed to La Meute's decline in popularity.

Charland, meanwhile, has become an active spokesperson for the movement against COVID-19 restrictions. He's been criss-crossing the province to take part in demonstrations.

Several other prominent organizers in what's colloquially known as the anti-mask movement also have close ties to Quebec's far right.

The group behind a large demonstration in Montreal earlier this month, for instance, is headed by Stéphane Blais, a fringe politician who has courted far-right supporters for years.

The march began outside Quebec Premier François Legault’s office near the McGill University campus, and wound through the streets. 1:00

His political party, Citoyens au Pouvoir, received less than one per cent of the vote in the last provincial election.

But the non-profit organization he founded in the spring to challenge public health rules claims to have raised $400,000. In Montreal, he spoke to a crowd of several thousand people.

"The far-right movement had kind of died down last year before some of them recycled the anti-mask issue," said Roxane Martel-Perron, a specialist in right-wing extremist groups at the Center for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence in Montreal.

The movement in Quebec has drawn a wide range of other figures into its orbit as well, including evangelical pastors, libertarian radio hosts and conspiracy theorists.

Their interests sometimes intersect only tangentially, but for the moment these unusual alliances have managed to organize recurring demonstrations across the province, with more slated this weekend. Together, they are seeking to undermine the government's efforts to fight the spread of COVID-19.
Blurred lines

Along with members of the far right, the organizational core of the movement in Quebec is composed of conspiracy theorists, though the distinction between the two is not always clear.

The career arc of Quebec's best-known conspiracy theorist, Alexis Cossette-Trudel, illustrates the fuzziness.

Before starting his own YouTube channel, Radio-Québec, Cossette-Trudel was a frequent contributor to several far-right media outlets in the province.

With Radio-Québec, he was among the first to translate into French material from QAnon, a conspiracy movement that began in the U.S. and believes the world is run by a cabal of satanic pedophiles. QAnon theories are often overtly racist or anti-Semitic.

Since the pandemic began, Cossette-Trudel has focused almost exclusively on criticizing the public health rules put in place by Quebec and Ottawa. Subscriptions to his YouTube channel have increased nearly fourfold.

His criticisms are often variations of QAnon theories, such as his recent baseless claim that Premier François Legault is exaggerating the threat of COVID-19 as part of an international plot to prevent U.S. President Donald Trump from being re-elected.

Cossette-Trudel uses his social media reach — his personal Facebook page has 36,000 followers — to promote demonstrations where people rally against COVID-19 restrictions. His speeches at these events are often shared widely by participants.

Last week, Cossette-Trudel was a guest on the top-rated lunch-hour radio show in the Quebec City area.

The radio station, CHOI 98.1 FM (Radio X), is known for airing populist conservative opinions, often with a libertarian bent.

Its hosts and on-air personalities have repeatedly criticized Quebec's public health restrictions, saying they are not justified by current infection rates (experts say the province is already being hit by a second wave).

One Radio X columnist, Éric Duhaime, even organized his own demonstration in August. It attracted more than 1,000 people in Quebec City.

"To force me to wear a mask, to threaten me with $600 tickets — I'm sorry, we're not in communist China here. We live in a democracy," he said in a video ahead of his rally.

Though these on-air figures try to distance themselves from conspiracy theorists, the distinction, again, is not always clear.

When Cossette-Trudel appeared on the lunch-hour radio show, host Jeff Fillion said he was interviewing a "star" whose work was "very detailed and well researched."
Evangelicals step into the public

Next month, Cossette-Trudel and Charland are scheduled to speak at a protest in Montreal that is billed as a "demonstration-gospel concert."

A poster for the event features the names of several evangelical preachers who have become active supporters of the movement.

An evangelical media outlet, ThéoVox, has even taken to broadcasting live from some demonstrations, and produces polished video interviews with organizers and prominent speakers.

André Gagné, a Concordia University professor who studies the Christian right, said it is unusual for evangelical groups in Quebec to engage in politics, but a small number appear to be influenced by pastors in the U.S. who have publicly opposed public health rules.

This particular strain of evangelicalism, Gagné said, associates government control with godless communism or socialism.

It is rooted in an apocalyptic world view that shares many similarities with QAnon-style conspiracy thinking, with its paranoia of secret programs out to control us through vaccines or internet towers.

"This very much parallels the eschatological fictions that have developed in some evangelical circles about the eventual rise of a one-world government headed by an anti-Christ," Gagné said.

This mode of thinking might appear to clash with other spiritual groups that have also joined the protests, such as advocates of new-age therapies.

But Martin Geoffroy, an academic who has studied both new-age and right-wing movements, suggested focusing instead on the fundamental values they do share.

"The common thing is that they are all anti-authority movements," said Geoffroy, who heads CEFIR, the anti-radicalization research centre at Cégep Édouard-Montpetit, a public francophone college in Longueuil.

"Conspiracy theories help them to create a parallel reality where they are the authorities."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-anti-mask-movement-qanon-covid-19-1.5737040

Why I Left an Evangelical Cult | Dawn Smith

Dawn Smith

TEDxNatick
Mar 6, 2018

"With humor and piercing observations, Dawn Smith sheds light on growing up in a religious cult and what it takes to leave everything you’ve ever known. This poignant story will make you cry and laugh as she shares her struggles with joining the outside world. Dawn grew up in California and moved to Chicago to work in media. She now lives in Brookline, MA, where she works on screenplays, political and issue advertising, standup comedy, and produces the comedy web series."

Visit Dawn’s website at www.pushbackfilms.com 

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Apocalyptic upbringing: how I recovered from my terrifying evangelical childhood

Josiah Hesse

The Guardian

April 5, 2016

Josiah Hesse

One stormy night in the summer of 1992, I walked down the basement steps of my parents’ house to await the apocalypse. The Iowa air was thick with humidity, the ominous green sky prophesying a tornado. My 10-year-old hands trembled as I laid out my inventory: animal crackers, juice boxes, a Bible, and every sharp knife in the kitchen.

My parents were home late and my first thought was that they’d been raptured up to heaven. I was a sinner who had been left behind to face the Earth’s destruction.

Thunder boomed as I opened my Bible to the Book of Revelation, a passage I knew well after years spent on my dad’s knee as he read it aloud to his kids. This would be my roadmap to doom: the stars falling from the sky. The cracked earth spitting locusts with the heads of lions. The beast with seven heads, the body of a leopard, and the feet of a bear will rise from the sea and be worshiped by all those left behind on Earth.

I would have to hide from the antichrist, who would force all those left on Earth to renounce Christ and receive the mark of the beast on their right hand or forehead. Anyone found with the beast’s mark after death would be thrown into the lake of fire. If I successfully avoided this and died of old age, I would be reunited with my family in heaven. (Note: There are countless interpretations of how this would all go down, but this is the one I heard most consistently as a child.)

Eventually my parents did come home. I packed up my gear, put the knives away, and never mentioned a thing to either of them. I was safe – for now.
Halloween with the Hell House

For any child raised under the dark bubble of religious fundamentalism, moments like this are not uncommon. In the evangelical Christian world of midwest America, it was normal for adults to tell children they would probably never grow old. The end could and would come any minute now.
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My dad and Bob Dylan were both “born again” in 1978. They didn’t know each other, but each were caught up in the explosive trend of converted hippies known as the Jesus Movement (or “Jesus Freaks” to Hunter S Thompson). Following the cultural and political destruction of the 60s flower power crusade, thousands of dropouts were now renouncing drugs and getting turned on to the great hippie in the sky known as Jesus.

Millions were also buying a book called The Late Great Planet Earth, which interpreted biblical text through modern political events, concluding that Christ would return and the Earth would burn around 1988. The book was made into a movie starring (a very portly and probably drunk) Orson Welles and was immediately followed by several other pulp rapture films and Christian rock albums that warned of an imminent doomsday.

Born in 1982, my childhood was filled with more biblical prophecy than Sesame Street good times. The urgency of avoiding hell surpassed any trivial education the world had to offer. After all, if you’re staring down the barrel of eternal torment, who has the time for algebra?

Salvation was attached to belief, and in order to protect my belief I had to censor my thoughts. The book of Mark says that “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”. So I was careful to never even think a thought that could be considered blasphemous. This was profoundly exhausting; and while I was mostly successful at repressing my intellectual curiosity during the day, once sleep came I lost all security clearance to my own mind.

My dreams were terrorized by a wide-eyed witch who worked for the devil. She would chase me through dark corridors, cackling and insisting I’d already damned myself to hell. Soon I began sleepwalking, often waking in the darkness of our back yard. Soon I began avoiding sleep, staying awake, watching TV to stay awake as long as I could.

Teachers at school became frustrated with my falling asleep in class and daily trips to the nurse’s office. Knowing nothing of panic attacks, the constant bursts of adrenaline and nausea I experienced could only be described as “I feel sick”. Throughout my middle and high school years, I flunked more classes than I passed.

Release came only when my evangelical friends and I put on theatrical productions that frightened audiences into conversion. Those plays would happen on Easter, but the most fun came at Halloween with the Hell House. Presented as just another haunted house, crowds would be led through a series of vignettes featuring abuse, overdoses, abortions, drunk-driving crashes, gang shootings and suicides (this was how we assumed all nonbelievers spent their time), followed by the big-budget climax of hell.

Our sinners would walk through a slim, dark hallway, where unseen hands grabbed at their ankles. They’d scream, then blindly step into a cavernous, smoke-filled room where the blackness was chaotically punctuated by bursts of flames.

Once completely disoriented and emotionally exhausted, patrons were then ushered into a comfortably lit, domestically furnished room with tissue boxes and smiling counselors ready to share the good news of Jesus with them.

Looking back, I now realize that the tactics (guilt, disorientation of senses, casting doubts of their moral identity) would probably qualify as brainwashing. Perhaps I knew that at the time but rationalized it because so much was at stake. After all, the year 2000 was nearly upon us.

It may seem silly now, but you can’t overestimate the power that the Y2K scare had on the apocalypse fever of evangelicals. By this time my parents had seen more than a few end-of-the-world prophecies come and go and weren’t as easily worked up about the doomsday many thought Y2K would be. In my home, conversations about the antichrist and the mark of the beast had stopped years ago, but by my teenage years I’d become far more of a fundamentalist than my parents had ever been.

Despite living in a small town, I was a member of three different evangelical Christian churches at this time. Needing far more than just a Sunday fix, I was attending about nine different religious classes a week. And then there were two different church camps each summer, four conventions each school year, and countless youth rallies, concerts, and theatrical productions. I even enrolled myself in a rural Christian school my junior year of high school. I never engaged in sports, and never listened to any music or watched movies that weren’t affiliated with Christianity. I was perfectly isolated from any outside influence.

My dad, however, had renounced church altogether, and my mom only went on Sundays, so for the most part my zealotry was self-imposed. I judged their lack of commitment and often stopped speaking to them for stretches of time. Unlike drug use or listening to gangsta rap, no parent worries about their kids spending too much time at church. But looking back, my overdosing on religion was becoming a serious problem.

The Y2K scare was a huge focus because it was both imminently close and so mysterious even the nonreligious believed it was a legitimate threat.

At church camps and youth conventions, we cried, wailed and beat our chests in shame, begging God to forgive us our sins and never leave us behind. In the years of my adolescence, I shed enough tears to fill an Olympic swimming pool.

As 2000 approached, my panic attacks grew more severe. I pondered the nature of eternity nearly every minute of the day. Whether torture or paradise, the concept itself filled me with existential dread. Eternity. As in, forever. And ever. And then more. And more. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.

Spoiler alert: nothing happened on the first day of January in 2000.

Like the Jesus Movement’s disappointment at the world not ending in 1988, our faith was silently cracked when the world kept on turning into the new millennium.

I finished school and began a life on the road, traveling aimlessly around the country, working an endless series of construction, restaurant, retail, factory and day-labor jobs. I stayed in hostels, on couches and in short-term rentals, making new friends and slowly becoming the thing I’d always been taught to avoid: worldly.

Yet despite the drugs, sex and foul language that now consumed my daily existence (a not-uncommon lifestyle for young Christians away from home for the first time), my faith in God remained on life support. There was too much at stake to flippantly reject it, no matter how many unanswered questions rattled in my brain. If salvation is tied to belief – as I believed it was – then I couldn’t allow any seeds of doubt to take purchase in the soil of my mind. I clung to the idea that the rapture was still imminent, but my conviction was weak and I was desperate for something to keep my beliefs afloat. I adored intellectual Christians such as CS Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, and secular musicians who identified as Christians such as Moby, Bono and Johnny Cash. If they could live in The World and retain their faith, why couldn’t I?

My early 20s were spent desperately reading as much as I could get my hands on about the Bible and why it was intellectually viable. Believing I needed to be able to refute all arguments to the contrary – even my own – I read secular works by those who despised Christianity, such as Tom Robbins, the Marquis de Sade and Christopher Hitchens.

Then one evening in San Francisco in 2006, while watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, I quietly said to myself: “I don’t think God exists.”

My breath stopped. Cold sweat raced down my back. I winced, half expecting to have a heart attack. Or a giant beast to rise from the water.

But nothing happened. The world kept turning. Just as it did in 1992 when my parents eventually came home and proved the rapture hadn’t occurred. Just as it did in 2000 when society did not collapse from Y2K. My entire life I’d been holding my breath, anticipating a scene of mind-shattering horror that simply never arrived.

I am now 33 years old and am often asked if I’m bitter about how I was raised. First, I’d say little of the blame belongs on my parents’ shoulders. They were young, idealistic Christians when they had me, and like so many religious parents, only had the best of intentions of rearing me in their faith.

“When you’re young, things seem a little more black and white,” my mom recently told me during a phone conversation. It was Easter Sunday and I asked whether she regretted exposing me to the terrifying prophecies of the Bible at a young age. “Regret might be a bit harsh. Would I couch things differently today, and not have them be so hellfire and brimstone? Maybe.”

I asked my dad if he’d known about the intense anxiety I’d suffered throughout my childhood. “I knew you were afraid. You were such a scared little boy. I didn’t know what to do.”

I would say that some of the most emotionally rapturous moments of my life were had in Pentecostal church services, where the loud and hypnotic music, speaking in tongues, primal dancing, shaking and collapsing to the ground, caused explosions of sensory transcendence in my little body. I’ve since had glimmers of these moments on a dance floor, a rock concert, or moments of exceptional sexual climax, but nothing has come close to the indescribable high of a frenetic religious service laced with an uncut dose of pure belief.

At the same time, I’ve never been able to shake the deeply rooted conviction that it’s hopeless to plan for the future. Home ownership, marriage, kids and retirement savings all require a faith that tomorrow will be here in the morning. While my head can rationalize that one year will probably follow the next, my heart cannot handle anything more than one day at a time.

I am still plagued with chronic nightmares, which my therapist says are a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. Before entering therapy, I’d never heard of the term “religious abuse”. The idea that an extreme religious upbringing could be a form of psychological torture was new to me. When reading the horror stories of other evangelicals who grew up under the constant fear of rapture (some of whom had the same experiences I had of believing they’d been left behind), it felt right. After all, I could think of several ex-Christians I’ve known who have had extreme drug addiction and emotional disorders that fit the bill of someone with PTSD.

In some respects, I feel like I got off easy. I’m in a loving relationship, enjoy a strong circle of friends, and have built a reasonably successful career as a writer.

Yet any time I come across a news story about global warming being worse than expected, or that the economy is on the verge of collapse, or that some demagogue running for president is leading us toward a nuclear showdown with religious fundamentalists in the Middle East, a familiar voice whispers through my mind, reminding me that this is it, what we’ve been waiting for all these years, the end has come, you were right to never start a family, because the world is about to be plunged into a thousand-year darkness of torment and chaos, so grab whatever supplies you can get your hands on and head out into the wilderness, because a fate worse than death awaits those caught unprepared.

Then I take a deep breath, reminding the frightened child inside me that he is safe, that the world may be full of uncertainty and pain and confusion, but we are here, now, and there are no locusts with the heads of lions likely to come out of the Earth any time soon.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/religion-evangelical-christian-apocalypse-josiah-hesse

Give Me Sex Jesus: young evangelicals' struggles with sex and church teaching

Sarah Galo
September 17, 2015

The Guardian

Patrick and Bonnie, a couple who appear in the

film, waited until marriage to share their first kiss. 

“Whatever it is, don’t let me die before I have sex” is a prayer that at first, sounds like a punchline. But for the young evangelicals portrayed in the new documentary Give Me Sex Jesus, it is a sincere petition to God.

The documentary, which premieres on Thursday 17 September on the streaming video platform Vimeo, presents a wide range of experiences and perspectives on the highly charged politics of purity culture in the evangelical Christian community.

Purity culture is best defined as a set of beliefs that seek to govern sexual behavior and expectations, chiefly that sex is only for heterosexual married couples. In some denominational circles, it can include guidelines for women’s modest clothing to prohibiting masturbation as a sinful act.

The Give Me Sex Jesus trailer

Director Matt Barber’s own conflicted experience growing up in the evangelical community inspired him to make the film. “I bought heavily into the purity culture myth,” Barber said via email. “I rushed into marriage at 23 mostly so I could have sex. Purity culture taught me that if I did ‘everything right’ prior to marriage, then God would bless me with a special woman that he created just for me … and we would have an amazing sex life.”

But the fairytale that purity culture promised didn’t hold. Twelve years later, Barber’s marriage ended in divorce and his faith was deeply shaken. “I wanted to be a good husband and Christian, but I had this nagging feeling that I was sold a lie.”

While Barber doesn’t exactly denounce the church in the film, viewers are exposed to how evangelical youths struggle to abide by the rules of the church, while also growing up in a world that treats (safe) sex and sexual exploration of oneself as a normal and healthy act for young people.

One couple portrayed in the film, Bonnie and Patrick, wait until they are married to share their first kiss. “The beauty of it is that if one night’s awkward, I can sleep with him again and again and practice,” Bonnie says in the film as she smiles towards her husband. But even having waited, there are still issues in their marriage: Patrick finds he has a desire to watch pornography, for example, and Bonnie struggles to come to terms with his “sinful” curiosity.

Outside of the film, the evangelical church’s teachings of purity culture are highly controversial. Sex positive educator and activist Allena Gabosch notes that these stringent rules can leave young people unprepared or seeking alternatives to heterosexual intercourse, such as oral or anal sex. But as she emphasizes, anal sex presents the greatest possibility of transmitting an STI or STD, making it riskier than other forms of sex.

Lola Prescott, founder of the website No Shame Movement, a platform for those who have left behind purity culture, says that the evangelical church’s definitions of purity and immortality have shifted over the years.

“I wish folks understood how subjective their views are and how influenced they are by their culture,” she said. “It’s a waste of energy to try and promote these things because they’re not even going to be around 20 years from now.”

Prescott described visiting a religiously conservative church in Ecuador where the women wore tight jeans, something that would be frowned upon in some American evangelical churches. “In the US, people would be scandalized. When telling proponents of modesty and purity this story, I ask, ‘who’s really more modest?’ No one has an answer.”

Where Give Me Sex Jesus especially succeeds is its handling of purity culture for LGBT Christians and those who have since left the church. Mac, a trans man, noted that he left the church because of the lack of authenticity. “Not just about being trans, but I just felt judged,” he said. “If you made a mistake, God’s with a stick, ready to whack you, but he loves you.” While advocates of purity culture would decry this conception of God, the emphasis placed on proper sexual behavior clouds it.

The question remains: how does the evangelical Christian church move forward? The conclusion of Give Me Sex Jesus is the need for open spaces and permission to express often complicated feelings towards sexuality. One participant, Lacey, embodies this space of uncertainty well. When she is asked what she now believes about sex before marriage, her reply is filled with thoughtful pauses: “My views aren’t completely solid. I think it might be more important to wait until you are ready, and there is someone you really care about rather than being promiscuous, rather than getting started early.”

What evangelical Christians seem to need is a space for open and honest discussions that should have been had long ago. In an email to the Guardian, producer Brittany Machado explained, “My hope is that by showing a spectrum of realities we will enable communities to connect, not deflect.” Give Me Sex Jesus provides a good, and safe, place for that connection to begin.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/17/give-me-sex-jesus-film-young-evangelicals-purity-culture

Raised in a Lake Worth cult: Award-winning film screens Saturday

All it takes is one hair-raising listen of the trailer for Destiny Thomas‘ short film and you understand.

You understand why she fled her own fundamentalist evangelical upbringing (which she calls “abusive” and a “cult”) in Lake Worth for Los Angeles. And you understand why she made a punishing 11-minute short film based on her life and why it won Best Short Film at the L-Dub Film Festival last January.

That film, “My Center Will Not Hold,” got her into the “Harvard of film schools,” the AFI Conservatory in Hollywood, Calif., but only tuition will keep her there. In less than two months, she has gotten scholarships, grants and loans to cover all but $30,000 of the $106,000 cost of the two-year school.

The Stonzek Theater at the Lakeworth Playhouse is screening her film Aug. 8 at 8 p.m., and all the proceeds from the $15 tickets go toward paying her tuition at the AFI Conservatory.

“I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be a director. I wanted to to tell stories,” Thomas said. “And the film had to premiere (in Lake Worth). It just had to.”http://featured.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2015/08/06/raised-in-a-lake-worth-cult-award-winnng-film-screens-saturday/

Evangelicals take their fight with Satan tothe streets of Sao Paulo

Vincent Bevins
Los Angeles Times
July 7, 2015


It is 5 p.m., and the church bells in the center of the city begin to toll. Hundreds of commuters stream across the Praca da Se square, passing in front of the headquarters of the largest archdiocese in the nation with the most Catholics in the world.

But over the pealing sounds of the cathedral, many commuters are hearing a very different religious message.

"The world is dominated by sin! Only the Gospel can save you! Only evangelism can save you!" shouts a middle-aged man, gesticulating wildly and increasing volume as he utters each sentence. A rapt crowd of 30 or 40, mostly men, listens as the street preacher seeks to draw in additional passersby, warning them of danger to their souls.

"Satan is hidden everywhere! If you're with a religion, you're wrong! If you're Catholic, you're wrong! Put your hands together for Jesus!" The crowd obliges.

Nearby, homeless youths huddle together, passing a crack pipe back and forth. A young woman, apparently mentally ill, sits among the worshipers, playing with leaves and sticks on the ground.

Street preachers maintain a daily presence here and elsewhere around Brazil, calling upon believers to accept Jesus directly, rejecting the need for the Roman Catholic Church to serve as mediator.

Whereas some leaders behind Brazil's large evangelical churches have become famously wealthy and powerful, these men sweat on the street among Sao Paulo's downtrodden. They're foot soldiers on the front lines of a religious battle that their side seems to be winning.

When Josemar Bento Mendes was born, 50 years ago, more than 90% of Brazilians declared themselves Catholic. But by 2013, at the time that Pope Francis, the first pontiff from the Americas, visited, just 57% of Brazilians claimed allegiance to Rome. About 28% declared a commitment to some kind of evangelical Christian faith.

"I was born and raised Catholic like everyone else. But it's full of false doctrine and tradition which has nothing to do with the word," says Bento Mendes, who is preaching in the harsh cold of a wintry June day. "I come here because everyone in the city comes through the plaza. It's ground zero. It's a river with many fish, and many people suffering."

Mendes and others preach that the Bible is God's authoritative word, which should be spread evangelically, and that the Catholic Church is not necessary to interpret it.

Most of the fish in the river move along quickly, heading into the crowded metro station. But those loitering in the square tend to respect the seriousness of the gathering. After one young man, visibly high, spends a few minutes giggling, his perceived insolence is quickly singled out.

A tough-looking man in a hoodie and gold chains threatens him, instructing, "Respect the word of God!" The youth is soon clapping and praying along with the rest.

Preachers change off every hour or so and switch up styles. But they all rely on their intensity and passion, which could not contrast more sharply with the inside of the Catholic cathedral.

There, a priest's sermon is scarcely audible over the PA as he calmly explains the meaning of the church calendar. The audience for his Mass is barely larger than the circle formed around the preachers outside. Their slight presence in the pews is dwarfed by the ornate and grand structure built to hold thousands.

The format of the lessons outside is also looser, with the preachers reading select passages from the Bible, then expounding on their meaning. They may seem to be closer to adhering to Jesus' message of embracing the poor and sick, but these teachings — and indeed the Gospels themselves — are almost never the main point. Over the course of days and various preachers, a few dominant themes emerge: the imminent apocalypse, the influence of Satan and the evils of homosexuality.

"There are men sleeping with other men! We should see shame in your faces! You are worse than a dog or a pig. I have never seen a pig lie down with another pig," says one. Some in the crowd just listen intently, while others cry out spontaneously, or raise their eyes to the sky and tremble.

The preacher now turns his wrath on Edir Macedo, the media mogul billionaire leader of the evangelical Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, for airing sexually charged shows on his Record TV network. Bento Mendes and preacher Waldo Silvio Santos belong to the competing Assembly of God congregation. "Woe to you who pays his tithes to men who put naked women on TV to make millions. False prophets love money."

The evangelical movement has been criticized for profiting off Brazil's most destitute and sometimes offering a version of Christianity that they consider fundamentalist and reactionary, rejecting much of modern society. Within the complicated rules of Brazil's brutal class system, however, many middle-class liberals have also felt uncomfortable criticizing any movement that is largely working class.

But in the last few months, evangelical figures have risen to top positions of political power, causing liberals to panic. Eduardo Cunha, an evangelical who serves as president of the lower house of Congress, is considered a dangerous, cynical schemer by progressives, and he has said he will bar any vote on liberalizing abortion, which is illegal here.

After evangelical congressmen staged a protest against Sao Paulo's recent Gay Pride Parade, the major Folha de S.Paulo newspaper printed a scathing indictment: "A growing spirit of fundamentalism is manifesting itself ... and Congress seems committed to reflect this trend, intensify it, and use it to demagogic ends."

But the halls of the capitol in Brasilia are very far away from Praca da Se. As a Catholic priest and a Franciscan friar walk slowly, Bento Mendes has no time for focus on matters of politics.

"It is a thousand times better to trust in God than to trust in princes," he booms. "And I tell you this: Christ's return is coming sooner than we imagine. If it doesn't, I'll stop preaching. I'll rip up my Bible, if terrible things don't rain down upon us soon."

http://www.latimes.com/world/brazil/la-fg-ff-brazil-street-preachers-20150707-story.html