Dominionist-Fueled Violence in Brazil

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/soldiers-of-jesus-armed-neo-pentecostals-torment-brazils-religious-minorities/2019/12/08/fd74de6e-fff0-11e9-8501-2a7123a38c58_story.html

Evangelical activism can take a different turn in countries that don't have a stable democracy or a long tradition of liberal values rooted in established social institutions. In Latin America, in Africa and certainly in parts of Asia these things are lacking and so it shouldn't surprise us that such religious extremism (one hesitates to call it Christian) is able to take root.

Of course in Brazil the situation is slightly different as Dominionism is able to take an extremist form due to the dominating presence of Charismatic theology and the additional political boost provided by Jair Bolsonaro. Just as many have argued (with some justification) that Trump has given tacit approval to the rhetoric and actions of White Supremacists, likewise Bolsonaro has opened the floodgates (as it were) to the types of extremism reported in this article.

While some in the United States might roll their eyes at the thought of drug dealers discriminating on the basis of a Christian ethic... they shouldn't.

This is simply an application of Sacral Christianity in a different context. Under this scenario Christianity no longer has much (if anything) to do with the New Testament. This is a cultural expression and while Jesus Drug Dealers are indeed absurd, it reflects a reality within their economic order. It has its own ethic even though by North American standards it is intrinsically an unethical profession.

And yet I don't really find it any more absurd than Special Forces or Wall Street Bankers for Jesus... or the growing preponderance of celebrity Christians like Kanye West or even Christian beauty pageant queens. These too are absurdities and in terms of ethics... hilarious, if it wasn't such a serious issue. If you're missing the connection it's because you've been desensitised by our culture and the way the American sacral Church has confused the ethics. Thieves, murderers, whoremongers and sluts are not Christians. They do as much damage to society and to souls as does the drug dealer. Just because it's done with polish and social approval does not make it right, and that's true in either culture or in reference to any of these examples.

Evangelicals and their Catholic allies peddle a great deal of filth in our society. For that matter how many pharmaceutical salesmen and people working in finance have I met in church? They may look respectable and may even be deemed 'respectable' in terms of our society but they're not... not in terms of the New Testament.

In Brazil, a narco-trafficker can retain a modicum of respect in certain quarters. They live in a different context, one American middle-class people cannot understand. I don't vindicate it, but neither do I support the American system and what it deems to be ethical. For many of the poor in Latin America the narco-traffickers can function as a shadow government that runs parallel to the corrupt neo-feudal order that so often dominates their society. And so from their standpoint they're merely substituting one feudal order for another but the difference is... the narcos are local and in touch with the needs of the people. As far as the ethics of their trade, well, one doesn't need to be in a Latin American context to be critical of finance capital... which has played no small part in creating the conditions that drive people into the narcotics economy. And in other cases the peasants have been devastated by finance, global capitalism, open markets and of course the American military and its proxies.

Just because these Pentecostal peasants are embracing Dominion theology and Right-wing paramilitarism, that doesn't always mean they're going to line up with American GOP values in terms of Wall Street and the corporate world. Right-wing nationalism and religious conservatism (especially when blended) can move so far to the Right that they fall outside of the Classic Liberal spectrum and thus end up rejecting elements of Free Market Capitalism.... which is after all a child of Liberalism and the philosophy of the Enlightenment.

Sure, some Brazilian Evangelicals are shocked and dismayed by this course of events. But they along with their American teachers have seeded the ground for it and of course the fact that Dominionism has rapidly sprouted and produced a rotten harvest in Pentecostal (or more properly Charismatic) circles shouldn't surprise us.

As a Christian I have no love for false religions but notice how sacralism turns away from the New Testament. We are called to love the lost, to love our enemies. Sacralism takes up the sword and wants to eradicate them in order to produce a monistic and monolithic social order. What we're seeing in Brazil is an extreme expression but it's cut from the same polluted and Kingdom-twisting cloth and there are plenty in the United States that would turn down this path if they could. If a greater degree of societal instability were to emerge... they will turn down such a path, all the more if they are encouraged by magistrates (lesser or otherwise). The Christianisation of gun culture and the glorification of violence haven't helped.

The sad part is that the Evangelical movement thinks that it's scoring great victories in Brazil and you can be sure that American money and support continue to flow into the country, all the more now that Bolsonaro is in power. The theology and the political thrust were certainly born in the United States. This is the evil being exported by American Christianity... a false Christianity spread by means of a false gospel rooted in wealth and power. It's mammon worship pure and simple, a case of idolatry and spiritual fornication... the very imagery of Revelation 17. Instead of the Bride of Christ, what we see here is a bought and paid for whore that has joined with the bestial order for the sake of gain and worldly glory.

When the beast turns on it and destroys it... a process that has been repeated too many times to count... we are told to rejoice.

What a sad and shameful testimony. Twenty-five years ago I was willing to be identified as an Evangelical but I always said so with an immediate qualification. Now in every way, whether in theology proper and certainly in ethics I eschew and reject the label and all that goes with it. There was an older type of Evangelicalism that existed before the 20^th century but the term has been hijacked and appropriated by the post-war movement. I wouldn't want anyone for even a second to think I was part of their faction or what it stands for. They have twisted the gospel and the Kingdom into something perverse, something at odds with the New Testament.

In a sense it's brilliant. Affirm the cardinal points of New Testament doctrine but overlay it with another religious system, one that ultimately undermines it at every point. In terms of being a counterfeit, it's a true masterpiece, a brilliant stroke made by our adversary. It is truly the 'Catholicism' of the Protestant sphere. It may not be 'Roman' but it has produced the same variety of compromised and acculturated religion that sometimes looks a bit like New Testament Christianity but in the end is a total counterfeit.

It's easy to see in Brazil. I hope American Evangelicals are shocked and appalled by this report. But for the most part they won't make the connections and realise they're on the same path and are even at this moment drinking the same poisoned waters. In fact the font is located here in the United States and is being exported on a massive scale.

This is what their theology is when applied in a different and more volatile context. If our context changes, we'll see it here too.

God help us.