A fifth of Latin Americans are evangelical. They have increasing political clout
Evangelical Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in the region. Polls on religious beliefs vary widely, but around a fifth of Latin Americans identify as evangelicals, up from a tenth in 2002. In Guatemala and Honduras, they are set to overtake Roman Catholics as the dominant religion by 2030. This could happen in Brazil by the mid-2030s, too. In the past decade, a new church has opened in Brazil almost every hour, of which 80% were evangelical.
In a region full of social-media-savvy, evangelicals have also spread their teachings online. On Instagram, an image-sharing platform, eight of the ten most-followed Christian influencers in Brazil are evangelicals, including Deive Leonardo, a 32-year-old preacher with over 13m followers . “In the old days, churches used to talk about Jesus in the squares, in the streets...
Several things explain the rising religious vote. In the mid-2010s Brazil underwent a corruption probe which ensnared dozens of parties in Congress. Economic mismanagement under Dilma Rousseff, the leftist president handpicked by Lula , led to a recession. In 2016 Ms Rousseff was impeached. Evangelicals promoted the idea that Brazil was going through a “moral crisis because of a lack of connection to Christian values”, says Caio Barbosa of the University of São Paulo.
Fears over relaxed abortion laws and “gender ideology”, or more liberal views over sexuality, have increased the clout of evangelicals. Many are now forming alliances with conservative Catholics, too. This is a relatively new phenomenon. According to Taylor Boas of Boston University, in Chile’s election in 2000 most evangelical leaders endorsed Ricardo Lagos, a socialist candidate, for the presidency because his rival was part of Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic lay order.
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