{"id":388130,"date":"2021-11-14T09:42:16","date_gmt":"2021-11-14T09:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=223028"},"modified":"2021-11-14T09:42:16","modified_gmt":"2021-11-14T09:42:16","slug":"do-not-underestimate-evangelical-politicians-in-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/11\/14\/do-not-underestimate-evangelical-politicians-in-latin-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Not Underestimate Evangelical Politicians In Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_223030\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-223030\" class=\"wp-image-223030 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/debby-hudson-sgdyBq6kheQ-unsplash-680x453.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"453\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-223030\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@hudsoncrafted\">Debby Hudson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Taken from an <a href=\"https:\/\/revista.drclas.harvard.edu\/evangelicals-in-latin-american-politics\/\">article<\/a> by Taylor C. Boas about evangelicals and political power in Latin America, our title is another way of saying that, though the Greek origin of the word, <em>euangelion<\/em>, suggests good news, the burgeoning numbers of evangelicals in Latin America are very bad news for human rights, which are anathema to fundamentalist obsessions. With his book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Plano-Poder-Cristaos-Politica-Portugues\/dp\/8578600193\"><em>Plano de Poder: Dios, Os Crist\u00e3os e A Pol\u00edtica<\/em><\/a> (Plan for Power: God, Christians, and Politics, 2008), the Brazilian evangelical \u201cbishop\u201d, billionaire Edir Macedo, announces that the postmodern evangelical project is \u201cto reveal, conscientize and wake up Christians to a biblically announced cause\u201d, namely God\u2019s \u201cgrand nation-building project\u201d concretised by a \u201cproject of political power\u201d. This time round, the elect aren\u2019t the Israelites but woken-up Christians.<\/p>\n<p>In the past two decades evangelicals in Latin America have gone from being marginalised foreign missionaries to powerful political mouthpieces. Explaining their rise as a religious phenomenon in which the lively \u201cgarage churches\u201d of poor urban neighbourhoods displaced the theologically stick-in-the-mud Catholic church isn\u2019t very enlightening. In quantitative terms, it seems simple enough: they\u2019ve turned their numerical heft into political capital. But the important point is that the political arena in which they operate is neoliberalism for which, as a kind of theological superstructure or at least justification, they\u2019ve become one of the Hydra\u2019s many monstruous heads.<\/p>\n<div class=\"woocommerce\">\n<div class=\"woocommerce-info wc-memberships-restriction-message wc-memberships-message wc-memberships-content-restricted-message\">\n\t\t\t\tTo read this article, log in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/my-account\/\">here<\/a> or Subscribe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/subscribe\/\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n<br \/>In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.\t\t    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2021\/11\/14\/do-not-underestimate-evangelical-politicians-in-latin-america\/\">More<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2021\/11\/14\/do-not-underestimate-evangelical-politicians-in-latin-america\/\">Do Not Underestimate Evangelical Politicians In Latin America<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/\">CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2021\/11\/14\/do-not-underestimate-evangelical-politicians-in-latin-america\/\">CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image by Debby Hudson.<\/p>\n<p>Taken from an article by Taylor C. Boas about evangelicals and political power in Latin America, our title is another way of saying that, though the Greek origin of the word, euangelion, suggests good news, the burgeoning numbe&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":393,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228,230],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388130"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388217,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388130\/revisions\/388217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}