Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States: Migrations, Missions, and Mobility (Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies) 3031133706, 9783031133701

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CHRISTIANITY AND RENEWAL – INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States Migrations, Missions, and Mobility Paul J. Palma

Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies Series Editors

Wolfgang Vondey Department of Theology and Religion University of Birmingham Birmingham, UK Amos Yong School of Theology & School of Intercultural Studies Fuller Theological Seminary Pasadena, CA, USA

Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies provides a forum for scholars from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, various global locations, and a range of Christian ecumenical and religious traditions to explore issues at the intersection of the Pentecostal, charismatic, and other renewal movements and related phenomena, including: the transforming and renewing work of the Holy Spirit in Christian traditions, cultures, and creation; the traditions, beliefs, interpretation of sacred texts, and scholarship of the renewal movements; the religious life, including the spirituality, ethics, history, and liturgical and other practices, and spirituality of the renewal movements; the social, economic, political, transnational, and global implications of renewal movements; methodological, analytical, and theoretical concerns at the intersection of Christianity and renewal; intra-Christian and interreligious comparative studies of renewal and revitalization movements; other topics connecting to the theme of Christianity and renewal. Authors are encouraged to examine the broad scope of religious phenomena and their interpretation through the methodological, hermeneutical, and historiographical lens of renewal in contemporary Christianity. Under the general topic of thoughtful reflection on Christianity and renewal, the series includes two different kinds of books: (1) monographs that allow for in-depth pursuit, carefully argued, and meticulously documented research on a particular topic that explores issues in Christianity and renewal; and (2) edited collections that allow scholars from a variety of disciplines to interact under a broad theme related to Christianity and renewal. In both kinds, the series encourages discussion of traditional Pentecostal and charismatic studies, reexamination of established religious doctrine and practice, and explorations into new fields of study related to renewal movements. Interdisciplinarity will feature in the series both in terms of two or more disciplinary approaches deployed in any single volume and in terms of a wide range of disciplinary perspectives found cumulatively in the series. For further information or to submit a proposal for consideration, please contact Amy Invernizzi, [email protected].

Paul J. Palma

Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States Migrations, Missions, and Mobility

Paul J. Palma Regent University Virginia Beach, VA, USA

ISSN 2634-5854     ISSN 2634-5862 (electronic) Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies ISBN 978-3-031-13370-1    ISBN 978-3-031-13371-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Wylian and Roberta DaCosta. May a paz de Deus illumine your way, as you have mine.

Lord, You granted Your Holy Spirit, For me You died, To take me to the skies. (Senhor, concedeste O Teu Espírito Santo, Por mim Tu morreste Para levar-me aos céus.) —Anonymous, “Gratidão ao Senhor,” in Hinos e salmos espirituais

Acknowledgments

A work of this kind requires the collaborative effort of a considerable number of people. Much of the impetus for the book emerged from a paper I presented for the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements interest group at the 2020 National Conference for the American Academy of Religion (AAR). My sincerest gratitude goes to the interest group co-­ chairs, Leah Payne and Andrea Johnson, for consummately coordinating the Pentecostal Movements in the Latinx World session. Special thanks are also owed to Néstor Medina, the session respondent, for invaluable feedback into the project’s scope and to fellow presenter David Luckey and session presider Justin Doran. Conferences for the AAR’s Southeast Region offered additional clarity into the research. I am grateful to Anne Wills, chair of the History of Christianity Group, and Haley Iliff and Sierra Lawson, co-chairs of the Religions in America Group, for the opportunity to present and discuss my work. I would like to express my gratitude to the numerous individuals, members, and former members of the focus movements of this study, who gave their time to join me for personal interviews. A considerable impetus for the study came from two interviewees from the Christian Congregation in the United States. Both elected to remain anonymous but graciously answered my questions. For these individuals, I use pseudonyms (noted accordingly throughout). My deepest thanks to interviewees Wylian DaCosta, Roberta DaCosta, Leonardo Thome, Itamar Coutinho, Antonio Donizeti da Silva Santos, Bruno Martins, John Calegari, Rodney Huson, Tyler Huson, and Sharon Barkley. Thanks also go to the Chicago Christian ix

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Congregation, the Christian Assembly (Beaver Falls, PA), the Manassas (VA) Bethlehem Ministry extension, and Calvary Assembly of God (Hampton, VA) for accommodating my requests. Alongside on-site research access, I am grateful to the respective denominations in the United States and Brazil for streaming and making available to the public their weekly services during the COVID-19 pandemic when much of the research for this work was conducted. I am appreciative of the gracious staff at the Fuller Seminary David Allan Hubbard Library (Esther Park, Alyson Thomas, and Andrew Wong) and the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (Glenn W. Gohr, Alice Harris, and Darrin Rodgers) for making accessible innumerable files on the early history of the movements. Special thanks go to the Regent University Library staff for accommodating my numerous requests throughout the writing process. A debt of gratitude is owed to Leonardo Marcondes Alves (VID Specialized University, Norway) for his review of the Portuguese language content of the work and incisive feedback into the scope of the research. My thanks also go to Paulo Ayres Mattos (Faculdade de Teologia Refidim, Santa Catarina) and Alemayehu Mekonnen (Regent University) for their critique of an early version of the manuscript and to Itamar Coutinho (Bahls Grafica e Editora, Curitiba, Paraná) and Joseph Saggio (SAGU American Indian College) for resources. My heartfelt gratitude goes to Laura Joy Palma, a Language Arts Teacher at Kilgore Gifted Center, for her superb literary critique of portions of the manuscript. I am particularly grateful to the series editors, Wolfgang Vondey and Amos Yong, for their enthusiasm about the study and insightful suggestions. I had the privilege of studying with each during my doctoral studies at Regent University, and they remain two of the foremost influences on my theological journey. The staff at Palgrave Macmillan have been a constant resource throughout the various stages of writing and production. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to the Philosophy and Religion editor Amy Invernizzi, who reached out to me at the 2020 AAR Conference and instilled in me the vision to turn a paper into a book. She has been a dependable hands-on partner from the very start of the project. Thanks are likewise due to Project Coordinators Chandralekha Mahamel Raja and Anisha Rajavikraman.

Praise for Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States “Palma’s meticulous and erudite—but highly readable—work is a first-rate study of three ‘first wave,’ or ‘classical,’ Pentecostal denominations in Brazil: The Assemblies of God, introduced to South America by Swedish missionaries, and the Italian Christian Congregation and Christian Assembly. In this rich foundational historical work, Palma explores how these three churches evolved from imported missions to dynamic ‘grassroots’ denominations that have helped transform Brazil into what is today one of the most actively Pentecostal nations in the world.” —Virginia Garrard, Professor of History, The University of Texas at Austin, USA “Paul Palma’s incisive comparative analysis and history of the Assemblies of God and Christian Congregation, two of the largest Pentecostal denominations in Brazil, illuminates the dynamics of the Pentecostal boom in the South American giant, which is home to the largest population of Protestant Charismatics on the planet. The sharp focus on the churches’ polities and holiness ethics reveals how the Christian Congregation preserved its grassroots identity and grew modestly while the Assemblies of God did not but experienced much greater growth. Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States belongs on the top shelf of all those interested in global Christianity and the proliferation of Pentecostalism in the Global South.” —R. Andrew Chesnut, Professor of Religious Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA, and author of Competitive Spirits: Latin America’s New Religious Economy (2003) “For those interested in Pentecostal history and theology, Paul Palma provides firsthand historical data pointing to the origins and further development of Pentecostal Christianity in the Global South. Having the records at hand helps not only to understand Brazilian Pentecostalism but Latin America as a whole. This volume shows the heart of Pentecostalism in its early accounts and further development. It helps readers understand the mission and mobility of a movement made to travel. I recommend this book to Pentecostal and Charismatic historians.” —Miguel Alvarez, President of Seminario Bíblico Pentecostal Centroamericano (SEBIPCA), Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

“Brazil is today a country with one of the highest Pentecostal memberships in the world. Yet, its various forms of Pentecostalism remain unknown to much of the academic world in general and Pentecostals in particular. The work of Paul Palma, which contemplates the fruit of Luigi Francescon’s missionary work in Latin America and the United States, dedicating substantial research to the oldest branch of the movement in Brazil, that of the Christian Congregation, brilliantly fills this gap, helping to unravel the mysteries that made it the second-largest Brazilian Pentecostal denomination.” —Paulo Ayres Mattos, Research Professor at the School of Theology Refidim, Joinville, Santa Catarina, Brazil

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Part I Classical Pentecostalism in Transnational Perspective  23 2 Grassroots  Pentecostal Movements: US and Brazilian Origins 25 3 Euro-American  Migrations and the “First Wave” of Pentecostalism in Brazil 53 4 Across  Southern Cone Borders: Italian Pentecostals in Argentina and Brazil 89 5 From  the Bairros to North America: Reverse Mission Trajectories105 Part II Classical Pentecostalism and Mobility: Challenges and Prospects 125 6 Brazilian  Pentecostals and Church Growth: Variations, Trends, and Explanations127

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7 Pentecostal  Polity: Shifting Paradigms in Brazil and the United States145 8 Navigating  the Gender Problem: Dress Codes, Ministry, and the Order of Creation173 9 Holiness  Ethic, Separatism, and the Politics of TransAmericas Pentecostalism199 10 Conclusion229 Bibliography245  1ndex273

Abbreviations

AD ADP

Assembleias de Deus Anthony DeGregorio Papers (Archives and Special Collections, David Allan Hubbard Library, Fuller Theological Seminary, CA) AG Assemblies of God BM Bethlehem Ministry CA Christian Assembly CADB Convenção das Assembleias de Deus do Brasil CC Christian Congregation CGADB Convenção Geral das Assembleias de Deus no Brasil CONAMAD Convenção Nacional das Assembleias de Deus Ministério de Madureira CPAD Casa Publicadora das Assembleias de Deus ELAR Encyclopedia of Latin American Religion FACCNA Fiftieth Anniversary: Christian Church of North America, 1927–1977 FGC Foursquare Gospel Church GCCA General Convention of Christian Assemblies GCCC General Convention of Christian Churches IFCA International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies IURD Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus NIDPCM New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements PE Pentecostal Evangel PRPI I pioneri del risveglio Pentecostale Italiano serie ReCC Renewed Christian Congregation WCD World Christian Database WCH World Christian Handbook xv

List of Tables

Table 5.1 Comparing CC and AD membership in Brazil, 1952–1967 131 Table 5.2 Growth in affiliated membership for the CC, AD, and CA: 2000–2015140 Table 5.3 Profile of Brazil’s largest Pentecostal denominations in 2015 142

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

An impoverished land. Uncertain times. The typical villager in late nineteenth-­century Cavasso Nuovo did not boast much in the way of material wealth. So was Luigi Francescon’s experience, born and raised in the small agricultural town in the province of Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy. In Cavasso Nuovo, the gratification of a good day’s harvest was tempered by the reality that one’s family would inescapably pay away most of their earnings in tribute to an absentee landowner. As Francescon matured, so did the desire to venture beyond the familiar surroundings of village life. Putting his skill as an artisan to use, he found work for a decent wage. After a brief military term, he had accumulated enough funds for passport and passage. Bidding his parents farewell, with the promise to one day return, he departed for the land of opportunity. Some fifteen hundred miles later, Francescon arrived to behold Lady Liberty and the cityscape of New York. His sojourn for monetary wealth paralleled a more profound journey of faith. Converting from his Catholic upbringing at the doorstep of an evangelical preacher, he made a temporary home among Presbyterians, founded an independent holiness mission, and finally embraced Pentecostalism.1  Luigi Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 2nd ed. (Oak Park, IL: privately printed, 1952), 2–5. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_1

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From an agrarian village in Northern Italy to the urban clenches of the New World, Francescon ventured the open sea to new vistas. While his primary achievement was not amassing material fortune, his earnings as a mosaicist were enough to support his family. Francescon’s foremost legacy remains the building of new faith communities. His peregrinations throughout the United States, South America, and Italy culminated in the founding of several now international ecclesial bodies, including the first organized US network of Italian pentecostal churches and the Christian Congregation and Christian Assembly in South and North America. Francescon represented one of two arms of transnational Pentecostalism from the Chicago revival (1907–1908) to Brazil. Invigorated by the North Avenue Mission awakening, the Midwest transplant of the Azusa Street, Los Angeles Revival, Chicago quickly became the hub of Pentecostalism’s international expansion. Francescon’s Chicago holiness mission was the locus for the earliest Italian pentecostal congregation, the Assemblea Cristiana (Christian Assembly). Also emerging in the revival’s wake was Chicago’s Svenska Pingst Församlingen (Swedish Pentecostal Assembly), where Swedish Baptist immigrants Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren, pioneer missionaries to Brazil, were nurtured in their faith. Like Francescon, Berg and Vingren were proletarians who left their home country for the New World because of economic downturn. Reaching the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, Berg landed employment as a metalworker and Vingren as pastor of a small Baptist church.2 Aroused by the Chicago awakening, in 1910, the duo left for Brazil, arriving just months after Francescon, without either party aware of the other’s presence in the country. Berg and Vingren’s foremost legacy remains the founding of the Brazilian Assemblies of God.

2  Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 132–35; R.  Andrew Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom and the Pathogens of Poverty (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997), 26; Joseph Colletti, “Vingren, Adolf Gunnar,” in NIDPCM, ed. Stanley M. Burgess, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 1177.

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Classical Pentecostalism and Christianity’s Global Shift At the turn of the twenty-first century, already scholars pointed to the dramatic shift in Christianity’s locus from North Atlantic civilizations to the disinherited peoples of the Majority World. On the threshold of a new millennium, in The Next Christendom, Philip Jenkins observed, “The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes, and the day of the Southern churches is dawning. The fact of change itself is undeniable: it has happened, and will continue to happen.”3 The southward (and eastward) trajectory has only ensued in the decades since, leading to Christianity’s increasingly global and multicultural face today. Long past are the days when one could speak of Christianity as “the religion of the West.” Christianity arrived in the New World in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries on the heels of the transatlantic journey of Western European explorers. In early modern Europe, there was no such thing as “separation of church and state” (the sacred versus the secular), as such realities are conceived today. As the religion of the early Spanish, Portuguese, English, and French settlers, Christianity was married to the interests of empire while each nation colonized the Americas. Spain and Portugal expanded their domains chiefly into South America and the British and French into the North. With the blessing of the Pope, the European empires conquered the greater regions of the Americas.4 The grip of the principal protagonist in Christendom’s Latin American expansion, the Catholic Church, continued unabated. Centuries later, with the arrival of Protestant waves and as nations won their freedoms from Spanish and Portuguese colonizers, the dominance of Catholicism weakened. In 1822, Brazil’s independence from Catholic Portugal opened the door to an intensifying climate of religious freedom. Brazil was more accepting of religious deviance than the Spanish colonies. The Portuguese lacked the same militant fervor as the Inquisition-led Spanish colonists, tolerating 3  Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 3. 4  Marshall C.  Eakin, The History of Latin America: Collision of Cultures (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 58, 123–24; Lyle N. McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492–1700 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), 73–75; Paul Spickard, Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity (New York: Routledge, 2007), 36–38.

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Jewish, African, and Eastern religions alongside the Protestant missionaries.5 Despite the seeds sown in Global South regions, Europe remained the center of Christianity throughout the nineteenth century in sheer number of adherents. Over the twentieth century, the shape of Christianity changed dramatically. Alongside astronomical growth—a more than fourfold increase—Christianity’s center of gravity veered from the regions of the Global North (Europe and Northern America) to the Global South (Africa, Asia, and Latin America). At the fulcrum of this paradigm shift stood Latin America—encompassing South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, in the year 1900, Europe boasted the decisive majority (about two-thirds) of the world’s Christians. In the same year, Latin America claimed hardly a tenth of total Christians. As of 2017, the region now reigns as the majority shareholder, outdistancing even Europe, claiming 24 percent (compared to Europe at 22 percent) of a world Christian population of about 2.5 billion.6 On the heels of the global shift, Latin America’s emergence as the new face of the “next Christendom” is beholden chiefly to the rise of Pentecostalism.7 Numbering some 670 million worldwide, “Pentecostals/ Charismatics” are now second among Christian traditions in total adherents only to (and increasing at twice the rate of) Roman Catholicism.8 Perhaps as staggering as the sheer number is the reach of pentecostal and charismatic movements across so many regions and peoples of the world. According to Mark Hutchinson, Cristina Rocha, and Kathleen Openshaw, these movements now constitute the “most widely spread form of religion

5  Alexandre Brasil Fonseca, “Religion and Democracy in Brazil: A Study of the Leading Evangelical Politicians,” in Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Latin America, ed. Paul Freston (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 163; Marshall C. Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), 123–30. 6  Statistics compiled from Todd M. Johnson, Gina A. Zurlo, Albert W. Hickman, and Peter F. Crossing, “Christianity 2017: Five Hundred Years of Protestant Christianity,” International Bulletin of Mission Research 41, no. 1 (2017): 48–50. The growth rate of Christianity in Africa suggests it will claim the majority by the year 2025 (50). 7  Jenkins, Next Christendom, 79–83. 8  Johnson et al., “Christianity 2017,” 49.

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in the contemporary world.”9 The largest international pentecostal body, the World Assemblies of God Fellowship (encompassing more than 62 million adherents), is found in 173 countries.10 Most pentecostals (about three-quarters) reside in Majority World regions.11 Compared to the North American grid, David Westerlund observes that Latin American Pentecostalism has emerged as an “extremely diverse mass popular movement.”12 Pentecostals account for as much as 90 percent of Protestant growth in Latin America since 1950.13 Considering the rate and makeup of this surge, Allan Anderson calls Pentecostalism’s enlargement in Latin America “one of the most remarkable stories in the history of Christianity.”14 As an historically Catholic Majority World nation, Brazil stands at the forefront of the religious paradigm shift from Europe to the Global South. Not only does Brazil boast the largest Catholic (and Protestant) populations of any nation today, but with about 108 million, it has the most “Pentecostal/Charismatics” (the United States is a distant second with 65

9  Mark P. Hutchinson, Cristina Rocha, and Kathleen Openshaw, “Introduction: Australian Charismatic Movements as a Space of Flows,” in Australian Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: Arguments from the Margins, ed. Cristina Rocha, Mark P.  Hutchinson, and Kathleen Openshaw (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 3. 10  Todd M.  Johnson and Gina A.  Zurlo, eds., “Communion: World Assemblies of God Fellowship,” World Christian Database (WCD), accessed June 22, 2022, https:// worldchristiandatabase-­org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/communion/102/148-­ general. See also the earlier study, Donald E.  Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 19. 11  Allan H. Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth: Pentecostalism and the Transformation of World Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 3; David Martin, Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 52–55. 12  David Westerlund, “Introduction,” in Global Pentecostalism: Encounters with Other Religious Traditions, ed. David Westerlund (London: I.B. Taurus, 2009), 8. See also Brian H.  Smith, Religious Politics in Latin America: Pentecostal vs. Catholic (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 26. 13  Jenkins, Next Christendom, 80. 14  Allan H. Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 63.

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million).15 According to one study, Brazil also claims the highest “concentration” (population per given area) of pentecostals of any Latin American nation.16 Europe, lagging to third place in total Christians (now also trailing Africa), played a pivotal role in pioneering Brazilian Pentecostalism. The United States, the third actor in this shift, is the breeding ground for international pentecostal missions in the early twentieth century, with prominent revival centers in Topeka, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The latter served as the sending hub in the transcontinental triangle (between Europe and North and South America) in the planting of Brazilian Pentecostalism. Expansion ensued through the dynamic interchange between the three points. In subsequent years, Brazilian nationals have become frequent participants in European and North American pentecostal outreach.17 Pentecostalism’s inception in the early twentieth century, particularly in its Global South permutations, was defined by its grassroots character. In contrast to the top-down structure typical of Western, more dominant forms of Christianity, Pentecostalism’s emergence embodied stability from the bottom up—among the common people. This book concentrates on the grassroots development of three transnational pentecostal movements: the Christian Congregation and Christian Assembly (both Italian-­ founded) and the Swedish-founded Assemblies of God. Each movement 15  According to the WCD, there is overlap between “Pentecostal/Charismatics” and “Catholics”—the former encompasses Catholic renewalists. Johnson and Zurlo, “Pentecostals/Charismatics,” in WCD, accessed May 7, 2022, https:// worldchristiandatabase-­org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/results/306. Cf. with Censo demográfico 2010: Características gerais da população, religião e pessoas com deficiência (Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística [IBGE], 2010), under “Tabela 1.4.1,” https://biblioteca.ibge.gov.br/visualizacao/periodicos/94/cd_2010_religiao_deficiencia.pdf. The IBGE count for pentecostals is 25,370,484. The disparity between the WCD and IBGE figures is chiefly because the latter differentiates pentecostals (evangélicas de origem pentecostal) from Catholic (católica) churches. See also Stephen Hunt, “Evaluating Prophetic Radicalism: The Nature of Pentecostal Politics in Brazil,” in Pentecostal Power: Expressions, Impact and Faith of Lain American Pentecostalism, ed. Calvin L. Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 162. 16  Pablo A. Deiros, “Evangelicals in Latin America,” in Evangelicals Around the World: A Global Handbook for the 21st Century, ed. Brian C. Stiller, Todd M. Johnson, Karen Stiller, and Mark P. Hutchinson (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2015), 290. 17  A similar twentieth-century missionary triangle—between Italy, the United States, and Australia—is articulated in Mark P. Hutchinson, “Rough Blocks: The Transoceanic Triangle in Planting Pentecostalism among Italian Immigrants to Australia, 1907–1979,” in Amazing Grace: Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States, ed. George A. Rawlyk and Mark A. Noll (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), 241–65.

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shares roots in the 1907–1908 Chicago revival and, through international outreach, represents the advent of classical Pentecostalism in Brazil. Their emergence challenged the hierarchical and institutional makeup of mainline denominations. The Christian Congregation (Congregação Cristã [CC]) and Assemblies of God (Assembleias de Deus [AD]), originating at approximately the same time (in 1910 and 1911, respectively), remained nearly identical in size through the first half of the twentieth century. Their growth patterns have diverged significantly, however, since the mid-century mark. After WWII, with the dawning of mass culture and transition from a rural society to an increasingly urban-industrial milieu, the CC’s growth staggered while the AD’s flourished.18 As of 2015, the AD was the largest non-­ Catholic denomination in the Western Hemisphere, and the largest pentecostal body globally, with a membership approaching 21 million.19 The CC’s membership, on the other hand, has plateaued at about 2.5 million.20 Moving against the grain of mainstream denominations, the CC was founded as a decidedly lay movement, conceived on the premise of voluntary ministry—ministers are considered an extension of the laity and receive no monetary reimbursement for their service. Among pentecostal movements, the CC and AD constitute the classical (with direct ties to the early twentieth-century revivals) wave of Brazilian Pentecostalism. The Aimee Semple McPherson founded Foursquare Gospel Church (Igreja do Evangelho Quadrangular) is sometimes allotted classical status; however, because of the separation between its US (1927) and Brazilian (1951) origins, it usually coincides with a second wave of

18  Paul Freston, “‘Neo-Pentecostalism’ in Brazil: Problems of Definition and the Struggle for Hegemony,” Archives de sciences sociales ses religions 44, no. 105 (1999): 147–48. 19  Johnson and Zurlo, “Denominations,” in WCD, accessed December 29, 2021, https:// worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/results/211%E2%88%97. 20  Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Congregação Cristã do Brasil,” in WCD, accessed November 15, 2020, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/ detail/denomination/948/83-general; “From Modesty to Ostentation; Pentecostalism in Brazil,” The Economist, January 23, 2016, 54–55. The Economist estimated total membership at 2.8 million.

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movements.21 The lesser-known classical movement, the Christian Assembly (CA), also warrants consideration. Although representing the largest group of pentecostals in Argentina into the middle of the twentieth century, the CA underwent schism and steady decline from this point onward. Recent Brazil-based efforts to restore the CA suggest promise moving forward.22 The CA’s emergence in Brazil, as the Christian Assembly Reunited in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Assembleia Cristã Reunidos em Nome do Nosso Senhor Jesus Cristo), has played an essential role in unifying a fractured movement, bringing together several groups with roots in the original Chicago Italian revival. Despite their common origins and stable initial expansion, each movement follows a remarkably different course after the World War era. This book offers an historical and comparative profile of the CC, AD, and CA in light of their migratory beginnings and transnational expansion. I maintain that each movement’s respective stance on core ecclesiological loci illumines the discrepancy in their expansion trajectories. Weberian sect-church theory interprets the persistence of grassroots identity among pentecostal churches as the inability to accommodate to society.23 Other regional and theological factors help account for the movements’ grassroots makeup alongside this sociological referent. Latin American Pentecostalism’s grassroots character distinguishes it from Northern American and European forms. Scholarly interest increasingly underscores the vibrancy of Pentecostalism among the underrepresented, even forgotten, common peoples of South America. Across the continent, its expansion consists, as David Martin suggests, in a “much more extensive engagement with the poor.”24 In countries like Brazil, Pentecostalism’s enlargement among the underprivileged masses entails a refusal of Catholic 21  Mark Shaw, Global Awakening: How 20th Century Revivals Triggered a Christian Revolution (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010), 139; Paul Freston, Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 13; Vinson Synan, “The ‘Finished Work’ Pentecostal Churches,” in The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901–2001, ed. Vinson Synan (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2001), 134. 22  Wilma W. Davies, The Embattled but Empowered Community: Comparing Understandings of Spiritual Power in Argentine Popular and Pentecostal Cosmologies (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 92. 23  Max Weber, “The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 313–22. See also Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, vol. 2 (New York: Harper, 1960), 997–99. 24  Martin, Tongues of Fire, 53.

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hegemony, embodying a continental-wide paradigm shift. Throughout Latin America, Pentecostalism is emerging among countryfolk from the bottom up. While stimulated by outside missions and migrations (especially the classical movements), ongoing expansion has ensued chiefly from within. According to Paul Freston, the change is occurring “at the expense of Catholicism” and “from the bottom up (not by top-down national reformations).”25 Brazil-based studies by Andrew Chesnut, Cecília Loreto Mariz, and André Corten address the grassroots dimension of Pentecostalism with focus on the liberation theology locus of poverty.26 While the stories of the CC, CA, and AD indeed remain enmeshed in a narrative of freedom from marginalization and economic oppression, there remains something unique about these pentecostal expressions that warrants further consideration. This work is fueled by the desire to better comprehend the rich variations within global Pentecostalism. To this end, I evaluate the transnational trajectory of similar movements between North and South America, inviting consideration of their Global North (US) roots as well as how each is translated into and informed by a specific Global South horizon (Brazil). As employed in this book, “Global North” and “Global South” are less geographical and ethnographical terms and more socioeconomic and political expressions. For example, while countries such as Korea and China lie north of the equator at a distance comparable to that of the United States, they are classified as Global South countries given their lower income.27 The classical movements of interest constantly evolve through this trans-Americas (North-South) exchange. A peculiar characteristic is their “reverse flow”—the same movements taking shape initially in post-colonial regions of the Majority World are subsequently being translated, through migrations and missions, back up into Global North 25  Paul Freston, “The Future of Pentecostalism in Brazil: The Limits to Growth,” in Global Pentecostalism in the 21st Century, ed. Robert W. Hefner (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 67. 26  André Corten, Pentecostalism in Brazil: Emotion of the Poor and Theological Romanticism, trans. Arianne Dorval (New York: St. Martin’s, 1999); Cecília Loreto Mariz, Coping with Poverty: Pentecostals and Christian Base Communities in Brazil (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994); Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil. 27  Mark P. Hutchinson and Candy Gunther Brown, “Introduction: Dissenting Traditions in Globalized Settings,” in The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, Vol. V: The Twentieth Century: Themes and Variations in a Global Context, ed. Mark P.  Hutchinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 19.

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contexts.28 Several methodological considerations spanning social-­ scientific, historiographical, and theological domains warrant further explanation.

Grassroots Pentecostalism and Mobility Perhaps the best point of departure is to consider the meaning of “Pentecostalism” itself. Pentecostalism is a religious tradition encompassing any movement holding in common an emphasis on a “born-again” conversion experience, the Holy Spirit’s power and fullness (i.e., the “baptism in the Spirit”), and the practice of the charismata (spiritual gifts).29 Specifically regarding classical “pentecostal” forms, one could add the insistence on:30 “speaking in tongues” (as a sign of baptism in the Spirit) and missions (rooted in a strong premillennialism).31 Under this umbrella, social scientists and theologians recognize an array of movements varying by such factors as place and time of origination, doctrinal emphases, core 28  Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 271. Kalu suggests that the idea of “reverse flow” (a reinvention of the concept of “reverse mission”) emerges in missiological discourse during the 1970s in light of the question of the decolonization of the African Church (272). 29  Anderson defines Pentecostalism broadly as a “movement concerned primarily with the experience of the working of the Holy Spirit and the practice of spiritual gifts.” A. H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 14; Jacobsen describes a “pentecostal” as anyone committed to a “Spirit-centered, miracle-affirming, praise-oriented version of Christian faith.” Douglas Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit: Theologies of the Early Pentecostal Movement (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 12. See also Wolfgang Vondey, Pentecostal Theology: Living the Full Gospel (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 12; and Robert W. Hefner, “The Unexpected Modern—Gender, Piety, and Politics in the Global Pentecostal Surge,” in Hefner, Global Pentecostalism in the 21st Century, 2. 30  Unless part of a specific denomination or church name, throughout this book, I use the lowercase “pentecostal” (and “charismatic”) to refer to corresponding movements and phenomena. 31  Frank D. Macchia, “The Struggle for Global Witness: Shifting Paradigms in Pentecostal Theology,” in Globalization of Pentecostalism: A Religion Made to Travel, ed. Murray W. Dempster, Byron D. Klaus, and Douglas Petersen (Oxford: Regnum, 1999), 13; Mark J. Cartledge, Charismatic Glossolalia: An Empirical-Theological Study (London: Routledge, 2002). Cartledge clarifies that most “early charismatics” also supported the evidence of speaking in tongues, however, increasingly regard it as “less significant” (3); L.  Grant McClung, Jr., “‘Try to Get People Saved’: Revisiting the Paradigm of an Urgent Pentecostal Missiology,” in Dempster, Klaus, and Petersen, Globalization of Pentecostalism, 32; Westerlund, “Introduction,” 4; Allan H. Anderson, Spreading Fires: The Missionary Nature of Early Pentecostalism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2007).

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practices, size, ethnicity, and social class. Given this rich diversity, it behooves contemporary scholars to acknowledge the many different “Pentecostalisms.”32 Such diversity can be evaluated according to the spectrum ranging from grassroots in make-up to those redolent of the established mainline Christianities. As Wolfgang Vondey describes, Pentecostalism began at the grassroots level as an “isolated local phenomenon.” Even though it quickly expanded into a worldwide movement, suggests Vondey, discussions about its “global culture are premature if the local particularities of the pentecostal movement are neglected.”33 While recognizing the global character of contemporary Pentecostalism, this book harkens to the “particularities” (the specific customs, worldviews, and sensibilities) enriching the shape of pentecostal movements. I employ the term grassroots specifically when referring to those local movements originating among the “common people.”34 Socioeconomically, these movements include a significant constituent below the poverty line.35 The grassroots concept takes on a further layer of meaning in the framework of the ecclesia, encompassing those movements, denominations, and churches giving voice to ordinary members (the laity) working from the bottom up; in contrast to top-down, hierarchical structure (steered by clergy). The eroded line between “laity” and “clergy” is one of the distinguishing facets of classical Pentecostalism.36 The Christian Congregation, Christian Assembly, and Assemblies of God represent “movements” comprising one or more “denominations” (with the bylaws of a religious body). Admittedly, all three have resisted the connotations the latter designation brings, preferring the label “fellowship” instead. The latter moves away from the official organizational overtones of “denomination,” reenacting the apostolic concept of

32  Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., “Making Sense of Pentecostalism in a Global Context,” unpublished paper presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Society of Pentecostal Studies (Springfield, MI, March 1999), 18; A. H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 10. 33  Wolfgang Vondey, Pentecostalism: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 11. 34  Pablo A. Deiros, and Everett A. Wilson, “Hispanic Pentecostalism in the Americas,” in Synan, Century of the Holy Spirit, 293; Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “grassroots,” accessed January 2, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grassroots. 35  Rowan Ireland, Kingdoms Come: Religion and Politics in Brazil (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991), 3; Smith, Religious Politics in Latin America, 25. 36  Westerlund, “Introduction,” 4.

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koinonia (Acts 2:42) while circumscribing each’s grassroots identity.37 Each founder wished to maintain his movement’s pristine identity as the gathering of God’s people. This stance echoes the position adopted by H.  Richard Niebuhr in his 1929 work The Social Sources of Denominationalism. Niebuhr blamed the moral decay of the Western church on the sectarian, even caste-system impulse, of denominational Christianity. Denominations reflect the church’s capitulation to the classifications and compartmentalizing of modern society and, therein, serve as symbols of “the victory of the world over the church, of the secularization of Christianity, of the church’s sanction of that divisiveness which the church’s gospel condemns.”38 Implicit in the movements’ historical rejection of denominationalism is a protest of the disunity and centralized power embodied in many traditional mainline contexts. One of this book’s chief aims is to explore where classical movements fall within conventional classifications delineating forms of pentecostal-­ charismatic renewal Christianity. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, of “Pentecostal-Charismatics” worldwide, nearly 40 percent (252 million) consider themselves “independent Charismatics” (separate from mainline denominations). The rest fall under “classical Pentecostals” (belonging to traditional pentecostal denominations) or “Charismatics” (admitting the pentecostal “being filled with the Holy Spirit” but belonging to non-Pentecostal denominations).39 Given their ties to the early pentecostal revivals and the periodization of movements among the respective waves of twentieth-century renewal, as Mark Shaw observes, each can be considered classical in form and, thus, among the first wave. A second wave (arriving in the 1950s and 1960s) consisted of new churches, including several nationalist bodies, and the increasing use of mass media outreach, followed by a third wave in the 1970s of 37  “Home,” Christian Congregation in North America, last updated May 2, 2020, https:// www.ccnamerica.org. The CA refers to themselves as a comunhão (“fellowship” or “communion”). “Estatuto da Assembleia Cristã,” Assembleia Cristã, art. 1, ratified on March 9, 2019 (in the State of Paraná), https://www.assembleiacrista.com.br/noticia/292656/ estatuto-da-assembleia-crist%C3%83. Concerning the Assemblies of God, see “Structure,” Assemblies of God (USA), under “District and General Council Functions,” accessed January 21, 2021, https://ag.org/About/About-the-AG/Structure. 38  H. Richard Niebuhr, The Social Sources of Denominationalism (1929, repr., Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1987), 25. 39  Johnson and Zurlo, “Pentecostals/Charismatics,” in WCD, accessed January 2, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/results/306. Cf. with Johnson et al., “Christianity 2017,” 49.

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­ eopentecostal churches. The classical pentecostal movements of Brazil n share a mutual tie to the early US pentecostal revivals and an emphasis on “finished work” theology—a revision of holiness teaching popularized by North Avenue Mission pastor William Durham, wherein sanctification is realized gradually (rather than as an instantaneous crisis experience). In sheer size, the AD resembles traditional mainline churches. On the other hand, the reticence of the movements to be called “denominations” contravenes the markers for classical forms, intimating something more akin to independent charismatics of subsequent waves.40 One could argue that declining CC and CA growth is tied to their reluctance to organize. While each resisted order (and the branding of themselves as “denominations”) initially, they enhanced their organization to sustain growth, adopting a written credo and introducing structure at local and regional levels.41 More significant than the choice to organize or not is the type of ecclesial structure each espouses. Of particular interest is the extent to which the contrasting polities of the movements contribute to their diverging growth patterns. In large part, Pentecostalism’s expansion is attributable to its success among migrants. The origination of the Italian- and Swedish-founded movements of interest illumines their initial anti-organizationalism and base among the lower-rank masses. In the United States and Brazil, Pentecostalism generated momentum among urban migrants who, relocating from rural-agrarian contexts, found themselves isolated and displaced in the inner city. According to Miller and Yamamori, pentecostal churches “often function like surrogate extended families.”42 Early Pentecostalism equipped its adherents with a support network and the optimism, identity, and mobility needed to excel in work and community. The pentecostal baptism in the Spirit served as a coping mechanism for 40  Shaw, Global Awakening, 137–53; Synan, “The ‘Finished Work’ Pentecostal Churches,” 123–24. On wave theory in the Brazilian context, see also Hunt, “Evaluating Prophetic Radicalism,” 159–60; Corten, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 48–49; Paul Freston, “Pentecostalism in Brazil: A Brief History,” Religion 25, no. 2 (1995): 119–33; and Leonardo Marcondes Alves, “Pentecostalism in Brazil,” in ELAR, ed. Henri Gooren (New York: Springer, 2019), 2:1207–8. 41  Key Yuasa, “Louis Francescon: A Theological Biography: 1866–1964” (ThD diss., University of Genève, 2001), 171; “Estatuto padrão” [Standard Statute], Congregação Cristã no Brasil, under “Preâmbulo,” accessed November 19, 2020, https://congregacaocristanobrasil.org.br/institucional. 42  Miller and Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism, 23.

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dislodged migrants as they adjusted to a foreign urban industrial milieu. Robert Anderson described “the ecstasy of ‘the baptism,’” representing a “cathartic mode of accommodation to that world.”43 One might presume that the transmutation of Pentecostalism from the United States to Brazil would have taken the form of an “imported” Christianity. Nevertheless, Francescon, Berg, and Vingren’s trans-Americas outreach embraced the culture of Brazilian working-class neighborhoods, founding movements that developed by and among the poor, in contrast to the middle-class focus of Protestant mainline missions. Pentecostalism’s emergence among the marginalized voices of Brazil underscores its shaping from, alongside European sources, the bricolage of North and South American influences.44 This fusion entailed the foundation, not of new Italian- and Swedish-­ imported churches but of new ecclesial bodies that quickly became autochthonous.45 A related line of inquiry concerns the role of ethnicity. Ostensibly, the Italian-founded CC and CA have yet to experience the numerical growth of the Swedish-founded AD, inviting consideration of whether their growth discrepancies are explainable by differences between the cultural sensibilities of Italians and Swedes. The mobility of grassroots Pentecostalisms implies constant fluctuation in growth—expansions, contractions, and transformations. A worthwhile point of consideration resides in the methodology for assessing the growth of religious movements. Analysis of church growth is preoccupied with quantitative evaluation, with the number of a movement or denomination’s adherents (“membership”) being the standard measure. A second category, the number of “congregations,” offers a frequent auxiliary measure, affording insight into varying patterns. A religious body’s size by membership does not always correspond to its size by congregations. For example, although the AD trails several national Catholic bodies in total membership, it is the largest denomination in the world by congregation

43  Robert M. Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992), 136. 44  I employ the concept of bricolage in reference to religious “recomposition” (comprising folk elements). Karel Dobbelaere, “Bricolage,” in Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, ed. William H. Swatos (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 1998), 62–63. 45  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 26–30; A. H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 70–72; William R. Read, New Patterns of Church Growth in Brazil (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 24–25.

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(with more than 160,000).46 A third point of departure is to assess the number of “conversions.” Other less tangible qualities also serve as gauges for growth, particularly significant for religious movements, which concede ethereal aspects like “spiritual fervor” and “contentment.” Admittedly, this book allots preference to quantitative evaluation, focusing chiefly on membership, however, where pertinent, qualitative dimensions are also considered, facilitated through interviews and participant observation.47

Historiographical Considerations The exchange of cultures and religiosities in migration complicates pentecostal historiography, making it exceedingly difficult to pin down a movement’s origins to a specific place or year. Indeed, the birthplace of Pentecostalism itself remains the subject of ongoing discussion. While Frank Bartleman hails the Azusa Street Revival as the “American Jerusalem” of Pentecostalism, revivals occurring alongside and not explicitly linked to Los Angeles must also be considered.48 Although Los Angeles remains “paramount” to pentecostal historiography, increasingly, historians and theologians account for similar phenomena occurring elsewhere at approximately the same time.49 This multiple origins approach takes into account other awakenings in Valparaiso, Chile; Wakkerstroom, South Africa; 46  Johnson and Zurlo, “Denominations,” in WCD, accessed December 29, 2021, https:// worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/results/211%E2%88%97. Two independent church bodies in China outnumber the AD in total congregations (however, they are considered “house-churches”). 47  On quantitative and qualitative research methods, see Mark J.  Cartledge, “Public Theology and Empirical Research: Developing an Agenda,” International Journal of Public Theology 10, no. 2 (June 2016): 157–61; and Mark J. Cartledge, Narratives and Numbers: Empirical Studies of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2017). Cartledge suggests that other “dramatic experiences” such as “expressions of holiness” and Spirit baptism provide a basis for empirical research (2). For a quantitative approach to church growth structured on “membership” and “congregation,” see Johnson and Zurlo, WCD, accessed June 4, 2022, http://worldchristiandatabase.org/wcd. For a quantitative approach utilizing conversion and membership, see Timothy J.  Steigenga, “The Politics of Pentecostalized Religion: Conversion as Pentecostalization in Guatemala,” in Conversion of a Continent: Contemporary Religious Change in Latin America, ed. Timothy J.  Steigenga and Edward L. Cleary, 256–79 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007). 48  Frank Bartleman, Azusa Street: The Roots of Modern-Day Pentecost (South Plainfield, NJ: Bridge, 1980), 63. 49  Cecil M.  Robeck, Jr., The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 16.

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Lagos, Nigeria; Oslo, Norway; Moriah, Wales; Sunderland, England; Mukti, India; Pyongyang, Korea; and Manchuria, China—emerging contemporaneously to and mostly independent of developments in the United States.50 A multiple origins approach furthers pentecostal-charismatic studies by keeping the door open to fresh findings in new corners of the world. Concerning the matrices of Brazilian Pentecostalism, an awareness of each movement’s manifold sources tempers the reliance on Chicago as the exclusive origin site. Despite Chicago’s paramount role in the narrative of Brazilian Pentecostalism, a point conceded by North and South American scholarship alike, the multiple-origins critique paves the way for more robust interpretations.51 As Christianity’s center of gravity shifts and Majority World voices emerge, a necessary bottom-up critique promises to enhance our historiography of Pentecostalism in nations like Brazil. William A. Dyrness and Oscar García-Johnson expose the inherent contradiction of a theological academy that remains preoccupied with the West, despite the reality that the church’s “most rapid growth today is outside the West, so that most Christians now come from places other than Europe and North America.”52 Moreover, Christianity exhibits an increasing appeal to Native peoples. Historians will do well to forestall setting Western (European and North American) pentecostal lineages as the benchmark by which all other movements are weighed. Considering the North American bias about the origins and variations of Pentecostalism, this work is fueled by the desire to unearth those stories reverberating from the Global South. While this study takes seriously the historical flows from the Global North into other regions, it also endeavors to cross the gamut and enter the field of the history of non-Western Christianity. Taking the cue from Virginia Garrard, I 50  A.  H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 170–72; David D.  Bundy, “Welsh Revival,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 1187; Peter Hocken, The Challenges of the Pentecostal, Charismatic and Messianic Jewish Movements: The Tensions of the Spirit (Abingdon, Eng.: Routledge, 2016), 17–19; Edward L. Cleary, “Latin American Pentecostalism,” in Dempster, Klaus, and Petersen, Globalization of Pentecostalism, 133–34; John D.  Woodbridge and Frank A.  James III, From Pre-Reformation to the Present Day, vol. 2 of Church History (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 598. 51  Deiros and Wilson, “Hispanic Pentecostalism in the Americas,” 311–12; Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 189–91; Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition, 133–34. 52  William A. Dyrness and Oscar García-Johnson, Theology without Borders: An Introduction to Global Conversations (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), ix. See also Allan H.  Anderson, Spirit-Filled World: Religious Dis/Continuity in African Pentecostalism, Christianity & Renewal—Interdisciplinary Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), 9.

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have adopted the modality which conceives of Christianity foremost “as a global or ‘world,’ as opposed to a ‘Western,’ religion.”53 The historian’s quest to identify concrete points of origin ought not to be abandoned. The multiple-origin (polygenetic) hypothesis does not exclude single-origin (monogenetic) explanations but, indeed, may complement them. According to Michael McClymond, “The claim of pentecostal polygenesis does not diminish the significance of the Azusa Street Revival but rather enhances it.” There are advantages in a more inclusive historiographical outlook that recognizes the symbiosis of monogenetic (the Azusa Street hypothesis) and polygenetic explanations as theories working side by side.54 For example, the 1910 Santo Antônio da Platina, Paraná revival can be considered the “Brazilian Jerusalem” of the CC, if not the entire pentecostal work in the country. Examining this awakening offers a counterbalance to historiographies concentrating exclusively on Chicago. Even if Santo Antônio is considered “ground zero” of Brazilian Pentecostalism, an inclusive rendering encompasses its multiculturality as a revival composed of US, Italian, and Brazilian influences. An analogous argument about the AD favoring the 1911 Belém, Pará revival can be made. Still, scrutiny of the latter reveals the interweaving of US, Swedish, and Brazilian influences.55 Whether Los Angeles, Chicago, Paraná, or Belém, each revival’s inclusive, multinational nature provisions a multicultural approach. Alongside and complementing the multicultural perspective, my argument incorporates a genetic approach, highlighting each movement’s continuity with existing early twentieth-century streams.56 The first such stream hinges on the robust piety of the Holiness ­movement, 53  Virginia Garrard, New Faces of God in Latin America: Emerging Forms of Vernacular Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 2. 54  Michael J. McClymond, “‘I Will Pour Out of My Spirit Upon All Flesh,’” Pneuma 37, no. 3 (January 2015): 359–60, 373–74. See also James M. Stayer, Werner O. Packull, and Klaus Deppermann, “From Monogenesis to Polygenesis: The Historical Discussion of Anabaptist Origins,” The Mennonite Quarterly Review 49, no. 2 (April 1975): 85. 55  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 11–12; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 36. 56  In delineating the diverse roots of Italian Pentecostalism, elsewhere I propose the value of combining genetic and functional interpretive approaches. Paul J. Palma, Italian American Pentecostalism and the Struggle for Religious Identity (London: Routledge, 2020), 8. Common among pentecostals, these historiographical approaches are outlined in Augustus Cerillo Jr. and Grant Wacker, “Bibliography and Historiography of Pentecostalism in the United States,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 397–405. See also Grant Wacker, “Are the Golden Oldies Still Worth Playing? Reflections on History Writing among Early Pentecostals,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies (Fall 1986): 91–92.

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foregrounding much of North American Pentecostalism. The second derives from Reformed Evangelicalism—for the CC and CA, embodied in the Waldensian-Presbyterianism of Francescon and, for the AD, the Baptist roots of Berg and Vingren. Thirdly, also illuminating are folk currents ingrained in Brazil’s religious landscape, encompassing Catholic, African, and Indigenous contexts.57 The catalyzing of these streams among Euro-US migrants, inspired by the Chicago revival in its ethno-racial richness, suggests the fabric of each movement is wrapped up in a vigorous multiculturality.

Theological Horizons In addition to social-scientific and historiographical approaches, of interest is how classical Brazilian Pentecostalism informs the contemporary arenas of renewal, liberation, and evangelical theology. By renewal, implicit are those pentecostal-charismatic theologies exhibiting a focus on the gifts of the Spirit, orthopathy (underscoring experience and affection), and a Luke-Acts hermeneutic pivoting on the theme of the Spirit’s outpouring.58 Of particular interest is the progression of renewal in twentieth-­ century North America and Brazil through its various stages (or waves). Academic theorizing about such waves admits significant discrepancy from one global context to another. To what extent does renewal “wave theory” illumine the varying growth patterns of the classical movements forming the focus of this study? In this book, I explore how pentecostal renewal corresponds to liberation theology’s preferential option for the poor. In A Theology of Liberation, Gustavo Gutiérrez claimed that Christian poverty as “an expression of love, is solidarity with the poor and is a protest against poverty.”59 Such protest emanates from Christian charity as a summons to social and political change. Informed by the peculiar Latina/o referent of Brazilian 57   Everett A.  Wilson, “Brazil,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 37–38; Daniel Ramírez, “Pentecostalism in Latin America,” in The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism, ed. Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. and Amos Yong (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 121–22. 58  Amos Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 83–91; Wolfgang Vondey, Beyond Pentecostalism: The Crisis of Global Christianity and the Renewal of the Theological Agenda (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 44–46. 59  Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1973), 172.

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Pentecostalism, I consider how to interpret this prophetic call to transformation against the typical apolitical renderings of pentecostal theology. Pentecostalism, especially in its classical forms, borrows from a dispensationalist eschatology fixated on the coming millennial kingdom, articulated in an urgency to save lost souls before the imminent judgment of the world. As Amos Yong observes in the book In the Days of Caesar, “Pentecostals who have been shaped by dispensationalist eschatology have emphasized missions and evangelism over political engagement.”60 Among the marginalized, apoliticism is linked to other causes. Limited means entail political disengagement as involvement is directed towards manageable affairs like family and church rather than voting or supporting political causes. In other cases, as with migrants devoid of citizenship and fundamental rights, pentecostals lack access to political mechanisms. In Brazil, current trends point to an increase in pentecostal political engagement among the AD and neopentecostal (third wave) contexts. The CC, on the other hand, remains reticent to join in political affairs. Differences in ecclesial polity offer further insight into varying degrees of civic involvement among the movements.61 Evangelical theology has a palpable historical and theological overlap with Pentecostalism. Reaching back to eighteenth-century transatlantic currents between England and Scotland and the British colonies of the New World, Evangelicalism was born from revivals presaging the pentecostal renewal. Associated with the revivalists John Wesley, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards, the First Great Awakening laid a foundation for North American renewal among nineteenth-century Holiness and Divine Healing movements that funneled directly into Pentecostalism.62 Evangelicalism in Brazil breaks onto the scene at the end of the Brazilian 60  Amos Yong, In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 5. 61  Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 221–23; Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 17–18, 20; Arlene M. Sánchez-Walsh, Latino Pentecostal Identity: Evangelical Faith, Self, and Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 167–69. 62  Mark A. Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010), 37–38. One of the principal leaders of the Divine Healing movement (which admits crossover with the Holiness movement) was the former Presbyterian A. B. Simpson, who founded the evangelical Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. Heather D. Curtis, “The Global Character of Nineteenth-Century Divine Healing,” in Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing, ed. Candy Gunther Brown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 35–36.

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Empire in 1889. Amid the dissolution of the alliance between the state and Roman Catholicism, Protestant Bible societies and educational and ecclesial reform sowed the seeds of “religious rupture,” affording a setting amicable to the burgeoning of Pentecostalism decades later.63 In Latin America, the tie between Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism is of such a degree, observes Pablo A. Deiros, that the term evangélico (Spa. for evangelical) is now “almost synonymous with the term ‘Pentecostal.’”64 Nevertheless, statisticians also underline essential differences between the meanings of “pentecostal” and “evangelical,” which carry increasing significance in the twenty-first-century global climate.65 Brazil’s evangelicals, faring well in recent decades, are more politically active than traditional pentecostal groups. According to Alexandre Brasil Fonseca, increasingly, in the 1990s and 2000s, this evangelical presence was associated with opposition to the federal government.66 It bears inquiring whether the AD’s relative success is tied to a more robust evangelical framework than the plateauing CC or waning CA.

The Roadmap Ahead This book is interdisciplinary in nature, utilizing historical, theological, and ethnographic approaches to illuminate the contours of grassroots Pentecostalism. In the first part, I examine the inception, development, and corresponding historiographical concerns of the first wave of pentecostal missions to and from Brazil, highlighting the ebb and flow between North and South American contexts. Chapter 2 explores the precursors of the Italian and Swedish branches of the first wave, assessing the convergence of old-world influences with US and Brazilian sources. I consider the interweaving and variations of holiness, Reformed-evangelical, and 63  Pedro Feitoza, “Historical Trajectories of Protestantism in Brazil, 1810–1960,” in Brazilian Evangelicalism in the Twenty-first Century: An Inside and Outside Look, ed. Eric Miller and Ronald J. Morgan, Christianity & Renewal—Interdisciplinary Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 51. 64  Deiros, “Evangelicals in Latin America,” 295. 65   In global perspective, Johnson et  al. classify “evangelicals” and “pentecostals/ Charismatics” separately (“Christianity 2017,” 49). In the Brazilian context, Morgan and Pereira consider pentecostals a sub-group of evangelicals. Ronald J. Morgan and Henrique Alonso Pereira, “Which Evangélicos? Probing the Diversities Within Brazilian Protestantism and the Case for a ‘Middle Way,’” in Miller and Morgan, Brazilian Evangelicalism in the Twenty-first Century, 68. 66  Fonseca, “Religion and Democracy in Brazil,” 164–65.

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folk-religious streams in the genesis of each movement. The second chapter looks at the historico-cultural context behind the shaping of the CC and AD on Brazilian soil. The migrant underpinnings of the respective Italian and Swedish American founders contributed to high mobility as Pentecostalism extended its reach among the Brazilian populace. Although initial expansion proceeded among the groups’ diasporas, ensuing growth occurred chiefly among the Brazilian poor. The movements readily took on an autochthonous character. Chapter 4 surveys the emergence of the CA as an integral hub of Southern Cone Pentecostalism. Pioneered by Francescon among the Italian diaspora in Argentina, the CA became the largest group of pentecostals in the country by the middle of the twentieth century. Inundated with controversy and division, it witnessed steady decline in subsequent years. More recently, with the emergence of the CA on Brazil soil, efforts are underway to restore it to the vision of the Chicago founders. While Chicago-based missions unmistakably influenced the shaping of classical Brazilian Pentecostalism, a reverse effect is apparent in ensuing years—the once receiving country becomes the sending county, dispatching missions to Global North regions. Now found throughout North America, Brazilian migrant pentecostal churches shelter ethnic identity while providing an outreach platform among the Portuguese-speaking population. Chapter 5 considers how reverse mission contributes to the shape of Pentecostalism in North America. Although CC growth has plateaued in recent decades in Brazil, the movement is expanding among the US Brazilian (Brazuca) diaspora and other countries abroad.67 Through its reviviscence among expanding networks in Brazil, the CA is reestablishing ties with affiliates in the United States and Spain. In addition to expansion into Portugal and Portuguese-speaking Africa, the AD has forged a formidable presence among Brazilian migrants in North America, Western Europe, and Japan. The book’s second part looks at ongoing challenges and prospects for the classical trans-Americas movements of interest. Part 2 is more integrative by design, engaging the issues of church growth, polity, gender, and 67  “Brazuca” is a term Brazilians use to refer to themselves when abroad (especially in the United States), underscoring national pride and aspects distinctive to Brazilian culture. See, for example, Chaves’ use of the term (with respect to US Brazilian Baptists). João B. Chaves, Migrational Religion: Context and Creativity in the Latinx Diaspora (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2021); and José Victor Bicalho, Yes, eu sou Brazuca ou a vida do imigrante Brasileiro nos Estados Unidos da América (Governador Valadares: Fundação Serviços de Educação e Cultura, 1989).

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politics in light of historical themes, core doctrinal loci, and comparative assessments. Personal interviews, adding texture throughout, appear prominently in Part 2. Theologically, the focal point is the arena of ecclesiology, situated within a robust pneumatological framework. Deliberated at each juncture are those unique attributes defining the movements as Spirit-indwelt peoples of God. Chapter 6 considers the marked discrepancies in numerical growth among the movements from the early 1960s onward. While the CC and AD chart a similar trajectory through the midcentury mark, thereafter, the former’s expansion tapers, while the latter’s rises steeply. Chapter 7 evaluates the ecclesial polity of each as they ventured from their congregational mores, integrating presbyterial and (for the AD) episcopal elements. Chapter 8 explores the movements’ shifting attitudes towards dress and ministry. In contrast to the dress code, which has tempered (especially on the US front), restrictions on women in ministry intensified over the twentieth century. The movements’ attitudes in these areas illustrate how gender is an integral entry point into gauging growth trajectories. Chapter 9 examines the dialectic between the initial holiness ethic of the movements and the increasing politicization of Brazilian Pentecostalism. Their holiness ethic is tied to a separatistic penchant which has been a distancing factor, even from other pentecostal contexts. While this impulse has moderated, it challenges social engagement and contributes to apoliticism. I assess these elements through a sustained dialogue with H.  Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture.68 The emphasis on freedom from oppressive poverty infuses the movements with a unique Latina/o politicality. I consider the eschatological implications of this liberation theology locus in dialogue with the Argentine Methodist José Miguez Bonino’s post-­ colonial perspective.69 With expansion into new global frontiers, classical Brazilian Pentecostalism stands at a critical precipice. CC growth has stalled, and AD membership shows signs of declining. A concluding chapter inquires whether the CC can recover its early years’ dynamic growth while exploring avenues for rehabilitating the AD. I consider the role of ethnicity in shaping pentecostal perspectives and practices and the value of a multidirectional mission model.  H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper Collins, 1951).  José Miguez Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1975), 132–52. 68 69

PART I

Classical Pentecostalism in Transnational Perspective

CHAPTER 2

Grassroots Pentecostal Movements: US and Brazilian Origins

Classical trans-Americas Pentecostalism, between the United States and Brazil, was born out of outreach efforts inspired by the 1907–1908 Chicago awakening, the Midwest transplant of the better-known Azusa Street, Los Angeles Revival. Galvanized by their pentecostal encounter at the city revival hub, the North Avenue Mission, the Italian Luigi Francescon, and Swedish Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren sought out compatriots among their respective diasporas in South America. Francescon stood among the torchbearers of Pentecostalism in Argentina and southern Brazil, while Berg and Vingren pioneered Brazil’s North Region. Representing the first wave of Pentecostalism in Brazil, the twin branches of Euro-US missions sprang from the bricolage of holiness, Reformed-­ evangelical, and folk-religious streams. This chapter illumines the US and Brazilian foreground of the branches, highlighting their common and peculiar origins. The faith journey of the movements’ founders embodies the tension and reciprocity between the antecedent streams. The birth of Pentecostalism represented a twentieth-century continuation of renewal currents among Christian peoples throughout history. Concerning the classical pentecostal streams forming the basis of this study, one can point to parallels with the spirituality of the apostolic community (depicted in Acts), the fervent religiosity of the second-century Montanists, or the Catholic mystics and Waldensians of the High Middle

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_2

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Ages. Also notable are modern streams such as the Camisards, Quakers, Irvingites, the Great Awakening, Keswickians, and nineteenth-century Divine Healing and Holiness movements. Each of these movements shares with early Pentecostalism a penchant for the miraculous, ecstatic religious experiences (especially Spirit baptism and like encounters) and an identity straddling the line between the socially tolerable and society’s outer fringes.1 Still, the grassroots Christianity of the Italian and Swedish branches of Pentecostalism in twentieth-century Brazil exhibits a distinctive character. Alongside holiness and Reformed impulses, folk influences must be taken seriously. In Brazil, the isolated, local expressions emerging among the disadvantaged common peoples (drawing from the definition of grassroots used throughout) are peculiarly informed by folk religiosity.2 Pondering the variations and interactions of such impulses promises to enrich the historiography of transnational Pentecostalism. As Allan Anderson maintains in his analysis of Indigenous influences within an African pentecostal context, it seems that pentecostal spirituality, uniquely among other Christian traditions, “is at an interface between Christianity and other religious worlds.”3 Pentecostalism emerged in Brazil at the crossroads of prior Portuguese Catholic impulses (prevailing since the first European explorers’ arrival) and African spiritist, Indigenous, and syncretic currents.

Multicultural Antecedents Classical Pentecostalism’s Italian and Swedish pioneers stood among the panoply of migrant peoples at the forefront of early pentecostal missions. As a tradition integrally shaped by migrations, the origins of Pentecostalism are complicated by the constant exchange of customs and religiosities in the relocation of a given group from one global region to another. This 1  On the Euro-US roots of classical Italian Pentecostalism, see P. Palma, Italian American Pentecostalism, chap. 1. See also Francesco Toppi, E mi sarete testimoni: Il movimento Pentecostale e le Assemblee di Dio in Italia (Rome: ADI Media, 1999), 10–29; A. H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 19–33; and Stanley M. Burgess, Christian Peoples of the Spirit: A Documentary History of Pentecostal Spirituality from the Early Church to the Present (New York University Press, 2011). 2  Vondey, Pentecostalism, 11; Deiros and Wilson, “Hispanic Pentecostalism in the Americas,” 293. On the Indigenous dimensions of Latin American grassroots Christianity, see Clayton L. Berg and Paul E. Pretiz, Spontaneous Combustion: Grass-Roots Christianity, Latin American Style (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1996), 7–8. 3  Anderson, Spirit-Filled World, 16.

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perpetual motion contributed to the early Pentecostal revivals’ rich multiculturalism, opulent spirituality, and international reach. In the United States and Brazil, the first wave of Pentecostalism was marked by an inclusivity that cut across the lines of language, ethnicity, and gender. Standing at the helm of the Chicago revival’s central church, William H. Durham observed the many faces of the awakening—“Italians, Persians, Scandinavians, Germans, Africans, Indians”—all gathered in one place.4 Firsthand accounts of the Los Angeles revival (1906–1909) intimate that one of its defining marks was “speaking in tongues, ” harking to the impalpable beginnings of the movement. The Azusa Street Missions’ newspaper, Apostolic Faith, noted the preponderance of speech in unlearned “Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Zulu, and languages of Africa,” alongside Native American and Bengali dialects.5 The early revivals’ inclusivity was reflected in their race and gender transcending penchant. Among the founders of the Azusa Street Mission, the African American pastor Julia Hutchins embodied the revival’s all-embracing spirit. Her trailblazing efforts paved the way for the outreach of William J. Seymour. The revival cut across the lines of ethnicity and race as Blacks and Whites united for nightly worship. The coming together of disparate languages, cultures, and races was interpreted as a sign of the Spirit’s outpouring and the advent of the end of the age.6 As the Azusa Street Mission’s first pastor, Seymour personified Pentecostalism’s “peripatetic restlessness and cultural hybridity.”7 His spiritual pilgrimage was shaped by a variety of influences. Seymour was raised by formerly enslaved parents in post-Reconstruction Louisiana. Because of the stigma of an eighteenth-century black code, his parents had him baptized in a Catholic church. His journey was also informed by the copious spirit world and supernaturalism of African slave religion. As Vinson Synan and Charles Fox, Jr. suggest, Seymour was exposed to  William H. Durham, “The Great Chicago Revival,” Pentecostal Testimony, May 1912, 13.  “Pentecost Has Come,” Apostolic Faith, September 1906, 1. 6  Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 386–87; Estrelda Alexander, The Women of Azusa Street (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2005), 24–25; Denzil R. Miller, The Women of Azusa Street: Four Spirit-Anointed Leaders of the Azusa Street Revival (Springfield, MO: AIA Publications, 2015), 9; Eric Patterson, “Conclusion: Back to the Future: U.S. Pentecostalism in the 21st Century,” in The Future of Pentecostalism in the United States, ed. Eric Patterson and Edmund Rybarczyk (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 204–5. 7  Hefner, “The Unexpected Modern,” 3. 4 5

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African vodou.8 Wearied by the mistreatment and marginalization of African Americans, Seymour ventured to the North. At an Indianapolis Methodist Episcopal Church, he had an evangelical conversion experience and was drawn into the millenarianism of the holiness movement. When Hutchins invited him to pastor the Mission, Seymour was already pursuing the “Bible evidence” speaking-in-tongues experience. His competence as a Bible teacher and gentle demeanor appealed to an opulently diverse audience, promoting an atmosphere of ethnic integration.9 Frank Bartleman, a White participant, recounts the pervading atmosphere of love and acceptance at Azusa Street: “The ‘color line’ was washed away in the blood … Divine love was wonderfully manifest in the meetings. They would not even allow an unkind word said against their opposers, or the churches. The message was the love of God. It was a sort of ‘first love’ of the early church returned.”10 Through Seymour’s visionary leadership, the Azusa Street Revival blossomed into an interethnic and interracial seedbed and the first international outreach hub of early Pentecostalism. A “many Jerusalems” approach to pentecostal origins complements the cultural eclecticism of the Los Angeles revival (and Chicago by extension).11 While Azusa Street was without question the paramount fountainhead of the Chicago revival, two sources in the city’s larger metropolitan area are worth mentioning.12 The first, admitting Keswickevangelical roots, is the late nineteenth-century outreach of D. L. Moody. Alongside his associate, R. A. Torrey, Moody embraced the pentecostal “baptism in the Spirit” even before Pentecostalism’s burgeoning in the 8  Vinson Synan, and Charles R. Fox, Jr., William J. Seymour: Pioneer of the Azusa Street Revival (Alachua, FL: Bridge-Logos, 2012), 17–19. Despite the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1866, the black codes “effectively continued slavery by way of indentures, sharecropping, and other forms of service.” Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States (New York: W.  W. Norton and Co., 2018), 318; Estrelda Alexander, “Recovering Black Theological Thought in the Writings of Early African-American Holiness-Pentecostal Leaders: Liberation Motifs in Early African-American Pentecostalism,” in A Liberating Spirit: Pentecostals and Social Action in North America, ed. Michael Wilkinson and Steven M. Studebaker (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010), 30–31. 9  Seymour encountered the bible (“initial”) evidence teaching from Charles Parham during a visit to Houston. Synan and Fox, William J. Seymour, 28–35; Kay, Pentecostalism, 66; Robeck, Jr., Azusa Street Mission and Revival, 43–45. 10  Bartleman, Azusa Street, 54. 11  McClymond, “I Will Pour Out of My Spirit,” 374; A.  H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 171. 12  Robeck, Jr., Azusa Street Mission and Revival, 16.

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early twentieth century. Moody’s revival campaigns were characterized by the miraculous (healings, prophecy, and speaking in tongues) and a distinct millenarianism (belief in the imminent Parousia).13 Arriving in Chicago in 1856, he founded the North Market Sabbath School, the Moody Bible Institute, and the Moody Church. His cross-cultural outreach included campaigns in Canada, Great Britain, and among the Swedish Mission Friends. Through ties with pioneer missionary to China Hudson Taylor, Moody became an avid supporter of the China Inland Mission. Erected on the vision to prepare preachers and missionaries for global outreach, the Bible Institute stood only blocks from the North Avenue Mission, with tremendous crossover between the respective revival networks.14 Italian pentecostal pioneer Massimiliano Tosetto attended the Moody Church and first learned of the baptism in the Spirit through Torrey’s teaching at the Institute. The music of revival campaign hymn writers, vocalists, and instrumentalists was incorporated into the original Italian hymnal of the Christian Congregation (CC) and Christian Assembly (CA).15 Another notable Chicago revival network, born out of the nineteenth-­ century Divine Healing movement, was John Alexander Dowie’s theocratic community, Zion City. A Scottish-Australian immigrant, Dowie 13  Bruce L.  Shelley, “Dwight Lyman Moody,” in New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 674–75; Toppi, E mi sarete testimoni, 19, 23; William R.  Moody, The Life of Dwight L.  Moody (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1900), 149; R. A. Torrey, What the Bible Teaches (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1996), 271; R. A. Torrey, The Baptism with the Holy Spirit (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship, 1972). 14  Shelley, “Dwight Lyman Moody,” 674–75; W.  R. Moody, Life of Dwight L.  Moody, 127–30; Marion Brepohl, “Missionaries in Rowboats? Mission and Enculturation,” in Miller and Morgan, Brazilian Evangelicalism in the Twenty-first Century, 304–5; Joseph Colletti, “Ethnic Pentecostalism in Chicago: 1890–1950” (PhD diss., University of Birmingham, 1990), 101–2. Frank J.  Ewart, The Phenomenon of Pentecost, rev. ed. (Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame, 2000), 87; George D. Johnson, What Will a Man Give in Exchange for His Soul? (Harrisburg, PA: Xlibris, 2011), 115–16. On Chicago as a turn-of-the-twentieth-century hub for evangelical revivalist preachers like Moody, William Durham, and Billy Sunday, see Mark P.  Hutchinson, “Dissenting Preaching in the Twentieth-Century Anglophone World,” in Hutchinson, Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, 170–71. 15  Francesco Toppi, Massimiliano Tosetto, I pioneri del risveglio Pentecostale Italiano serie (PRPI) (Rome: ADI-Media, 1998), 20–21. The Italian hymnal was adopted by the International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies (also known as the Christian Church of North American, CCNA) in 1928. Alfred Palma, “CCNA Hymnal,” in FACCNA, ed. Stephen Galvano (Sharon, PA: General Council of the CCNA, 1977), 74–75.

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founded Zion in 1900 on the vision of an end-time restorationist church. His Reformed Scottish Irvingite background informed his radical eschatology, distancing him from the holiness movement. Nevertheless, his deliberate acceptance of other peoples and belief in the charismatic offices and gifts (particularly healing and Spirit baptism) became prominent tenants of Pentecostalism.16 Visitors came from across the United States, Canada, and Australia (Dowie’s home country) to witness the awakening.17 Enchanted by the supernatural work in Zion, Azusa Street pioneer and fellow restorationist Charles Fox Parham visited the community multiple times, stoking the revival fervor. Through Zion, Parham helped solidify a sturdy base of future pentecostal leaders, including several affiliates of the Assemblies of God (Marie Burgess Brown, Fred Francis Bosworth, John G. Lakes, and William Hamner Piper). A depression era big tent revivalist, Bosworth campaigned in Chicago while pioneering radio evangelism across the city’s airwaves. Despite rousing ill repute from many, he insisted on hosting racially integrated conventions. Piper’s Stone Church originated in the city’s heart among 600 former Zionists. Welcoming outsiders, Stone Church became a key stopping point for traveling missionaries and evangelists, as virtually all coast-to-coast travel required a change of trains at the local station. Together with Chicago’s durable base of migrants (many making return trips to their homeland), such itinerants facilitated the transfer of pentecostal revivalism across inestimable ethnocultural contexts. A 1908 issue of Stone Church’s Latter Rain Evangel reports outreach work among Scandinavian, Slavic, Indian, Jewish, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and South African

16  A.  H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 31–32; William W.  Menzies, “The Reformed Roots of Pentecostalism,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 9, no. 2 (2006): 269; Douglas Petersen, Not by Might, nor by Power: A Pentecostal Theology of Social Concern in Latin America (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 1996), 24; Colletti, “Ethnic Pentecostalism in Chicago,” 107; Edith L.  Blumhofer, “A Pentecostal Branch Grows in Dowie’s Zion,” Assemblies of God Heritage 6, Fall 1986, 3; John Alexander Dowie, Leaves of Healing 2, July 17, 1896, 620; D. William Faupel, “Theological Influences on the Teachings and Practices of John Alexander Dowie,” Pneuma 29, no. 2 (2007): 241–43. Influenced by Irving’s Catholic Apostolic Church, Dowie named his denomination the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion. Hutchinson, Rocha, and Openshaw, “Introduction: Australian Charismatic Movements,” 13 (n. 4). 17  William D.  Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought (Sheffield, Eng.: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 130–31.

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peoples. K. R. Glover, a member of the church, conducted frequent outreach among Chicago’s Italian families.18 Azusa Street’s biblicism and the Reformed millenarianism of the Moody and Zion City revivals provided an integral background for the Chicago pentecostal awakening. Characterized by their restorationism and inclusivity, the revivals transcended the boundaries of language, gender, ethnicity, and race while contributing to a diverse urban climate conducive to transnational missions. These American revivalist currents resonated with the old-world spirituality of the Italian and Swedish pioneers of Brazilian Pentecostalism.

European Migrants in Chicago The Italian and Swedish missionary cohorts commissioned from Chicago integrally shaped classical Brazilian Pentecostalism. Their contributions to the work in Brazil must be taken seriously as North and South American scholarship alike credit Francescon, Berg, and Vingren with the founding of Pentecostalism in the country. Their individual backgrounds embody the tension and reciprocity between classical Brazilian Pentecostalism’s diverse holiness, Reformed, and folk-religious roots. Francescon reached the South Region of Brazil in March of 1910, predating Berg and Vingren’s arrival in northern Brazil by only a few months.19 18  Walter J.  Hollenweger, The Pentecostals (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1972), 118; Colletti, “Ethnic Pentecostalism in Chicago,” 112, 116; Blumhofer, “Pentecostal Branch,” 3–5; Edith L.  Blumhofer, The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism, Vol 1.—To 1941 (Springfield, MO: Gospel, 1989), 113–16, 126–28; Carl Brumback, Suddenly…. From Heaven: A History of the Assemblies of God (Springfield, MO: Gospel, 1961), 74–75; Richard M. Riss, “Bosworth, Fred Francis,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 439. Dowie’s impact on three Australian states provided a precursor of Australian Pentecostalism. Peter Elliott, “Australian Proto-Pentecostals: The Contribution of the Catholic Apostolic Church,” in Rocha, Hutchinson, and Openshaw, Australian Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 63; K. R. Glover, “After Many Days,” Latter Rain Evangel, February 1924, 17, 14–15, 20. 19  Paulo Ayres Mattos, “Some Remarks on Brazilian Scholarship,” in Global Renewal Christianity: Spirit-Empowered Movements Past, Present, and Future, Volume 2: Latin America, ed. Amos Yong, Vinson Synan, and Miguel Álvarez (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2016), 240–41; Deiros and Wilson, “Hispanic Pentecostalism in the Americas,” 311–12; Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 189–91; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 26–30; Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition, 133–34. For an Italian perspective, see Toppi, E mi sarete testimoni, 52.

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The Italian Outreach Luigi Francescon was born in Cavasso Nuovo, a small agricultural center in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy, in 1866, the fifth of six children. His family was compelled by meager economic conditions to pay heavy tribute to an absentee overlord. Yearning for a better life for he and his kin, Francescon left school in second grade to learn the mosaics trade with his brother in Budapest, Hungary. He went on to complete a short military enlistment. Finally, having earned the means to venture beyond his rural upbringing and still wanting more for his family (including a decent dowry for his younger sister), Francescon emigrated for the New World. Arriving in Chicago in 1890, he continued his work as an artisan, making the most of the high demand for mosaic floors among middle-class US homeowners.20 Francescon converted from his Catholic upbringing through the outreach of the independent Italian evangelist Michele Nardi. Called “Il Moody d’Italia” (the Moody of Italy), Nardi’s ministry encompassed hundreds of congregations from California to Maine. Together, Francecon and Nardi founded the First Italian Presbyterian Church, originating among several Waldensian families on Chicago’s North Side.21 Francescon was named the first elder. In 1895, he married Rosina Balzano from a penurious Catholic family of Castel San Vincenzo in the Molise region of Italy. One of four children to an itinerant coppersmith, she served as a housekeeper in exchange for living accommodations during her father’s work travels. After earning the requisite funds, the family set course for America, all but Rosina, who was reluctant to leave behind her roots. Her desire to read the Bible, feely and on her own accord, finally propelled her to join up with her family. Rosina had grown irritated with the incessant pleas of priests forbidding her from reading it. When she learned from her father about ordinary people, like herself, reading and preaching the Bible in the New World, she left to meet her family, arriving in Chicago in 1891. Rosina converted through the same evangelical outreach as her husband and later served as the Chicago Presbyterian church’s Sunday School

20  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 2; Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 31–33, 37; Francesco Toppi, Luigi Francescon, PRPI (Rome: ADI-Media, 1997), 9–10; Guy BonGiovanni, Pioneers of the Faith (Farrell, PA: Sound Ministries, 1971), 13. 21  Francesco Toppi, Michele Nardi: Il Moody d’Italia (Rome: ADI-Media, 2002); Blanche P. Nardi and A. B. Simpson, Michele Nardi: The Italian Evangelist; His Life and Work (New York: Blanche P. Nardi, 1916), 24–48.

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program superintendent.22 The church consisted of Waldensians (longstanding congregants from northern Italy) and a group from Tuscany (the Toscani). The latter had garnered a reputation for their spontaneous praying and testimony during corporate worship yet had no intention of ever joining the congregation. When some of the Waldensians demanded stricter membership requirements, at the cost of losing the right to speak during weekly services, the Toscani, followed by Luigi and Rosina, left the church and founded an independent holiness congregation on West Grand Avenue.23 The North Avenue Mission was the catalyst for Pentecostalism’s expansion throughout much of the United States. Still, Chicago’s enduring legacy remains its global impact, rivaling and eventually exceeding Azusa Street in this respect.24 The Francescon’s holiness mission was among the countless ethnic congregations influenced by the Chicago awakening. The revival fervor reached the Grand Avenue Mission (in walking distance away) through contacts from the North Avenue Mission. Rosina was among the first to undergo the “Pentecost experience”—witnessing the baptism in the Spirit in July of 1907. In his autobiography, Luigi describes undergoing a similar encounter (being “sealed by the Holy Spirit”) a month later.25 The congregation adopted the name Christian Assembly (It., Assemblea Cristiana).26 Serving as a deacon and evangelist, Rosina was the first among the flurry of lay ministers commissioned by the Christian Assembly for outreach work. During a visit to California in 22  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 2–3; B. P. Nardi and Simpson, Michele Nardi, 28–30; Michele Palma, “La Sorella Rosina Francescon trovasi col Signor Gesu,” Il faro, September 1953, 1; BonGiovanni, Pioneers of the Faith, 13; Francesco Toppi, Madri in Israele: Donne del movimento Pentecostale Italiano (Rome, It.: ADI Media, 2003), 7–11. 23  Pietro Ottolini, The Life and Mission of Peter Ottolini (St. Louis, MO: privately printed, 1962), 5–6; Colletti, “Ethnic Pentecostalism in Chicago,” 135–36. 24  A. H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 45; Stanley H. Frodsham, With Signs Following: The Story of the Pentecostal Revival in the Twentieth Century, rev. ed. (Springfield, MO: Gospel, 1946), 43–45. 25  According to Luigi, Rosina’s experience was attended with the “gift of speaking in the Swedish tongue.” Another spoke in Chinese. Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 5. See also Frank A. Maruso, “History of the Christian Church of North America,” 1968, p. 3, ADP, 6.3; David J. du Plessis, “1,400 ‘Christian Congregations’ (Pentecostal) in Brazil,” Pentecost, 1961, 5. 26  Belmont Assembly, “100 Year Anniversary Celebration, 1907 to 2007: Great Is Thy Faithfulness” (Chicago, IL: Belmont Assembly of God, 2007), under “100 Years: A Rich History of God’s Grace.”

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1907, she founded a congregation among Italian families in Los Angeles.27 Luigi established congregations in St. Louis and Philadelphia the following year. In 1909, he left for South America with two others from the Chicago church, Lucia Menna and Giacomo Lombardi, founding pentecostal missions in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and São Paulo, Brazil.28 In subsequent years, Luigi divided his time between nurturing the work in Brazil, shepherding the Chicago church, and occasional ventures to Italy. In 1911, and again in 1912 and 1929, he returned to Italy, fortifying pentecostal communities in Rome, La Spezia, Gissi (Abruzzi), Milano, Cagliari (Sardinia), and Montecatini (Tuscany).29 Luigi never placed any monetary demand on the bourgeoning movement in Brazil, usually staying in the home of an Italian family in a room just large enough for a bed and table.30 He kept a low profile, avoiding public attention, yet was a sought-after preacher. A 1965 tribute, featured in the Bible Society of Brazil magazine, described his charitable demeanor: Though Louis [Luigi] Francescon avoided publicity and was opposed to advertising, nevertheless there are thousands who have been aroused by the Word of God preached by him. He had no financial interest and much of whatever was given to him he distributed for the needs of the work—never begging, knowing that by faith God would provide everything. He was faithful in the ministry which God had imparted to him, setting an example by his life, doing all in the love and fear of God.31

Luigi’s affection for the South American arm of the CC continued to grow. At ninety-six years old and completely blind, he was still sending letters of encouragement from his home in Chicago to the people of Brazil. In the days before his death (at the age of ninety-eight), he insisted that any funeral contributions be directed to the American Bible Society to benefit the blind.32 27  M. Palma, “La Sorella Rosina Francescon,” 1; Ottolini, Life and Mission, 9; Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 7; Toppi, Madri in Israele, 14–15. 28  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 10–11; J. Norberto Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology” (PhD diss., University of Birmingham, 1989), 45–46. 29   Francescon also had interactions with people in Cairo, Africa. Toppi, Luigi Francescon, 47–49. 30  Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 25. 31  “A View of a Precious Life,” A Biblia no Brasil [The Bible in Brazil], January–March 1965, ADP 3.42. 32  Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 194, 206–7; Read, “New Patterns of Church Growth,” 25–26.

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Luigi was a charismatic individual, driven by biblical literalism and resistance to ecclesial structure. His dogmatic leanings presaged several controversies. For example, his insistence on baptism by immersion (based on Col. 2:12), instead of infant baptism (by sprinkling), was the chief motivation for leaving the Presbyterian Church. His embrace of the literal OT Sabbath (abstaining from all forms of labor every Sunday) led to discord among the nascent Italian holiness mission. In the Chicago Christian Assembly’s early years, he resolutely opposed dissenters who maintained salvation depended on being baptized in the Spirit. During the 1920s, in the most far-reaching controversy spanning a then international movement throughout the United States, Canada, and Italy, he defended a plain-sense reading of the Jerusalem Council’s injunction against blood products, which states: For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. (Acts 15:28–29)

In what was dubbed the “Blood Issue,” the Francescons were the spokespersons of the astinenza (abstainers) party. Harking to the divine origin of the injunction (“it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit”), the abstainers opted for a literalist approach, lobbying against the libertà (“freedom”) party. The latter said the Council’s restriction was a matter of conscience and of secondary importance.33 By adopting a literal reading of the Act 15 passage, the abstainers abandoned the Italian custom of eating blood meats, specifically the Italian sausage (sanguinaccio). In breaching with a menu item typical in Italy (and much of Europe and Latin America where blood foods are considered salubrious), the abstainers accommodated to North American culture (where blood meats are rare).34 The staunchest abstainers also refrained from strangled meats like chicken. The freedom group spoke of awkward 33   For further explanation of these controversies, see P.  Palma, Italian American Pentecostalism, 46, 76–81; Colletti, “Ethnic Pentecostalism in Chicago,” 154–58; and Giuseppe Petrelli, Fra i due Testamenti (Bristol, PA: Merlo’s, 1930), 9. 34  Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, ed. Tom Jaine, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 87–88. Foods like blood sausages (also “blood pudding”) are exceptionally rich in iron and an adequate source of protein, niacin, and copper. David A. Bender, A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 66.

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dinner outings provoked by abstainers who inquired persistently of waiters “how that chicken had been killed, and if they had washed its blood, or if they had twisted its neck.”35 The immediate consequence of the Blood Issue was the fracture of the Christian Assembly in 1926. Led by elders Pietro Menconi and Vito Giometti, the libertà party retained the title Christian Assembly. The astinenza, among whom Luigi was revered as the chief elder, incorporated as the Christian Congregation (It., Congregazione Cristiana) with its official policies, the “Fede e regole” [Faith and regulations], drafted in 1935. The two groups shared the original building for nearly a decade, meeting on alternate days. Legal proceedings and the libertà’s purchase of the property title eventually pushed the abstainers out.36 The Italian Christian Congregation settled at 6233 Fullerton Avenue.37 In 1927, representatives from Italian pentecostal churches throughout the United States assembled in Niagara Falls for their first annual convention to evaluate the movement’s status. The convention sided with the astinenza, adopted the “Articoli di fede” [Articles of faith], and motioned to enhance the movement’s structure. Even though thy represented the favored position, the Francescons resisted further attempts to implement order. The tenor of the Italian pentecostal movement up to that point had been a deep-seated anti-organizationalism fueled by several inclinations, foremost being the desire to uphold the “leading of the Spirit.”38 The Francescons’ fervent biblical letteralismo (literalism), rooted in the Reformers’ sola scriptura (scripture alone) tradition, must likewise be understood against the backdrop of the religious restrictivism they had grown accustomed to because of their Catholic upbringing.39 They remained steadfast about building doctrine on the authority of God’s words, to the very letter. Still, even this literalism stemmed from the Italian migrants’ newfound freedom to interpret scripture on their own accord,

35  Giuseppe Beretta, Letter to Pietro Menconi, 1921, trans. and quoted in Key Yuasa, “Louis Francescon: A Theological Biography: 1866–1964” (ThD diss., University of Genève, 2001), 156. 36   Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 159–63; Luigi Francescon, “Fede e regole della Congregazione Cristiana di Chicago, Illinois” (Chicago, IL: privately printed, 1935). 37  Francescon, “Fede e regole,” 12. 38  Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 160. 39  The Italian’s letteralismo challenged theological “liberalismo” (liberalism). Toppi, E mi sarete testimoni, 48.

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uninhibited by the foreboding eye of the hierarchy.40 Luigi resolved to preserve local church autonomy according to his vision that each congregation would remain a self-governing-and-sustaining community. Eventually, albeit reluctantly, he pledged his support to the organization efforts, leading to the founding of the International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies (IFCA). The Chicago Christian Congregation remained one of the pillar churches of the IFCA, while the Christian Assembly retained its independent status, separate from the newly united Italian American churches.41 Swedish Pioneers Daniel Berg was born in 1884 in the small town of Vargön, Sweden. His parents were members of the Swedish Baptist movement. Through their promptings, he was converted and baptized into the movement in 1899.42 Because of economic downturn, Berg left Sweden for the New World, arriving in Boston in 1902. He landed work as a hostler and then as a foundry specialist. On a 1909 return trip to Sweden, traveling in the same network as the Swedish revivalist Lewi Pethrus, Berg was introduced to the pentecostal movement and baptized in the Spirit.43 As described in his biography, penned by his brother David: Daniel struggled in prayer. A real struggle that ultimately resulted in the victory of the spirit over the flesh. All chains had been broken! He had 40  Hutchinson, “Rough Blocks,” 245; Enrico C.  Cumbo, “‘Your Old Men Will Dream Dreams’: The Italian Pentecostal Experience in Canada, 1912–1945,” Journal of American Ethnic History 19 (Spring 2000): 43. 41  John Thomas Nichol, Pentecostalism (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 133. The IFCA was known originally as the Christian Church of North America. Louis De Caro, Our Heritage: The Christian Church of North America (General Council, Christian Church of North America, 1977), 64–66; Nuovo libro di inni e salmi spirituali (Niagara Falls, NY: Chiesa Cristiana, 1928), under “Prefazione.” 42  David Berg, Enviado por Deus (Rio de Janeiro: CPAD, 1995), 11. His brother, David, describes Daniel’s conversion in terms of the personal experience of “se entregou para Jesus” (he gave himself to Jesus) (17). 43  Ibid., 43–49; Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 75. Pethrus was serving as a Baptist pastor in Lidkoping and became enamored with the pentecostal movement through his contact with T.  B. Barratt. David D.  Bundy, “Pethrus, Petrus Lewi,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 986; Joel Halldorf, Pentecostal Politics in a Secular World: The Life and Leadership of Lewi Pethrus, Christianity & Renewal—Interdisciplinary Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 30–33; Ramírez, “Pentecostalism in Latin America,” 121.

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achieved liberation. After that spiritual battle, which also seemed to affect his physical body, his limitations and doubts fell to the ground. A new life was waiting for him. Now, he was fully aware of where he could find the truth and it would be up to the truth to lead him through the alleys and streets where God wanted him to be, to announce it to all who were willing to hear it.44

Upon returning to the States, Daniel joined Chicago’s North Avenue Mission.45 Gunnar Vingren (b. 1879) was raised in the village of Östra Husby Parish, Östergötland, Sweden, and baptized as a member of the Swedish Baptist movement in 1897. He emigrated to the United States in 1903 and moved in with his uncle in Kansas, where he landed a job as a metalworker. He subsequently joined the Swedish program at the University of Chicago Divinity School and became the pastor of a Swedish Baptist church in Menominee, Michigan, upon graduation.46 On a return visit to Sweden, Vingren joined the pentecostal movement. Upon arriving back in the States, he headed for Chicago, which was soon home to more Swedes than any other city in the world except Stockholm (Sweden’s capital).47 Vingren attended the North Avenue Mission and the Svenska Pingst Församlingen (the city’s first Scandinavian Pentecostal church). He sought the “pentecostal experience” so many traveling in the same circles spoke of, and finally experienced it at a Baptist convention in Chicago in 1909, as described in his diary: In the summer of 1909, God filled me with a great thirst to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. In November of the same year, I asked 44  “Daniel debatia-se em oração. Uma verdadeira luta que resultou, por fim, em vitória do espírito sobre a carne. Todas as cadeias foram quebradas! Havia alcançado libertação. Passada aquela batalha espiritual, que parecia também querer antingir seu corpo físico, suas limitações e dúvidas caíram por terra. Uma nova vida estava à sua espera. Agora, tinha ele completa ciência de onde pudesse encontrar a verdade e a ela caberia a missão de conduzi-lo pelos becos e ruas onde Deus queria que ele estivesse, para anunciá-la a todos quantos estivessem dispostos a ouvi-la.” Berg, Enviado por Deus, 49. Unless otherwise noted, all translations of Portuguese are my own. 45  Berg, Enviado por Deus, 55. 46  Ivar Vingren, O diário do pioneiro Gunnar Vingren (Rio de Janeiro: CPAD, 2000), 19–20, 23–24. 47  Halldorf, Pentecostal Politics in a Secular World, 128.

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permission from my church to visit a Baptist conference that was to be held at the First Swedish Baptist Church in Chicago. I went to the Conference with the firm intention of seeking the baptism with the Holy Spirit. And, praise God, after five days of searching, the Lord Jesus baptized me with the Holy Spirit and fire! When I received the baptism, I spoke new languages, just as it is written about what happened to the disciples on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. It is impossible to describe the joy that filled my heart. I will praise Him forever, for He baptized me with His Holy Spirit and fire.48

In line with the theology of the Holiness movement, Spirit baptism was for Vingren a purifying experience, thus the refraining imagery of fire here (building on Luke 3:16–17 and Acts 2:3). It was so transformative that Vingren made a point to pray for his congregants in Menominee, Michigan, that they receive it. Uneasy with his high esteem for “the baptism,” some of the members pushed him out. Months later, he came on board as pastor of a Baptist church in South Bend, Indiana, where he, along with his views on Spirit baptism, was warmly accepted.49 At the same Chicago Baptist church where Vingren embraced the “pentecostal experience,” he crossed paths with Berg and invited him to his parish in South Bend. The following year, during a prayer meeting, a congregant prophesied that Vingren and Berg would voyage to Pará, Brazil, to conduct missionary work. They visited a local bookstore to consult an atlas (they had never heard of Pará before) and then resolved to fulfill the prophecy, scraping together any available funds. In November 1910, they set a course for Brazil.50

48  “No verão de 1909, deus me encheu de uma grande sede de receber o batismo com o Espírito Santo e com fogo. Em novembro do mesmo ano, pedi licença à minha igreja para visitar uma conferência batista que deveria ser realizada na Primeira Igreja Batista Sueca em Chicago. Fiu à Conferência com o firme propósito de buscar o batismo com o Espírito Santo. E, louvado seja Deus, depois de cinco dias de busca, O Senhor Jesus me batizou com o Espírito Santo e com fogo! Quando recebi o batismo, falei novas línguas, justamente como está escrito que aconteceu com os discípulos no dia de Pentecoste, em Atos 2. É impossível descrever a alegria que encheu o meu coração. Eternamente o louvarei, pois Ele me batizou com o seu Espírito Santo e com fogo.” Vingren, O diário do pioneiro Gunnar Vingren, 25. 49  Ibid., 25–26. 50  Ibid., 27–29; Conde, História das Assembleias de Deus, 13–14.

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Brazilian-Catholic, Protestant, and African Indigenous Precursors In unearthing the origins of Brazilian classical Pentecostalism, sources particular to Brazil, predating and coterminous with the migratory and missional flows from the United States and Europe, must also be considered. Notable precursors, encompassing Catholic, Protestant, African, and Native influences, are ingrained within the religious fabric of Brazil. As the nation with the world’s highest Catholic population, the influence of Catholicism on the shaping of classical Pentecostalism in Brazil cannot be understated.51 Colonized by the Portuguese in the early sixteenth century, Brazilian Natives were exploited for cheap labor in the growth and processing of sugarcane. While not as militant as their conquistador counterparts, like the epoch of Spanish colonialization, the Portuguese obliged Roman Catholicism on the Natives. Protestant advances by the French Huguenots in the 1550s and the Dutch Reformed Church in the mid-1600s were short-lived, driven out by the Portuguese authorities. For the ensuing three centuries of Portuguese imperialism, Catholicism served as the official religion of Brazil. The Catholic state imposed fees on Natives and Portuguese settlers alike in the form of tithes to the church. Under the pope’s authorization, in 1537, such measures were extended to enslaved Africans transported from Lisbon to the West Indies. Over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Africans were increasingly imported to supplement the labor of Natives who had fled to the country’s interior or were absorbed by the European population. Despite the broader societal changes of the twentieth century, the vestiges of feudalism persist, introduced by a system steered by regional lords and a hierarchy more loyal to the Crown than the Roman See. The Portuguese rulers, like the Spanish monarchs, leveraged a special arrangement with the papacy. Through a “royal patronage” (Spa., patronato real; Por., padroado real) they regulated the election of clergy to high ecclesial offices within their jurisdiction. In effect, the church became an extension of the

51  Rowan Ireland, “Pentecostalism, Conversions, and Politics in Brazil,” in Power, Politics, and Pentecostals in Latin America, ed. Edward L. Cleary and Hannah W. Stewart-Gambino (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), 123; “Brazil’s Changing Religious Landscape,” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, July 18, 2013, https://www.pewforum. org/2013/07/18/brazils-changing-religious-landscape/.

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state. With the sanction of the Pope, the colonists exerted their dominion both politically and ecclesiastically.52 To this day, most Brazilian Catholics embrace a more festive (and less sacramental) form of religion focused on the saints and the Virgin Mary. In the early years of Catholic influence in the nation, the Jesuits predominated, endeavoring to convert, educate, and employ the Natives by ushering them into missionary villages erected around churches. Their 1763 expulsion left the church more malleable to outside influences. This more “mystical and pliant” Catholicism, according to Everett Wilson, contributed to the “basis for Brazilian unity, providing cohesion and character in national life.”53 As practitioners of this novel folk Catholicism, the average churchgoer was better able to unify the increasingly diverse Brazilian population comprised of African slaves and fresh tide of European migrants.54 The high rate of Italian peasant immigration at the turn of the twentieth century reinforced these folk-Catholic roots. Paralleling the early formation of the CC and CA, the Great Migration from Italy (1870–1920) funneled some 3.5 million Italians into South America.55 In what was principally a labor migration, the vast majority arriving were contadini from the Mezzogiorno (hailing from the peninsula south of Rome and Sicily). During the mass migration, about 1.2 million southern Italians, labeled “Iberics” (admitting Spanish and Portuguese descent), settled in the continent’s Southern Cone region. Southeastern Brazil became the leading destination of Italians, with many settling in São Paulo and Paraná. Compared to the hierarchism of their culturally astute northern compatriots, the “Keltics,” the primal religion of the contadini is more communal 52  Wilson, “Brazil,” 36; William R. Read, Victor M. Monterroso, and Harmon A. Johnson, Latin American Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969), 36. In theory, the Portuguese were permitted only to enslave those already enslaved by other Natives or captured in “just war.” Justo L. González, The Story of Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006), 1:409–10; Hugh Clarence Tucker, The Bible in Brazil: Colporter Experiences (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1902), 18; Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country, 122–23; David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 232–33. 53  Wilson, “Brazil,” 36. See also Stuart B. Schwartz, Early Brazil: A Documentary Collection to 1700 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 117, 147; and André Droogers, Play and Power in Religion: Collected Essays (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 176. 54  William K. Kay, Pentecostalism (London: SCM, 2009), 113. 55   Donna R.  Gabaccia, “Race, Nation, Hyphen: Italian-Americans and American Multiculturalism in Comparative Perspective,” in Are Italians White?: How Race Is Made in America, ed. Jennifer Guglielmo and Salvatore Salerno (London: Routledge, 2003), 45.

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and lay-led.56 Indubitably, this shared folk-Catholic heritage, inscribed in a mystical, more celebratory spirituality, was part of Brazil’s draw and the reason so many peasants settled in the region, particularly São Paulo (the center of the CC). Francescon’s autobiography suggests that the Catholic population supplied much of the initial base for the Brazil outreach.57 The royal patronage system continued well into the nineteenth century. Catholicism forged roots among each of the Indigenous, African, and European migrant populations. In the wake of Brazil’s independence from Portugal in 1822, the rules of Dom Pedro and his son were marked by a state stronger than the church and rising clerical immorality. Despite religious freedom’s formal establishment throughout the Brazilian Empire in 1824, Roman Catholicism remained the state religion. Pedro I’s failure to wrest Uruguay from Argentina and persistent interest in Portuguese affairs led to his abdication in 1831. After a decade of Regency, Pedro II’s rule (from 1840–1889) was marked by moderate religious beliefs, as someone counted among the generation of the more enlightened Portuguese emperors suffering defeat at Napoleon’s hands. Although officially the head of the national Catholic Church, Pedro II tightened control of new clergy recruitments and diocese plants. Paired with the trending inadequacies of Catholicism, his measures inhibited the Catholic Church from developing into the kind of economic and political force it was becoming elsewhere in Latin America. According to Marshall Eakin, at the termination of the Empire in 1889, the Catholic Church had merely 12 dioceses to assist a population of some 12 million.58 Pedro II’s rule led to an openness to Protestant missions. The politico-­ economic fragility of the Brazilian Catholic Church helps explain why Portuguese America was more tolerant of non-Catholic religions than other prominent Latin American countries like Mexico and Peru. During 56  Italians joined about 400,000 Germans in the region, whom they outnumbered three to one. Chadwick, “A Study of Iberic-America,” 9. See also Ramírez, “Pentecostalism in Latin America,” 121–22; and Mary Elizabeth Brown, “Religion,” in the Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia, ed. Salvatore J.  LaGumina, Frank J.  Cavaioli, Salvatore Primeggia, and Joseph A. Varacall (New York: Garland, 2000), Master e-book, 538. 57  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 11–13. 58  Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country, 123; Kay, Pentecostalism, 112–13; Carlos Rangel, The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship with the United States, rev. ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1987). Rangel emphasizes the contrast between Spanish and Portuguese America. Brazil’s manner of conquest and relatively “non-­traumatic” break with the Portuguese empire (leaving political and administrative structures intact) distinguished them (4–5).

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the colonial era, Jewish merchants, many of whom had been banished by the Inquisition from Portugal to Brazil, passed through with relative ease. After independence, Brazil exhibited tolerance toward African and Eastern religions. A similar broad-mindedness was extended toward the Shintoism and Buddhism of the wave of a quarter-million Japanese migrants between the World Wars. With the formal abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888 (the last nation in the Americas to cross this benchmark), the Brazilian government publicized religious freedom in the interest of recruiting free labor, especially from European lands. The focus on Europeans signified an effort to enculturate the Native population with the Western values of individualism and human progress. These developments culminated in a nineteenth-century Protestant explosion, fueled by British capitalists and the mass immigration of Germans, half of whom were Protestant. German Lutherans and Anglican Brits led the way in the early half of the century, followed in the second half by Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians from the United States and Britain. Arriving in the late nineteenth century were several thousand Scandinavians, chiefly of Swedish Lutheran heritage. European Protestant migrants played an integral role in developing the rural middle class.59 Mainstream Protestantism represented the emergence of a dissident civitas, ushering in the values of self-governance, democracy, hard work, and education. Protestant churches inspired political reform through a program targeting the middle class, and Protestant missionaries founded a network of schools spanning from the primary level to the university as well as orphanages, daycare programs, community centers, and alternative religious newspapers. The first Bibles made their way into the hands of the commonfolk in the early 1800s through the assistance of the American Bible Society. Until then, Bible distribution was forbidden by the decree 59  Wilson, “Brazil,” 37; Tucker, Bible in Brazil, 15; Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country, 80, 123–30; Droogers, Play and Power in Religion, 175, 177; Anna L. Peterson and Manuel A.  Vásquez, Latin American Religions: Histories and Documents in Context (New York University Press, 2008), 159–60; Dag Retsö, “Emigration from the Nordic Countries to Brazil 1880–1914,” Iberoamericana–Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 45, no. 1 (2016): 6–18, doi:10.16993/iberoamericana.2; James L.  Bischoff, “Forced Labour in Brazil: International Criminal Law as the Ultima Ratio Modality of Human Rights Protection,” Leiden Journal of International Law 19, no. 1 (March 2006): 151–93; Fonseca, “Religion and Democracy in Brazil,” 163; Emilio Willems, Followers of the New Faith: Culture Change and the Rise of Protestantism in Brazil (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1967), 57–58.

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of the Pope and the Crown, with many facing persecutions or the ultimate price of martyrdom. The church’s rapid growth in subsequent years can be attributed to the more flexible distribution policies in Brazil than in South America’s Spanish colonized countries.60 Despite its ubiquity by the end of the nineteenth century, as Luis Orellana suggests, “Protestantism had a foreign face.” At the turn of the twentieth century, among a predominantly Anglo-Saxon Protestant migrant population, most of the worship was conducted in English and German.61 The most considerable mainline Protestant influence in shaping the CC and CA was Presbyterianism. Brazil’s first Presbyterian congregation was established in Rio de Janeiro in 1862. After years of proselytism and schism, by 1905, the country’s Presbyterian population numbered about 14,000.62 Mirroring Francescon’s faith journey, Italian Americans forged their outreach among this Presbyterian base in Argentina and Brazil, the hub of which was a community in the Brás, the largest Italian bairro of São Paulo. Francescon subsequently left the Brás church, taking several congregants with him, to found Brazil’s first CC community. Reformed evangelicalism—specifically, Waldensian Presbyterianism (considering Francescon’s prior Chicago experience)—was salient in the formative years of the CC (and CA).63 Given the well-established Wesleyan holiness roots of Pentecostalism, it is not surprising to learn that Methodists were also among the first CC adherents, their missionary origins tracing to the efforts of Fountain E. Pitts and D. P. Kidder in the mid-1830s.64 While the Swedish ancestral lineage of Berg and Vingren was bereft of any folk-Catholic experience, 60  Read et  al., Latin American Church Growth, 38–39; Peterson and Vásquez, Latin American Religions, 160; Zwinglio M. Dias and Joyce Hill, Brazil: A Gracious People in a Heartless System (New York: Friendship Press, 1997), 49–50; Tucker, Bible in Brazil, 160–61. Tucker describes persecution faced by members of the American Bible society in the interior of Brazil even into the nineteenth century. Among them was the Italian, José Tonelli, who was stoned and left by the wayside for dead (161). 61  Luis Orellana, “The Future of Pentecostalism in Latin America,” in Spirit-Empowered Christianity in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Vinson Synan (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2011), 109. 62  Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 63. 63  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 13; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 29–30; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 23; Ramírez, “Pentecostalism in Latin America,” 122; Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 91. 64  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 13. Kidder was a Bible colporteur in São Paulo. Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 181.

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their Reformed-evangelical (Baptist) background exerted a notable influence on the shaping of the Brazilian Assemblies of God (Assembleias de Deus [AD]). Reaching back to the work of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1881, the Brazilian Baptist movement readily transferred the responsibility of nurturing its churches to autochthonous pastors and, for this reason, was less prone to schism than other Protestant contexts (like the 1903 Presbyterian schism).65 In mapping out the precursors of Pentecostalism in Brazil, alongside Catholic and Protestant sources, a third horizon deserves consideration: Brazilian spiritism. The first notable variation of the latter, tracing to the second half of the nineteenth century, is “high spiritism,” found principally among the middle and upper classes. Aligned with the imported doctrines of the French educator Alan Kardec, it is a more sophisticated brand of spiritism. Kardecism incorporates reincarnation and mediumship with exorcism, Christian morality (purity and acts of benevolence), and science and medicine.66 High spiritism opened the door to Afro-Brazilian religion, sometimes referred to as “low spiritism.” By the turn of the twentieth century, African spiritist groups, with roots in regions corresponding to the modern nations of Nigeria and Angola, occupied a significant presence in Brazil. Although African migrants were baptized as Catholics, they clung to their ancestral roots to cope with the atrocities of slavery. As Afro-­ Brazilian religion developed, it became more syncretic, integrating aspects of African tradition and Catholicism with remnants of Amerindian spirituality.67 Another syncretic form of Brazilian religion is the Indigenous santidade. This “messianic cult” was characterized by the search for a savior (“santo”) to free them from the bonds of the Portuguese after a smallpox outbreak killed thousands of Natives.68 African groups, including the Yoruba from West Africa and the Bantu of Angola, are typified by their spirit possession rituals, featuring practitioners leading initiates in song and dance. The earliest common form of 65  Read, Monterroso, and Johnson, Latin American Church Growth, 73; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 187; Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 104–5. 66  Wilson, “Brazil,” 37; David J.  Hess, Spirits and Scientists: Ideology, Spiritism, and Brazilian Culture (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), 2–3; Roger Bastide, The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations, trans. Helen Sabba (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). 67  Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country, 126. Amerindians with pre-colonial ancestry have largely been wiped out. Droogers, Play and Power in Religion, 175–76. 68  González, Story of Christianity, 1:410.

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Afro-Brazilian spiritism is the candomblé of Bahia, defined by the merging of distinct African and Catholic elements. Ensuing variations of Afro-­ Brazilian religion include the Rio de Janeiro strand, macumba (combining African polytheistic elements with folk-Catholicism) and, by the 1920s, umbanda. The latter tenders a middle way between the intellectualism of high spiritism and the more traditional elements of African spiritists. It is more widespread than Kardecism and appeals chiefly to urban audiences. Umbandists are wary of animal sacrifices, substituting African religion’s “magical” aspects with “a more palatable nationalistic belief in good spirits.”69 According to André Droogers, umbanda’s increasing foothold among the White middle class has led to the abandonment of “its most striking African elements” (such as elaborate initiations and animal sacrifices).70 The syncretic nature of Brazilian religion is encouraged by the African gods’ strong resemblance to the panoply of Catholic saints. Many saints are assigned the names of gods by spiritists, making it hard to decipher whether one is praying to the saint or the African deity. The common accent on personal relationships with spiritual intermediaries is why many practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religion also call themselves good Catholics.71 Among the contrasts between Afro-Brazilian religion and Pentecostalism is the latter’s stronger doctrinal unity. While there is rich variation within Brazilian Pentecostalism, culturally and as alluded to, in its several twentieth-­century “waves” (further addressed in the next chapter), the localism of Afro-Brazilian religion translates into profound doctrinal divergence among its various groups. Afro-Brazilian religion lacks the pentecostal groups’ common origins and written validation in the Bible. The initiation rituals of each provincial group (or “possession cult”) differ from one ritual arena to the next and, as David Lehmann maintains, are set 69  Wilson, “Brazil,” 38. See also Droogers, Play and Power in Religion, 176; A. H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 69–70; Harvey Cox, The Seduction of the Spirit: The Use and Misuse of People’s Religion (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), 215–16; and Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country. Eakin points to the imbedded influence in macumba of European spiritism (126). 70  Droogers, Play and Power in Religion, 171. 71  Read, Monterroso, and Johnson, Latin American Church Growth, 250; Luis Nicolau Parés, The Formation of Candomblé: Vodun History and Ritual in Brazil (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 76–77; on the precedent of dual religious affiliation (Catholicism and umbanda) among Brazilians, see Diana DeG.  Brown, Umbanda: Religion and Politics in Urban Brazil (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1986), 134–36.

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off by “particularistic local practices passed on secretly from one expert to her protegée or successor.”72 In candomblé, for example, each possession cult is organized according to its own individual priest or priestess (the pais or mães de santo).73 Another contrast is the universal access to “divine healing” (cura divina) in pentecostal churches, according to which any recipient of the Holy Spirit’s gift can experience the cure. The power of healing resides in the Spirit “transmitted through,” and not on secretive formula or oaths peculiar to the ritual leader.74 Despite their differences, there are several notable commonalities between Afro-Brazilian religion and Pentecostalism. The emphasis on cura divina, even if disagreeing on how the healing is conveyed, sets Afro-­ Brazilian and pentecostal contexts apart from mainline traditions. Additionally, both acknowledge the esoteric reality of “spirit possession.” Although differing in purpose—Afro-Brazilian contexts promote control by spirits and pentecostals seek the expulsion of evil spirits—both embrace the inexplicable presence and possession of spirits.75 Among especially neopentecostals, the accent on spirit deliverance has led to a demonizing of Afro-Brazilian possession rituals, interpreting the latter’s pantheon of divinities as rival spiritual powers.76 Some macumba possession rituals include experiences reticent of pentecostal glossolalia. Eakin describes a typical ceremony: The faithful sacrifice animals to the god of the day, and then the spiritual leader invokes the deities in a fixed order. As they sing and dance, some people experience ecstatic seizures during which the gods take possession of their bodies and speak through them. Sometimes the god speaks intelligibly through the believer, and other times the language is unintelligible.77 72  David Lehmann, Struggle for the Spirit: Religious Transformation and Popular Culture in Brazil and Latin America (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1996), 143–44. 73  Literally the “father” or “mother of the saint.” See also Clara Saraiva, “Afro-Brazilian Religions in Portugal: Bruxos, Priests and Pais de Santo,” Etnográfica 14, no. 2 (June 2010): 265–88. 74  Lehmann, Struggle for the Spirit, 144. 75  Lehmann, Struggle for the Spirit, 144–45. 76  The IURD, for example, has raised alarm at the Brazilian spiritist practice of animal sacrifice, trances caused by spirit possession, worship of the dead, and use of magic to cause harm. Vagner Gonçalves da Silva, “Neopentecostalismo e religiões afro-brasileiras: significados do ataque aos símbolos da herança religiosa africana no Brasil contemporâneo,” Mana 13 no. 1 (April 2007): 207–36. 77  Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country, 128.

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The ecstatic quality of Afro-Brazilian religion resonates with pentecostal spirituality. In contrast to other Anglo-Protestant and Spanish American Catholic Christianities, which frequently convey suffering and asceticism, Pentecostalism is essentially a celebratory tradition, harkening to the triumph of the spiritual forces of good over the powers of darkness. While dancing in the pews is common in many pentecostal churches, liturgical dance is especially prominent in Afro-pentecostal contexts.78 Although significant contrasts exist between Afro-Brazilian religion and Pentecostalism, there are noted continuities. With its ostensible parallels to the ecstatic, festive character and robust spirit world of Pentecostalism, Afro-Brazilian religion adds texture to our understanding of classical Pentecostalism’s birth and development in Brazil.79

Classical Pentecostal Origins, Tongues, and Interculturality The birth of Brazilian Pentecostalism must be understood in light of the exchange of cultures between the United States, South America, and Europe, embodied in the gift of speaking in tongues. The dynamism of tongues, exhibited in the early revivals as a bridge between cultures, is alluded to by Daniel Ramírez in his study of the origins of Mexican Pentecostalism: Small wonder, then, that a sector of the “disinherited” of American and global society opted to upend the ruler of the social linguistic game and to speak in the tongues of angels instead. In this, they joined a long tradition of babblers and mystics. For the heirs of the Enlightenment, glossolalia may have represented nothing more than psycholinguistic babble and noise (morphemes widely tossed together in syntactical disarray). But for many subalterns it signified a discourse about transcendental goodness, human connectedness, and power relations set aright (especially when that discourse was wedded to material solidarity among the poor).80

78  Amos Yong and Estrelda Y.  Alexander, Afro-Pentecostalism: Black Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in History and Culture (New York: New  York University Press, 2011), 107–8. 79  Corten, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 34; Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country, 129. 80  Daniel Ramírez, Migrating Faith: Pentecostalism in the United States and Mexico in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 39.

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While moderns may align glossolalia with emotional excess or even nonsense, for marginalized pentecostals, it represents connectedness with the wholly other and a sublime bond with one another. Whether or not it was regarded as xenolalia (speech in unlearned languages understood by others), as the accounts suggest, the early emphasis on speaking in tongues connected grassroots peoples at the foundational level of human language. The many tongues (and cultures) among the disparate migrants were unified in the shared language of the Spirit. The Italianand Swedish-US classical pentecostal pioneers drew confidence from their migrant identity. Having traversed the cultural chasm between the Old World and the urban centers of Northern America, they readied themselves for one further transition in the journey to Brazil. The pioneers were familiar with meager circumstances. Francescon and Berg emigrated to escape economic hardship, and Vingren wished to discover the world beyond the rural setting of his youth. Reaching Brazil, they drew from the cosmopolitan Pentecostalism they had encountered in Chicago. The heterogenous makeup of US Pentecostalism prepared them for Brazil’s culturally opulent mission field. Francescon’s roots in folk-Catholic, Waldensian-Presbyterian, and independent holiness contexts embodied the varied religious setting he experienced in the Paraná and São Paulo bairros. Berg and Vingren’s deep-seated Baptist background helped them navigate the new religio-­cultural setting of Brazil’s North Region.81 While holiness currents, besides those introduced by the Euro-US founders, had a limited influence on subsequent developments, African and Indigenous spiritualities offer unique insight into the shaping of Brazilian Pentecostalism. Roger Bastide and André Corten are critical of the traditional approach overstating Pentecostalism’s holiness (“Methodist”) roots to the neglect of African elements. Bastide insists that the supernatural phenomena characterizing Brazilian Pentecostalism, such as “mystic trance,” echoes African religion more than “the old Methodism.” Referring to the CC, specifically, Bastide notes that the movement’s supernaturalism “brings to the man of African descent a feeling of continuous  Handlin describes the agrarian migrant’s “world of spirits,” simplicity, and struggle of faith, caught between the old and the new worlds. Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that Made the American People, rev. ed. (Boston, MA: Back Bay Books, 1990), 99. 81

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direct contact with the divinity rather than a faith that remains in the background.”82 This reinterpretation of Brazilian Pentecostalism in view of African spiritism underscores the immediacy of the religious experience. Regarding the privileging of Methodist roots, Corten suggests: This approach to Pentecostalism does not account for its typography, that is, the field in which discourses and gestures circulate according to specific ideological positions. This approach, moreover, places liberation theology outside of the topography entirely. Thus, the two movements are figured as completely foreign to one another. Yet if there is an African dimension to Pentecostalism, an encounter between the latter and liberation theology becomes possible on the same field.83

African elements intimate a basis within Pentecostalism for “an encounter” with liberation theology, indispensable to the Latina/o religious landscape. In addition to identifying with the poor, Pentecostalism and liberation theology (embodied in Christian Base Communities; CBCs) follow a common formational pattern (from sect to church) and both insist on the morality of salvation. Although an argument can be made that the Holiness movement likewise adheres to the Weberian sect-to-­ church trajectory, the African liberational backdrop is revealing considering the prominent narrative of slavery and freedom from Portuguese oppression. Corten underscores the theme of “praise” as the pentecostal answer to the condition of inherited poverty and oppression. Praise as a “primary utterance” (embodied in glossolalia) is “unacceptable” to Western society, therein frustrating existing political modalities.84 In addition to the contrasts already noted—Pentecostalism’s stronger doctrinal coherence and universal access to divine healing—another notable distinction between Afro-Brazilian religion, on the one hand, and pentecostals (and CBCs), on the other, is their concept of the ethical foundations of reality. Pentecostals evince a stronger focus on divine purpose and providence. As Cecília Loreto Mariz suggests:

 Bastide, African Religions of Brazil, 371.  Corten, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 28. 84  Ibid., 83. 82 83

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The emphasis given to God’s plan is a religious novelty introduced by Pentecostalism and [CBCs], for in the tradition of Afro-Brazilian Spiritism, there is no concept of Providence or God’s plan for humanity, no plan to which one must be committed, and no linear conception of history. This explains why, in general, Afro-Brazilian Spiritism does not offer universal ethical principles, nor does it relate ethical behavior to religious activities. Consequently, rituals and symbols play a more important role than do the universal principles of ethics and morality.85

While Afro-Brazilian religion offers impressions of morality (as expressed in animal sacrifice), it privileges deliberate rituality in worship. Pentecostal settings favor more spontaneous religious experience. Even prayer and testimony, considered by some the core rituals of Pentecostalism, are characterized by the freedom and liminality of the Spirit.86 The CC’s dress code, notably “the veil” (women wearing head coverings), presents one exception to the extemporaneity of pentecostal worship. The veil represents an intentionally symbolic gesture, suggesting the more salient Afro-Brazilian underpinning of the CC (than, for instance, the AD).87 Despite reservations about religious symbology among pentecostals, Afro-Brazilians and pentecostals alike share an emphasis on “signs and wonders.” Indeed, the miraculous “sign” gifts of healing and prophecy, highly valued among pentecostals, form an integral dimension of the Afro-Brazilian worldview—the realm of supernatural spirits, powers, and cures belong to each, circumscribing a tie that is absent on the CBC front.88 Alongside African syncretic forms, other Indigenous Brazilian sources warrant consideration. As explored by Valéria E.  N. Barros, for example, a subject of ongoing research is the influence on the CC of Guarani religion (Native to Paraguay).89 The salient folk and autochthonous aspects imbedded in the Brazilian religious landscape have helped protract the grassroots makeup of  Mariz, Coping with Poverty, 66.  Martin Lindhardt, Practicing the Faith: The Ritual Life of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011), 8–9. 87  Rubia R. Valente, “From Inception to Present: The Diminishing Role of Women in the Congregaçâo Cristã no Brasil,” Pneuma 37, no. 1 (2015): 56–58. 88  Mariz, Coping with Poverty, 67. 89  Valéria Esteves N.  Barros, “O pentecostalismo entre os Guarani de Laranjinha: uma aproximação aos aspectos sociais e cosmológicos da religião tradicional,” Tellus 4, no. 7 (2004): 137–46. 85 86

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Pentecostalism. Classical Pentecostalism demonstrates a propensity among Brazil’s longstanding ethnic peoples, as is evident in the ready indigenization of the AD and CC.90 Through the emphasis on miraculous healings, Spirit baptism, and other similar phenomena, the movements push the boundaries of historic Catholic doctrine and practice, exhibiting a palpable folk-religious character. Classical Brazilian Pentecostalism’s folk-Catholic and Indigenous dimensions suggest a form of Christianity that is likewise distinct from Protestant mainline movements, portending a unique trajectory of contemporary Latina/o religion.

90  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 30; Wilson Harle Endruveit, Pentecostalism in Brazil: A Historical and Theological Study of Its Characteristics (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1975), 32.

CHAPTER 3

Euro-American Migrations and the “First Wave” of Pentecostalism in Brazil

Chicago-commissioned Italian and Swedish missionaries arrived in Brazil within months of one another. Luigi Francescon reached Paraná in March 1910, followed by Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren’s arrival in Pará a few months later.1 The migratory underpinning of the pioneers contributed to high mobility. In its first decades, the Christian Congregation expanded among Italian migrant workers of the factories and farmlands of the southern states of Paraná and São Paulo. The Assemblies of God forged a sturdy base among migrant workers in the tropical rainforests of the North Region states of Pará and Amazonas.2 This chapter explores the intersection of North and South American currents in the burgeoning of the “first wave” of pentecostal renewal in Brazil. Well-documented divinations directed the journey of both sets of European founders. Alongside a keen reliance on the prophetic, expansion among the economically and ethno-­ racially marginalized of Brazil emerges as the unifying theme in the shaping of Brazilian Pentecostalism. While both movements proliferated at a comparable rate over the first half of the twentieth century, from the 1960s onward, their trajectories diverge significantly.  Deiros and Wilson, “Hispanic Pentecostalism in the Americas,” 311–12; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 26–30. 2  Mattos, “Some Remarks on Brazilian Scholarship,” 240–41; A. H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 71; Joseph Colletti, “Berg, Daniel,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 371. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_3

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The “Waves” of Twentieth-Century Renewal Despite a US-centrism in scholarly historiography of first-wave renewal origins, the classical pentecostal movements of interest were forged through a constant exchange between their North and South American horizons. Far from simple transplants of the Chicago revival, the Brazilian locus of the Christian Congregation (Congregação Cristã [CC]) and Assemblies of God (Assembleias de Deus [AD]) is essential to the fabric of each and, in subsequent years, vitally shapes via “reverse mission” the religious landscape of the Global North. The religious contours of Brazil— today the world leader in total Catholics, Protestants, and pentecostals—harken to a cultural legacy predating North America.3 Caution must be exercised when applying the “waves” concept to classical Pentecostalism. Until recently, “wave theory” was dictated by North American history, frequently articulated in terms of three stages: classical pentecostals (associated with the early US revivals), charismatic renewalists (beginning among mainline churches in the 1960s), and neocharismatics (or neopentecostals) emerging toward the end of the twentieth century.4 Brazilian pentecostal wave theory pivots on a similar three-stage prism, however, with noted peculiarities. The contrast between North American and Brazilian wave models comes into sharper focus in the origins of Aimee Semple McPherson’s Foursquare Gospel Church (Igreja do Evangelho Quadrangular, FGC). Alongside the CC and AD, the FGC is often classified among first-wave movements because of its early US roots (founded in 1927). The FGC quickly earned a reputation for its savvy in adapting advances in mass communication for outreach, including McPherson’s pioneering of radio evangelism. In the historiography of Brazilian renewal, the use of modern innovations for mass evangelism is the distinguishing marker of the second wave. Together with the FGC’s 3  Hunt, Evaluating Prophetic Radicalism, 161. On historiography and the significance of “local factors” in an Australian renewal context, see John Maiden, “City, Portal and Hub: Brisbane and Catholic Charismatic Renewal,” in Rocha, Hutchinson, and Openshaw, Australian Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 82; A.  H. Anderson, Spirit-Filled World, 9–10. 4  Michael McClymond, “Charismatic Renewal and Neo-Pentecostalism: From North American Origins to Global Permutations,” in Robeck and Yong, Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism, 32–34.

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post-WWII founding on Brazil soil, in 1953 by the actor-turned missionary Harold Williams, its signature use of American-style big tent evangelism earned it a spot among the flagship movements of the second wave. Thus, in Brazil, the historical marker delineating the first from the second wave is more saliently the advent of mass culture and its proselytization through modern communications. Indeed, scholarship of Brazilian Pentecostalism generally avoids the language of “charismatic renewal” that features prominently as the separator of first and second waves in North American historiography. Further, rather than targeting historic Protestant and Catholic mainline churches, the Brazilian second wave was associated with a surge of nationalist (homegrown) bodies. Denominations usually grouped among the second wave include Brazil for Christ (Brasil para Cristo) and God Is Love (Deus É Amor).5 The faith journey of the founders of the second (sometimes called “modern”) wave illustrates the overlapping networks and schismatic growth pattern characterizing pentecostals. Though starting out as an AD minister, Manoel de Mello was drawn into the FGC’s big tent style meetings. He joined the National Evangelization Crusade and collaborated with American missionaries at São Paulo’s Carpa Divina (Divine Tent), before founding Brazil for Christ in the mid-1950s. To accommodate the crowds mesmerized by his spirited preaching and miraculous healings, Mello was among the first pentecostal preachers to make use of sports stadiums. David Miranda, a Brazil for Christ pastor, left the church in 1962 to found God Is Love, renowned for the practice of exorcism and its ascetic code for conduct, dress, and sexuality. By 1990, Miranda’s daily program Voice of Liberation (Voz da Libertação) was broadcast on over 500 stations. God Is Love set the stage for the surge of neopentecostal churches (the third or “postmodern” wave), embodied in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus; IURD), founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1977. The IURD combined the

5  Shaw, Global Awakening, 137–53; Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 13; Paul Freston, “Protestant Christianity in Africa, Latin America, and Korea,” The World’s Religions: Continuities and Transformations, ed. Peter B. Clarke and Peter Beyer (London, Routledge: 2009), 529; Mariz, Coping with Poverty, 25; because of its international ties, Garrard also links in the Iglesia de Dios Evangélico Completo with the first-wave movements. Garrard, New Faces of God in Latin America, 192.

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climbing interest in spiritual warfare with televangelism and a prosperity gospel agenda fashioned expressly for Brazil’s rising urban audience.6 The concept of “waves” in renewal historiography will remain problematic if it fails to account for the peculiarities from one global region to another. In the transnational flow of classical Pentecostalism from the United States to Brazil, this contrast is most visible in the varying delineation between the first and second waves. Although the CC and AD are classified among the first wave regardless of the shifting national context, movements like the FGC belong to the first wave in US scenarios but the second wave on the Brazil front. Nevertheless, the wave language is useful in signaling broader historical developments. As we will discover, while Brazil’s classically founded movements initially resisted the trend to mass evangelism, the AD later conceded with some regions normalizing the use of written and broadcast media.7

Pentecostal Murmurs and Simultaneous Origins In the wider narrative of world history, although the grandeur of the more affluent Northern region of the Americas (the United States and Canada) often outshines that of Latin America, the tale of the New World has its beginnings in the latter. On the heels of Columbus’ inaugural voyage, the first European touch down in the Americas was in the Bahamas.8 The lands of South America constituted the original “New World,” a phrase drawn from the Latin Mundus novus, the title of a 1504 work by the famed

6  Carlos Ribeiro Caldas Filho, “Manoel de Mello e a preocupação com Direitos Humanos nos primórdios do envolvimento pentecostal com a política Brasileira,” Horizonte 19, no. 59 (2021): 155–56; Deiros and Wilson, “Hispanic Pentecostalism in the Americas,” 313; Shaw, Global Awakening, 141–42; Corten, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 49–58; Andrew Chesnut and Kate Kingsbury, “Pentecostalism in Brazil,” in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, ed. Stephen Webre, November 22, 2019, pp.  3–5, https://doi. org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.836. 7  For some of the concerns with “wave theory,” see Michael McClymond, “Charismatic Renewal and Neo-Pentecostalism: From North American Origins to Global Permutations,” in Robeck and Yong, Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism, 32–34; and Mark P. Hutchinson, “The Problem with ‘Waves,’” Pneuma 39, nos. 1–2 (2017): 34–54. 8  Eakin, History of Latin America, 58.

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Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci.9 Similarly, the name “America” (from Vespucci’s given name) emerges in the early sixteenth century first in reference to the explorer’s South American discoveries. It would be several decades before these terms were applied to the lands of the North (US and Canadian citizens hold no exclusive claim to the designation “American”).10 In following the journey of Italian and Swedish migrants in the planting of Brazil’s first pentecostal communities, South American precursors define the movements as much as, if not more so than, their North American origins. The chief disparity between the respective North and South American settings of the movements is the prominence of the Protestant backdrop. Historically, South America’s Protestant churches played an inferior role to Catholicism. Amy Reynolds points to the purpose of Brazil’s Protestant-evangelical base, especially Pentecostalism, in “empowering those in a marginalized context.” In early twentieth-century Brazil, the burgeoning of Pentecostalism facilitated a counternarrative within a power structure favoring the landowning (predominantly Catholic) elite.11 The first pentecostal experiences (Spirit baptism and similar phenomena) in Brazil were not an exclusive biproduct of North American missions. Extant accounts intimate similar occurrences among Brazilians prior to and without an explicit link to Chicago. Conde describes a Baptist pastor, Paulo Malaquias, who was “batizado com o Espírito Santo” (baptized in the Spirit) in 1908.12 A study by Isael de Araújo highlights several Brazilians, with limited ties to the United States, undergoing a Spirit-­ baptism-­like experience. Among the wave of European migrants in Santa Catarina, the Baptist revivalist Karlis Andermanis was baptized in the Spirit alongside a Latvian Baptist pastor, Pedro Graudin, between 1909 and

9  Niall Ferguson, Civilization: The West and the Rest (London: Penguin, 2012), 96 (n.); “Vespucci has discovered a new, previously unrecorded continent south of the equator.” Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America (New York: Random House, 2007), 117. 10  Eakin, History of Latin America, 28; Fernández-Armesto, Amerigo, xvii; Jake Mattox, ed., Explorers of the New World (Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven, 2004), 102–3. 11  Amy Reynolds, “Evangelical Feminism in Brazil and the USA,” in Miller and Morgan, Brazilian Evangelicalism in the Twenty-First Century, 183. 12  Emílio Conde, História das Assembléias de Deus no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: CPAD, 1960), 14. See also Endruveit, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 10 (n. 1).

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1910. According to Araújo, twenty-five other members of Graudin’s parish in Bananal were baptized in the Spirit at about the same time.13 In reconstructing Brazilian pentecostal origins, it is helpful to distinguish between “phenomena” and “movements.” While isolated pentecostal-­like “phenomena” appeared prior to 1910, it is something else to say that a definite pentecostal “movement” existed. The latter entails evidence of congregational life.14 An argument can be made that what the members of Graudin’s parish experienced was something more than a sporadic, isolated occurrence, given the sheer number who followed suit in being baptized in the Spirit. Afterward, Graudin changed the church’s traditional customs; however, there is no distinct breach with the mainline (in this case, Baptist) movement, typical of Pentecostalism.15 What can be learned from the awakening is, once again, that reports of Brazil’s first pentecostal murmurs correspond to European migrant communities.

Migrations, Penury, and Racial Stigma The origination of the CC and AD as movements of migrants illumines their reluctance to organize and their base among the lower social strata. Extremely mobile, with a high return migration rate from Brazil to Europe and many passing back and forth annually, the movements were born in a state of flux, inhibiting the development of deeply ingrained roots. Francescon, Berg, and Vingren left Europe penurious and, after emigration procedures and maritime passage, entered the Americas with even

13  Isael de Araújo, História do movimento Pentecostal no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: CPAD, 2016), Kindle edition, loc. 249–324. 14  See Mark P.  Hutchinson, “‘La Farina del Diavolo”: Transnational Migration and the Politics of Religious Liberty in Post-War Italy,” in Religions, Nations, and Transnationalism in Multiple Modernities, ed. Patrick Michel, Adam Possamai, and Bryan S.  Turner (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Hutchinson notes the important distinction between “Pentecostal-like phenomena” and “church formation” in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-­century Italian religious history (44). 15  Isael de Araújo, História do movimento, loc. 299.

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less.16 Chicago served as the principal sending hub in this transcontinental triangle (between Europe and North and South America) in planting Pentecostalism among migrants in Brazil.17 Motivated by the desire to share their newfound pentecostal faith with compatriots across the Americas, Francescon, Berg, and Vingren set their sights on their respective European diasporas. Anticipating the nineteenth- and twentieth-century migrations were more than three hundred years of European resettlement in the New World. Arriving in the Bahamas on the heels of Columbus’ 1492 inaugural voyage, Catholic Spain was the first empire to make its imprint on the Americas. Spain was followed in 1500 by a Portuguese fleet led by the commander Pedro Álvares who came upon the east coast of the terrain that later became Brazil. After laying a large cross and holding Catholic Thanksgiving mass, thinking it was insular, Cabral gave the land its original name, Ilha de Vera Cruz (Island of the True Cross). Spain was also the first to settle in Northern America, inhabiting Florida to the Southwest during the sixteenth century. Migrating at the cusp of the seventeenth century were the French, followed by the first British settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. The beginnings of European rule and religion were underway in the New World as the respective empires conquered the greater regions of the Americas with the blessing of the Pope.18 Between 1500 and 1800, about 2.5 million Europeans migrated to the Americas, harvesting the abundant supply of gold, silver, and sugar. Fueling the capitalist enterprise for the new forms of trade and revenue the natural resources availed was the importation, according to one estimate, of some 12 million African slaves.19 The colonists thrived in the New World at the expense of Africans and Natives, invoking religion to justify 16  The return migration rate of Italians was upwards of 40 percent. Thomas Sowell, Migrations and Cultures: A World View (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 140. Between 1908 and 1936, at the Port of Santos (São Paulo), about 203,000 Italians entered Brazil while about 177,000 exited. Jeffrey Lesser, Immigration, Ethnicity, and National Identity in Brazil, 1808 to the Present (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 78; F. E. Chadwick, “A Study of Iberic–America,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 54 (1914), 9. 17  Mattos, “Some Remarks on Brazilian Scholarship,” 240–41. 18  Eakin, History of Latin America, 58, 123–24; Ferguson, Civilization: The West and the Rest, 96–97; McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 73–75; Colin Woodard, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (New York: Penguin, 2012), 23–24, 34, 44–45; Spickard, Almost All Aliens, 36–38. 19  Lepore, These Truths, 16–17.

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their conquest. The Spanish forcibly overtook any Native who rejected the Requerimiento (a confession based on the Genesis narrative publicly read by the Spanish before taking siege).20 As disease cleared a path for European occupation—leading to millions of Native deaths—a French observer hailed the grim fate as an “omen” from God who wanted the Natives to “yield their place to new peoples.”21 While the Portuguese lacked Spain’s military stamina, they expanded their domain with the same papal patronage (Por., padroado) as their Iberian neighbors. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divided the territory of Latin America between Spain and Portugal, allowing Portugal to occupy land sketched by the Pope. Under Pope Julius II (1503–1513), the Spanish and Portuguese empires were granted exclusive rights to extend the gospel’s reach throughout their territories.22 The Portuguese settlers faced an upward climb, lacking the funding of the Spanish. The inferiority of the poorly financed Portuguese regime was reflected in a tenuous military strategy and a habitually circumspect missionary program. According to Diarmaid MacCulloch, “If later Christian missions based on the worldwide Portuguese Empire showed a certain humility and caution in their operations, it was largely because the Portuguese never overcame their poverty.”23 The Portuguese’s fiscal predicament did not lessen their dependence on forced labor but, indeed, may have encouraged it. By the late nineteenth century, coffee cultivation replaced sugar and gold as the principal catalyst for economic growth. Southeastern Brazil benefited most from the coffee economy, especially São Paulo state, emerging by the early twentieth century as the country’s manufacturing and political center. Like sugar and gold production, the coffee economy ran on slave labor. For three centuries, the Atlantic slave trade satisfied the labor demand as Brazil drew from the entry of about 3.5 million Africans. When the British navy severed the supply of the Africans, the country turned to the resurging European migrant population. By the 1860s, a substantial network of German and Swiss immigrants worked in 20  Ibid., 22; Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (New York: Penguin, 2010), 692. 21  Quoted in Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 215. 22  MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, 690; Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (New York: Monthly Review, 1997), 16. 23  MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, 689–90.

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the liberal party leader, and once largest slave dealer in São Paulo, Senador Vergueiro’s coffee and cotton plantation, Ibicaba.24 The recruitment of migrants continued during the mass labor migration from ca. 1870–1920. In what is hailed as the Great European Migration, South America became one of the most popular destinations. Among Italian emigres, the continent was the main terminus after the United States.25 Over one million “Iberics” (encompassing southern Italians) settled in the continent’s Southern Cone region. “Iberics,” differentiated by migration bureaus from “Keltics” (their more affluent and acculturated northern compatriots), derived from Spanish and Portuguese descent. So then, the mass arrival of southern Italians in Spanish-speaking Argentina and Portuguese-speaking Brazil (especially in São Paulo and Paraná states) was no coincidence. The Italians shared a common ancestral heritage with their fellow Iberian Southern Cone inhabitants, encompassing mutual linguistic origins, folk-Catholic roots, and an agrarian culture.26 For this reason, alongside the prospect of becoming a proprietario terriero (It. for “landowner”), pentecostal pioneers like Pietro Ottolini initially chose to emigrate for Brazil over the United States.27 During the large-scale migration from Scandinavia in the late nineteenth century, several thousand Swedes, mainly evangelical Lutherans, arrived on the shores of Brazil. Most of the Swedes of the Great Migration hailed from disadvantaged regions, lacking the amenities of the country’s flatlands and forested areas.28 24  Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country, 32–34; Laura Jarnagin and Rafe Blaufarb, A Confluence of Transatlantic Networks: Elites, Capitalism, and Confederate Migration to Brazil (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008), 211–12. 25  Gabaccia, “Race, Nation, Hyphen,” 45. Italian migrants played an integral role in the establishing of Latin American countries. Although travelling on behalf of Spain, Columbus was a Genoan. Vespucci, though travelling under the auspices of Portugal, was among the first Italians in Brazil. Arriving on his second voyage (in 1501), he reached the country near the Cape of St. Augustine. Eakin, History of Latin America, 56; David Boyle, Toward the Setting Sun: Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, and the Race for America (New York: Walker & Co., 2008), 21–22, 25. 26  Thomas A. Guglielmo, White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 23; Chadwick, “A Study of Iberic-­ America,” 9; Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian belong to the Western Romance language group. Marius Sala, “Romance Languages,” in Encyclopædia Britannica Online, last updated Aug 1, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Romance-languages. 27  Due to unstable conditions, however, Ottolini was averted from Brazil to New  York. Francesco Toppi, Pietro Ottolini, PRPI (Rome: ADI-Media, 1997), 10–11. 28  Retsö, “Emigration from the Nordic Countries,” 6–18.

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The Great European Migration coincided with the swell of urbanism in Brazil. The city of São Paulo jumped from a population of some 129,000 in 1893 to 240,000 by 1900. Italians entered in droves alongside a surge of Portuguese and Spanish and the steady influx of Germans.29 With its abundant natural resources and limitless territory, Brazil was esteemed as a “land of the future.” The immigrants’ optimism consisted in an idyllic image of the capital city. As May Bletz describes: São Paulo, without any colonial tradition, and with its explosive growth, was occasionally seen as an inverted Babel. In this myth, the Old World is seen as decadent, fossilized, and oppressed, whereas the new world is mysterious, exciting, dynamic, and enchanting—the place where a new homogenous race will be created. This new world is symbolized by the booming city of São Paulo, where people of all races coexist and interact.30

On the heels of the mass migrations of Africans and new Europeans, the colonial heritage of Brazil appeared like a distant past. The more probable source of São Paulo’s economic boom was rapid population growth due to the relocated slaves and European influx, combining to enlarge the workforce and the market.31 Still, the financial toll of passage from the Old World to the “inverted Babel” left the agrarian migrant base vulnerable to exploitation. Many were subsidized the expense of travel through a debtor-­ creditor labor contract. Mistreatment at the behest of fazendeiros (privileged landowners) who lorded the labor debt over foreign-born rural workers, concealed slavery’s continuation in Brazil even decades after its 1888 abolishment. Following a quota system introduced in 1924 restricting immigration to the United States, Brazil became an increasingly popular destination for Europeans. Rising immigration, coupled with the new overhead of diplomatic negotiations with newcomers’ governments, forced the São Paulo administration to adopt a more restrictive immigration policy, jettisoning the subsidized passage program. The Italian 29  May E.  Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation in Brazil and Argentina: 1890–1929 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 129; Lesser, Immigration, Ethnicity, and National Identity in Brazil, 129. 30  Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation in Brazil and Argentina, 131. See also Marshall C.  Eakin, Becoming Brazilians: Race and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Brazil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 31  Barbara Weinstein, The Color of Modernity: São Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015), 3.

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­ overnment, stirred on behalf of victimized migrants, insisted that emig gres be allowed space to foster and preserve their italianità (Italian cultural identity) in contexts abroad. In the face of such demands, São Paulo continued to tighten its immigration policy, stressing assimilation, fidelity to Brazil, and a Portuguese education.32 To evade oppressive plantation owners, European settlers of earlier migrations gradually left their agricultural labors in the country’s interior for the city. Joining new overseas arrivals, Europeans contended with formerly enslaved Africans and Native countryfolk who likewise had transplanted to cities to improve their circumstances. Many faced decrepit living and work conditions and harsh treatment. The principal newspaper for Italian immigrants in São Paulo at the turn of the twentieth century, the Fanfulla [Influencer], likened the conduct toward Italians to that of African slaves. In Brazil, the degree of racist sentiment was unlike anything Italians had encountered in the Old World. The stigma with which the cultural elites and intellectuals regarded the Natives perpetuated the roots of contempt toward the formerly enslaved and the underprivileged, opening wide the doors to European immigration in the nineteenth century.33 The replacement of Natives and slaves with European migrant workers created a tenuous climate with new allegiances constantly being formed and readjusted. The “only common language its inhabitants all shared,” describes Bletz, “was that of money.”34 Enter the Italian and Swedish migrants from Chicago. Against the backdrop of poverty, isolation, and instability, Francescon, Berg, and Vingren found an immediate receptacle 32   Bischoff, “Forced Labour in Brazil,” 151–52; Ashley S.  Timmer and Jeffrey G. Williamson, “Immigration Policy Prior to the 1930s: Labor Markets, Policy Interactions, and Globalization Backlash,” Population and Development Review 24, no. 4 (December 1998): 739–71; Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation in Brazil and Argentina, 129–32. Bletz notes several references in the newspaper Fanfulla to racialized language depicting the Italian newcomers’ experience (132–34). Thomas A.  Guglielmo, “‘No Color Barrier’: Italians, Race, and Power in the United States,” in Guglielmo and Salerno, Are Italians White, 42. Italianità (lit., “Italian-ness”), underscoring pride in one’s Italian national identity, is a reoccurring theme in early twentieth-century Italian American history. William J. Connell, “Introduction: A New History for a New Millennium,” in Routledge History of Italian Americans, ed. William J. Connell and Stanislao G. Pugliese (New York: Routledge, 2018), 8–9; Cumbo, “Your Old Men Will Dream Dreams,” 55–56. 33   Noted in Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation in Brazil and Argentina, 134. Europeans, mostly Protestants, had “truly revolutionary effects upon the traditional agrarian structure of the south.” Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 57. 34  Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation in Brazil and Argentina, 130.

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among their respective diasporas. Pentecostalism supplied a “common language,” holding out to the displaced agrarian migrant the promise of solidarity and belonging.

Prophetic Visions for the Bairros Francescon’s autobiographical account, originally published in Italian as Fedele testimonianza [Faithful testimony], is undergirded by a profound sense of divine summons.35 His transition from Presbyterianism to the Holiness movement and then onward to Pentecostalism is expressed in phrases such as “hearing God’s voice,” following the “Lord’s bidding,” and the God who “opened my mouth to speak.” Such language conjures the immediacy of the divine in Francescon’s faith pilgrimage.36 The expansion of Chicago’s Christian Assembly during the early pentecostal revival was propelled by a direct word from God, as Francescon recounts: I the Lord have established my name in this place; if ye harken unto me and show yourselves humble, I will send among you those whom I am determined to save, which state shall continue for a time after which I shall send certain of you to gather in others of my sheep. And this is the token by which ye shall know that it is I, the Lord, who have spoken, namely, this place shall be too small to hold, by reason of their numbers, those whom I shall send hither.37

In the admonishment’s aftermath, the congregation enlarged from a handful of families to seventy members, with some forced to stand during weekly worship because of overcrowding.38 Another prophecy is reported in the form of an “interpretation” (the charismatic gift) of a “strange tongue.” The interpretation, delivered in 1908, predicted a turn of events in Italy still several decades to come: “The Lord makes known today through the mouth of our brother that the saints of Italy shall be

35  The Portuguese translation (4th ed.) of the account, authorized by the CC in Brazil, was published in 1977 with some details added and omitted and under a different title, Historico da obra de Deus, revelada pelo Espírito Santo, no século atual [History of the work of God, revealed by the Holy Spirit, in the current century], Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. 36  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 2–3, 6. 37  Ibid., 7–8. 38  Ibid., 8.

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persecuted in the reign of Victor Emmanuele III.”39 As history proved, the rise of Italian fascism under Emmanuele’s watch led to a ban of all worship contrary to the state religion. Non-Catholic traditions were vilified as polluters of the purity of the Italian people, regarded as “harmful to the physical and mental welfare of the race.”40 In the face of increasing censure before, during, and after WWII, pentecostals became victims of coercion, exile, arrest, beatings, and even death.41 According to Francescon, it was “divine revelation” that led the first missionary cohort from Chicago to South America. He described receiving another prophetic directive after the group arrived at the port of Buenos Aires in 1909. In the prophecy, which remains a topic of conversation among CC members, Francescon depicted a time of harvest awaiting the people of São Paulo.42 The revelation included the promise: “I, the Lord, will remain in the midst of you, and if you obey me and are humble, I will entrust to you everyone who is to be saved.”43 On eleven visits to Brazil over the remainder of his life, Francescon founded and nurtured the CC. On the second day of his sojourn from Buenos Aires to São Paulo, the prophetic summons began to reach fulfillment. Arriving at the Port of Santos in March 1910, Francescon discovered fertile soil for outreach among the Italian diaspora. Most of the more than 1 million Italians arriving in Brazil during the mass migration settled in the capital city. By 1907, Italians were the nation’s ethnic majority, outnumbering the foreign migrant population and, in São Paulo, Native Brazilians, two to one.44 The first person Francescon encountered in São Paulo was a sojourner  Ibid., 9–10.  “Nocive all’integritá fisica e psichica della razza.” Buffurini-Guidi circolare, April 9, 1935, file 26, 299-1-C-Z, series PS G1, State Archives, Rome. Unless otherwise noted, all translations of Italian are my own. 41  Randy Hurst, “Italy: The Church Advances through Hard Times,” PE, May 6, 2001, 8, 11; Roberto Bracco, “Italy’s Most Crucial Hour,” PE, July 31, 1960, 2; Carmine Napolitano, “The Development of Pentecostalism in Italy,” in European Pentecostalism, ed. William K. Kay and Anne E. Dyer (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 192–93. 42  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 11. See also Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 26. 43  “Eu, o Senhor, permaneci no meio de vós e se me obedecerdes e fordes humildes eu mandarei convosco todos os que devem ser salvos.” Luigi Francescon, Resumo de uma ramificao da ohra de Deus, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 1958), 15–16. See also Guy BonGiovanni, “The Missionary History of the Christian Church of North America,” in Galvano, FACCNA, 98. 44  Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 25; Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 189–96; Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation in Brazil and Argentina, 129; Lesser, Immigration, Ethnicity, and National Identity in Brazil, 129. 39 40

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from Paraná, an Italian with no church or faith affiliation, Vincenzo Pievani. Feeling compelled, he conversed with the man “on the grace of God.”45 Afterwards, the man left for his home in Santo Antônio da Platina, Paraná. Francescon describes hearing God’s voice tell him twice, “I send you there.”46 Francescon made good on the divine commission and ventured to Pievani’s home about a month later. He boarded a train and, led by a local guide, braved the jungle. In poor health, without money, and no familiarity with the Native Portuguese tongue, he entered Santo Antônio on an act of faith. As Francescon describes the expedition: I was constrained to journey some forty miles horseback through virgin forests infested with jaguars and other wild beasts of that country; making this journey with but an Indian guide, I arrived by the grace of God, at San Antonio on the twentieth of April. Yet another difficulty beset me in being ignorant of the language of the country—adding to which I was without money or health, but God, who holdeth the hearts of all in His Hands, showed me a miracle in that as soon as I came into that country about San Antonio, whom should I meet but the wife of that Vincenzo Pievani. She was at the window of the house and a voice said to her: “Behold the man whom I have sent you”; (although I was not expected there). And some days later the Lord touched their hearts—in all, eleven of these people were baptized in water and confirmed with the sign of the Most High. These are the first fruits of God’s handiwork in that nation.47

Thus, through toil and dearth, the makings of the first pentecostal congregation in Brazil were underway. From the beginning, Francescon regarded his missionary labors in the country as the work of God. The first baptized among the Santo Antônio congregation were former Catholics. News of the revival stirred an uproar among the city’s Catholic community, including a local priest, who plotted to end the outreach effort. As Francescon describes: “Others of this place, hearing of my arrival and being told of my mission, set a priest at their head and conspired to kill me and there had been no other escape for me, had God not stretched forth His Hand.” The Santo Antônio community would remain intact. Later in the same year, Francescon returned to São Paulo, building another

 Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 11.  Quoted in Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 190. 47  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 12. 45 46

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congregation among twenty from various backgrounds.48 The latter group had coalesced among former members of the Presbyterian Church in the Brás, the largest Paulistano bairro, and extended among Roman Catholics and Methodists. One of the church’s families invited Francescon to stay with them and preach Sunday morning. His sermon enjoined the Presbyterians to seek the baptism in the Spirit. Some of the congregation’s elders objected to his message and the manner with which he delivered it—he preached in Italian among a migrant community where Portuguese was becoming customary. Although the church welcomed first-generation immigrants (who spoke Italian only), the children readily picked up Portuguese from endemic Brazilians at school and on the city streets. Second-generation immigrants were encouraged to speak Portuguese in church.49 These developments compelled Francescon to leave with some of the Presbyterian members, who were rebaptized by immersion, and found an independent congregation that would form the base of the first São Paulo CC church. In the early days of the movement, Italian, exclusively, was used in the worship service (in ordinary speech, from the pulpit, and in song). Pentecostalism’s initial murmurs were marked by miraculous healings and baptisms in the Spirit.50 Among the Presbyterian congregants joining Francescon were João Finotti and his mother. Both were rebaptized and became stalwart members of the new movement. João had tremendous esteem for Francescon, remarking, “I have never seen anybody with that sharp discernment and wisdom.”51 In the same year Francescon was beckoned to South America, Vingren settled in South Bend, Indiana, just outside the Chicago revival hub. Having tasted the pentecostal experience in Sweden in the summer of 1910, Vingren frequented Chicago, including a visit to the pentecostal conference sponsored by the city’s First Swedish Baptist Church. Vingren met Berg at the conference and invited him to his church in South Bend. In the middle of a prayer meeting, a congregant announced that God was calling Berg and Vingren to the mission field, specifying the location. As recorded in Emílio Conde’s history of the AD:

 Ibid., 13.  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 29–30; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 23–24. 50  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 13. See also Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 22–23. 51  Quoted in Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 191. 48 49

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God, through a prophetic message, spoke to the hearts of Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren, to leave to preach the Gospel and the blessings of the Pentecostal Revival. The place had been mentioned in the prophecy, it was Pará. None of those present knew of such a place. After praying, the two young men went to a bookstore to consult a map that showed them where Pará was located. They then discovered that it was a state in the North of Brazil. Both, burning with zeal for the cause of Christ, were torches of that fire that burned in Chicago.52

After hearing the “Pará Prophecy” in South Bend, they sought confirmation from the North Avenue Mission leadership.53 Several days of deliberate prayer followed before their calling to Pará was confirmed.54 Dedicated as missionaries by the North Avenue pastorate, the two scrounged what funds they could and made third-class fare for a passenger ship from New York to northern Brazil.55

Classical Pentecostals in Transnational Motion Despite Francescon’s anti-organizationalism, a sentiment widely shared among the nascent Italian pentecostal movement in the United States, he was concerned that the beloved sister movement, burgeoning in the bairros of São Paulo, needed stability. Francescon’s eighth visit (1931–1932) to Brazil brought the fruit of his experience moderating the churches in the United States and Italy. He advised the growing church in how to handle controversies such as the “Blood Issue.” Over the next two decades, 52  “Deus, através de uma mesagem profética, falou ao coração de Daniel Berg e Gunnar Vingren, que partissem a pregar o Evangelho, e as bênçãos do Avivamento Pentecostal. O local fôra mencionado na profecia, era o Pará. Nenhum das presentes conhecia tal lugar. Após a oração, os dois jovens foram a uma livraria a fim de consultar um mapa que lhes mosrtasse onde estava localizado Pará. Descobriram, então, que se tratava de um Estado do Norte do Brasil. Ambos ardiam de zêlo pela causa de Cristo, eram tochas dessa fogueira que ardia em Chicago.” Conde, História das Assembléias de Deus, 14. 53  Alencar notes that Berg worked for the “Company of Pará” but that does not invalidate the mystical origin of the “Pará Prophecy.” While Berg may have known of Pará, and perhaps that there were Swedes there, it is something else to say he knew the land was ripe for pentecostal missions. Gedeon Freire de Alencar, Matriz Pentecostal Brazileira: Assembleias de Deus: 1911–2011 (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Novos Diálogos, 2013), 56–57; Isael de Araújo, História do movimento Pentecostal no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: CPAD, 2016), Kindle edition, loc. 45. 54  Conde, História das Assembléias de Deus, 14. 55  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 26.

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the installment of the foundational doctrines, core practices, and governing tenants of the CC brought cohesion and stability to the fledgling church. Through Francescon’s encouragement, the CC adopted the “Articles of Faith” as their written credo, prepared originally by their US sister church (the International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies; IFCA), and freely incorporated the Italian hymnbook (already in use among the IFCA). Within its first decades, the movement made inroads across the regions of the Southern Cone. An abundance of supernatural occurrences, especially baptisms in the Spirit and healings, followed the ministry of Francescon. While most did not perceive of him as a healer (in the sense of the charismatic ministry office), there are numerous accounts of instantaneous healings accompanying his outreach. Francescon reports several healings in 1908 among the Chicago Christian Assembly (including fellow missionaries to South America Giacomo Lombardi and Lucia Menna).56 An account of Francescon’s outreach in Gissi, Italy, describes a woman who was miraculously healed and baptized in the Spirit.57 A 1948 report by the pastor of a large São Paulo church attributes to Francescon’s ministry the healing of the diseased, deformed, paralyzed, blind, and even the raising of the dead.58 An account of his Argentine outreach reports that he healed a paralytic woman through the “laying on of hands.”59 Besides the latter occurrence, the literature generally does not depict Francescon as the direct conveyer of supernatural healing; nevertheless, healings remained a prominent facet of his outreach. During Francescon’s eighth visit, the “Articles of Faith” (Por., “Pontos de doutrina”) were adopted and the bylaws scripted and registered. The articles comprise twelve “we believe” affirmations, oriented around conventional themes such as the Trinity, the sacraments, salvation, and the end times, as well as common pentecostal emphases: Spirit baptism with speaking in tongues (art. 7), divine healing (art. 10), and the imminent, premillennial Second Coming (art. 11). Article 9 expresses a commitment to abstain from blood products following the Jerusalem Council (Acts  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 8.  Reported in a letter by Felix Mattia, ADP 6.3. 58  The dead individual was reportedly “raised after three days of being deceased” (risuscitando i morti fino a tre giorni dope essere espirati). Letter from Genuaro Teti, “L’Opera Cristiana nel Brasile dovrebbe servire da modello per tutto il mondo,” Il faro, June 1948, 1. 59  Pablo Medina, quoted in Itamar Bueno Coutinho, Biografia de Louis Francescon (Ponta Grossa, PR: Gráfica e Editora Bahls, 2016), 50. 56 57

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15:20, 28–29). In contrast to the more figurative rendering of the libertà (freedom party), the literalist approach formed the basis for the CC’s attitude toward marriage, the restoration of errant members, and the dress code.60 The articles’ organization reflects the broader creedal tradition. Its twelve-fold structure, for example, resembles that of the Apostle’s Creed (still in use among Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and the more liturgical Protestant churches). The articles echo emphases customary among other classical pentecostal churches. For instance, the US AG’s “Statement of Fundamental Truths” encompasses a virtually identical twelve statements (while adding four more).61 Francescon urged the Brazilian CC to adopt the annual convention tradition characteristic of the US Italian churches. He presided over the General Convention teaching sessions on his visits, working with other elected officers to implement the movement’s doctrinal foundations. During his eighth visit (1931), the bylaws were devised and registered and the name Congregação Cristã do Brasil (Christian Congregation of Brazil) was adopted. On his ninth visit (1936), the bylaws were amended to include the “Constitution of the Church of God.” In the 1930s, the CC refined its concept of the administrative board (the original three-fold model of the president, secretary, and treasurer was expanded to include a second secretary and three officers). A further revision pertained to the president’s role—to be occupied not by an elected elder or deacon but by a layperson (the first being José Baltazar Afonso). The bylaws were expanded once again on Francescon’s tenth visit (1948).62 From 1936 to 1958, the CC’s membership increased more than eightfold, and the number of church buildings climbed from 32 to 552.63 Music, even of the instrumental sort, occupies tremendous significance for the CC. Where feasible, CC churches maintain an orchestra. Even after 60  “Pontos de doutrina” [Doctrine points]. Congregação Cristã no Brasil, art. 1, accessed August 22, 2021, https://www.congregacaocristanobrasil.org.br/institucional/doutrina; Nuovo libro di inni e salmi spirituali, under “Articoli di fede.” 61  Rubia R. Valente, “Articles of Faith, Twelve,” in Gooren, ELAR, 1:114–15; “Statement of Fundamental Truths,” Assemblies of God (USA), accessed November 19, 2021, https:// ag.org/beliefs/statement-of-fundamental-truths. 62  Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 171–78, 195. The Constitution was originally published in Italian as Constituzione della Chiesa di Dio (275–76). 63  Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 85. A report for 1948, a typical year during this growth phase, claims 958 persons were baptized in water in the São Paulo district. “The Truth Marches on in São Paulo,” Il faro, November 1948, 7.

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being admitted to the orchestra, musicians are encouraged to continue studying music to preserve the expected level of sophistication. The hymnal was continually updated to stay current with the fluctuating cultural milieu of the early twentieth century.64 While Brazilian CC members initially spoke Italian, by 1940, most had acculturated, adopting the local Portuguese tongue. This ethnocultural development is reflected in the hymnal. The first four iterations—copyrighted, respectively, in 1914, 1919, 1924, and 1928—were published in Italian as the Nuovo libro di inni e salmi spirituali [New book of hymns and spiritual songs].65 Published in conjunction with the IFCA First National Convention resolutions, the 1928 edition was copyrighted explicitly by the Niagara Falls Christian Church (the convention’s host church) and Francescon’s Chicago church. The hymns writers and composers (most were IFCA members) wished not to take any credit for their work for fear that it would detract from the glory of God, whom they regarded as the book’s chief author. Portions were borrowed from the celebrated chorales of the Protestant revivals of D.  L. Moody, Daniel Paul Rader, and Rodney “Gipsy” Smith.66 A fifth hymnal edition, published in 1935 in Brazil by Irmãos Spina, included 588 hymns divided more or less equally between Italian and Portuguese. The sixth edition, published in 1943 and revised in 1951, was a Portuguese-only version containing most of the old hymns (words and music). Titled Hinos de louvores e súplicas a Deus [Hymns of praises and supplications to God], it includes a doctrinal statement in the opening pages and a section of children songs. The Portuguese version attributes its music, like its Italian counterpart, to twentieth-century US gospel songs. The choruses and words are not merely translations of English hymns but reflect the doctrines and practices of the CC.67 In 2013, another

 Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 118–19.  The 1928 edition included the first printing of the “Articles of Faith.” A. Palma, “CCNA Hymnal,” 75. 66  Nuovo libro di inni e salmi spirituali. Appearing under each hymn is the inscription “fruit of the Unorganized Italian Christian Churches of the U.S.A” (made explicit in the 1928 edition). A. Palma, “CCNA Hymnal,” 74. See also Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 24; and Anne Parsons, “The Pentecostal Immigrants: A Study of an Ethnic Central Church,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 4 (Spring 1965): 187. 67  Read notes four editions total, however, disregards the 1919 and 1928 editions for reasons not specified. Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 24–25. 64 65

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Portuguese version was released with 480 hymns. The hymnbooks are distributed among the churches without seeking a profit.68 As was true of the congregants of the Italian Presbyterian Church in the Brás, the CC’s emergence among Italy’s Brazil-based diaspora quickly found expression in the Portuguese tongue. With the tapering of immigration from Italy because of War Years’ quotas, the movement’s Italians were increasingly defined by second generationers who had acculturated and adopted Portuguese as their primary language.69 Intriguingly, the CC on Brazil soil more readily transitioned to the Native tongue than its counterparts in the United States. Francescon’s Chicago church (and the IFCA) continued widespread use of the Italian hymnal throughout the twentieth century. The reason for this peculiarity is twofold. The first stems from Francescon and the early CC founders’ concerted outreach among Brazil’s Native populace. On the other hand, the US churches’ primary growth mechanism was through Roman Catholic extraction, many of whom were ethnically Italian and able, if not preferring, to speak Italian during weekly services.70 The second explanation stems from the more substantial lexical similarity between Italian and Portuguese (Western Romance languages) than between Italian and English. The language gap insulated Italian pentecostal churches in the United States.71 Although originating according to a “mother church” model, the CC’s exceptional growth made centralized organization untenable. At what members refer to as the 1962 Assembleia Geral Extraordinária (Extraordinary General Assembly), the CC introduced nine-person regional administrations.72 The convention also occasioned the movement’s official name change—from the Christian Congregation “of” (do) to the Christian Congregation “in” (no) Brazil.73 By 1970, the Brazilian 68  Rubia R. Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil, Congregação Cristã no Brasil,” in Gooren, ELAR, 1:323–24. 69  Sowell, Migrations and Cultures, 150. 70  Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 24–25; John DelTurco, We’ve Come This Far by Faith: 90th Anniversary, 1907–1997: 70th Annual Convention (Transfer, PA: Christian Church of North America, 1997), 10; R.  M. Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited, 135; Joseph Fiorentino, “Pentecost Comes to the Italians,” Lighthouse, July 1961, 7. 71  Marius Sala, “Romance Languages,” under “Classification Methods and Problems.” The Italian hymnal was still used among many churches of the IFCA as a source of devotion and adoration into the mid-1970s. A. Palma, “CCNA Hymnal,” 76. 72   “Estatuto padrão,” Congregação Cristã no Brasil, under “Preâmbulo,” accessed November 19, 2020, https://congregacaocristanobrasil.org.br/institucional. 73  Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 208.

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CC membership had reached 1 million across more than 2500 congregations.74 In 1972, the mother church in the Brás seated some 7000.75 The Brás congregation has always formed a vital dimension of CC religiosity, as Read described: Members of the Congregação who live in other parts of Brazil think of the Mother Church with great pride and deep emotion. It is their shrine, spiritual home, and seat of religious authority. Any sacrifice will be made in order to visit the Mother Church. For many it is the physical center from which their faith in the Savior has come to them through the missionary trips and evangelistic itinerations of those who first brought them the good news. The Mother Church is important in the thinking of the members and decentralization does not seem to damage its image. In a peculiar and certain way, this church belongs to them and they are proud and happy to be connected with it.76

The Brás church remains esteemed with Jerusalem-Temple-like connotations. Its flowering embodied the movement’s story—from primal beginnings to years of prosperity—affording a locus around which CC identity is maintained. Such adoration, however, did little to deter the sense that the time had come to decentralize the movement.77 The CC thrived among the proletariat. While appealing initially to Italians, its growth was sustained by working-class Portuguese migrants, Brazilian Natives, Africans, and mulattoes. Roger Bastide’s study underscores the appeal of the CC to African Brazilians: The “Religion of Glory” is a Puritan religion; it prohibits drinking, smoking, and dancing. Negro converts whose histories I was able to document were former drinkers or vagabonds tormented by a desire to give up “the  Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Congregação Cristã do Brasil,” in WCD, accessed June 15, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/ denomination/948/83-general. Hollenweger reports on data (2500 communities) from 1967. Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 85. 75   The Brás church’s membership total comes from Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 88. Hollenweger’s assessment is consistent, given the CC growth rate, with Read’s tally of 4000 members in 1964. Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 36. See also Joseph Fiorentino, In the Power of His Spirit: A Summary of the Italian Pentecostal Movement in the U.S.A. and Abroad (Niagara Falls, NY: Christian Church of North America, 1969). Fiorentino places the membership at over 5000 in 1968 (13). 76  Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 36. 77  Ibid., 37. 74

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sinner’s” life, and indeed after conversion they actually did become respectable citizens. The moral qualities demanded by conversion enabled them to rise on the social ladder. In this religion of mystic trance the most important factor for the man of color is, in my opinion, this puritanical determination, this effort to get out of the lower class and into the bourgeoisie, so to speak. At the very moment when he seems closest to Africa—shaking and trembling, speaking in tongues, possessed by the Holy Ghost—he is actually farthest from it, more Westernized than ever before.78

African Brazilians identified with the celebratory worship of the CC, known by outsiders as the “Religion of Glory” (or “people that glorify”). In 1960 (at the time of Bastide’s writing), much in line with the African spiritist tradition, the CC resisted medicine, surgeons, and doctors, pursuing healing through “holy oil alone.” The appeal for Africans rested not simply in the continuity between the CC and their ancestral religion. The CC’s puritanical avoidance of reputed social evils exhibited a moral virtue, which, Bastide acknowledged, also afforded distinct mobility. African migrants channeled the straitlaced religiosity of “the glories” (os glórias) to advance their social standing.79 The most impressive CC growth occurred in the southern regions of Brazil, among the heavy concentration of Italian migrants in the port cities. According to a study by the Japanese Brazilian Key Yuasa, in 1998, there were more than 3700 CC congregations in São Paulo, over 1900 in Minas Gerais, and nearly 1400 in Paraná. Northern regions also witnessed substantial enlargement, with at least some CC presence in each of the nine Northeast states and seven North states. Nearly 1200 congregations were registered in Bahia and about 500 in Rondônia. Rounding out the country’s five regions, the Central West states accounted for almost 1400 congregations.80 Thus, by the end of the twentieth century the Brazilian CC had fully emerged as a national church. The movement readily spanned the Southern Cone with, alongside the work in Argentina, a substantial outreach among the Brazilian diaspora in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile. Other South American hubs of CC activity include Bolívia, Venezuela, and Peru. Through the diaspora and migrants returning to home countries, the CC charted intercontinental space with notable outreaches in North

 Bastide, African Religions of Brazil, 372.  Ibid., 372. 80  Key Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 200. 78 79

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America, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Japan, and the Middle East.81 According to the study by Yara Nogueira Monteiro, as of 2007, the CC had seven congregations in Syria and two in Israel.82 On November 19, 1910, just months after Francescon set foot in São Paulo, Berg and Vingren arrived in Pará’s capital, Belém. Unable to speak Portuguese, the duo aligned their efforts with Justus Henry Nelson, an English-speaking Methodist missionary of Swedish descent. Nelson served in the early 1880s under the supervision of Bishop William Taylor, whose mission theory integrally influenced Scandinavian Pentecostalism. Taylor’s emphasis on self-supporting-and-governing church plants (in contrast to the traditional concept of mission boards) informed Swedish pentecostal pioneer Lewi Pethrus’ missiology. Following networks of Swedes in Brazil, Berg and Vingren drew from the same self-managed missionary church concept in the founding of the AD.83 Aware of their Baptist background, Justus directed Berg and Vingren to the English-speaking missionary and founder of Belém Baptist Church, Eric A.  Nelson. While Vingren conducted prayer and healing services, Berg supported them both through his job at the local foundry. Their insistence on Spirit baptism and speaking in tongues during congregational worship raised the alarm among the Baptists.84 Berg and Vingren reckoned that Spirit baptism offered a sure foundation for unity. As Daniel’s brother David describes, they assumed: “If 81  J.  Gordon Melton, “Christian Congregation of Brazil,” in Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices, 2nd ed., ed. J.  Gordon Melton and Martin Baumann (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010), 2:621; Yara Nogueira Monteiro, “Congregação Cristã no Brasil: da fundação ao centenário–a trajetória de uma igreja Brasileira,” Estudos de religião 24, no. 39 (December 2010): 156–59; Paul Freston, “Christian Congregation,” in Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements, ed. Peter B. Clarke (London: Routledge, 2006), 119. 82  Monteiro, “Congregação Cristã no Brasil,” 159. 83  David D. Bundy, “Taylor, William,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 1116; Conde, História das Assembléias de Deus, 19. 84  Alongside Conde’s account, much of the history of the Assembleias de Deus is chronicled in the first-hand account of Gunnar Vingren, edited by his son Ivar Vingren, Pionjärens dagbok: Brasilienmissionären Gunnar Vingrens dagboksanteckningar (Stockholm, SE: Lewi Pethrus Förlag, 1969). See also Alencar, Matriz Pentecostal Brazileira, 55–56; Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 75; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 26; and Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 118. Willems observes the close parallel between the emergence of Chilean Pentecostalism and schism within Methodism (ibid.); Laura Premack, “‘The Holy Rollers Are Invading Our Territory’: Southern Baptist Missionaries and the Early Years of Pentecostalism in Brazil,” Journal of Religious History 35, no. 1 (2011): 3.

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everyone achieved the experience of the baptism with the Holy Ghost, it would give rise to an unshakable union between one another, and they would be like one family.”85 According to Baptist doctrine, Spirit baptism was limited to the apostolic age and not intended to be sought or practiced among present-day Christians. Nevertheless, many welcomed Berg and Vingren and encouraged them to continue the meetings. Laura Premack speculates that it was their familiarity with Afro-Brazilian currents that made some members of the church more willing to accept Berg and Vingren’s supernaturalism.86 In May of 1911, Celina Albuquerque, suffering from lip cancer, expressed interest in joining Berg and Vingren’s prayer meetings.87 Because her infirmity prevented her from attending the church, they held the meetings in her home. As recounted in Vingren’s diary: “The first thing I did was ask her if she believed Jesus could heal her. She said yes. We then told her to put aside all the medications she was taking. We prayed for her, and the Lord Jesus completely healed her!”88 Celina was baptized in the Spirit at a subsequent meeting. Accused of sowing dissension as separatistics, Berg and Vingren were excommunicated at a special assembly with eighteen followers (most of the congregants).89 Although their view of Spirit baptism was the chief reason for their expulsion, it was not the only one. As Gedeon Freire de Alencar suggests: “The local autonomy of the church (something precious for any Baptist community) added to the distrust of Brazilians in the face of yet another Swede who comes and goes (and feuds with his fellow countrymen in Belém) in a church already victimized by divisions.”90 Prone to schism and placing a premium on the

85  “Se todos alcançassem a experiência do batismo com o Espírito Santo, nasceria disto uma união inabalável entre os irmãos, e seriam todos uma só família.” Berg, Enviado por Deus, 94. 86  Premack, “Holy Rollers,” 3 (n. 9). 87  Rui Raiol, 1911 missão de fogo no Brasil: a fundação da Assembleia de Deus (Belém: Paka-­ Tatu, 2011), 36. 88  “A primeira coisa que fiz foi perguntarlhe se cria que Jesus podia curá-la. Ela respondeu que sim. Dissemos-lhe então que deixasse de lado todos os remédios que estava tomando. Oramos por ela, e o Senhor Jesus curou completamente!” Vingren, O diário do pioneiro Gunnar Vingren, 40. 89  Berg, Enviado por Deus, 97–98. 90  “A autonomia local da igreja (algo caríssimo para qualquer comunidade batista) adicionada à desconfiança de brasileiros diante de mais um sueco que chega e pode ir embora (e briga com seus conterrâneos em Belém) em uma igreja já vitimada por duas divisões.” Alencar, Matriz Pentecostal Brasileira, 56.

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church’s self-sufficiency, the Baptists remained wary of the imported teachings of Swedish foreigners. Berg, Vingren, and the other congregants formed an independent congregation in Belém later in 1911, originally called the Apostolic Faith Mission (A Fe Apostólica). In 1918, the church registered with the civil authorities as Assembleia de Deus (Assemblies of God).91 It witnessed steady growth throughout the twentieth century. Expansion ensued initially in the North and Northeast regions of the country, especially along the Amazon. In Pará, Berg coordinated the dozen river outposts under his charge by boat. Within a decade, missionaries were discharged from Belém into the states of Amazonas and Pernambuco and, in the 1920s, to Rondônia, Maranhão, Piauí, Paraíba, Sergipe, and Bahia. Among a handful of Americans, most missionaries in the early decades were Swedish. Gradually, endemic Brazilians were installed as pastors. In 1922, alongside five Swedish missionaries and several evangelists there were fourteen Brazilian pastors in Pará.92 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, expansion proceeded among waves of Brazilians fleeing oppressive work conditions and draught for the city. In this rural-urban migration, congregations became stopovers for the masses flocking to the cities. Domestic (internal) migration rates suggest the Brazilian population was one of the most peripatetic in the world. On the heels of the migration period, the population of São Paulo climbed by a half million.93 Both domestic and international migrants were drawn to the charismatic leadership of AD missionaries, regarded as prophets sent to guide displaced nomads. The underprivileged discovered common ground and a sense of belonging in the colloquial style of the AD. As David Stoll suggests: After starting churches in the towns, it extended them into the surrounding region and harvested bountifully from the migratory flow. Poor people felt at home in the informal, rhythmic services. When they went to strange cities, sister churches provided fictive kin and served as a referral agency.  Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 75–78; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 27.  Conde, História das Assembléias de Deus, 60, 70, 83, 102, 176, 182, 200; “Former Student of Midwest Bible School, Now a Missionary in Brazil, South America,” PE, May 13, 1922, 12; Samuel Nystrom, “The Lord’s Work in North of Brazil,” PE, May 27, 1922, 13. 93  Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 84; Benjamin Higgins, “An Economist’s View,” in Social Aspects of Economic Development, ed. José Medina Echavarria and Egbert De Vries (Paris: UNESCO, 1963), 2:202–3. 91 92

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Assisted by a strict moral code and fervent exhortations to improve oneself, many poor members and their children were able to move upward in the social structure.94

Pentecostalism satiated the migrants’ need for identity, emotional stability, and material support, supplying an avenue for social mobility.95 In 1921, the AD began ordaining endemic Brazilian pastors. At the first General Convention hosted in Natal in 1930, the AD’s Swedish leadership decided to formally nationalize the church. Among the reasons for this change was the shifting economy following the 1929 global financial crisis, which sent the price of coffee, Brazil’s primary export, plummeting.96 Alongside the collapse of international markets, the nationalist ideology of Getúlio Vargas’ administration forced Brazil to focus internally on industry. The nationalizing of Brazil’s economy presaged a new interest in restructuring the AD around autochthonous leadership. Another reason for the decision stemmed from the conviction that the biblical model was an ecclesial polity consisting of individual church autonomy and, therein, localized pastoral leadership. One other cause for the shift to endemic leadership was the reluctance of historic Protestant churches to nationalize. Historically, such reticence has been linked to stagnant Protestant growth among the masses—an error the AD wished to avoid. Accompanying the choice to nationalize was a shift in the denomination’s national headquarters from Belém to Rio de Janeiro.97 By the mid-1930s, the work encompassed the south of the country, extending into Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul. By 1961, multiple congregations comprising several hundreds of members were reported in the federal capital, Brasília. By 1966, the AD made inroads among the Amerindian population living in Goiás. Joining the outreach, in the arid Sertão regions of the Northeast, were the

94  David Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant? The Politics of Evangelical Growth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 108. 95  Willems points to the appeal of Brazilian Protestant contexts for those migrating to urban settings from areas with an “archaic social structure.” Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 86. 96  Raiol, 1911 missão de fogo no Brasil, 117–18; Hunt, Evaluating Prophetic Radicalism, 161; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 30; Dietmar Rothermund, The Global Impact of the Great Depression, 1929–1939 (London: Routledge, 1996), 43–44. 97  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 30; 34–35; Endruveit, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 34–35.

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Natives.98 During these years, the primary mechanism for expansion was faith healing, with many turning to AD leaders for deliverance from malaria, yellow fever, cholera, tuberculosis, meningitis, leprosy, and Hansen disease.99 The AD’s international ties now encompass French Guiana, Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, Paramaribo, Mozambique, and Timor-Leste, and, overseas, the United States, Canada, and Sweden. After WWII, the US AG played a strategic role in nurturing the AD, a presence peaking in the 1970s with about twenty US missionary families. Among the chief contributions of the US workers was sponsoring the Publishing House of the Assemblies of God (Casa Publicadora das Assembleias de Deus [CPAD]) in Rio de Janeiro, leading to widespread distribution of the periodical Mensageiro da paz [Messenger of peace], Sunday school programs, and other evangelistic materials. US workers assisted in developing radio programs, Bible schools for lay leaders, outreach conventions, orphanages, elderly homes, day schools, and medical dispensaries. Traditionally, despite this involvement, the AD has asserted its independence from its North American counterpart. The movement bears the strongest semblance to its Swedish parental organization. Both the AD and Swedish Pentecostalism assert their independence from other national bodies, and both veer toward a “mother church” polity. Alongside the AG (US), the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAC) sent Walter Robert McAlister, grandnephew of PAC executive officer Robert E. McAlister, to collaborate with the AD in the 1950s. His crusading and healing ministry put him at odds with AD authorities, leading in 1960 to the founding of his Igreja Pentecostal de Nova Vida (New Life Pentecostal Church) in Rio de Janeiro.100

98  Conde, História das Assembléias de Deus, 199, 200, 248, 263, 282, 291, 316; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 121–22; J.  Philip Hogan, Brazil (Springfield, MO: Foreign Missions Department of the Assemblies of God, 1961), 14; Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 77–78; Deiros and Wilson, “Hispanic Pentecostalism in the Americas,” 312–13; Nichol, Pentecostalism, 165. 99  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 27–28; Conde, História das Assembléias de Deus, 17. 100  J. Gordon Melton, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” in Melton and Baumann, Religions of the World, 1:214; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 122; Wilson, “Brazil,” 39; Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 119; Raimundo C. Barreto, Jr., “McAlister, Robert E.,” in the Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States, ed. George Thomas Kurian and Mark A. Lamport (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 1446.

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Today, the AD is the largest pentecostal denomination worldwide, with a membership of about 21 million.101 Despite its initial agrarian orientation, its growth ensued chiefly among the migrant urban populace. Its leadership follows an oligarchical model grouped around pastores-­ presidentes (pastor-presidents), who function like bishops. The AD consists of numerous conventions acting as central administrating committees. The two largest are the General Convention of the Assemblies of God in Brazil (Convenção Geral das Assembleias de Deus no Brasil; CGADB) and the National Convention of the Assemblies of God—Ministry of Madureira (Convenção Nacional das Assembleias de Deus Ministério de Madureira).102

Mobility, Integral Mission, and Cura Divina The mobility of the CC and AD was characterized by expansion among the poor and the exhibition of power (through Spirit baptism and healing). The migrant experience of Francescon, Vingren, and Berg, having already undergone the transmutation from their respective European contexts to the urban US, made them uniquely adept at cross-cultural missions. With the support of their ethnic networks in the United States, each crossed one further cultural gamut in their sojourn to Brazil. Their beginnings in Brazil followed their respective Italian and Swedish migrant associations, affording mobility to new converts among the Portuguese-speaking populace. By the mid-1930s, the CC hymnal was comprised of equal parts Italian and Portuguese songs. The AD became autochthonous with even more rapidity, steadily expanding among riverside inhabitants of the Amazonas region.103 The palpable mobility of classical pentecostals was embodied in Francescon’s frequent travels between the United States and Brazil and

 Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Assembleias de Deus,” in WCD, accessed June 3, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/ denomination/940/83-general. 102  Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 13; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 126, 131; Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?, 109–10. 103  A. H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 71; Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 79–80; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 27–28; Conde, História das Assembléias de Deus, 17. 101

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Vingren’s repeated return trips to Sweden.104 A distinguishing trait of the mass Italian labor migration was return visits to Italy, with many going back and forth annually. This transoceanic trip of some 10,000 miles (to and from) was commonplace among the heavy concentration of contadini (peasants) in agrarian South America, affording ample opportunity to foment the pentecostal work among extended kin networks in Italy.105 Francescon returned to Italy in 1911, 1912, and again in 1929.106 His eleven Brazil sojourns could hardly be called visits. During the CC’s formative years, between 1910 and 1937, he made nine trips (ranging from six to twenty-two months), spending as much time in Brazil as the United States.107 Despite opposition, imprisonment, and attempts on his life, his labors there gave way to a vibrant new work—a missionary movement among migrants. Vingren, likewise, was continuously on the move. He made several return visits to Sweden before 1930 to garner support for the Brazil ministry.108 The CC and AD’s migrant character gave them distinct mobility. Following the pattern among Latin American crentes (Por. for “believers”), the cross-cultural character of trans-Americas classical Pentecostalism is represented in its locus among the poor. Alongside a nominal Catholic background and a majority female population, chief among the characteristics of Brazilian Pentecostalism is poverty, including lower income and less education than the average citizen. The Italian-US pioneers of the CC, comprised principally of working-class migrants, entered Brazil below the economic mean. Reflecting the socioeconomic dynamics of US Pentecostalism, Chicago’s Christian Assembly was built among the

104  Toppi, Luigi Francescon, 47–49. On the mobility of pentecostal migrants in Brazil (particularly the AD), see also Márcia M. C. M. de Souza and Silas Guerriero, “Post-migratory Identity Formation among Pentecostal Bolivian Migrants in São Paulo,” in Religion, Migration, and Mobility: The Brazilian Experience, ed. Cristina Maria de Castro and Andrew Dawson (London: Routledge, 2017), 86–99. 105  Chadwick, “Study of Iberic-America,” 9. 106  Toppi, Luigi Francescon, 47–49. 107  Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 194–95. 108  Colletti, “Vingren, Adolf Gunnar,” 1178.

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proletarians: general laborers, craftsmen, artisans, and shopkeepers.109 Both the Italian and Swedish missionary arms of Brazilian Pentecostalism were familiar with poverty, compelled to leave Europe due to harsh economic conditions in their respective homelands. The passage from one continent to another brought the added financial burden of emigration applications and travel expenses. Furthermore, in contrast to the typical profile of Protestant expansion among the middle class, each arm targeted marginalized demographics in Brazil.110 As Brazilian scholar Paulo Ayres Mattos suggests: From their very beginning, the two matrices of Brazilian Pentecostalism, the Christian Congregation and the Assemblies of God, came to be religious-­ social phenomena by, of, and among the poor, literally a Brazilian religion of the Brazilian migrant poor. This was different from the mainline churches’ missions that tried to spread a North American religion for and among the Brazilian lower middle class.111

In addition to migratory and missional elasticity, pentecostal churches afforded socioeconomic mobility, engendering resolve among leadership and ordinary members alike. Those joining the first wave of Brazilian pentecostal renewal found tenacity to surmount the status quo and strive for a better way of life.112 Brazilian pentecostal expansion is often interpreted in light of the paradigm of missāo integral (integral mission), defined by Ronald J. Morgan and Henrique Alonso Pereira as a “middle way” between right-wing fundamentalism (one extreme of Evangelicalism) and secularizing forces. Integral (or “holistic”) mission suggests that evangelism and the more progressively defined concept of “social action” are complementary and indivisible aspects of Christian mission.113 Put another way, integral 109  R. Andrew Chesnut, “Latin American Charisma: The Pentecostalization of Christianity in the Region,” in New Ways of Being Pentecostal in Latin America, ed. Martin Lindhardt (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2016), 4–5; Wacker, Heaven Below, 208–9; Colletti, “Ethnic Pentecostalism in Chicago,” 130. 110  Antônio Gouvêa Mendonça, “Protestantismo no Brasil e suas encruzilhadas,” Revista USP 67 (Setembro/Novembro 2005): 48–67, https://www.revistas.usp.br/revusp/article/view/13455/15273. 111  Mattos, “Some Remarks on Brazilian Scholarship,” 241. 112  Colletti, “Berg, Daniel,” 370; Toppi, Luigi Francescon, 9–10; Petersen, Not by Might, nor by Power, 1. 113  Morgan and Pereira, “Which Evangélicos?” 67.

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mission fuses the gospel call of salvation with concrete initiatives promoting the collective welfare of human beings. The concept of “integral mission” emerged on the global stage at the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland. Confronted with the rising multiculturalism of a worldwide Evangelicalism, many acknowledged for the first time the growing contingent within Christianity that was “neither white nor affluent.”114 In a plenary talk, the Ecuadorian C.  René Padilla commented on the inseparability of gospel-preaching and social action: “I refuse, therefore, to drive a wedge between a primary task, namely the proclamation of the Gospel and a secondary (at best) or even optional (at worst) task of the church.”115 Even if social action is considered secondary to gospel proclamation (and most assembled at Lausanne agreed it should be), Padilla saw the two working hand in hand.116 In Brazil, integral mission is tailored to unique challenges, encompassing: the marginalization of migrants; insularity among religious groups; the deterioration of natural resources; and the problem of “income inequality” (not merely Brazil’s status as a poor country but its “poor income distribution”), leading to high rates of violence and discrimination.117 Holistic Mission theology is prominent among those evangélico groups striving to marry the gospel emphasis on personal salvation with tangible community transformation. These include “Progressive Pentecostals” who desire a more robust balance between evangelism and social outreach—the latter implying economic and political change. As Miller and Yamamori suggest, “progressive” here does not imply a specific political movement but acknowledges that pentecostals have often veered in an “otherworldly” direction.118 The AD, more than the CC (and its 114  Brian Stanley, “‘Lausanne 1974’: The Challenge from the Majority World to Northern-­ Hemisphere Evangelicalism,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 64 (July 2013): 534. 115  C.  René Padilla, “Evangelism and the World,” in Let the Earth Hear His Voice: International Congress on World Evangelization, Lausanne, Switzerland, ed. James D. Douglas (Minneapolis, MN: World Wide, 1975), 144. See also C. René Padilla, O que é missão integral? (Viçosa: Ultimato, 2009); and Jason A. Carter, “Preaching in the Global South,” in Hutchinson, Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, 215–17. 116  Lausanne tried to distinguish between the “work of salvation” and “political liberation.” In this way, the latter (implying social action) was defined as being devoid of “messianic” overtones (and not directly manifesting God’s kingdom). Miguel Álvarez, Integral Mission: A New Paradigm for Latin American Pentecostals (Oxford: Regnum, 2016), 15. 117  Alexandre Brasil Fonseca, “Evangelicals in Brazil: Analysis, Assessment, Challenge,” in Miller and Morgan, Brazilian Evangelicalism in the Twenty-First Century, 98. 118  Miller and Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism, 2.

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Italian-­founded counterpart, the CA), exhibits integral mission through its concerted effort to combine the emphasis on personal salvation with political and educational initiatives. The AD has become increasingly involved in the public sphere, including approving members for office and mobilizing its electorate (a development discussed further in Chap. 9).119 Historically, it has also shunned educational programs, despite US AG offers to assist in the planting of theological institutes in Brazil. The impulse behind this resistance is tied to the Swedish short-term Bible School training model, favoring a few-day retreat format over theological seminary “factories.” The efforts, chiefly of North American missionaries, finally gave way to the founding of the Bible Institute of the Assemblies of God (Instituto Biblico das Assembleias de Deus) in 1958  in Pindamonhangaba and the Pentecostal Bible Institute in 1961 in Rio de Janeiro.120 This pioneering work led in subsequent years to the creation of the AD’s General Board of Education and Culture. Because of the antiacademic stance for so many years (reciprocated in the attitude of the CC and CA), Brazilian Pentecostalism finds itself in an intriguing quagmire. As Mattos suggests: There appears to be another more complex problem that is behind the scenes, at least in the wider Brazilian theological academy: a cultural prejudice against Brazilian Pentecostalism because of the movement’s historical anti-intellectualism and aversion to formal theological education. Brazilian Pentecostalism has been considered to be a tremendous religious phenomenon shaped by an equally tremendous theological ignorance.121

While tension with past stereotypes continues, resolution is being reached in the mounting number of AD ministries that require educational training.122 Despite these initiatives, some AD leaders are reluctant to embrace Holistic Mission Theology. A onetime leader, Ricardo Gondim, now leading the Igreja Betesda, notes the lessening grip of missāo integral and even its demonization among members. Gondim reports on vocal social justice 119  Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 42. On Holistic Mission theology from an AD perspective, see David Mesquiati de Oliveira, Missão, cultura e transformação:desafios para a prática missionária comunicativa (master’s thesis, Escola Superior de Teologia, São Leopoldo, BR, 2010). 120  Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 121–22. 121  Mattos, “Some Remarks on Brazilian Scholarship,” 258. 122  Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 122.

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AD leaders who are tasked with exercising great care just to keep church doors and pulpits open to them. Those hesitant to discuss outreach among the poor in terms of social action emphasize the role of church self-help networks in fostering social mobility.123 The first (classical) wave of twentieth-century Latin American renewal was not an exclusively urban phenomenon. Pentecostalism in El Salvador, pioneered by Canadian missionary Frederick Mebius, took root among coffee plantation workers in the western part of the country. In Guatemala, the first pentecostal mission began on the Atlantic coast before making its way to the coffee fields of Alta Verapaz. Although the initial CC and AD congregations emerged in metropolitan areas, much of their early expansion proceeded among endemic agrarian folk. As the twentieth century ensued, on the tides of rural-urban migrations fueled by the search for better jobs, pentecostal congregations flowered among the masses in suburban and urban industrial spaces.124 The Brazilian economy progressed through several stages: from its agrarian roots (focused on sugar, gold, and cotton) to a basic industrial model built on coffee production, to a now increasingly diversified (mixed) industrial structure. While Brazil stands among the world’s rising commercial powers, boasting one of the highest nominal gross domestic products, it is also one of the global leaders in income inequality.125 Although most Latin American nations suffer from income inequality stemming from the region’s colonial heritage, Brazil’s income distribution compares only to countries with ten times less than its total wealth.126 Cecília Loreto Mariz’s study of the country’s twentieth-­ century religious landscape elucidates the “striking contrast between Brazilian social indicators and its economic growth and national product.”127 The gap between Brazil’s national product and quality of life  Ricardo Gondim, Missão integral: em busca de uma identidade evangélica (São Paulo: Fonte, 2010). 124  Peterson and Vásquez, Latin American Religions, 161; Philip J. Williams, “The Sound of Tambourines: The Politics of Pentecostal Growth in El Salvador,” in Cleary and Stewart-­ Gambino, Power, Politics, and Pentecostals, 181–82. 125  Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation in Brazil and Argentina, 129; Lael Brainard and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, Brazil as an Economic Superpower?: Understanding Brazil’s Changing Role in the Global Economy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2009), 11–12, 221–22. 126  Eakin, History of Latin America, 417–18; Fonseca, “Evangelicals in Brazil,” 98. 127  Brazil’s “per capita” national product is much lower, ranking sixtieth globally. Mariz, Coping with Poverty, 2. 123

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can be explained, in part, by its population—more than four times that of the next largest South American country (Columbia). Another reason is the considerable regional variation: the northern part of the country tends to be poorer and more agricultural, and the southern portion more affluent and industrial.128 The question of whether Pentecostalism encourages or detracts from Brazil’s economic status is an intriguing one. Traditionally, pentecostal contexts have attempted to transcend the poverty line, securing a way forward through acts of charity and healing. The CC and AD promote mobility by facilitating a supportive community and sense of identity. The CC’s deliberate regard for the poor is embodied in their obra da piedade (work of piety), a separate offering held at the conclusion of the service and distributed to the neediest members by deacons.129 Among the AD, its many paid leadership positions, not only for pastors but presbyters and deacons, secure opportunities and careers for those coming from disadvantaged backgrounds.130 In regions where diseases of poverty thrive, and quality healthcare is lacking, Pentecostalism supplies the possibility of supernatural healing. Divine healing (cura divina) provides a viable “product” targeting the needs of the religious “consumer.” Andrew Chesnut underscores the transactional appeal of divine healing: “More than any other of its line of products, it is the pentecostal belief that Jesus and the Holy Spirit have the power to cure believers of their spiritual, somatic, and psychological ills that impels more Latin Americans to affiliate.”131 Divine healing holds a prominent place doctrinally and in the practical outreach of the CC and AD. Alongside Spirit baptism, cura divina is the chief marker of member churches. It formed a vital dimension of Francescon’s outreach and precipitated, in a single act, the AD’s emergence into what is now the Western Hemisphere’s largest non-Catholic denomination. The power of healing among classical pentecostals resonates in the religious marketplace with both Catholic and Afro-Brazilian competitors. In Brazil, all Catholics, 128  Jason Mandryk, ed., Operation World, 7th ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2010), 162, 262; Dias and Hill, Brazil: A Gracious People, 3–4. 129  Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 37; Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” 322. 130  Mariz, Coping with Poverty, 85. 131  R.  Andrew Chesnut, Competitive Spirits: Latin America’s New Religious Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 44.

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whether nominal or devout, are aware of the curative powers of the Virgin and saints. Among African-derived spiritist contexts like umbanda, candomblé, and vodou, divine healing is the most essential attraction for the new pentecostals. Fundamental to the appeal of spirit deliverance and supernatural healing in these latter settings is their “diasporan” makeup, a dimension shared with the respective Italian and Swedish migrant composition of the CC and AD.132 The remedial character of the cura divina resonates with displaced peoples who in it discover the possibility of physical, psychological, and social wholeness. Despite the prominence of miraculous healing among classical pentecostals, cura divina does not carry the same allure as it does for many neopentecostals. The IURD has become the object of criticism in the past two decades. Disparagers deride the IURD for enticing the sick and poor with the promise of “health and wealth” from the pulpit and media spectacles showcasing signs and wonders. Studies comparing crentes from “traditional” (classical) contexts like the AD and CC suggest the motivation for joining the movements derives from a more deliberate conversion to a new way of life.133 The chief contrast between first-wave classical Pentecostalism in the United States and Brazil was the mechanism of growth. In both nations the movements built their base among their respective (Italian and Swedish) diaspora and witnessed considerable subsequent growth through the extraction of nominal and indifferent Catholics. Among the reasons the movements have been more successful in Brazil than in the United States is their immense achievement among the prodigious endemic population of the former. The AD’s transition to local leadership was firmly realized by the early 1930s. The CC’s path to indigenization (although not as swift as the AD’s) is illustrated in the hymnbook’s development (the increasing use of Portuguese instead of Italian). From the 1930s to the early 1950s, both movements remained atop the major Protestant denominations, enlarging chiefly by recruiting from the nominal Catholic populace.134 In the second half of the century their expansion rates diverge 132  Ibid., 44, 112–13. On spiritual cleansing and deliverance in African diasporan contexts, see Peterson, 94–98. 133  See, for example, George St. Clair, “Growing Up Pentecost in Brazil: Parents, Children, and the Transfer of Faith,” in Lindhardt, New Ways of Being Pentecostal in Latin America, 113. See also Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 13–15; and Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth, 5–7. 134  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 30–31.

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significantly, with CC growth readily tapering. The CC’s name change— from “of” to “in” (Brazil)—memorialized this shift, clearly defining their identity with-in a “spiritual government” not derived of the world.135 Their insular tendency and holiness ethic, alongside other causes (including the death of their founder), introduced obstacles the denomination continues to weather. The AD remains the largest denomination in Brazil, while the CC (for many years the second largest) is now rivaled by the IURD and FGC.136

135  Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 171. This transition for the CC can be understood in light of the dictum, to be in the world but not of the world (from John 17:14–15). 136  Mandryk, Operation World, 163. Cf. with Censo demográfico 2010, under “Tabela 1.4.1.”

CHAPTER 4

Across Southern Cone Borders: Italian Pentecostals in Argentina and Brazil

The arrival in Argentina of lay Italian missionaries gave rise to one of Latin America’s first pentecostal outreaches. Before venturing for Brazil, Luigi Francescon and a cohort of compatriots from Chicago’s Christian Assembly (It., Assemblea Cristiana) set their sights on Buenos Aires. Motivated by the desire to reach the Italian diaspora across the Americas, Francescon, Lucia Menna, and Giacomo Lombardi sought out the family of the Chicago church living in the Argentine capital. Although Francescon left for Brazil after only a few months in Buenos Aires, the base of a new movement was in place upon his departure. The Argentine outreach blossomed into an integral hub of Southern Cone Pentecostalism, adopting, after the original Chicago church, the name Christian Assembly (Spa., Asamblea Cristiana; Por., Assembleia Cristã [CA]). The CA represented the largest denomination of pentecostals in Argentina until the early 1950s. Since then, inundated by controversy and division, the Argentine CA has witnessed steady decline. More recently, through its Brazilian incarnation, the Christian Assembly Reunited in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Por., Assembleia Cristã Reunidos em Nome do Nosso Senhor Jesus Cristo), efforts are being made to restore the movement to the original vision of the Chicago founders.1

1

 Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 45–54.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_4

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Migratory Trends in Turn-of-­the-­ Twentieth-Century Argentina Southern Cone Pentecostalism emerged on the heels of several centuries of Euro-American migrations. The colonization of Argentina by Spain shaped the country’s migration narrative from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Despite the Crown’s professed intent to protect Argentine Natives, the Spanish implemented a trade monopoly, forcing the Indigenous population to make payments and provide labor. By the time Argentina achieved independence from colonial supremacy and unified its provinces in the mid-nineteenth century, it acceded to modernization by encouraging foreign immigration. Toward this end, Argentine elites favored “Anglo-Saxon” culture over that of the “Latin” races, rallying for the immigration of Northern Europeans. The nation’s 1853 Constitution established an open-door policy to migrants willing to work the land for its abundant natural resources.2 Such aspirations reached fruition in the arrival of a modest number of Irish, French, German, and Swiss, a new wave of Spaniards, and the mass migration of Italians.3 Between 1876 and 1915, a new wave of nearly 1.8 million Italians entered the country. By 1914, Italians accounted for about 40 percent of all foreigners in Argentina, exceeding even Spanish immigrants (at 35 percent).4 The arrival in Buenos Aires of the Chicago Italians coincided with the Centenario—the centennial celebration of the May Revolution. On May 18, 1810, the removal from office of the Spanish Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros inaugurated Argentina’s first patriotic government.5 Scholarly critique of the Centennial period underscores the xenophobia of Argentine cultural nationalists. Some cultural elites feared social upheaval, considering the European migrant waves a danger to the collective race and sought to exploit their aspirations. Notwithstanding, cultural 2  Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation in Brazil and Argentina, 1–2; Blanca Sánchez-­ Alonso, “Making Sense of Immigration Policy: Argentina, 1870–1930: Immigration Policy in Argentina,” The Economic History Review 66, no. 2 (May 2013): 603; David Rock, Argentina, 1516–1987: From Spanish Colonization to Alfonsín, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 5. 3  Sánchez-Alonso, “Making Sense of Immigration Policy,” 610–11 4  Maddalena Tirabassi, “Why Italians Left Italy: The Physics and Politics of Migration, 1870–1920,” in Connell and Pugliese, Routledge History of Italian Americans, 124; Sowell, Migrations and Cultures, 152. 5  Daniel K. Lewis, History of Argentina (Westport, CN: Greenwood, 2001), 38–39.

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naturalism was less an attempt to “reject” (marginalize) foreigners than to “integrate” (assimilate) them.6 Several influences, targeting the migrants’ underprivileged socioeconomic status, provided an avenue for assimilation. Mutual aid societies, especially among Italians, helped organize migrants by luring them with assets such as insurance benefits, schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and job placement. Italian-language newspapers, like L’operaio Italiano [The Italian worker] and La patria degli Italiani [The homeland of Italians], played a significant role in maintaining community organization and the search for employment.7 Conduct manuals, by furnishing essential facts and customs, also helped to integrate the new arrivals. Migrants read up on immigration agencies, major shipping companies, Catholic charity orders, and options for purchasing products and property. The manuals catered to the immigrant dream of purchasing and owning land of their own, conjuring a sort of “agrarian utopia.”8 Diego Armus’ Manuale dello emigrante italiano all’Argentina [Manual of the Italian emigrant to Argentina] speaks of a “tierra prometida” (promised land), replete with endless livelihood possibilities and the guarantee of land ownership.9 With such resources in toe, immigrants climbed the social ladder, positioning themselves above the unskilled Argentine masses (although remaining below the traditional property-owning elite).10 During the Great Migration of Italians spanning from 1876 to 1915, of the 14 million leaving their homeland, 15 percent went to Argentina, second in total Italian immigration only to the United States (at 29 percent). By 1904, Buenos Aires claimed 228,000 Italian-born migrants, the vast majority of whom were contadini (peasants) of the Mezzogiorno.11 Like in Brazil, the early years of Pentecostalism among Italians in Argentina were affected by the high rate of return and pendulum migration. Many 6  Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation, 83–84. On the xenophobic character of Argentina cultural nationalism, see Carl Solberg, Immigration and Nationalism in Argentina and Chile (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970), 149–50. 7  Samuel Baily, “Las sociedades de ayuda mutual y el desarrollo de una comunidad italiana en Buenos Aires 1858–1918,” Desarrollo economico 21, no. 84 (1982): 510. 8  Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation, 87. 9  Diego Armus, Manual dal emigrante Italiano (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1983), 15. 10  Bletz, Immigration and Acculturation, 84. 11  Samuel L.  Baily, Immigrants in the Lands of Promise (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016), 47, 59. Cf. with migration trends in Tirabassi, “Why Italians Left Italy,” 124.

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thousands of Italians (and Spaniards) traveled back and forth from Europe for Argentina’s annual wheat harvest, leading to Christian Assembly congregations among contadini in southern Italian contexts such as Corleone, Sicily, and Selle River Valley, Campania.12 A second migration wave transported peasants fleeing fascism during the interwar period. During the 1920s, the feuding powers of Mussolini’s totalitarian state and an incensed Mafia fueled a substantial exodus from Sicily.13

The Founding of Argentine Pentecostalism The Italian Argentine outreach (beginning in the Fall of 1909) is one of the earliest recorded pentecostal works in Latin America and perhaps the country’s first instance of pentecostal congregational life. In January of the same year, an Irishman associated with the Azusa Street Revival, Thomas B. O’Reilly, reported pentecostal phenomena in Argentina, noting several supernatural occurrences among both Spanish- and Italian-­ speaking populations.14 However, it is not clear that such instances occurred within a congregational setting or whether they were more than

12  Chadwick, “A Study of Iberic-America,” 9; Leonardo Marcondes Alves, “Christian Assemblies in Argentina,” in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism Online, ed. Michael Wilkinson, accessed August 20, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1163/2589-3807_EGPO_ COM_047973. 13  Christopher Duggan, Fascism and the Mafia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); Douglas LeRoy, Marcos Mazzucco: “The Man with Camel’s Knees” (Cleveland, TN: Pathway, 1970), 8–9; Taylor Angelo, an immigrant from Sicily, left with family to evade fascism and the grip of the Mafia, making a home among the Christian Assembly in Rosario. Taylor Angelo (pseudonym), interview with the author, January 8, 2017, audio recording, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA. 14  Thomas B. O’Reilly, “Droppings of Latter Rain in South America: Extracts from Letter by Thomas B. Reilly,” LRE, January 1909, 11. On the origins of Argentine Pentecostalism, see also Seth N.  Zielicke, “The Role of American Evangelist Tommy Hicks in the Development of Argentine Pentecostalism,” in Global Pentecostal Movements: Migration, Mission, and Public Religion, ed. Michael Wilkinson (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 135–36.

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isolated experiences.15 As is true for most Argentine Protestant contexts, Pentecostalism saw the most remarkable growth among migrant minorities. In addition to their initial expansion among Italians, the Chicagoan cohort excelled among Indigenous communities and central and northern European migrants.16 Francescon, Menna, and Lombardi arrived at the port of Buenos Aires on October 9, commencing outreach in the Argentine capital among Catholic and Presbyterian communities in the Italian colonies of the inner city. Among other scholars, the Argentine J. Norberto Saracco credits the trio as the first pentecostal missionaries in the country. A second team, led by the Canadian Methodist Alice Wood and Norwegian Berger Johnson, arrived in 1910. Wood joined the AG effort and pastored an independent pentecostal congregation. Subsequent tides of pentecostals included the Danish team led by Ms. Annina Kejlstrup (in 1913) and a cohort of Swedes (1920).17 The Piedmontese immigrant Marcos Mazzucco fled Italy in the wake of Mussolini’s suppression of revolt after WWI to pioneer a second Italian movement. Converting from his Catholic 15  On a ship leaving Buenos Aires, O’Reilly described someone being “baptized with the Holy Ghost.” Thomas B.  O’Reilly, “Letter from Brother O’Reilly,” The Bridegroom’s Messenger, April 15, 1909, 4. The outreach of Chicagoan Methodist missionaries Willis and Mary Louise Hoover in Valparaiso, Chile, is typically associated with the first pentecostal work in Latin America. A contact from the Chicago Training School for Home and Foreign Missions (where they met), Minnie Abrams, sent them a book on Spirit baptism. Amid strife with the Methodist Episcopal Church administration, they found consolation in its instruction and (in Spring of 1909) sought and experienced “the baptism.” The couple helped found the Methodist Pentecostal Church of Chile and the Iglesia Evangélica Pentecostal (Pentecostal Evangelical Church). David D.  Bundy, “Hoover, Willis Collins,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 770–71. The Hoovers were associated with the Methodist-Episcopal William Taylor’s late nineteenth-century Chilean outreach (ibid.); Petersen, Not by Might, nor by Power, 24; Ramírez, “Pentecostalism in Latin America,” 115. 16   Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 69–70; Freston, Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, 197. 17  Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 43, 45, 134; J. Norberto Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Historical Roots, Current Developments, and Challenges for the Future,” in Yong, Synan, and Álvarez, Global Renewal Christianity, 259–62. The first Swedes were Gustavo Flood, Kristian Nielsen, Albino Gustavsson, and Axel Severín (262); Toppi, Madri in Israele, 26; Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 11; Hans Geir Aasmundsen, Pentecostals, Politics, and Religious Equality in Argentina (Boston: Brill, 2016), 35. The question of who were the first pentecostal missionaries in Argentina is disputed. Bundy suggests that Berger Johnson and Alice Wood arrived first in the early part of 1909. David D.  Bundy, “Argentina,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 23. See also David Bundy, “Pentecostalism in Argentina,” Pneuma 20, no. 1 (1998): 96, https://doi. org/10.1163/157007498X00081; and A. H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 68.

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upbringing through the outreach of Swedish AG missionary Gunnar Svensson, Mazzucco planted congregations among compatriots in the Italian barrio of Isla Maciel. Mazzucco’s chief contribution remains his founding role in the Argentine Church of God (Spa., Iglesia de Dios).18 According to Francescon, “divine revelation” led the Italian Chicagoans to the Argentine capital.19 The trio directed their outreach toward extended family of the Chicago church living in Buenos Aries, which boasted the largest Italian diasporic population in the world at the time. They founded a congregation among Menna’s family in San Cayetano and another in the neighboring town of Tres Arroyos.20 From a family of farmers in Chieti, Abruzzo, Menna converted from her Catholic roots and joined Chicago’s First Italian Presbyterian Church. She stood among the first to undergo the pentecostal experience at the 1908 Chicago revival.21 Menna became a deacon and, according to Francescon, was among the several miraculously healed (alongside Lombardi) in the revival’s early months. Arriving in Buenos Aires with the Chicago missionaries, she journeyed inland to the San Cayetano countryside, where her father, two brothers, sister, and brother-in-law lived. Six among her immediate and extended family were baptized in the Spirit (as reported by her husband Nicolás) at a service conducted by Francescon on November 28, 1909. A miracle was said to have ensued shortly after—the Menna family’s harvest was spared from a severe frost that burned the oats of all the neighboring farms.22 The unrelenting outreach of the Argentine congregation led to several arrests. Nicolás was detained in 1910. Shortly after, Francescon and Lombardi were apprehended for holding public evangelistic meetings in 18  LeRoy, Marcos Mazzucco, 8–9; Bundy, “Argentina,” 23; Charles W.  Conn, Where the Saints Have Trod: A History of Church of God Missions (Cleveland, TN: Pathway, 1959), 158. 19  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 11. See also Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 45. 20  Baily, Immigrants in the Lands of Promise, 58–59; Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 45–46; Davies, Embattled but Empowered Community, 91; Louie W.  Stokes, Historia del movimiento pentecostal en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, Arg.: n.p., 1968), 17. 21  Toppi, Madri in Israele, 25–26; Ottolini, Life and Mission of Peter Ottolini, 12; Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 8–9. 22  Nicolás Menna, “Recordando una fecha feliz: Primer bautismo con Espiritu Santo en la Argentina,” El Cristiano, May 1946, 1; “Historia de las Asambleas Cristianas de la República Argentina,” El Cristiano, March 1944, 1; Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 45–46.

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San Cayetano. The two spent several days in prison and were barred upon their release from ever preaching again in the city.23 Although the precise cause of the imprisonment is uncertain, based on their penchant for preaching to Catholics, Saracco speculates that it was members of the Roman Catholic Church that incited their confinement.24 The San Cayetano incident was but a minor setback and, within a week, Francescon and Lombardi resumed their journey, visiting Tres Arroyos to reinforce the outreach there.25 With the foundations of the San Cayetano work in place, Francescon and Lombardi departed for Brazil. Lucia left for Italy in 1910 and, within a few years, the rest of the Mennas resettled in Chicago. The founders’ departure left a vacancy of leadership. Enter Narciso Natucci from the Chicago Christian Assembly. Loyal to the parent church’s vision for Argentina and aware that Francescon was tied up with the Brazil outreach, Natucci recruited the help of Francesco Anfuzzo, a recent convert with a sister, Rosalía Anfuso de Mingrino, living in Buenos Aires. Despite travel delays brought on by WWI, Natucci and Anfuzzo arrived unannounced in the Argentine capital in November 1916.26 Within a few months, several healings and deliverances were reported among Anfuzzo’s relatives. A number were converted and twenty baptized in water. The expanding congregation dug roots in the northwest Buenos Aires barrio of Villa Devoto, a pastoral terrain founded by the Italian Antonio Devoto. Initially holding services in the Mingrino family house, the enlarging congregation acquired a storefront building on Salvador María del Carril, where they remain to this day.27 In 1917, the church sought incorporation after the 23  Pablo Nervegna, “History of the Christian Assemblies of Argentina,” trans. from the Spanish by Francis Foti, in Galvano, FACCNA, 137; Francesco Toppi, Giacomo Lombardi, PRPI (Rome: ADI-Media, 1998), 47–48; Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 46; Stokes, Historia del movimiento pentecostal, 17. 24  Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 46. 25  Nervegna, “History of the Christian Assemblies,” 137. 26   “Historia de las Asambleas Cristianas,” 2; Nervegna, “History of the Christian Assemblies,” 137–38; Asamblea Cristiana, “Y me seréis testigos en Jerusalem… y hasta lo ultimo de la tierra” (Buenos Aires, n.d.), 1, Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. 27  Nervegna, “History of the Christian Assemblies,” 138; Stokes, Historia del movimiento pentecostal, 18; “Historia de las Asambleas Cristianas,” El Cristiano, 3; Pablo Crimi, Historia de Asamblea Cristiana de Villa Devoto (Buenos Aires: Iglesia Asamblea Cristiana de Villa Devoto, 2016), https://www.asambleacristiana.com.ar/AC-Historia.pdf., under “1916”; Jens Koehrsen, Middle Class Pentecostalism in Argentina: Inappropriate Spirits (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 159–60.

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Chicago church as the Christian Assembly (Spa., Asamblea Cristiana). Despite initial success, the movement was riddled by internal divisions. The first, in 1925, resulted in a new congregation blocks away at Calle Asunción. A few years later, members at the Villa Devoto site filed suit against Natucci, forcing him out. Among the stipulations levied against him was that neither he nor anyone else ought to be reimbursed by the church. The followers of Natucci established a permanent place of worship in Villa Lynch. Over the next few decades, the outreach extended into the country’s interior, leading to more than 300 congregations by 1977, most keeping the Christian Assembly name or some variation of it.28

Obstacles to Growth: Ethnocentrism, Peronism, and the “Blood Issue” Into the early 1950s, the CA represented the largest group of pentecostals in Argentina. Between 1916 and 1940, the movement baptized an estimated 10,000.29 Since then, the Argentine CA has witnessed schism and decline. The Villa Devoto branch dropped from a total membership of approximately 100,000 in 1970 to 38,000 in 2015. The highest concentration of its roughly 220 churches reside in the province of Buenos Aires (about 70 congregations).30 Deterioration can be attributed to several factors. The foremost reason being the branch’s pronounced predisposition to cleave to its Italian migrant base. Compared with pentecostals in other South American countries, the Argentine churches tended to be more ethnocentric and reluctant to acculturate.31 Some CA churches were still holding services in Italian in 1955, whereas, for the significantly more successful Christian Congregation (CC), Italian-speaking churches phased out by 1940.32

28  Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 48–49; Nervegna, “History of the Christian Assemblies,” 138. 29  Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 54. 30  Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Asamblea Cristiana (Italiana),” in WCD, accessed January 19, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/ denomination/152/83-general; “Iglesias pertenecientes a Asamblea Cristiana,” Asamblea Cristiana de Villa Devoto, accessed May 28, 2021, https://www.asambleacristiana.com.ar/ iglesias. 31  Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 197. 32  Nervegna, “History of the Christian Assemblies,” 138.

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Another obstacle to expansion was ongoing change at the national government level. Following the trajectory of other Majority World nations in the second half of the century, Argentina was the victim of increasing political unrest, inflation, and labor instability. Many blame the country’s politico-economic decline on the upshot of Peronism. Argentine Army general Juan Perón galvanized the working class through a program of rapid industrialization and political inclusion. According to Christian Lalive D’Epinay, in the 1940s and 1950s, Perón’s populist system created an obstacle to pentecostal expansion among the urban poor. This barrier was reinforced by the Peronists’ enticing of post-war urban masses with the pseudo-religious cult of Evita, originating in the aftermath of the first lady and feminist icon Eva Perón’s death.33 The end of the Peronist regime was followed by the malicious dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla Redondo. On the heels of these developments, a new democratic system and the rise of neoliberal capitalism created a climate amicable to some pentecostals but not others. Increasing deregulation and privatization coincided with the success of neocharismatics in the 1980s and 1990s such as Omar Cabrera, Héctor Aníbal Giménez, and Carlos Annacondia. Classical pentecostals, on the other hand, struggled under the neoliberal shift.34 A further factor hindering expansion was the acceptance among many churches of the “Petrellian” doctrine, granting congregants discretion to eat blood products. The historic “Blood Issue” controversy, dividing Italian pentecostals in North America and Italy into the respective astinenza (abstainers) and libertà (freedom) parties, was translated most vividly in South America in the tension between the CA and other matrix of Southern Cone Italian outreach, the CC. As the Chicago mother 33  Rock, Argentina, 1516–1987, xxii–xxiii; Christian Lalive D’Epinay, Religion, dynamique social et dépendence: les mouvements protestants en Argentine et au Chili, Paris, Mouton, 1975; Natalia Milanesio, “A Man Like You: Juan Domingo Perón and the Politics of Attraction in Mid-Twentieth-Century Argentina,” Gender & History 26, no. 1 (2014): 84–85; Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 197. Wariboko notes an African American neopentecostal context (World Missions for Christ Church, Washington, D.C.) that moved against the grain, resisting the US neoliberal capitalist impulse. Nimi Wariboko, The Charismatic City and the Public Resurgence of Religion: A Pentecostal Social Ethics of Cosmopolitan Urban Life, Christianity & Renewal—Interdisciplinary Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 121–22. 34  Ryan R. Gladwin, “Towards a Transformative Latin American Pentecostal-Charismatic Social Ethics: An Argentine Perspective,” in Pentecostals and Charismatics in Latin America and Latino Communities, ed. Néstor Medina and Sammy Alfaro, Christianity & Renewal— Interdisciplinary Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 51.

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church separated—with the abstainers adopting the Christian Congregation name and the freedom party (following the theologian Giuseppe Petrelli) retaining the original name, the Christian Assembly—their South American counterparts eventually differentiated along the same lines. The CC remained faithful to Francescon and the abstainers. The CA, on the other hand, after Petrelli’s extended sojourn in Argentina from 1920–1922, opted for his less literal approach to the disputed Acts 15 passage. During his stay, the first CA elders were ordained (in Buenos Aires and Mendoza) and the first congregations were founded.35 Petrelli defended the freedom party position with his signature allegorical approach, supported by a wealth of scripture and theological acumen informed by his decade-long tenure as a Baptist pastor. His penchant for argumentative discourse, conveyed in several treatises, reflected his training as a lawyer.36 Petrelli and his followers reacted to the traditional perspective elevating the “letter” over the “spirit” of the law.37 In Fra i due Testamenti [Between the two Testaments], Petrelli disclosed a contextual interpretive approach accentuating the substantial Jewish contingent within the first-century church. He claimed the apostle James’ motivation, as one appointed to oversee the Jerusalem Church and moderate the doctrines divulged in Acts 15, was his concern for the issues of circumcision and Jewish food law. Jewish Christians were asked not to impose the burden of circumcision upon the Greek faithful (vv. 1–2), while the Greeks were encouraged to set aside some eating preferences (e.g., blood meats) so that they would not ostracize Jews (for whom such foods were forbidden).38 The Petrellian approach is deemed allegorical because it highlights the principle to be abstracted from scripture—in this case, showing respect for ethnic customs, rather than enjoining specific context-laden strictures on present-day Christians. The Italian immigrant Domingo Marino (among the CA founders in Santa Fe, Argentina, in 1941) is credited with translating several of Petrelli’s works into Spanish. Considered the successor of Natucci (another Petrellian), Marino garnered a substantial following as pastor of the thriving 1000-member Santa Fe congregation. After a 1956 35   Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 45–48; Davies, “Embattled but Empowered Community,” 91. 36  BonGiovanni, Pioneers of the Faith, 27. 37  Rom. 2:29 (NASB). 38  Petrelli, Fra i due Testamenti, 9, 31.

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schism, the Petrelli group constituted 80 percent of the Argentine CA.39 Petrellians enjoyed discretion to consume blood sausages which, as part of a mixed barbecue dish (the churrasco), remain a popular menu item in Argentina.40 Despite its frequent practice, blood food consumption perpetuated the CA’s separation from the CC, the central hub of South America’s historically Italian churches and the base of Italian pentecostal churches in North America. Another likely impediment to CA growth was the question of celibacy, a lifestyle adopted by noted leaders such as Marino. While the celibacy problem is mostly absent from other Argentine pentecostal churches, the CA deemed it consequential enough to insert a clause on the matter in their statutes. Article 40 reads, “Celibacy may not be refused to ministers in very special cases and as a gift from God.”41 The issue created stigma, hindering many congregants from enjoying full fellowship with the church. Today, the expectation is that anyone assuming a ministry post ought to be married.42 Alongside internal issues, post-WWII modernization (in the form of mass media) and a new urban climate had a polarizing effect. While such trends benefitted some pentecostals, the more insular CA had difficulty adjusting. In the mid-1960s, mounting tension between the Villa Devoto CA’s conservative and more progressive members (some were more open to ecumenical relations with non-pentecostals) precipitated the intervention of their better-established North American sister denomination, the International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies (IFCA). A statement of affiliation between the CA and IFCA was drawn up and approved in 1967. At a 1974 Buenos Aires conference, the CA and IFCA agreed the most appropriate course forward was two separate denominations. One was the Pentecostal Christian Church (Iglesia Cristiana Pentecostal) with original headquarters in Merlo, which installed as president the international healer Pablo Nervegna. In 1975, the denomination founded the International 39  Stokes, Historia del movimiento pentecostal, 19; Crimi, Historia de Asamblea Cristiana, under “Domingo Marino”; Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism, 50–51. 40  Eve Zibart, The Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion: A Sourcebook for Understanding the Cuisines of the World (Birmingham, AL: Menasha Ridge, 2001), 412. Many Argentine families also look forward to a Saturday asado (barbecue) including pork and blood sausages. Gabriela Villagran Backman, “Argentina,” in The Americas, vol. 2 of Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia, ed. Ken Albala (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2011), 2. 41  Quoted in Saracco, Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology, 52. 42  Ibid.

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Latin American Bible Institute. The other denomination, the Biblical Christian Church (Iglesia Cristiana Biblica, BCC), has since extended its reach into Encarnación, Paraguay.43 From a starting membership of about 2000, the BCC encompassed 13,400 adherents in 173 congregations by 2015. Although the Villa Devoto CA and BCC enjoyed formal affiliation with and the covering of the IFCA for many years, such ties have since weakened.44 Today, it is impossible to speak of one unified Argentine CA. Alongside the Villa Devoto network and the BCC are several other Argentine denominations with shared origins in the missionary outreach of the Chicagoan Italian pentecostals. The Villa Lynch CA developed ties with the CC and changed its name to the Christian Congregation in Argentina. Today it has about 100 congregations. The Santa Fe CA, better known as the CA God Is Love (Deus É Amor), is the largest group. An outgrowth of the unification of several independent denominations, the CA God Is Love now consists of more than 1000 congregations in Argentina and several affiliated churches abroad. The Federacion Asamblea Cristiana Deus É Amor (Federation of Christian Assembly God Is Love) successfully brought under the same umbrella seven networks that were formerly independent denominations within the CA movement.45

Brazil-Based Efforts In 1960, the Brazilian CC entreated the CA to join them with the proviso that they subsume the CC name. The CA declined. Several practices hindered the merging of the core Italian branches of South American Pentecostalism. One obstacle was the believers’ posture when praying. In the CC, members prayed bending forward with attention directed toward the altar. The CA, on the other hand, prayed leaning on their seats with 43   BonGiovanni, “Missionary History,” 100; Nervegna, “History of the Christian Assemblies,” 138; “Iglesia Cristiana Bíblica,” Consejo Mundial de Iglesias, accessed May 22, 2021, https://www.oikoumene.org/es/member-churches/christian-biblical-church. 44  Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Iglesia Cristiana Biblica,” in WCD, accessed June 19, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/ denomination/12425/83-general. The IFCA’s World Impact initiative extends to dozens of mission outposts in Latin America, however, its ties with the Argentine (and Brazilian) churches have lessened. “Latin American Missionaries,” World Impact, accessed May 22, 2021, https://www.ifcaworldimpact.com/latin-america. 45  Alves, “Christian Assemblies in Argentina”; Saracco, Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology, 50.

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their back to the altar. Another hindrance was that CC members could wear rings if they wished. Among the Argentinians, such jewelry was considered excessive ornamentation. A further obstacle was the CA’s insular attitude. While the CC was reticent to build ties with other religious bodies, the CA, clinging to its immigrant base, was even more reluctant in this respect. The unexpected fruit of the unification efforts was the elder Miguel Spina’s founding of the first CC church in Argentina. Some, albeit a minority, were quite taken with Spina, opening the door for the CC.46 Attempts to restore the CA continued, reaching significant strides more recently in Brazil’s Christian Assembly Reunited in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Such an effort seeks reconsolidation, not only for the disparate CA churches but also for the CC, charging them to return to the inclusive vision of the original pentecostal revivals. These efforts encompass the Renewed Christian Congregation (Congregação Cristã Renovada, ReCC) and the inter-ecclesial General Convention of Christian Churches (Convenção Geral das Igrejas Cristãs, GCCC).47 Founded in 2017  in Maringá, Paraná, the GCCC offers a joint platform for the Brazilian CA, ReCC, and independent CC churches (especially in Pará) alongside, on the international scene, the Santa Fe CA, US-based IFCA, and some churches in Italy. The convention garners solidarity by recognizing the groups’ shared historical lineage with the original Chicago Italian Christian Assembly (Assemblea Cristiana). Part of this effort consists of embracing the Italian hymnal: reintroducing the hymnbook’s original name, translating original hymns into Portuguese, and adopting the liturgy and customs of the Chicago church.48 The GCCC is chaired by Itamar Bueno Coutinho and Moacir Ribeiro de Melo. A sister convention comprised of national and international Brazilian CA churches was founded in 2018 in the city of Piraquara, Paraná, as the first General Convention of Christian 46  Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 53. Josué Giamarco, “O movimento Pentecostal Italo-Americano: resumo histórico,” Assembleia Cristã, under “Origem e historia resumida no Brasil,” accessed January 3, 2020, https://www.assembleiacrista.com.br/noticia/128323/assembleia-crist%C3%83-biografia%2D%2D-resumo-­ historico, under “Reavivamento da Assembleia Cristã no Brasil em 2017.” 47  Giamarco, “O movimento Pentecostal,” under “Origem e historia resumida no Brasil.” 48  The hymnal is titled Hinos e salmos espirituais [Spiritual hymns and songs] after the original Italian name, Nuovo libro di inni e salmi spirituali [New book of spiritual hymns and songs]. Hinos e salmos espirituais (Piraquara, PR: Casa Publicadora das Assembleias Cristãs, 2020); Giamarco, “O movimento Pentecostal,” under “Reavivamento da Assembleia Cristã no Brasil em 2017.”

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Assemblies (Convenção Geral das Assembleias Cristãs, GCCA). The latter now encompasses about fifteen congregations spanning Paraná, São Paulo, and Pará and several more among Brazilians in Argentina and Europe. The founders of the GCCC encourage the same organizational structure, ministerial election system, and high view of scripture as the original Chicago Christian Assembly and hope to extend the same vision among GCCA members (entreating stagnant Argentine churches to follow suit). Such conventional efforts have elicited the willing participation of the Argentine CA (especially the Santa Fe group) in the building of the nascent Brazilian work.49 Among contemporary Southern Cone pentecostal movements, the CA is of average size. The combined Argentine work consists of about 1500 congregations. Towering over the Argentine pentecostal landscape is the Assemblies of God, comprised of multiple denominations. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, the National Union of the Assemblies of God (Unión Nac de las Asambleas de Dios) consists of over 1.2 million affiliated members in about 1600 congregations (the average congregation size of 766 is several times that of the CA).50 The Brazil-­ based efforts represent perhaps the most promising front for the CA.  Alongside its expanding congregations, the GCCA encompasses a Bible School and associations with like-minded churches in the United States, Argentina, and Spain.51 CA conventional efforts suggest a way through the challenges the churches elsewhere in the Southern Cone have experienced. In the wake of broadscale religious and cultural change, the focus on recovering the harmony and primal spirituality of the original Chicago Christian Assembly provides a concrete historical referent upon which to build. With the transformation of Latin American society from a rural to an urban milieu in the wake of WWII and subsequent shifts at the national government level, the membership of the CA stalled and eventually curtailed. While the new democratic system and rising neoliberalism 49  Giamarco, “O movimento Pentecostal,” under “Reavivamento da Assembleia Cristã no Brasil em 2017”; “Início,” Assembleia Cristã, under “Posicionamento oficial da Assembleia Cristã,” accessed August 30, 2021, https://www.assembleiacrista.com.br/. 50  Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Unión Nac de las Asambleas de Dios,” WCD, accessed June 16, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/ detail/denomination/295/83-general. 51  Itamar Bueno Coutinho (elder and founder of the Reunited Brazilian CA), interview with the author, August 20, 21, e-mail, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA.

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following Perón’s presidency and Redondo’s dictatorship created a climate amicable to the wave of neocharismatics, classical pentecostals struggled. Such change has hindered the movement’s growth even into recent years. However, the CA shows resiliency through restoration efforts on Brazilian soil. Its religious conservatism presents the most significant obstacle to expansion. In recent decades, with the flourishing of Evangelicalism in Brazil, a new ecumenical Spirit offers a setting more generous to the CA. Attempts to unite CA and CC churches through the GCCC present a way through the CA’s insularity. A considerable share of the Argentine CA prefers tracing its roots to Natucci. On the other hand, the movement’s restorationist wing, as exemplified in its current makeup in Brazil, credits its founding to Francescon’s cohort. The latter’s prodigious Southern Cone outreach remains a rallying point for interdenominational renewal. The identification with Francescon sheds light on why article 13 of the Brazilian CA’s “Doctrines and Faith Points” affirms the abstentionist ethic of the Jerusalem Council, including the censure of blood products: “We believe that it is necessary to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, blood, strangled meats, and fornication, as decreed by the Holy Spirit at the General Assembly held in Jerusalem, according to Acts 15:28–29; 16:4; 21:25.”52 In the final analysis, more than their specific stance on the Blood Issue, the chief difference between the various CA wings is the precedent placed on moral conduct. The Petrellians of Argentina can be applauded for underscoring the early church’s historico-cultural context in their interpretation of Acts. However, as reflected in the Villa Devoto group’s faith articles, little is said anywhere about ethical conduct. There is mention of “self-control” (Spa., auto controlada) in connection with the way of salvation but few specifics beyond this.53 On the other hand, the Brazilian CA seeks to build on the conduct guidelines of the original (Italian) articles. The emphasis on moral living harkens to a vital practical spirituality, adding vigor to the movement’s Brazilian arm.

52  “Cremos que é necessário de nos abster das coisas sacrificadas aos ídolos, do sangue, da carne sufocada e da fornicação, como foi decretado pelo Espírito Santo na Assembléia Geral que foi realizada em Jerusalém, segundo Atos 15:28–29; 16:4; 21:25.” “Pontos de doutrina e fé,” Assembleia Cristã, accessed August 22, 2021, https://www.assembleiacrista.com.br/ noticia/128399/pontos-de-doutrina-e-fe-da-assembleia-crist%C3%83. 53  Asamblea Cristiana en Argentina, “En qué creemos?,” under “Acerca de la Salvación,” accessed May 14, 2021, https://www.asambleacristiana.com.ar/iglesia/en-que-creemos.

CHAPTER 5

From the Bairros to North America: Reverse Mission Trajectories

The return of missionaries and sending of new Brazilian workers back into North American fields have left an indelible imprint on the shape of Pentecostalism in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Already in the nineteenth century, missionaries looked forward to a “blessed reflex” when the sending-­countries of the West would be renewed by burgeoning churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.1 A distinguishing marker of global pentecostal Christianity, the reverse mission paradigm encompasses those movements that trace back to the “sending” countries of the Global North. In such cases, the conventional “receiving” countries are now dispatching missionaries of their own back into North American and European contexts. By 2007, Brazil had supplanted Britain and Canada in the number of workers sent out into foreign mission fields. As of 2010,

1  Kenneth R. Ross, “‘Blessed Reflex’: Mission as God’s Spiral of Renewal,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 27, no. 4 (October 2003): 167 n. 1; Wilbert R.  Shenk, “Recasting Theology of Mission: Impulses from the Non-Western World,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 25, no. 3 (July 2001): 105.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_5

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the United States, the United Kingdom, and France are among the leading missionary receiving countries in the world.2 The reverse mission (or “reverse flow”) concept marks a shift in global Christian missiological discourse. Traditional US- and Euro-centric paradigms accentuate the diffusion of Christianity through Majority World countries via the cultural forms of the Global North. Such narratives focus on the fruit of outreach from North to South, shaped by the ubiquitous need for churches, schools, and clinics. In many instances, the outreach is sustained by the aid of the existing colonial power. Routinely (and paradoxically), reverse mission is pioneered (from South to North) by the autochthonous of regions once under Western control.3 Although the epoch of European colonialism in Latin America (rescinding in the early to mid-nineteenth century) reaches back further than other Global South contexts (most African nations achieved independence by the mid-1970s), its nations still wrestle with the fallout of this heritage. As Virginia Garrard suggests, “Latin America is by any definition a postcolonial region and continues to grapple with its colonial legacy and issues of dependency and even foreign occupation.”4 The Italian- and Swedish-founded movements, expanding readily by planting churches and mission outposts among endemic Brazilians, are now, through cross-cultural mission, pioneered by Brazilians seeking to re-evangelize Global North countries. In the United States, vibrant Brazilian (Brazuca) congregations shelter the ethnic identity of migrants while supplying a platform for “integral” mission among the Portuguese-speaking populace. This reverse thrust highlights the way Brazilians are overcoming their penury and vestiges of Portuguese

2  Mark A. Noll, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 10; David B.  Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, and Peter F. Crossing, “Missiometrics 2007: Creating Your Own Analysis of Global Data,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 31, no. 1 (January 2007): 25–26; Candy Gunther Brown, “Encounters with Modernity among Received Spiritualities and Traditions,” in Hutchinson, Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, 55. On reverse mission (i.e., “missions in return”) in Europe, see Westerlund, “Introduction,” 7–8. 3  See Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 271. On the Euro-centric model, see Brepohl, “Missionaries in Rowboats?” 313–14. See also Hutchinson and Brown, “Introduction: Dissenting Traditions in Globalized Settings,” 12. Hutchinson and Brown note the significance, alongside the theme of (post)colonialism, of “shared religious experience” in globalized reverse flows connecting missionaries with their “home base, no matter where they go” (12). 4  Garrard, New Faces of God in Latin America, 9–10.

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colonialism.5 This chapter considers these reverse flows, overviewing the intertwining of mission and migration, including the unique missional (and migratory) paradigm introduced by diasporic peoples.

Italian Migrants, the “Blood Issue,” and Trans-­Americas Reverse Mission The North American arm of the Christian Congregation (CC) has only recently arrived on the scene as a united body of churches. Until the 1980s, when the churches tied to Francescon’s outreach began consolidating in the United States, the story of the CC outside Brazil revolved around his home church in Chicago. Informed by his recurring visits to Brazil, Chicago’s Christian Congregation (It., Congregazione Cristiana) originated at the height of the Blood Issue feud in the mid-1920s and existed under the IFCA’s covering up through the 1930s.6 While Francescon regarded Chicago as his home, from the beginning of his Brazil outreach (1910) to the split in the mid-1920s of Italian Pentecostalism’s mother church (the Chicago Christian Assembly), Francescon spent as much time in Brazil as in the United States. According to the Japanese Brazilian Key Yuasa’s study, at the peak of Francescon’s activity in Brazil, spanning from 1918 to 1924, he spent about five years on the ground in the country. Brazil, for all intents and purposes, had become his home. If it were not for the demand for his supervisory presence in North America at the height of the Blood Issue, the strain of the Great Depression during the 1930s, and travel restrictions of the WWII years, Brazil might have become his permanent residence.7 There is no disputing his fondness for Brazil and sense of call to the people he referred

5   Arlene M.  Sánchez-Walsh and Eric Patterson, “Latino Pentecostalism: Globalized Christianity and the United States,” in Patterson and Rybarczyk, Future of Pentecostalism in the United States, 76; Laura Rademaker, “Gender, Race, and Twentieth-Century Dissenting Traditions,” in Hutchinson, Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, 439–40; Dele Jemirade, “Reverse Mission and the Establishment of Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Canada,” Missionalia: Southern African Journal of Missiology 45, no. 3 (2017): 268–69, https://doi.org/10.7832/45-3-177. 6  Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 161. 7  Ibid., 193–95; De Caro, Our Heritage, 64–65; Maruso, “History of the Christian Church of North America,” 12.

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to as “that Great Country.”8 In Brazil, early Pentecostalism’s success among the endemic population and the CC’s penchant in subsequent years for a primal, more flexibly organized structure, suggest he had embraced not only the Brazilians but their culture as well.9 The fracture of the original (Chicago) Christian Assembly over the Blood Issue in 1926 precipitated the incorporation of the Christian Congregation as a distinct religious body. Those favoring a less literal interpretation of the Jerusalem Council’s sanction of blood products (Acts 15:20, 28–29), the freedom party (libertà), declared themselves a separate organization. The latter retained the original name (Christian Assembly) and instated the church’s pastor, Pietro Menconi, and worship leader, Vitorio Giometti, as the presiding elders. Meanwhile, the blood-abstainers (astinenza) adopted the name Christian Congregation, recognizing Francescon as their chief elder.10 The two groups shared the same building for about a decade before ownership disputes over various issues—from the plates to copy the hymnal to the building itself—forced the Christian Congregation group out. The Christian Assembly faction retained the original building. In 1935, the courts formally resolved the division and Francescon issued the “Faith and Regulations” statement, defining the grounds for CC unity in the United States for years to come.11 On the heels of the First National Convention of Italian pentecostals in 1927, Francescon’s Chicago Christian Congregation was regarded as one of the pillar churches of the newly united movement. Alongside the convention’s host church, the Chiesa Cristiana (Christian Church) of Niagara Falls, NY, Francescon’s congregation shared copyright ownership of the 1928 Italian hymnal.12 The Chicago church hosted the 1933 annual 8  Luigi Francescon, “Letter to the ‘Beloved Brotherhood,’” trans. Carmine Saginario, December 1939, ADP 3.42. 9  Although the CC was born among Italian migrants, it rapidly became autochthonous. Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 24–25; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 29–30; and Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 70. 10  De Caro, Our Heritage, 64–65; Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 157–61; Belmont Assembly, “100 Year Anniversary Celebration,” under “100 Years: A Rich History of God’s Grace.” Together with a substantial number of the early Chicago Assemblea Cristiana congregants, Menconi and his wife, Angelina, hailed from Tuscany. Francesco Toppi, Pietro Menconi, PRPI (Rome: ADI-Media, 1998), 10. 11  Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 162–63. 12  In the aftermath of the 1927 convention, the fourth edition of the Italian pentecostal hymnal, Nuovo libro di inni e salmi spirituali [New book of hymns and spiritual songs], 1928, was copyrighted by the two churches (see “Copyright” page).

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c­ onvention, where he was elected one of five overseers of the resulting denomination, the IFCA (known then as the Unorganized Italian Christian Churches). Over the next several years, heightened attempts to organize the denomination repelled Francescon. Most of the leadership favored enhanced structure for the “General Council” (the central governing board) and the individual churches.13 Plans were in place to augment structure even further by installing directing committees alongside overseers and elders. A 1939 letter of Francescon to the US churches reveals that he preferred a more straightforward structure, one embodied by the churches he helped found in Italy. The letter’s occasion was the problem of ministerial credentialing. In Italy, credential holders’ only requirements were citizenship and upstanding conduct (morally and legally). Additional requirements would not only be cumbersome, according to Francescon, but represented “human”made order rather than divine (or spiritual) order: Let this be noted to all the faithful brotherhood in the Lord Jesus, that an organization in the midst of God’s Camp is an open rebellion against Him. A step that brings one to associate with the world limits the supreme power of God, hindering Christ from glorifying Himself according to His Word. It takes away the office due to the Holy Spirit. It denies the heavenly vocation. It surrenders itself to the customs of the people.14

The reluctance of the North American arm of the movement to preserve the Italian model for credentialing led to Francescon’s break with the IFCA. In 1943, after skipping several conventions, he attempted to reconcile by offering to host the annual convention at his Chicago-based home church, urging them to return to the way things were before the organizational enhancement measures. While initial efforts failed, IFCA leaders Tosetto and Louis Terragnoli reached out to Francescon, and the 1945 convention was held at the Chicago church.15 Although prospects for full reconciliation looked promising, the deaths of Terragnoli (1947) and Tosetto (1948) were significant setbacks. When the IFCA enhanced its incorporation level in 1948, becoming the “Missionary Society of the Christian Church of North America,” Francescon abandoned any further 13  De Caro, Our Heritage, 66–67. See also Paul J. Palma, “Luigi Francescon.” in Kurian and Lamport, Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States, 911–12. 14  Francescon, “Letter to the ‘Beloved Brotherhood.’” 15  DelTurco, We’ve Come This Far by Faith, 79.

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attempts to reunite. For his remaining years, he focused on the Chicago church and the work in Brazil. Although withdrawing from the main North American body of Italian churches, he remained loosely affiliated, adhering to the IFCA “Articles of Faith” and hymnbook.16 Even after departing from the denomination, several independent churches in the United States and Canada continued seeking him out for guidance, meeting regularly until 1974.17 The freedom party emerged from the Blood Issue schism as followers of Giuseppe Petrelli, embracing the theologian’s signature allegorical approach to scripture. Petrelli arrived in the United States in 1905 and, before joining the pentecostal movement, served a decade-long stint as pastor of one of New  York City’s largest Baptist churches.18 His views exerted a notable influence on Argentine Pentecostalism. Although the Argentine Christian Assembly (CA) movement derives its name from its Chicago-based sister church, its identification with the freedom party was not merely the result of importing doctrine. Petrelli’s thinking on the Blood Issue was informed by his two-year stay in Argentina (from 1920 to 1922), several years before the controversy erupted in North America.19 His experience among the Argentine churches, where consuming blood meats is culturally acceptable, colored Petrelli’s perspective.20 The family of Lucia Menna (founder with Francescon of the Argentine, CA) likewise spent a considerable stay in the country and came to tolerate blood foods. After a few years, several of her relatives made their way to the Chicago

16  Leonardo Marcondes Alves, Congregação Cristã na América do Norte: sua origem e culto, 2011, p.  27 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328292576_Congre gacao_Crista_na_America_do_Norte_sua_origem_e_culto. 17  These included independent congregations in South Chicago, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Alhambra, and Toronto and IFCA-affiliated churches in Corona (CA), the Bronx, Tampa, Cleveland (OH), and Newton (MA). Alves, Congregação Cristã na América, 29. 18  Petrelli’s tenure with the Baptist church, the Marina Temple, gave him a significant profile among the New York Italian community and in 1912 he was invited and came on to teach history at Colgate University. Toppi, E mi sarete testimoni, 57–58. See also BonGiovanni, Pioneers of the Faith, 27; and Carmine Napolitano, Giuseppe Petrelli: Teologo Pentecostale delle origini, Aversa, It.: Fondazione Charisma Edizioni, 2015. 19  The Blood Issue on US soil started in 1923 and peaked in 1927. De Caro, Our Heritage, 64–65; Maruso, “History of the Christian Church of North America,” 12; Asamblea Cristiana, “Y me seréis testigos en Jerusalem,” 3. 20  Zibart, Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion, 412; Backman, “Argentina,” 2.

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church, including John Menna, who represented the freedom party as one of the congregation’s first trustees.21 In addition to Italian Americans bringing back to the United States their Southern Cone customs, the return of the CC and CA to the United States (among other Global North countries) was accomplished via autochthonous Brazilians (and Argentines). In the second half of the twentieth century, increasingly endemic workers made the journey northward to the United States to build the CC outreach, forging Brazuca pentecostal churches among the Portuguese-speaking populace. The elders João Finotti and Miguel Spina, members of the original Brás bairro CC in São Paulo, served as the movement’s first Presiding Elder (recognized as such by virtue of his seniority as the oldest elder).22 On a 1964 trip with fellow Brazilians to the United States (on the occasion of Francescon’s passing), he wrote to a CC community in Jundiaí, São Paulo, updating them of his progress: “I made a lovely trip with the servants of God and we are all in good health. We arrived here in Chicago the next day, when the funeral of dear brother Louis Francescon was held. It was very beautiful, a great people God prepared.”23 Finotti elaborates several months’ worth of outreach, including meetings with elders from churches linked to Francescon and “more within the sound doctrine” of the CC in Brazil. From Chicago, Finotti and his cohort visited communities in Cleveland, Buffalo, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York.24 Spina’s fortune as an industrialist permitted him to finance his travels to North America and focus exclusively on the outreach.25 Targeting the independent Italian churches and other nascent Portuguese and Brazilian congregations, with the help of his associate, Vittorio Angare, the duo planted churches among pentecostals of shared heritage in North America, Venezuela, Argentina, and Europe. In the 1980s, on account of unstable economic times, Brazilian immigration to the United States increased remarkably. Attempting to escape hyperinflation, economic refugees 21  Toppi, Madri in Israele, 26–27; Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 46; Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 159. 22  Monteiro, “Congregação Cristã no Brasil,” 137; Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 191. 23  “Eu fiz uma linda viagem junto aos servos de Deus e estamos todo bem de saúde. Chegámos aqui em Chicago no dia seguinte, quando foi feito o funeral do caro irmão Louis Francescon. Foi muito bonito, um grande povo Deus preparou.” João Finotti, Letter to Church in Jundiaí, September 25, 1964. 24  “Mais dentro da sã doutrina.” Ibid. 25  Monteiro, “Congregação Cristã no Brasil,” 137.

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entered the United States to reap the benefits of higher wages (up to four times what they were earning in Brazil working the same jobs) and a lower cost of living. On the tides of this mass immigration, Spina successfully organized several churches (formally incorporating as the Christian Congregations in the United States).26 This like-minded body of churches held annual conventions rotating between Chicago, Los Angeles, and Buffalo. In the 1990s, an improved Brazilian economy led to tapering US immigration rates. The limited reservoir of Brazilians, coupled with the new cultural dynamics confronting second-generation Brazuca migrants, encouraged outreach among a wider US populace, especially other marginalized ethnicities. Today, the CC’s North American arm encompasses a multiethnic body, offering English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian services among a family of some seventy US churches (forty-two on the East Coast), eleven in Canada, and eight in Mexico. The CC now comprises an international work embracing fifty-seven nations across each continent.27 While the transnational reach of the Argentine CA is limited to a few US congregations, the Brazilian CA is making inroads in Global North countries, with reverse efforts corresponding to affiliated centers of worship in Italy, Spain, and Ukraine.28 Among Italian pentecostal churches, in both South and North American settings, those falling on the abstainers’ side of the Blood Issue have proved more successful than those of the freedom party from a “church growth” perspective. The CC embodies the abstainers’ position and, although tapering in recent years, steadily outdistanced the CA, who, historically, fell in line with the freedom party. The abstainers have gained momentum among the moderately successful Brazilian wing of the CA 26  Thomas E. Skidmore, Brazil: Five Centuries of Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 178–81, 197. See also Alves, Congregação Cristã na América, 29. 27  Statistics compiled from the denominational website, “Church Locator,” Christian Congregation in North America, last updated May 2, 2020, https://www.ccnamerica.org; Patrick William Malone, “Christian Congregation in North America,” in Kurian and Lamport, Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States, 475. Yuasa’s study suggests a considerable CC presence in Europe by 1998, including 121 churches in Portugal, 19 in Italy, and 12 in Spain. Yuasa, “Theological Biography,” 203. Chaves notes the similar impact of migration on Brazilian Baptist missions in the United States. Chaves, Migrational Religion, 78. 28  Several families from the Santa Fe (Rosario) CA established the Alhambra, California CA. The Alhambra church has since affiliated with, as one of its founding churches, the US CC. Angelo, interview; “Pontos de cultos,” Assembleia Cristã, accessed May 29, 2021, https://www.assembleiacrista.com.br/pagina/75308/pontos-de-cultos.

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(the Christian Assembly Reunited in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ), who reject blood foods.29 The Argentine CA’s stance on blood products offers one explanation for their decline. The challenge remains the lack of a specific basis for moral conduct at the credo level. While the abstainers took their literalist approach too far on some matters, their asceticism provided the framework for a broader ethical conduct offering a longevity that the Argentine churches lack. The CA’s Brazilian wing has shifted its attention to restoring the vision of the united Italian pentecostal movement embodied by the original Chicago Christian Assembly. Toward this end, the movement is pursuing efforts to re-affiliate with their North American predecessor, the IFCA.30 On the US front, Chicago’s Christian Assembly divided yet again in 1968, with some members relocating to Belmont Avenue and coming under the covering of the Illinois District of the AG in 1970. Others moved to Chicago’s North Harlem Avenue, adopting the name the Church of the Full Gospel, and eventually identifying with the IFCA.31 Today, neither the AG (US) nor the IFCA makes very much of blood abstinence. While blood products were a problem in the formative years of the AG,32 in 2001, former AG General Superintendent, George O. Wood, highlighted the provisional (first-century Palestinian) character of the Jerusalem Council restriction, noting: “The meat issue constituted a temporary, but not a permanent concession to cultural sensitivities.”33 In 2013, the IFCA, which bears the stamp of its migrant Italian forebears more than any other North American denomination, released an updated constitution and bylaws, omitting the anti-blood clause. The “abstinence” clause of the original IFCA credo (art. 9)—requiring that one “abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication”—was amended and repackaged as part of a statement on  “Pontos de doutrina e fé,” art. 13.  In my interview with elder Itamar Coutinho, he expressed interest in restoring communion with the IFCA. Coutinho, interview. 31  Belmont Assembly, “100 Year Anniversary Celebration,” under “Early Ministry of Peter Menconi and the Italian Church in Chicago” and “100 Years: A Rich History of God’s Grace”; “Church of the Full Gospel,” in Galvano, FACCNA, 360. 32  A resolution paper of the first AG (US) General Convention (1914) asserted a mediating stance, avoiding “any extreme position with regard to eating or not eating meat.” Cordas C. Burnett, “Forty Years Ago,” PE, April 4, 1954, 9. 33  George O.  Wood, “Exploring Why We Think the Way We Do about Women in Ministry,” June 6, 2018, https://influencemagazine.com/Practice/Exploring-WhyWe-Think-The-Way-We-Do-About-Women-In-Ministry. 29 30

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“Holy Living.” It now bids one, more generally, to abstain “from a life-­ style which would bring reproach to the Lord, to include separation from all religious apostasy, idolatry, and the world’s sinful pleasures, practices and associations.”34 This statement reflects a modified separatism; namely, abstinence from general immoralities, leaving room for discretion on particular matters. The moderating abstentionism of North American classical pentecostals suggests a shift from the ideals of Francescon. As an abstainer, he embraced a decisive counterculturalism that breached the sentiment of most Brazilians and Italians, for whom blood foods are routine menu items. He also maintained his disinclination for enhanced structure. Exhibiting an affinity for the original, rudimentary arrangement of the Brazilian CC, he aimed to keep his Chicago church autonomous from the progressively more organized North American Italian pentecostal work.35

The Brazilian Assemblies of God’s Bethlehem Ministry Berg and Vingren’s outreach in Bélem, Pará, expanded steadily into the country’s interior, blossoming into the Western Hemisphere’s largest denomination (outside the Roman Catholic Church). Although the Brazilian Assembleias de Deus (AD) considers itself independent of other national Assemblies of God churches, it embodies the incisive international vision of its US counterpart, dispatching missionaries abroad even in the early years of the movement.36 Perhaps the most impressive dimension of AD expansion is the outreach conducted by endemic Brazilians among the nation’s diaspora and Portuguese-speaking peoples, especially in North America.

34  Cf. with the original articles, still in use in 1997 (in DelTurco, We’ve Come This Far by Faith, 13), and art. 13.A.2 of the “IFCA Constitution and By Laws” (unpublished manuscript, November 12, 2015), p. 10, https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.cloversites.com/af/ aff831c0-f108-4d09-8863-b4a9665f87de/documents/IFCACBL_amended_11-12-­15_ Final.pdf. 35  See my article “Between Abstention and Moderation: The Example of the Jerusalem Council and the Italian Pentecostal Holiness Ethic,” Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 39, no. 1 (2019): 14–24. 36  Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 78.

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Already by 1913, the AD had mission outposts in Portugal. By the half-­ century mark, it pioneered outreaches in Madagascar and France.37 On the heels of the same economically fueled migration that catalyzed Spina’s efforts among the CC, the AD extended its reach into North America. By the mid-1990s, the AD Bethlehem (Belém) Ministry, founded in 1927 and based in São Paulo, had planted its first churches in the United States. The Bethlehem Ministry (BM) US extension, headquartered in Lighthouse Point, Florida, consists of about forty congregations nationwide, with principal hubs in Florida and Massachusetts. As a ministério (ministry) within the AD, the US extension operates under the leadership of a pastor-­ presidente (pastor-president), an office filled today by Joel Freire da Costa (son of BM Superintendent Pastor, José Wellington Bezerra da Costa). The BM has assimilated much of the Portuguese-language district of the AG (US).38 The typical worship service (culto in Portuguese) of the BM Manassas, Virginia, is comprised of about sixty attendees, with women outnumbering men three to two. The congregation is led by pastor Ezekiel Rocha, a graduate of the AD’s School of Theology in Curitiba, Paraná. In addition to their weekly Sunday school, followed directly by the main culto on Sunday evenings, they occasionally host a week of corporate Bible leituras (readings). During this week, over consecutive days, clerics and laity (the young and old alike) gather for a read-only (without exposition) service.39 Other AD ministérios alongside the BM have US outreaches. The Ministry of Madureira Convention, CONAMAD-USA (headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida), has about twenty churches.40 Another is the AD Revival Church of the Nations (RCN), headquartered in Boston, with more than twenty churches. RCN is led by the controversial pastor Ouriel who claimed to have ten thousand adherents in the mid-2000s. After the publication of de Jesus’ book on the nova revelação (new revelation), the

37  Ibid., 78; Emile G. Léonard, L’illuminisme dans un protestantisme de constitution récente (Brésil), Bibliothèque de l’école des hautes études (Section des sciences religieuses 65; Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1953), 91, 94. 38  “História,” Bethlehem Ministry of the Assemblies of God, accessed June 1, 2021, https://www.adbelem.org/quem-somos/historia; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 129–30. 39  “Ezequiel Rocha,” Bethlehem Ministry of the Assemblies of God, accessed June 1, 2022, https://adbelem.org/congregacoes/manassas-estados-unidos-ezequiel-rocha/71. 40  “Diretório de igrejas,” CONAMAD-USA, accessed January 17, 2022, https://www. conamad-usa.com/.

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RCN collapsed.41 Alongside the AD churches are many more Assemblies of God congregations. According to its 2020 “Race and Ethnicity” report, the AG (US) encompasses ninety-seven Brazilian churches (congregations consisting of a majority Brazilian ethnicity), with total adherents exceeding 10,500.42 One can add to this figure US churches with, albeit less than a majority, a still significant Brazilian demographic. A 2019 report reveals that a once predominantly “Anglo” congregation, the Vineyard Assembly on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, is now 40 percent Brazilian. About 3500 of the island’s 17,000 inhabitants are Brazilian. As an ethnic group, they are often recruited to fill tourist industry jobs. The Vineyard Assembly is now bilingual, incorporating Portuguese elements into their worship service.43 Mimicking the work in Brazil, the US extension maintains its independence from the US AG. Through this trans-­ regional-­and-national ministry, the AD charters new ground in Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Europe (including Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and South Wales). It also boasts a Portuguese language district in Japan based in Ō ta, Gunma.44

Reverse Mission in Independent and Neopentecostal Contexts The late twentieth-century surge of pentecostal missions from Brazil to other parts of the world extends beyond the wave of classical pentecostal churches. While Brazilian pentecostals have a significant presence in the 41  “Congregações,” Revival Church for the Nations, accessed January 17, 2022, https:// www.revivalchurchforthenations.com/about1. Alves notes that another ministério, the Igreja Assembleia de Deus em DC—Ministério Igreja-Mãe (affiliated with the CADB, Belém do Pará), has about a dozen churches in the United States. Leonardo Marcondes Alves, e-mail message to author, January 8, 2022. 42  “Race and Ethnicity of AG U.S.  Churches,” US AG General Secretary’s Office (Statistics), p. 3, accessed August 20, 2021, https://ag.org/About/Statistics. 43  Robert E. Mims, “A Brazilian Influx,” AG News, April 23, 2019, https://news.ag.org/ en/News/A-Brazilian-Influx. 44  Despite being counted by the North American AG as a “mission church,” Brazilian pentecostals historically have asserted their independence. Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 82; Melton, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 1:214; “Congregações,” Bethlehem Ministry of the Assemblies of God, accessed June 1, 2021, https://www.adbelem.org/quem-somos/congregacoes; “Convenção de ministros de lingua Portuguesa no Japão Zai Nichi Burajiru Assemburi-Zu Obu Godo Kyoudan,” Convenção Geral dos Ministros das Igrejas Evangélicas Assembleias de Deus do Brasil, accessed May 31, 2021, http://cgadb.org.br/comadeja-55.

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United States through the various Assemblies of God ministries, some ministers prefer to remain independent. Because of the AD’s magnitude, rather than going through multiple channels to secure the requisite funding and administrative approvals, even ordained missionaries venture into the independent church-planting sector. Tyler Huson is the Pastor Vice President of an independent church-­ plant in San Jose, California, the Igreja da Promessa (Church of Promise). Huson comes from a family line of missionaries to Brazil dating back to the 1940s. Among the swell of Swedish missionaries pioneering the burgeoning AD, his great grandfather founded a church in Campanha, Minas Gerais, and proceeded to pass the reigns of the congregation down to Huson’s grandfather. Today, his father serves as Vice President of the corresponding Minas Gerais ministério. Huson was baptized in the Campanha church and remains a member there. During his time with the AD, he met his wife, a Brazilian national. Together with his father-in-law and wife, the trio embraced a shared vision to plant a church among Brazilian migrants living in the United States. The limited reach of the BM on the West Coast, with churches restricted to the greater Los Angeles area, did not offer the cover Huson and his family desired for their target outreach in San Jose. In an interview with Huson, I inquired about his vision for the city: Palma:

Can you elaborate on why you incorporated the San Jose church independently? Huson: There are only so many Brazilians in the Bay Area and none of the churches by themselves can support a pastor. We tried to get the church linked with the American AG, but they were very unsure about how to do so because we already had a 501c3 (religious non-profit) in place. So, we decided to just stay independent. We are by culture and doctrine almost identical. I know we are not the only ones who have gone off on our own adventures because there isn’t room for more than one pastor per church. How many pastors can you have at a church of twenty to thirty people? Many Brazilian pastors are bivocational here in the states.45

45  Tyler Huson, interview with the author, November 4, 2021, e-mail, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA.

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Despite the common ground and efforts to coordinate, the AG (US) was reluctant to do so because of the limited number of Brazilians in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Church of Promise maintains its independence to this day. His father-in-law, Antonio Donizeti da Silva Santos, serves alongside Huson as Pastor Presidente (taking its cue from the AD organizational model), and his wife, Sara, is the Chief Financial Officer.46 Motivated by their innovative outreach to marginalized Brazilian migrants, Huson supports his family by working bivocationally as a higher education administrator.47 Today, the Church of Promise has a church-plant in the Sacramento area and, through a further example of transnational missions (this time back to Brazil), another plant in Santa Catarina. I asked Huson to explain the story behind the latter development: Palma: How did you get the church-plant in Brazil off the ground? Huson: The person that is leading that work approached my father-in-­ law (his pastor about fifteen years ago). The Assemblies of God church in that city, Chapecó (Santa Catarina), has about 7 thousand members. There is very little opportunity for people to spread their wings in the current church environment. So, he asked my father-in-law if he could start a branch out in his hometown. He really wanted to pastor people and reach his community, so we gave him the blessing. We pay the church’s rent and have covered some of the start-up costs. For us here it is not much but over there it’s more costly.48 Both Huson’s San Jose home church and the Santa Catarina plant developed around former AD members fueled by an independent spirit. The generosity demonstrated by Huson and his father-in-law is one indication that their independent undertaking, only a few years in the making, will continue to expand in the decades ahead. The reverse mission trend is apparent in other third-wave neopentecostal movements emerging in the 1970s and 1980s. After twenty-one years of military rule and economic turmoil, the Brazilian Democratic Movement 46  “Nossos pastores,” Igreja da Promessa, accessed November 7, 2021, https://igrejadapromessa.org/. 47  T. Huson, interview. 48  Ibid.

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managed to unify several opposition parties through the candidacy of governor of Minas Gerais and Vargas protégé Tancredo Neves. The free election and transition to civilian rule in 1985 presaged Pentecostalism’s explosive expansion. Church growth coincided with the return of democratic institutions and the promise of “health and wealth” from the pulpit. At the forefront of the new wave was the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus, IURD), founded by a civil servant, Edir Macedo, in Rio de Janeiro in 1977. By the mid-1990s, its membership climbed to 3.5 million. The IURD’s program of prosperity gospel preaching, television exorcisms, and deliverance ministry street evangelism garnered a significant following, specifically among Afro-­ Brazilian religionists.49 Oro and Semán’s 2001 study reported that the IURD’s television network, Rede Record de Televisão, was the third largest in Brazil. Its persistent use of media, high-level marketing, and political discourse target the urban lower and middles classes.50 The emphasis on material wealth as a “gospel blessing” contravenes the CC and much of the AD’s more conservative approaches, who maintain a cautious awareness of the dangers of the love of money.51 According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, the IURD is now the second-largest denomination in Brazil after (and expanding at three times the rate of) the AD, with a total membership of 7.5 million.52 Representative of the trend of 49  Eakin, History of Latin America, 198–200; Shaw, Global Awakening, 144–47; Smith, Religious Politics in Latin America, 25–26; Virginia Garrard-Burnett, “Neo-Pentecostalism and Prosperity Theology in Latin America: A Religion for Late Capitalist Society,” Ibero-­ Americana 42, no. 1/2 (2012): 21–23. On the comparison between the IURD and umbanda, especially their inclusivism, see Droogers, Play and Power in Religion, 188. 50  Ari Pedro Oro and Pablo Semán, “Brazilian Pentecostalism Crosses National Borders,” in Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America, ed. André Corten and Ruth Marshall-Fratani (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 183–85. 51  Eloy H.  Nolivos, “Capitalism and Pentecostalism in Latin America: Trajectories of Prosperity and Development,” in Pentecostalism and Prosperity: The Socioeconomics of the Global Charismatic Movement, ed. Amos Yong and Katherine Attanasi (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 99–100. 52  The growth rate comparison is based on Johnson and Zurlo, “Country: Brazil,” WCD, accessed June 26, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/ detail/country/28/401-denominations. See also Ricardo Mariano, “Mudanças no campo religioso Brasileiro no Censo 2010,” Debates do NER 2, no. 24 (November 2013): 119–37. Mariano’s assessment of the IURD is based on the earlier (2010) Brazilian census and is much less favorable, underscoring its loss of membership to the Igreja Mundial do Poder de Deus (World Church of the Power of God).

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Majority World regions re-evangelizing secularized lands of the West, the IURD has outreaches throughout the world, including the United Kingdom, Italy, and as of 2019, more than 200 congregations in the United States.53 Its US transplant congregations mimic its authoritarian and “strictly hierarchical” structure.54 Another example of reverse mission from Brazil is the Salt of the Earth Christian Church (Sal da Terra Igreja Cristã, SECC). The SECC was commissioned by the Presbyterian Church in Uberlândia, Brazil.55 Among the denomination’s founders, Paulo Borges Jr. was approved by the presbytery in 1987 to plant a church in an undeveloped inner-city neighborhood. The plant started as a house church with immediate impact on the urban youth and expanded to five hundred members with a school and orphanage in only a few years. In 1989, the neopentecostal practices of the budding congregation caught the attention of the mother church. The presbytery censured Borges, inciting him to resign, relocate the congregation, and adopt the new name. The SECC quickly expanded through homegrown leadership. In 1990, it joined an interchurch initiative called Go to the Nations to send Brazilians to the United Kingdom for training. While the initial goal was outreach among Middle Easterners, the trainees caught a fresh vision for missionary work in the United Kingdom. With the backing of a British council, the Brazilians established outposts in Scotland and England.56 The SECC remains headquartered in Uberlândia, with about ninety affiliated churches in Brazil.57 The prominence of reverse mission among Brazilian neopentecostal contexts represents a common thread linking the disparate waves of twentieth- and twenty-first-century

53  Miller and Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism, 26–27. In Italy, the IURD operates under the name Chiesa Cristiana dello Spirito Santo (Christian Church of the Holy Spirit). Donizete Rodrigues and Marcos de Araújo Silva, “Gesù Cristo è il Signore: A Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus em Itália,” Etnográfica 16, no. 2 (2012): 387–403; “Universal Church Locations—Addresses,” Universalchurchusa.org, accessed September 26, 2021, https:// www.universalchurchusa.org/en/universal-church-of-the-kingdom-of-god-locations. 54  Sánchez-Walsh and Patterson, “Latino Pentecostalism,” 76. 55  Shaw, Global Awakening, 147–48. 56  Ibid., 148–49. The SECC adopted the Brazil-wide “Tribal Generations” initiative, targeting the “punks,” “hip-hop,” and other forms of street culture (150). 57  “Nossa história,” Sal da Terra Igreja Cristã, accessed May 21, 2021, https://igrejasaldaterra.org/somos.

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renewal while underscoring contemporary Christianity’s diversity, multinationalism, and multidirectional character.58

Reverse and Diaspora Flows and the Inseparability of Mission and Migration The relevance of reverse mission theory is complicated by reverse (or return) migrations and the dynamics involved in the movement of diasporic peoples. Some studies have questioned the significance of reverse mission theory, pointing, for example, to instances when the reverse flow, while indeed occurring, is chiefly the result of Majority World migrants discovering (and being converted) to Christianity in Global North regions. Although Christianity commonly spreads in this fashion among migrants relocating for study or work, this trajectory does not preclude the many missions from the South energized by the desire to renew a post-­ Christendom North. A second criticism is that the reverse flow targets immigrant populations rather than converting North Americans or Europeans.59 While classical Brazilian pentecostals have indeed built a base among the Portuguese speaking of the United States, many congregations remain the product of mission while enriching the landscape of US Christianity. A further criticism is that reverse mission assumes a “natural direction” that cannot be changed.60 While a valid critique, as Spirit-led mission ought not be hemmed in or limited in directionality, reverse mission theory does not demand, for example, that the initial movement (from the West to Global South) is prearranged. Instead, it acknowledges a historical trajectory completed when Majority World peoples reciprocate mission to restore secularized lands of a once stalwartly Christian West. 58  Christopher J.  H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2006), 38; Alemayehu Mekonnen, God of All Nations: The End without End is Theocracy (Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt, 2022), xii; On the multidirectional mission also of first-century Christianity, see Timothy C.  Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2010), 235. 59  See, for example, the studies by Rebecca Catto, “Reverse Mission: From the Global South to Mainline Churches,” in Church Growth in Britain: 1980 to the Present, ed. David Goodhew (Farnham Surrey: Routledge, 2012), 91–92, 101–3. 60  Rebecca Y. Kim, “Korean Missionaries: Preaching the Gospel to ‘All Nations,’ Including the United States,” in Religion on the Move! New Dynamics of Religious Expansion in a Globalizing World, ed. Afe Adogame and Shobana Shankar (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 180 (n. 6).

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Thus, while recognizing the multiple ways Christianity spreads between the South and North (and East and West), reverse mission remains one of its chief mechanisms. Migratory trends have undeniably buttressed the reverse flow of the AD and CC to the United States. Andrew Walls identifies the resettlement of Majority World peoples into Global North regions with the second half of a migratory pattern initiated in the Great European Migration (extending into the twentieth century). He calls this movement from Majority World regions (of the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America, and Africa) into the West the “Great Reverse Migration.”61 While Walls’ approach is illuminating, its broad focus overlooks the subtleties involved in the migrations of specific peoples. In a study of African reverse mission in Britain, Israel Oluwole Olofinjana introduces an additional category—diaspora mission—recognizing the shape of outreach to millions living and working in regions far from their homeland. Accordingly, one must consider not merely the reverse flow of peoples but the scattering (or dispersion) of populaces throughout the world.62 To be sure, the focus on Italian, Swedish, and Brazilian peoples in the narrative of classical Pentecostalism entails the diaspora referent Olofinjana delineates. Such an approach concentrates on the movement of nationalities, who often travel in an extended network involving several stopping points. The triangular flow, for example, of the Italian and Swedish missionaries (between Europe, the United States, and Brazil) followed their respective diasporan networks, underscoring the significance of migratory (and missional) destinations often through the mechanism of the ethnic congregation. Both the reverse and diasporan models have their uses, pointing to the multidirectionality of contemporary Pentecostalism and the inseparability of missions and migrations. Today, a new generation of mobile Brazilians, like the Italian and Swedish pioneers decades before them, stand at the forefront of missions to the Global North. Traveling along the channels of kin who have relocated to other world regions, they have discovered that migration adds fuel to mission. As Michael Pocock suggests:

61  Andrew F. Walls, Crossing Cultural Frontiers: Studies in the History of World Christianity, ed. Mark R. Gornik (New York: Orbis, 2017). 62  Israel Oluwole Olofinjana, “Reverse Mission: Towards an African British Theology,” Transformation37 no. 1 (2020): 56–57.

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Around the world, Christians are waking up to the reality that the massive movement of peoples in migration presents an unprecedented opportunity for spreading the gospel. Among the hundreds of thousands on the move to find work or a better life are highly committed Christians. Many are effectively living a life that witnesses to the presence of Christ. Others would be more effective if they had some basic preparation in cross-cultural living and how to share the gospel and lead small group Bible studies.… They also need pastoral care to maintain their own spiritual vitality while they are away from home.63

Brazilian pentecostals are among those peoples who stand to benefit from the highly mobile character of contemporary Christianity. Through reverse and diaspora flows, they are expanding their reach into post-Christendom lands of the West. Of course, the migrant’s mission rests not simply in re-­ evangelizing metropolitan centers but in a transformational journey filled with fresh possibilities and challenges for themselves and kin. The other side of the migrant story is that one relocates into more opulent contexts because he or she is motivated by the search for new opportunities, educationally and economically.64 Part II of this work considers more closely the stories of endemic Brazilians in their voyage to the United States. The transmutation of such migrants from one region to another across linguistic, occupational, and socioeconomic barriers—particularly those moving from agrarian to urban contexts—contributes to isolation and marginalization. Able-minded persons living and working with them have an opportunity to partner with them and build into their lives.

63  Michael Pocock, “Global Migration: Where Do We Stand,” in Diaspora Missiology: Reflections on Reaching the Scattered Peoples of the World, ed. Michael Pocock and Enoch Wan (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2015), 4. 64  In Freston’s study of the IURD, he suggests such multi-directionality in missions is best understood as an “autonomous Third World social movement.” Paul Freston, “The Transnationalism of Brazilian Pentecostalism: The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God,” in Corten and Marshall-Fratani, Between Babel and Pentecost, 198.

PART II

Classical Pentecostalism and Mobility: Challenges and Prospects

CHAPTER 6

Brazilian Pentecostals and Church Growth: Variations, Trends, and Explanations

Few countries rival Brazil in Protestantism’s exponential expansion over the twentieth century. From about 200,000 Protestants in 1900 to more than 32 million today (a 160-fold increase), the deluge of growth has generated a profusion of scholarly interest.1 The country’s overwhelming Protestant increase captivated the attention of the scholar missionary William R. Read, whose mid-1960s research highlighted varying growth patterns among Brazil’s pentecostals, mainline (historic) Protestant churches (Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans), and other marginal Protestants. Read concluded that pentecostal churches thrived among the emerging urban and lower class masses, admonishing traditional evangelicals (Protestants) to glean from several facets embodying pentecostals: their emotionality, emphasis on personal experience, strategic missions,

1   “Traditions over time,” WCD, accessed December 13, 2021, https:// worldchristiandatabase-­o rg.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/countr y/28/404religions2.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_6

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and integration of lay leadership.2 This chapter returns to Read’s contribution to the field, illuminating comparisons and contrasts between the classical pentecostal movements of interest. Several more recent developments since Read’s study also warrant consideration. The findings derive from a synthesis of statistical analysis and historical developments (as overviewed in Part I). The aim is to uncover broader cultural and historical themes rendering a probable cause for the marked variations over the given phases. A final word is offered concerning the present status of the AD, whose membership witnessed a remarkable drop-off over the last decade. Classical Brazilian Pentecostalism has hardly followed a linear growth pattern. As movements originating at the same time, the expansion of the Italian-founded Christian Congregation (Congregação Cristã [CC]) and Swedish-founded Assemblies of God (Assembleias de Deus [AD]) follow a similar trajectory throughout the first half of the twentieth century. From this point forward, however, a significant shift can be observed. The CC’s growth rate plateaus, the AD’s rises steeply, and the membership of another Italian-founded classical work, the Christian Assembly (CA), steadily diminishes. This chapter assesses the respective rates (change over given timeframe) in view of three phases: initial expansion (from conception to the early 1930s); stable expansion (from the mid-1930s to mid-­ 1960s); and variable expansion (from the late 1960s to 2010). Although each movement evinces certain peculiarities during the first two periods, there is much similarity. In the last phase, the rates diverge considerably, with each embodying one of three courses on a continuum: “rapid growth” (the AD), “plateauing growth” (the CC), and “declining growth” (the CA). Considering the latter’s fractured contemporary character, this chapter will focus on the original Villa Devoto branch (with Argentine origins but integrally impacting Brazil today). A comparison of the growth rates across each period illumines each movement’s historical and theological development.

2  Read, “New Patterns of Church Growth,” 221–28. On the twentieth-century Protestant surge in Brazil, see also Donald Edward Price, “A Comparative Analysis of the Growth of the Brazilian Baptists and the Assemblies of God in Metropolitan São Paulo, 1981–1990” (PhD diss., University of South Africa, 2004); Reed E.  Nelson, “Organizational Homogeneity, Growth, and Conflict in Brazilian Protestantism,” Sociological Analysis 48, no. 4 (1988): 319–27; and Joseph E.  Potter, Ernesto F.  L. Amaral, and Robert D.  Woodberry, “The Growth of Protestantism in Brazil and Its Impact on Male Earnings, 1970–2000,” Social Forces 93, no. 1 (2014): 125–53.

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Undergirding this chapter is the assumption that quantitative (numerical) growth offers insight into a movement’s overall status (much like biometric screening provides a clue into human health). The principal measurement assessed is membership (total communicants or baptized), with a secondary focus on the number of congregations (places of worship). The primary statistical think tank consulted is the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, however, others are noted, such as the World Christian Handbook (WCH) and Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), for corroborating support. I acknowledge that quantitative growth measurements, while revealing, are inherently limited. Internal qualities, characteristic of religious experience, such as fervor or contentment, often evade the purview of statistical inquiry. Because of the limitations of statistical studies, I also incorporate qualitative measurements supported by personal interviews. The interviews complement the statistical portion, highlighting internal dimensions that remain significant in our final assessment of the given religious bodies.

Initial Expansion Although commencing within a year of one another, during the first phase, CC growth surpassed that of the AD, expanding at approximately twice the rate. From the first eleven CC congregants baptized (in water) in 1910, membership climbed by 1930 to about 30,000.3 From the AD’s register of fourteen baptized members in 1911, its membership climbed by 1930 to about 14,000.4 Both movements expanded in the initial period chiefly among the lower economic stratum and readily became autochthonous. The AD transferred leadership officially to Brazilian nationals at the first General Convention in 1930.5 Regional considerations help explain the varying rates during this period. The CC thrived within a more localized context, with efforts concentrated on agricultural zones along the railroads in the states of São Paulo and Paraná. It effectively drew from southeastern Brazil’s formidable Italian migrant population. On the other

3  Francescon, Faithful Testimony, 12. Membership total for 1930 is based on Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 22–23, 29. 4  Vingren, O diário do pioneiro Gunnar Vingren, 51; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 120. 5  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 30; Melton, “Christian Congregation of Brazil,” 2:621.

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hand, the AD expanded well beyond its initial nexus in Pará, encompassing a dozen or more states by 1930.6 CA expansion charted from the first six baptized congregants (all from Lucia Menna’s family) in 1909 to a handful of congregations of modest membership (about twenty each) by 1916.7 By 1940, the total baptized stood at about 10,000.8 Although originating at approximately the same time in similar urban frameworks, the CA expanded considerably slower than the CC. The Italian population size hardly explains the discrepancy. The respective works drew from a comparable reservoir of migrants. Argentina and Brazil are frequently acknowledged as leading the way in total Italian arrivals to South America during the mass migration of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Argentina stood even a neck ahead (second in total immigrants only to the United States). By 1914, Buenos Aires boasted some 312,000 Italians, about 20 percent of the city’s population.9 One explanation for Argentina’s slighter numbers is the absence of the charismatic founder of Southern Cone Pentecostalism, Luigi Francescon, who was preoccupied with the work in Brazil.

Stable Expansion From the mid-1930s into the 1960s, the CC and AD growth rates increased. Following the AD’s lead, the CC forged a steady grip among the lower class Brazilian populace, evident in their hymnal, which, by 1943, was published entirely in Portuguese. By comparison, the CC’s US-based sister denomination, the International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies (IFCA), continued widespread use of the original (Italian) hymnal into the 1970s.10 The CC’s abundant use of the hymnal, alongside its insistence on scripture reading, served an educative end, affording endemic Brazilians a path to increased literacy. For those not yet ready to 6  Leonardo Marcondes Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” in Wilkinson, Brill’s Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism, accessed August 20, 2021, https://doi. org/10.1163/2589-3807_EGPO_COM_047967. The regional expansion of the AD is charted in Conde, História das Assembléias de Deus; Chadwick, “A Study of Iberic-­ America,” 9. 7  Menna, “Recordando una fecha feliz,” 1; “Historia de las Asambleas Cristianas,” 1–3; Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 46–47. 8  Saracco, “Argentina Pentecostalism,” 54. 9  Tirabassi, “Why Italians Left Italy,” 124; Baily, Immigrants in the Lands of Promise, 59. 10  Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 24; A. Palma, “CCNA Hymnal,” 76.

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Table 5.1  Comparing CC and AD membership in Brazil, 1952–1967

CC AD

1952

Ratea

1957

Ratea

1962

Ratea

1967

160,000b 200,000

1.5 2.0

240,000b 400,000

2.1 1.6

500,000 650,000

1.4 2.2

700,000 1,400,000

Source: Author’s compilation of data from E.  J. Bingle and Kenneth Grubb, eds., World Christian Handbook (WCH) (London: World Dominion, 1952); E.  J. Bingle and Kenneth Grubb, eds., WCH (London: World Dominion, 1957); H.  Wakelin Coxhill, and Kenneth Grubb, eds., WCH (London: World Dominion, 1962); H.  Wakelin Coxhill, and Kenneth Grubb, eds., WCH (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968) Rate of change, as percent according to the five intervening years

a

b

No data available in WCH. Based on 1952 “Yearly Record” of the CC

read the hymnals, joining in song provided an outlet to express their marginal standing and new religious experience.11 From 1930 to 1967, CC membership increased from about 30,000 to 700,000 while the AD’s climbed one-hundred-fold from approximately 14,000 to 1,400,000. The significant increase parallels other pentecostal contexts during the same years. According to Wilson Endruveit, there were nearly thirty times more pentecostals in Brazil in the mid-1950s than in 1932.12 While both denominations continued to expand, by the 1950s, according to the WCH, the AD (in a trend that ensued for several decades) outdistanced the CC (see Table 5.1). The WWII and post-War years accommodated growth. The enlarging population of Brazil, more than doubling between 1940 and 1970, contributed to the surge.13 For the AD, another explanation for the expansion is the Belenense economy’s resurgence through the wartime demand for rubber. Many of the AD’s first converts were penniless northeastern migrants who had travelled to Pará seeking employment in the rubber trade. While the industry collapse in Belém during the 1920s and 1930s stagnated the market, a new demand for rubber during WWII corresponded to innovative outreach strategies. The AD focused their efforts on the underprivileged, those poised to benefit most from the rejuvenated 11  Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 90. Italian migrants in the United States encountered a similar experience through the reading of scripture and the Italian hymnbook. A. Palma, “CCNA Hymnal,” 74; Cumbo, “Your Old Men Will Dream Dreams,” 43. 12  Endruveit, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 45. 13  See Eakin’s statistical compilation. Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country, “Appendix B.”

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economy. As Andrew Chesnut observers: “Implementing a strategy of evangelization that continues today, church workers and laity recruited the vast majority of the converts from the peripheral zones of the city.”14 The AD found its most resounding success among those at the margins of Belenense society. Alongside evangelistic innovations, the movement spread on the heels of reverse migration among those returning from Pará back to their kin in the northeast.15 For the CA, stable (even accelerating) growth followed suit, so that by 1970, total membership reached 100,000. The CA carried the banner as the largest pentecostal denomination in Argentina until the half-century mark.16 Nevertheless, its size remained only a fraction of, approximately one-tenth, that of the CC. Even more striking is the CA’s declining membership in the last growth phase.

Variable Expansion From the mid-1960s to 2010, a significant contrast between the growth rates of the classical Brazilian pentecostal churches can be observed: the CC’s rate plateaus, the CA’s spirals downwards, and the AD’s accelerates. Several historical and theological explanations for the varying rates are noteworthy. Plateauing Growth: The Christian Congregation Among the chief explanations for the CC’s stagnancy is their resistance to the modern innovations in mass media and evangelism of this period. Among Brazilian pentecostals, including the emerging wave of neocharismatic churches, the CC was one of the only to avoid religious broadcasts and refrained not merely from mass media but all forms of “mass evangelism.” While the Foursquare Gospel Church (Igreja do Evangelho Quadrangular), commonly considered among the classical wave of twentieth-­century renewal, popularized in the 1950s the revival tent, the CC resisted the use of such accommodations. As Emilio Willems observed, 14  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 32. See also Randolph R.  Resor, “Rubber in Brazil: Dominance and Collapse, 1876–1945,” Business History Review 51 (Autumn 1977): 341–66. 15  Erika Helgen, Religious Conflict in Brazil: Protestants, Catholics, and the Rise of Religious Pluralism in the Early Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), 75–76. 16  Davies, Embattled but Empowered Community, 92.

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the CC was “the only religious body that has remained entirely aloof from such modernization.” Its resistance to tent revivals, open-air preaching, radio and television broadcasts, and Christian literature embodied opposition to any form of “public exhibition.”17 A second explanation for the slower CC expansion is the death of its founder in 1964. Francescon’s absence left a vacancy the movement struggled to overcome. His leadership, overseeing the churches for more than a half-century, represented a link to the CC’s historical beginnings. Francescon also provided a contact point between Brazil and the US churches. For many years, his home church (in Chicago) extended support to the Brazil churches, not only in terms of guidance but through occasional financial aid for workers. In subsequent years, the CC seems to have veered from the solid foundations Francescon stood for. Wylian DaCosta, a former CC administrator, regrets the church’s path in recent decades. His family’s CC roots trace to the late 1940s. From Goierê, Paraná, DaCosta was baptized into the movement in 1997. He moved to the United States in 1999 and was, until recently, a member of a CC church in Metairie, Louisiana. DaCosta was responsible for recording the offerings received by the church and updating the central regional church, based in Atlanta, of the donations’ status. He left the movement in the early part of 2021. In an interview with DaCosta, I inquired about his religious background: Palma:

Can you tell me more about the decisive turning point in your church experience? DaCosta: My walk with Christ in this church has been interesting. I believe I was raised in a legalistic church, which made me afraid of hell. I was always curious and interested in the Bible. At the age of twenty-three is when I really dove into the Bible and started to eat from the word. I’m disappointed to say that I only understood the gospel and the atonement not too long ago through the preaching of brother Paul Washer. I’m disappointed because I should have learned this at my church and not online.18

 Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 121; Freston, “Christian Congregation,” 119.  Wylian DaCosta, interview with the author, December 3, 2020, e-mail, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA. 17 18

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For DaCosta, the pivotal point in his journey occurred outside the CC, under the tutelage of someone (American Southern Baptist evangelist and New Calvinist proponent, Paul Washer) in no way affiliated with the church.19 One other cause for the stagnated CC expansion is modifications to the first two “Articles of Faith,” changes that became permanent in 2013 with a new edition of the Portuguese hymnal. Article 1 of the original confession, still in use among some North American churches, reads: We believe and accept the entire Bible as the infallible Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit; it is the only and perfect order of our faith and manner of living; to which nothing can be added or taken away, which is the power of God unto salvation to every believer. (2 Pet. 1:21; 2 Tim. 3:16–17; Rom. 1:16)20

The article’s content is the same for the Brazilian CC except for a one-­ word insertion. The phrase “as the infallible Word of God” is now rendered “as containing the infallible Word of God” (como contendo a infalível Palavra de Deus).21 The addition of a single word, contendo (“containing”), underscores the transcendence of the “Word of God” (Palavra de Deus) as a reality exceeding the written word. Some interpret this amendment as qualifying the verbal inspiration of scripture—the written words of the Bible are not identical with the Word of God, so much as enclosing it. I proceeded with the interview: Palma: What is your chief misgiving about the CC? DaCosta: I have come to realize that my church which I love, and which comes from roots that I admire, is more focused on the gifts and the pulpit than they are with Christ and the Word of God. They have systematically abandoned the teachings which brother Francescon left, including changes in the doctrine of the church. I fear for the future of the Christian 19  Paul Washer founded a missionary society in Peru to support Indigenous ministers. Paul Washer, “History of HeartCry,” HeartCry Missionary Society, accessed August 1, 2021, https://heartcrymissionary.com/about/who-we-are/history-of-heartcry/. 20  “Articles of Faith,” Christian Congregation in North America, art. 1, last modified May 2020, https://www.ccnamerica.org/articles-of-faith.html. 21  “Pontos de doutrina,” Congregação Cristã no Brasil, art. 1, accessed August 22, 2021, https://www.congregacaocristanobrasil.org.br/institucional/doutrina. Emphasis added.

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­ ongregation. The Bible is not the Word of God anymore C but contains the Word of God. What is preached from the pulpit has become the Word of God. The doctrine about the nature of God is now described in a way that can be interpreted as Oneness Pentecostal.22 According to DaCosta, in place of instruction that expounds and sheds light on scripture, the preacher’s pronouncements have become the Palavra de Deus. The preached word’s “divinely inspired” nature is reinforced by the practice of “waiting for the Word.” The Sunday sermon is not prepared in advance, instead, the presiding minister (an elder or “cooperator”) waits to see if any other (male) congregant has the Palavra. Those who feel led by direct revelation of the Spirit open a passage of scripture and preach extemporaneously from it. In theory, any male congregant can preach; however, the ministry normally carries out the practice.23 On the one hand, allotting space to the preached word can be interpreted as safeguarding against deifying a printed book—a bound assemblage of paper and ink is not on par with the divine essence. Neoorthodox theology, emerging in the aftermath of WWI, moved in this direction by delineating multiple forms of God’s word. Neoorthodoxy (or “crisis theology”) reacted to nineteenth-century liberal theology through a reevaluation of Reformation principles. The school’s leading proponent, Karl Barth, argued that divine revelation ought not be equated with the Bible, defending this claim by delineating three forms of God’s word: The revealed Word of God we know only from the Scripture adopted by Church proclamation or the proclamation of the Church based on Scripture. The written Word of God we know only through the revelation which fulfils proclamation or through the proclamation fulfilled by revelation. The preached Word of God we know only through the revelation attested in Scripture or the Scripture which attests revelation.24

 W. DaCosta, interview.  Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” 323; Monteiro, “Congregação Cristã no Brasil,” 142; Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil.” 24  Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Volume I, Part 1, trans. G. W. Bromiley, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), 121. 22 23

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For Barth, God’s “Word” can be interpreted either as the “revealed” (the historical life, death, and resurrection of Jesus), “written” (the human witness penned in scripture), or “preached” (the church’s proclamation on scripture) Word. These interdependent forms relegate the role of scripture (the “written” witness) to one among three overarching expressions of the divine Word. From this light, the CC doctrinal shift can be interpreted as an attempt to reconcile twentieth-century theological currents by acknowledging that divine revelation should not be confined to a book. On the other hand, elevating the preached Word to the neglect of the written Word likewise portends a potential pitfall. Over-relying on the preached Word can have the appearance of rivaling (carrying an “authority” that goes beyond) the Bible. The latter tendency has long been an indictment of revivalistic forms of Christianity like Pentecostalism. In the work The Great Awakening, eighteenth-century Congregationalist theologian Jonathan Edwards described the dangers of extrabiblical “inspiration” (or “immediate revelation”).25 Edwards’ warnings about the excesses accompanying prophetic speech were intended to safeguard the finality and sufficiency of scripture. Each of my CC informants, in line with Edwards, was wary of those claiming prophecies from the pulpit while undermining the “written” (and also the Barthian “revealed”) Word of God. Accordingly, the slight modification to article 1 represented a shift to a lower view of scripture (rather than Francescon’s distinctly “high view”). Disenchanted with the dearth of expository teaching, DaCosta was pushed in another direction and now attends a Presbyterian church. Another noteworthy 2013 modification pertains to the second article. Its original version reads: We believe there is only one living and true God, eternal, with infinite power, Creator of all things; and in the unity of Him there are three distinct Persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Eph. 4:6; Matt. 28:19; 1 John 5:7)

Here, the traditional rendering of the Trinity is evident—“one” essence in “three distinct persons.” The more recent version omits the latter phrase (indicating particularity of persons). The change reflects a downplaying of the three-ness of the Trinity (the unique personhood of the Father, Son, 25  Jonathan Edwards, The Great Awakening, ed. C.  C. Goen, vol. 4 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1972), 432.

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and Spirit) and, if left unmoderated, could open the door to Oneness theology, characteristic of denominations such as the United Pentecostal Church International. The trinitarian language of three persons (Lat. persona) has been a staple of Christian doctrine since introduced by Tertullian (esteemed as the originator of Western theology) in the second century, safeguarding the church from the heresy of modalism. Although affirming the biblical language of Father, Son, and Spirit, the Oneness (“Jesus Only”) Pentecostals understand their differentiation merely in terms of modes (titles or manifestations).26 John Calegari, another former member and longtime elder of the CC Memphis, Tennessee, is in a similar place—with one foot in and one foot out of the movement. When I inquired with Calegari about his foremost concern with the CC, he replied: They changed the first article to the Bible “contains” the word of God (not that it “is” the Word of God). And they made the change without many of the elders knowing. And the other point was the second article. They questioned whether the Father, Son, and Spirit are three “distinct” persons. After this, they took my ministry and my liberty, even to pray and testify in the church, and that is the position I am in right now.27

Calegari laments not simply the 2013 alterations but how the changes were made (“without many of the elders knowing”). Rather than fostering solidarity, the modifications created friction and drove many longtime CC members away.28 The present divide over scripture and the Trinity suggests that ongoing doctrinal revision, at least instruction (and clarification), would serve the movement’s best interest. Declining Growth: The Christian Assembly (Villa Devoto) The schismatic character and eventual decrease of the CA (Villa Devoto) are attributable to the vacancy in leadership left by Francescon. A 26  The definitive work on Oneness pentecostal theology is David K.  Bernard, The New Birth (Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame, 1984), 156–85. In most CC churches, the baptismal liturgy merges the “Jesus Only” formula (Acts 2:38) with the trine Great Commission confession (Matt. 28:19). DaCosta, interview. 27  John Calegari, interview with the author, September 10, 2021, audio recording, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA. 28  See also Valente, “Articles of Faith, Twelve,” 114.

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significant CA contingent outspokenly identifies with Narcisco Natucci as their founder. Natucci embraced the theologian Giuseppe Petrelli’s allegorical interpretation of the disputed Acts 15 blood-abstinence passage. The long-term effect of Natucci’s Petrellianism was to drive a wedge between the Argentine congregations and the core Italian movement churches—the main body in South America (the CC) and sister movement in the United States (the IFCA). By the time the latter came to their support in 1974, they concluded that breaking off into two separate denominations was the best path forward.29 Indubitably, the split contributed to the sharp drop in membership between 1970 and 2000 (from 100,000 to 44,400).30 Only recently have efforts been made to recover Francescon’s foundations through the work that now extends into Brazil (as broached in Chap. 4). A further reason for the CA’s declining membership was its persistent ethnocentrism. Whereas the CC and AD readily became autochthonous, the CA remained insulated, firmly cleaving to its Italian base.31 As Italian migration slowed over the twentieth century, stymied by Italian fascism, the Great Depression, and WWII, the CA’s growth stratagem—as a movement for Italian peoples—had to be revised.32 In retrospect, its membership drop-off was likely the result of a combination of influences. The waning emphasis on the mother church model, the absence of their founder (who guided the movement for over fifty years), and an unhealthy ethnocentrism worked together to erode the CA’s roots. Accelerating Growth: The Brazilian Assemblies of God The AD’s membership has risen considerably since Read’s study. From 1962 to 1970, while CC membership doubled, the AD’s skyrocketed by a more than six-fold increase. The stark variance in rates continued between 1970 and 2000: the CC struggling from 1,000,000 to 1,770,000; and the

 BonGiovanni, “Missionary History of the Christian Church of North America,” 100.  Johnson and Zurlo, “Asamblea Cristiana (Italiana),” WCD, accessed June 20, 2022, h t t p s : / / w o r l d c h r i s t i a n d a t a b a s e - o r g . e z p r o x y. r e g e n t . e d u / w c d / # / d e t a i l / denomination/152/83-general. 31  Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 197. 32  Fernando J.  Devoto, Historias de los Italianos en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos, 2006), 329–30. 29 30

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AD leaping from 4,000,000 to 17,760,000.33 One factor undergirding the AD’s success was its seamless transfer to autochthonous leadership. The following rule is revealing: among classical Brazilian movements, the earlier the transfer to national leadership, the higher the membership today. Secondly, although many of its leaders are elderly folk of agrarian roots (given the AD’s preindustrial origins in the Brazilian North-East), ensuing enlargement occurred steadily among the rising urban populace—from strategic centers to church-plants in surrounding areas. This urban dimension has been reinforced through the steady supply of peasant rural-urban migrations. As Read observed of mid-1960s Brazil: Peasants drift into the cities and almost overnight large slum areas appear. The Assemblies preach the Gospel to these people, and many respond, swelling their churches. They have discovered the new receptivity of the migrating masses. Continuous uprooting and transplanting of a restless people driven by cultural changes of all types—inflation, drought, industrialization, illness, illiteracy, and idolatry—has created a great sociological void. These people, in the throes of acculturation, feel a great lack.… God may have placed them [the AD] in these important centers to receive multitudes drifting aimlessly in their cherished hope of something better.34

Alongside transfer to autochthonous leadership and success among migrant urban masses, a further reason for the AD’s substantial expansion in the second half of the twentieth century is its emphasis on the role of ordinary congregants. Instead of relying on institutions and hierarchy, it rallied around the assertiveness of open-air preachers and Sunday school teachers, defending the pentecostal vision of the dynamic leadership, under the Spirit’s inspiration, of the everyday person. When the above reasons are paired with the AD’s adoption of mass media evangelism (both written and broadcast forms), its accelerated expansion (into the world’s largest pentecostal denomination) is fathomable. Its monthly publication, Mensageiro da paz [Messenger of peace], gained widespread distribution in the 1960s. Today, each ministério has its own newspaper. There are 33  Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Assembleias de Deus,” WCD, accessed June 20, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/ denomination/940/83-general; Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Congregação Cristã do Brasil,” WCD, accessed November 20, 2021, https://worldchristiandatabase-org. ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/denomination/948/83-general. 34  Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 130.

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Table 5.2  Growth in affiliated membership for the CC, AD, and CA: 2000–2015 2000 CC (Brazil) AD (Brazil) CA (Argentina)

Ratea 2005

1,770,000 1.1 17,760,000 1.1 44,400 −0.9

Ratea 2010

1,891,000 1.2 20,390,148 1.1 42,000 −0.9

Ratea 2015

2,289,634 1.1 23,336,311 −0.9 40,000 −0.9

2,500,000 20,978,129 38,000

Source: Author’s compilation of data from Johnson and Zurlo, WCD, accessed June 19, 2022, http:// worldchristiandatabase.org/wcd Rate of change, as % per the five intervening years

a

radio broadcasts in some cities and a TV network, Boas novas [Good news], that now extends into the United States. Still, the AD has taken a turn from its congregational roots, exhibiting a structure akin to an episcopal oligarchy, grouped around pastores-presidentes (pastor-presidents).35

Competing Markets: Neopentecostalism and the New Calvinism From 2000 to 2010, both the CC and AD expanded at a comparable rate, respective to their sizes. More recently, the CC’s rate has stagnated (continuing the third phase trajectory) while the AD has seen a membership drop-off. Although it remains the largest pentecostal denomination globally with about 21 million, from 2010 to 2015 the AD witnessed an approximately 2.4 million-member decline (see Table 5.2).36 Several explanations account for the recent membership decline. One is the loss of congregants to rising neopentecostal movements. In an interview with Antonio Donizeti da Silva Santos, a former First Vice President of the Itajaí, Santa Catarina ministério, I inquired with him about the matter:  Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 13; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 126, 131; Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?, 109–10; Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 121; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 41. 36  According to the most recent Brazilian (IBGE) census in 2010, the membership of the AD is 12.3 million. Censo demográfico 2010, under “Tabela 1.4.1.” The significant variance between this figure and the WCD calculations can be attributed to the AD’s “cissiparity” (many schisms) since the 1980s, with new groups maintaining the AD name but only a loose affiliation with the core conventions. Francisco Cartaxo Rolim, O que é Pentecostalismo (São Paulo, SP: Editora Brasiliense, 1987), 34–38. 35

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Palma: Can you comment on the growth of the AD? da Silva Santos: Brazil’s Assemblies movement grew, exponentially, because of its aggressive evangelism tactics, such as street and door-to-door preaching, preaching on buses and subways, and handing out pamphlets. Sometimes we did up to five street meetings in a day. Palma: Statistically, there is a notable drop-off in AD membership over the last decade. Can you remark on this trend? da Silva Santos: The cause of the change is that many of these churches grew very fast and then they got comfortable. They began to look inwardly at themselves, rather than on growth and outreach. They got financially comfortable. Also, there are other smaller denominations that are popping up and growing. A lot of people from these churches used to be a part of the AD but are now starting their own pentecostal movements and denominations.37 Da Silva Santos, an ordained minister in both the AD and US Assemblies of God, is among those who have ventured into the independent (neopentecostal) sector. The AD’s relentless evangelism during its flourishing years has moderated as the movement routinizes. Among the causes for the membership loss to neopentecostals is its polity (the steady trend from congregational to episcopal structure) and gender-restricted ministry (a “males-only” bias regarding official positions). Members repelled by such tendencies find a more amicable community in the freer, locally oriented polity and egalitarianism of Brazil’s rising neopentecostal movements (polity and gender issues are addressed more explicitly in subsequent chapters).38 John Burdick’s study suggests the AD is losing young people to the neopentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus; IURD). Youth are drawn to the popular music some IURD churches offer, such as the pop-rock of Roberto

37  Antonio Donizeti da Silva Santos, interview with the author, December 17, 2021, video recording, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA. 38  On the egalitarian structure of the IURD, for example, see Patricia Birman, “Conversion from Afro-Brazilian Religions to Neo-Pentecostalism: Opening New Horizons of the Possible,” in Steigenga and Cleary, Conversion of a Continent, 120–23.

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Table 5.3  Profile of Brazil’s largest Pentecostal denominations in 2015

AD IURD God is love Foursquare CC

Membership

Membership growth percentage, 2000–2015a

Congregations

20,978,129 7,500,000 4,000,000 3,100,000 2,500,000

1.1 3.5 2.4 4.1 2.3

160,978 7000 4000 12,913 5500

Source: Author’s compilation of data from Johnson and Zurlo, WCD, accessed June 12, 2022, http:// worldchristiandatabase.org/wcd Percentage of church growth experienced per year during the 15-year period from 2000 to 2015

a

Carlos.39 From 2000 to 2015, the neopentecostal IURD expanded at three times the rate of the AD (see Table 5.3). New Calvinism emerged at the turn-of-the-twenty-first century among evangelical Christians dissatisfied with the superficiality and pragmatism of many evangelical contexts, harnessing Reformed revivalism and affective spirituality indebted to Puritan thinkers like Edwards and John Owen. Churches with Reformed roots, such as the WaldensianPresbyterianism of Francescon’s CC and the Baptistic mores of the AD’s Swedish founders, have an ingrained tie to New Calvinism. In 2009, Time Magazine ranked the movement number three among the top “10 Ideas That Are Changing the World.”40 The material of outspoken New Calvinists, such as translations of John MacArthur’s Strange Fire and YouTube videos of Washer and Southern Baptist theologian John Piper, have been widely disseminated in Brazil. Publishing houses such as Publicações Evangélicas Selecionadas (Selected Evangelical Publications) in São Paulo are known for distributing the titles of Puritans.41 New Calvinism propounds a more juridical concept of justification, in tension with the pentecostal emphasis on personal conversion and transformation. It also appeals to those frustrated with ineffective evangelism. The  John Burdick, Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil’s Religious Arena (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 144. 40  David Van Biema, “#3 The New Calvinism,” Time Magazine, March 23, 2009, 50. 41  Bill Barkley founded the publishing house in 1977, as reported by his daughter, Sharon (a publishing service provider). Sharon Barkley, interview with the author, Jan. 20, 2022, e-mail, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA. 39

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Calvinistic doctrine of predestination—that God will enlarge the church body in time if wishing to—frees adherents from feeling they must constantly adapt outreach strategies to keep up with societal change and technological advances.42 While the movement has disrupted many AD churches, several have accommodated it, identifying as Reformada (Reformed). The most prominent AD pastor affiliated with New Calvinism is Geremias do Couto.43 The success of neopentecostal and New Calvinist movements offer insight into how contexts like the AD (and CC) are losing ground to other religious markets.

 Freston, “Future of Pentecostalism in Brazil,” 79–80.  Gutierres Fernandes Siqueira, “Pr. Geremias Couto - Assembleiano e Calvinista convicto é entrevistado pelo Blog Teologia Pentecostal,” Rhema, February 1, 2015, http://www. pointrhema.com.br/2015/01/pr-geremias-couto-assembleiano-e.html. Among the churches identifying with the movement are the Igreja Assembleia de Deus Reformada em Itaipuaçu and the Assembleia de Deus Confissão Reformada. “Assembleia de Deus Confissão Reformada,” accessed January 21, 2002, https://iad-reformada.blogspot.com/. On the Calvinistic roots of the CC, see also Corten, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 167 (n. 2). 42 43

CHAPTER 7

Pentecostal Polity: Shifting Paradigms in Brazil and the United States

Like civic government systems, the polity of a given church body has immense implications for its functioning and longevity. How an individual congregation or denomination structures its leadership and operations can be its greatest strength or most considerable weakness. Historically, classical pentecostal movements share a congregational bent, safeguarding local church autonomy. An analysis of the transnational movements forming the focus of this book points to organizational traits classical pentecostals hold in common as well as peculiarities of each movement. The specific ways each centralizes authority is particularly revealing. The dynamics involved in ecclesial government offer a vital entry point into the movements’ grassroots make-up. This chapter overviews their polity, assessing notable similarities and peculiarities. At the denominational level, a dialectic exists between the governance of individual churches, on the one hand, and the national and regional administration(s) coordinating efforts between the local units, on the other. I explore how each movement’s polity is reflected at the local level in the weekly worship services (in Por., os cultos). A survey of their polity supplies crucial insight into the related areas of ministry and civic politics (occupying the focus of subsequent chapters). Insights are also gleaned by way of comparison with Catholic liberation theology and John Calvin’s

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_7

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presbyterian polity. Before moving to an in-depth analysis of each movement, I set the scene with an overview of the major classifications of church polity.

Models of Ecclesial Polity The congregational approach constitutes one paradigm among several for running a church. What distinguishes the congregational model is the leveraging of final authority to the local church in determining its affairs. Ideally, such an approach allows congregants a voice in decision-making matters and, consequently, encourages democracy (at the local level) over the preeminence of a central governing body. In this schema, as James Leo Garrett suggests, the “gathered congregation” is responsible for decision-­ making except when such matters have been “delegated by the congregation” to other members.1 Alongside most Baptist and Congregationalist denominations, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Evangelical Free Church, and various Lutheran and Pentecostal churches fit this profile. Congregational pentecostal contexts in the United States include the Elim Fellowship, Full Gospel Fellowship of Churches and Ministers (International), Independent Assemblies of God International, Open Bible Churches, the United Pentecostal Church (International), and the International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies (IFCA).2 The Italian-­ founded Christian Congregation (CC) and Christian Assembly (CA) likewise maintain a significant congregationalist bent. Alongside “congregation-led” polity are two other prominent models, differentiated by the ecclesial office assuming the brunt of authority. In the history of Christianity, the leading polity form is the episcopal (bishop-­ led) model. The latter is distinguished by its precedent on the episcopate (office of bishop), separate from and superior to local church officers. In this hierarchical style, the bishop ordains and governs local parish leaders. Among some variations of this approach, an “archbishop” presides over many or all other bishops. Most Western (including Roman Catholic, 1  James Leo Garrett, Jr., “The Congregation-Led Church: Congregational Polity,” in Perspectives on Church Government: Five Views of Church Polity, ed. Chad Owen Brand and R. Stanton Norman (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2004), 157. 2  Ibid., 180–81. The Independent Assemblies of God International, headquartered in Santa Ana, California, has roots in the Swedish Philadelphia Church in Chicago. Halldorf, Pentecostal Politics in a Secular World, 128.

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Anglican, Methodist, and some Lutheran) and various Eastern and Coptic denominations ascribe to this approach.3 The presbyterian model favors multiple-elder style governance. Accordingly, the only ordained ministry role is that of the elder—with no place for bishops. In this schema, the congregation elects a group of elders (usually called a “session”). Representatives from sessions of several local churches belong to a regional governing authority known as the “presbytery,” which, in turn, places members into a general assembly overseeing the entire denomination. There are two elder types in the local setting: ruling elders lead and supervise ministries and teaching elders carry out the preaching and instructional responsibilities. Alongside the Presbyterian Church in America and Presbyterian Church (US), the Christian Reformed Church observes this approach.4 The US Assemblies of God is also commonly classified under this approach.5 As we will discover, the Brazilian Assemblies of God (Assembleias de Deus [AD]) has veered from its congregational roots, admitting significant differences from its US counterpart. Alongside these primary models are a few others. The single-elder (pastor-­led) approach affords privileged status to one official (usually the head pastor) who assumes the brunt of say in deciding a congregation’s affairs. In theory, the single-elder model is a variation of the congregationalist paradigm, where the pastor is elected by and represents the congregants. The single-elder structure is standard among Baptists and a few Lutheran contexts.6 Other approaches appearing in classification schemas include the erastian model, emphasizing the state’s supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs (e.g., many national churches) and the minimalist (nongovernmental) approach (adopted by the Quakers and Plymouth Brethren).7 While the single-elder model has some bearing on classical Pentecostalism, erastianism carries little significance as such movements have tended 3  Steven B.  Cowan, “Introduction,” in Who Runs the Church?: Four Views on Church Government, ed. Steven B. Cowan (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 12–13; Chad Owen Brand and R.  Stanton Norman, “Introduction: Is Polity That Important?” in Brand and Norman, Perspectives on Church Government, 11; Paul F. M. Zahl, “The Bishop-Led Church: The Episcopal or Anglican Polity Affirmed, Weighed, and Defended,” in Brand and Norman, Perspectives on Church Government, 213. 4  Robert L. Reymond, “The Presbytery-Led Church: Presbyterian Church Government,” in Brand and Norman, Perspectives on Church Government, 93–95; Cowan, “Introduction,” 13. 5  Cowan, “Introduction,” 14. 6  Daniel L. Akin, “The Single-Elder-Led Church: The Bible’s Witness to a Congregational/ Single-Elder-Led Polity,” in Brand and Norman, Perspectives on Church Government, 25–26. 7  Ibid., 26.

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toward the separation of church and state. The minimalist critique affords perspective, at least historically, considering the movements’ initial resistance to structure (by the midpoint of the twentieth century, each shed its anti-organizationalism). The congregational, episcopal, and presbyterian (and single-elder, to a lesser extent) approaches broaden the context for evaluating classical pentecostal polities.

Lay Movements in Transnational Context Pentecostalism’s emergence in Brazil traces to grassroots lay movements. In their initial form, both the Italian and Swedish arms of classical Pentecostalism favored local church autonomy. Each veered from this congregationalism in subsequent years. Among them, the AD has exhibited the most overwhelming change. Italian Lay Missions and the Shaping of Pentecostal Polity Both Italian arms of classical Pentecostalism trace their foundations to Francescon: the CC directly and the CA through Italian migrant leaders (like Narcisco Natucci and Domingo Marino). On the Brazil front, as is evident in the inter-ecclesial General Convention of Christian Churches (Convenção Geral das Igrejas Cristãs), the CA has made a concerted effort to filter schismatic tendencies of subsequent leaders and reclaim the original lay focus of Francescon and the pioneers of the 1907–1908 Chicago revival. As initially conceived, congregational structure afforded member churches the autonomy to self-govern and disburse resources as deemed fit among needy congregants. Despite attempts to decentralize the movements, they have trended steadily toward more hierarchical polity. In 1939, Francescon wrote to the church in Brazil, clarifying his intent to establish unity. Alluding to the historic “Blood Issue,” he regretted that the freedom party (libertà) had taken another course, one he was convinced veered from the true faith. For the abstainers (astinenza), conceding to the “new light” libertà would have introduced a false foundation and eroded any basis for unity. Such a compromise would have been dictated by the “interests of human (man-made) unity, without the truth of God.”8 Afterward, he resolved to devise a solid foundation. While the CC’s origins as a “movement” trace to revivals in Chicago and Santo 8

 Francescon, “Letter to the ‘Beloved Brotherhood.’”

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Antônio da Platina, Paraná (1910), its emergence in denominational form occurred several decades later. Alongside Francescon’s convictions about limiting structure and maintaining the work in Brazil, the Blood Issue led to the incorporation of the Chicago CC as a separate church. Although sharing much in common with its US predecessor, the IFCA, Francescon proposed several new stipulations about church governance. The eighth article of the 1935 “Fede e regole” [Faith and regulations] explicitly identifies with the IFCA’s 1927 inaugural convention proceedings: It is also our purpose to adhere to the 12 articles of faith approved by all the representatives of the Italian churches of the same faith of North America and Canada at the convention held at Niagara Falls, NY, the year 1927, which have been written both in English and Italian and are to be placed on sight in every house of worship wherever our people gather for divine service.9

Although Francescon expressed his intention to affiliate by acknowledging the need for the “Articles of Faith,” he wished to preserve the unique identity of his home church. The “Faith and Regulations” complemented, while moving beyond, the articles, in elaborating on principles of order, ownership, and giving.10 In 1955, Francescon issued the “Supplemento alla fede e regole” [Supplement to the faith and regulations], clarifying the roots and core doctrines of the CC. He was careful to preserve the church’s lineage with the early Chicago revival, writing: We believe in the gifts of God by which this work began among the Italian people in Chicago. This work began in the year 1907. After a few months, some among the people, led by the Holy Spirit, brought the testimony of this work of God to diverse localities of North America, Italy, and parts of South America. God accompanied them with His wonders and the work grew and spread miraculously.11

Francescon’s vision for his home church and the CC burgeoning abroad was to preserve the movement’s charismatic mores, dependence on the

 Francescon, “Fede e regole,” 11.  Ibid., 9–11. 11   Luigi Francescon, “Supplemento alla fede e regole” (Chicago, IL: privately printed), art. 2. 9

10

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Spirit’s leading, and international outreach.12 The CC’s originality is likewise reflected in the “Constitution of the Church of God,” conceived by Francescon (as a “revelation of God”) in 1910 and subsequently adopted as a preamble to the church bylaws.13 It embodies both the anti-­ organizationalism of the early adherents and the conscious need for governance, stating: Jesus is the Head of the Church. The Holy Spirit is the law to guide her in all truth. Its organization is the love of God in the hearts of its members, which is the bond of perfection. Where these three do not govern, it is Satan who rules in the form of man to seduce the people of God with human wisdom.14

Francescon was reluctant to ascribe the principle of organization—and by extension, church governance—to any human being, wary of the shortcomings of creaturely wisdom. His ideal polity model remained that of the independent congregation without a pastor or single head, yet beholden to the trinitarian governance of Christ (as the church head), the Holy Spirit (as the guiding power), and God the Father (as the organizing source of love). Although he was regarded as a leader (even the “top leader”) there was no such thing for Francescon as a single human church head.15 Such an approach, where leadership resides with laypersons, represents a subversion of hierarchical schemas. Even today, there is no formal registration of CC members. As illustrated in the Constitution, membership is rooted qualitatively in charity, consisting of the spiritual bond between the faithful and God. Still, the reality of human error—the sting

12  The gifts are aligned with Spirit baptism, “that He continue to save and baptize with His Holy Spirit.” Ibid., art. 4. 13  Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 142. 14  “Gesù è il Capo della Chiesa. Lo Spirito Santo è la legge per guidarla in ogni verità. La sua organizzazione è la carità di Dio nei cuori dei suoi membri, che à il vincolo della perfezione. In dove questi tre non governano, è satana che governa in forma d’uomo per sedurre il popolo di Dio con la sapienza umana.” “Constitution of the Church of God,” quoted in ibid., 275–76. 15  Ibid., 159.

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of the Blood Issue, pending lawsuits, and excessive credentialing standards—forced the implementation of a new order of conduct.16 Francescon reconciled the tension between “divine” and “human” order by delineating a polity according to two systems—“spiritual government,” on the one hand, and the “administration of material things,” on the other. The “spiritual government” refers to the responsibility of preaching and sound doctrine. Revered for his “apostolic authority,” Francescon frequently presided over the teaching sessions in Brazil, clarifying the responsibilities of leaders. However, he never oversaw the business sessions (devoted to matters of property ownership and the like), which he believed belonged to the “material” administration of the church.17 As Key Yuasa suggests, in Francescon’s mind the material order, although necessary, always remained secondary to spiritual government (“which human hands should not organize”).18 Francescon’s “Faith and Regulations” represented the fulfillment of his responsibility to spiritually govern as an elder entrusted with instructing the faithful in sound principles. In article 2, he outlined the expectation that each congregation would have an administration comprised of elders, deacons, deaconesses, trustees, and a secretary, elected by majority vote.19 In theory, these officials (the clergy) were to be determined democratically by the people and not by a central governing board. Such a standard, laid in stone for his home church, no longer carries the same thwart among the CC at large. The regional Council of Elders ordains offices and presides over the affairs of local congregations, the casas de oração (Por. for “houses of prayer”).20 While in its origination the CC adhered to a “mother church” model, centralized around the Brás bairro (São Paulo) megachurch, its rapid expansion demanded restructuring according to more flexible administrative protocol for the church’s growth.21 The decisive step toward a novel, more enhanced structure was made at the 1962 general assembly in Brás with the motion passed to establish 16  “Estatuto padrão” [Por. for Standard Statute], Congregação Cristã no Brasil, under “Preâmbulo,” art. 29, accessed August 21, 2021, https://congregacaocristanobrasil.org. br/institucional/estatuto; Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 171–72; Francescon, “Letter to the ‘Beloved Brotherhood.’” 17  Yuasa, “Louis Francescon,” 195. 18  Ibid., 177. 19  Francescon, “Fede e regole,” 2. 20  “Estatuto padrão,” arts. 23 and 24. 21  Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 37.

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regional administrations. Under the new format, a Regional Council of Elders appoints members to the offices of pastor-presidente (pastor-­ president), secretário (secretary), and tesoureiro (treasurer) for a term of three years. This presbyterian configuration supplies an additional layer of structure alongside that of the local congregation. A corresponding administrative and presbyterial board oversees at the state and national levels.22 The Senior Elders’ Council in São Paulo—prolonged by invitation (not election)—superintends affairs at the national and international levels. According to CC scholar Leonardo Marcondes Alves, “Each national movement in the fellowship is independent and on equal footing with each other, but the prominence of the Brás headquarters and the Senior Elder’s Council, which assigns field representatives, is remarkable.”23 Today, the CC adheres to a decentralized arrangement with each national work maintaining its sovereignty; nevertheless, the Brás church and Brazil-­ based leadership are still looked to with unrivaled esteem. The global CC network remains steadfast in its conviction that the church should not pay the clergy—a principle Francescon encouraged from the outset. Before the CC introduced the office of the clergy, the precedent was that of the unpaid lay minister. Today, all officiants, lay and cleric alike, serve voluntarily (receiving no monetary reimbursement), steered by the confidence that faithful stewardship has its “recompense and reward when the Lord is met face to face.”24 Except for assistance with missionary travel expenses, ministerial office holders and other administrative personnel are expected to sustain themselves fiscally through their own means.25 The lack of a paid pastorate frees members of “careerist and economic elements,” limiting internal rivalries and schism.26 Additionally, there is no formal tithing in the CC. Each local church has a special offering, the obra da piedade (work of piety), created by the anonymous, spontaneous generosity of contributing members.27 The deacons receive this voluntary fund at the close of the church service (o culto) and apply it accordingly to those in greatest need, enabling individual churches to observe the apostolic model of ownership and resource  “Estatuto padrão,” arts. 2, 30–31.  Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil.” 24  Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 43. 25  “Estatuto padrão,” art. 8. 26  Freston, “Christian Congregation,” 119. 27  “Estatuto padrão,” art. 26. 22 23

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distribution.28 The CC’s original vision of a lay-led, self-governing, and self-sustaining church was intended to unhinge, even subvert, the hierarchism of conventional denominations. Giving to the deacon’s fund, in an attitude of piedade, echoes the seventeenth-century Portuguese Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza’s aligning of the essence of theology with piety. In his 1670 Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza averred that while “reason’s domain is truth and wisdom; Theology’s is piety and obedience.”29 Spinoza’s polarization of reason and theology foreshadows Francescon’s “Constitution,” the latter underscoring divine charity and “religion of the heart” while questioning human wisdom. In contrast to the formalism (veering on rationalism) of conventional streams of organized religion, the CC’s foundations locate the essence of theology in compassion expressed through charitable deeds. Despite his many trips to Brazil, Francescon never placed a financial burden on the church. Felix Mattia described Francescon’s charitable nature: He had no financial interest and much of whatever was given to him he distributed for the needs of the work—never begging, knowing that by faith God would provide everything. He was faithful in the ministry which God had imparted to him setting an example by his life, doing all in the love and fear of God.30

William Read, echoing Mattia’s sentiment, remarked: He [Francescon] spent much time in prayer, visited church members regularly, and was a favorite with children. He placed no financial burden upon the young Church for any of his physical needs, and he paid for most of his trips with money that came to him from the Lord, in answer to believing prayer.31

28  The “Faith and Regulations” also suggests that any church property belongs to the congregation as a collective, remaining the “possession of those members who are faithful to the faith of said congregation” (art. 4). Francescon, “Fede e regole,” 10. As depicted in Acts, according to which “everything they owned was held in common” (4:32; see also 2:44–45). 29  Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, in The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. and trans. Edwin Curley (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016), 2:277. See also Corten, Pentecostalism in Brazil, 33. 30  “View of a Precious Life.” 31  Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 25.

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Francescon was esteemed as a model of love, generosity, and poverty of Spirit. Alongside the obra da piedade, other aspects of the regular culto convey traces of the CC’s original robust congregationalism. Any congregant can call hymns, say prayers, or deliver testimonies according to the leading of the Spirit. Similarly, any (male) member can preach (although in practice, a minister usually delivers the sermon).32 Still, the CC has veered in significant ways from the polity of its foundations. Paulo Ayres Mattos attributes Francescon’s success among the Italian diaspora in Brazil to the “noninstitutional, nonecclesiastical, and nonbureaucratic and practically voluntary” character of his missionary work.33 Indeed, Francescon was keen to work outside conventional ecclesial and social structures, building the CC among and for the people. His loosely structured congregationalism made inroads among migrants and agrarian folks in places where traditional churches struggled to make headway. Reed Nelson’s 1992 study attributed to the CC a “kinship” (patriarchal) structure, based on analogy to the bonds uniting an extended family.34 The close-knit character implicit in Reed’s model is significant. Compared to other pentecostal movements, including its Italian-founded counterpart (the CA), the CC has remained relatively unscathed by schism. An integral dimension of such a model is leadership by succession to the eldest male.35 While traces of the kinship approach are still found in the CC—in the form of fraternal camaraderie and gender subordination (women are restricted from ordination, the decision-making process, and playing instruments)—seniority by age no longer carries the same bearing. As Alves observes, the CC’s “internal organization has shifted from kinship-like, anti-hierarchical congregationalism to an increasingly bureaucratic polity.”36 The more intricate and stratified new system, implemented to facilitate the movement’s rapid growth, borders on officialism, quelling the voice of the ordinary congregant. In an interview with Bruno Martins, a doorkeeper for the Suzano, São Paulo, CC, I inquired about his experience.

 Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil.”  Mattos, “Some Remarks on Brazilian Scholarship,” 240. 34  Nelson, “Organizational Homogeneity, Growth, and Conflict,” 320–21. 35  Ibid., 325; Read, New Patterns of Church of Growth, 38. 36  Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil.” 32 33

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Palma: Can you comment on the congregationalism of the CC? Martins: Our denomination is very fond of liturgical worship. Everything is done spontaneously: the brotherhood is free to ask for hymns, pray, and share testimonies. Singing is congregational and we have an orchestra to help the brotherhood. Women and men sit apart. There is a lot of order and enormous zeal for liturgical beauty. There are no tithes and no money charges are imposed. Voluntary collections are made for all needs, given in a hidden way between God and the one offering. We have worship for minors and youth. In general, the brotherhood is united, loving, zealous in good customs and values Christian morality…. We are children of the Pentecostal movement and conservative in customs. We have remnants of Christian Orthodoxy, but in Orthopraxy we leave a lot to be done, mainly due to the Pentecostal heritage that overemphasizes the [spiritual] gifts, miracles, and revelations, causing a contempt for the Scriptures and for the didactic interest of Orthodoxy.37 Martins specifies much he admires about the congregationalism of the Brazilian CC. While he appreciates their liturgy, voluntarism, and values, he recognizes areas needing improvement. His chief concern harkens to the movement’s pentecostal heritage (echoing misgivings noted in Chap. 6). Martins alludes to a common abuse among pentecostal practitioners— the elevation of the revelatory gifts over scripture. The upshot of relegating scripture (special revelation) to the gifts is the sacrificing of “didactic” interests. Eldin Villafañe alludes to this tension—between special 37  “Um elogio que preciso também fazer é que esta denominação preza muito pelo culto litúrgico, tudo é feito de maneira espontânea, a irmandade tem liberdade de pedir os hinos, orar e contar testemunhanças, o canto é congregacional, temos uma orquestra pra ajudar a irmandade no canto, mulheres e homens sentam separados, há muita ordem e um zelo enorme pela beleza litúrgica, não existem cobranças de dízimos, e nem é imposto cobranças de dinheiro, para todas nescessidades são feitas coletas voluntárias que de dão de forma oculta entre Deus e o ofertante, temos culto pra menores e mocidade, no geral a irmandade é unida, amorosa, zelosa nos bons costumes e preza pela moral Cristã…. Somos filhos do movimento pentecostal, conservadores nos costumes, temos resquícios da ortodoxia Cristã, mas na Ortopraxia deixamos muito a faltar, principalmente pela herança pentecostal que enfatiza demais os dons, milagres e revelações, causando um desprezo pela Escrituras e pelo interesse didático a Ortodoxia em geral.” Bruno Martins, interview with the author, November 18, 2021, e-mail, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA.

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revelation and the revelatory gifts—among Hispanic American pentecostals more generally. Villafañe suggests that while more familiarity with biblical hermeneutics might help with keeping a balance between scripture and the Spirit’s gifts, part of what makes such movements what they are is “a view of revelation that is dynamic and continuous in nature.”38 Latina/o pentecostals ascribe to the inner witness of the Spirit even in the valuing of scripture as authoritative for all of life. The CA is experiencing a resurgence in Brazil, despite the Argentine wing’s many schisms. Structurally, there are notable similarities between its Argentine and Brazilian arms. In both contexts, an executive board and administrations (a president, secretary, and treasurer serving a set term) govern the churches.39 Historically, most of the Argentine CA traces their lineage to the followers of Natucci (the Villa Devoto faction). Differences between the personalities of each party’s leader, coupled with local church registration hurdles, have problematized efforts to maintain a unified movement. The Brazilian CA actively confronts such issues, reclaiming the movement’s original roots by identifying with Francescon and the first cohort of Italian missionaries in the Southern Cone. Solidarity with the early cohort, representing the unity of the movement (as linked to the 1907–1908 Chicago revival), is conveyed in the adoption of Francescon’s “Constitution.”40 Also bearing the mark of Francescon is the voluntary nature of ecclesial service, with no remuneration for ministerial positions (only for approved missionary travel costs).41 An executive council, the General Convention of Christian Assemblies, presides over the entire Brazilian CA.  All churches under the General Convention abide by the same statutes and use the same hymnal. Alongside the central council and regional administration is a presbytery comprised of an elder from each state. The council of elders arbitrates disagreements among the churches and confirms local elders (pastors) for ordination.42

38  Eldin Villafañe, The Liberating Spirit: Toward an Hispanic American Pentecostal Social Ethic (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 206. 39  Crimi, Historia de Asamblea Cristiana, under “Villa Devoto.” The Brazilian CA Administration is elected (or re-elected) every four years. “Estatuto da Assembleia Cristã,” under “art. 5.” 40  “Estatuto da Assembleia Cristã,” under “Constituição da Igreja”; Alves, “Christian Assemblies in Argentina.” 41  “Estatuto da Assembleia Cristã,” art. 8. 42  Ibid., arts. 2, 18, and 24.

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Despite these national and regional layers of organization, each local congregation functions autonomously. As stated in article 1 of the statutes: Each local church in this fellowship reserves the right of self-government having only Jesus Christ as the authority over the local church, so that they should be free to adopt administrative standards and regulations for their own well-being as long as they do not conflict with the terms defined in the Convention.43

Local church self-governance safeguards the CA membership against any prevailing agency that might compete with the sole authority of Christ. Each individual assembly is comprised of anciãos (elders), diáconos (deacons), músicos (musicians), regentes locais (music directors), and evangelista (evangelists). The CA maintains a plurality of elders (or pastors) for each congregation, nominated by the local ministry, who supervise and instruct. Deacons and deaconesses assist the elders with ministry duties and handle the collections, music directors moderate the orchestra, and evangelists (in addition to sharing the gospel) help supervise the worship service.44 Although maintaining its independence from other institutions, including its US and Argentine predecessor denominations, the Brazilian CA keeps spiritual communion with other like-minded churches. From its reviviscence in 2018 as the Christian Assembly Reunited in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Brazilian wing strives to overcome the insular tendency that crippled the original Argentine (Villa Devoto) CA.  The Reunited churches maintain fellowship with the Argentine work, a sister cluster of congregations in Spain, several evangelical churches, and are pursuing affiliation with the IFCA.45 Despite a willingness to build solidarity with other pentecostal and evangelical contexts, the CA (like the CC) maintains a pronounced counterculturalism and remains wary of human forms of government, as suggested in the “Preamble” to the statutes: “In

43  “Cada igreja local desta comunhão reserva-se o direito de autogoverno tendo somente Jesus Cristo por autoridade sobre a igreja local, assim devem estar livres para adotar normas administrativas e regulamentos para o seu próprio bem-estar, desde que não conflite com os termos definidos em Convenção (CGAC).” Ibid., art. 1. 44  Ibid., arts. 23–25, 27, 41. 45  Coutinho, interview.

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the spiritual aspect there is no human government, as only the Divine prevails.”46 The AD’s “Pentecostal Pope” While founded on a congregational model, the AD’s polity is now chiefly episcopal, with an authoritarian structure oriented around pastores-­ presidentes (pastor-presidents) who function like bishops. In this patriarchal-­style government, the pastor-president, who may stand at the helm for several decades at a time, holds the brunt of the decision-making power. The demand for this revised structure can be attributed to the need to accommodate the AD’s surging growth during and after WWII. The advent of the pastor-presidente—a description first used in 1958 to refer to the director of the AD work in Madureira, Paulo Leivas Macalão—marked a transition from the movement’s loosely organized charismatic roots.47 Stationed at a “mother church,” the pastor-president is looked to for direction among a network of “campus churches.” The mother church constitutes the hub of an administrative district known as a ministério (ministry). This added structure gives the AD an appearance more like that of a mainline denomination than the typical pentecostal “sect.” In contrast to the singular, monolithic entity that is the US Assemblies of God, the AD is marked by increasing heterogeneity, comprised of tens of thousands of ministries at the regional and local levels.48 The ministério also includes, often in ranked (ascending) order, the: auxiliar de trabalho (auxiliary worker), diácono (deacon), evangelista (evangelist), presbítero (presbyter), and dirigentes (local pastors).49 Female ministers, while only a few ministérios ordain them, are frequently referred to as missionária. In theory, the constituent offices are meant to collaborate with the pastor-president on administrative matters. Still, the brunt of 46  “Na parte espiritual não existe nenhum governo humano, pois só o Divino prevalence.” “Estatuto da Assembleia Cristã,” under “Preamble and Constitution.” 47  Alencar, Matriz Pentecostal Brazileira, 178. 48  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 130; Gedeon Freire de Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” in Gooren, ELAR, 1:118; Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 119–20. Pastor Tyler Huson, baptized in the AD but now living in the United States, offers piquant insight into the organizational contrast between the countries: “In the USA there is one holy and universal Assemblies of God. In Brazil, the term Assemblies of God is about as distinctive as Baptist is in America.” T. Huson, interview. 49  Alencar, Matriz Pentecostal Brazileira, 121.

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decision-making resides with the president and his coterie of pastors, who present their resolutions to the ministério to sign-off on. The president is so revered—a “Pentecostal Pope” describes Judith Hoffnagel—that the approval of a given resolution never entails the dispute of its content. The rest of the ministry, valuing the status and upward mobility afforded by their respective offices, keep their critiques to matters of form and method.50 Writing in 1951, an observer noted how far congregants will go to express their appreciation to the presidente: “They do everything for him. Besides monetary support, the members of the church bring him meat, fruit, and vegetables. His table is usually abundant.”51 The presidents remain esteemed for their charismatic influence. Andrew Chesnut describes the AD’s paradoxical “participatory authoritarianism.” Before the shift to the pastor-president model, a premium was placed on lay leadership. The layperson validated their leadership status through evangelistic outreach and proven ability in exercising spiritual gifts. Laity and preachers extended the church’s reach via special assignments in wards, small towns, and suburban contexts. The emergence of ministry districts and the office of the pastor-president redefined the role of the laity so that the latter now have virtually no say in the decision-making process. Still, lay congregants exercise their gifts in the church’s daily life in a range of “low-level” offices and positions.52 Leonardo Thome, a Brazilian immigrant living in the United States, offers insight into the role of the AD laity. For many years part of a small AD church in Rio de Janeiro, Thome now belongs to a US-affiliated Assemblies of God congregation in Virginia Beach, VA. In an interview, I inquired of him about his transnational experience in the movement: Palma: Thome:

Does the Brazilian Assemblies of God afford ordinary members more opportunity to minister than the US Assemblies of God? In Brazil, pastors give other people opportunities to preach, teach, and speak during every service. And there are multiple services a week. They also want to develop each church member in their spiritual disciplines such as prayer, fasting, s­ tudying

50  Judith Hoffnagel, “The Believers: Pentecostalism in a Brazilian City” (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1978), 102. See also Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 130. 51  Quoted in Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?, 110. 52  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 130.

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of the word, spiritual gifts, and ministry gifts as soon as possible. … I was heavily involved with the Assemblies of God there serving in different areas while also actively preaching even on Sundays. Here, I haven’t had the same experience, motivation, and encouragement. In Brazil, they basically throw you into the fire. They disciple you and teach you while at the same time giving you opportunities to speak publicly before the community. That strengthens one’s purpose of being in that community and encourages their personal development. Pastors give opportunities to the literate and illiterate alike.53 Despite its increasing hierarchism at state and national levels, Thome found affirmation at his local AD congregation to actively participate in the weekly culto. He describes experiencing more freedom to teach and preach in Brazil than in the United States. While there is an increasing precedent on seminary training for AD ministers, the denomination has a longstanding practice of allotting space to ministers who (although less educated) diligently exercise spiritual gifts.54 I proceeded with the interview: Palma: Thome:

Does the mitigated emphasis on formal educational training in Brazil encourage lay involvement? It is not that there isn’t any emphasis on education, because there is for someone going into ministry, but the requirements are easier. They just want you to know the basics. For example, if you preach well and if your message is sound, the anointing is there, the gifts of the Spirit are there, and the doctrine is sound, then you are invited to preach somewhere almost every day. There are churches in practically every neighborhood. So, there isn’t a need for a PhD or DMin for someone aspiring to go into full-time ministry. People want to move fast as there is an eschatological dimension to the gospel there. People live as if Jesus is coming back that same day.55

53  Leonardo Thome, interview with the author, January 1, 2021, e-mail, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA. 54  Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 13. 55  Thome, interview.

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The argument could be made that the AD’s moderated stance on seminary and post-graduate training comes from relaxed educational standards, however, as Thome suggests, it is also linked to their eschatology. Although characteristic of most Assemblies of God churches, the millenarianism of the Brazilian churches propels aspiring ministers to the fast track for the credentialing process. Thome plotted his own course, aspiring to the furtherance of his educational training, and is now a seminary graduate and an alum of Regent and Harvard universities. In the 1960s and 1970s, each state capital encompassed at least one ministério, with larger metropolitan areas housing several. Today, the largest ministério is the Bethlehem Ministry (BM). Over 2000 of the more than 160,000 congregations identifying with the AD worldwide fall under BM jurisdiction.56 Although based in the city of São Paulo, the BM extends into the interior of the São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul states while reaching other South American countries, North America, Europe, Africa, and Oceania. José Wellington Bezerra da Costa has served as the BM superintendent since 1980. The ministry’s US extension, based in Lighthouse Point, Florida, is presided over by his son, Pastor Joel Freire da Costa. The US-affiliated churches of the BM lack the internal autonomy of other AG (US) churches, as the final decision on matters of polity and propriety resides with the pastor-president and seat of the São Paulo ministério.57 Bezerra da Costa is the chair of the central administrating committee of the largest AD convention, the General Convention of the Assemblies of God in Brazil (CGADB). According to Paul Freston, this additional layer of government, a “relatively weak center,” encompasses some fifty state conventions and ministérios with convention status, several spawned as the result of internal disagreement.58 The CGADB suffered its most significant schism in 1989 when the Madureira ministério (Rio de Janeiro), which had by that time emerged as a particularly successful family of churches, was dismissed from the core convention of the AD. Today, the National Convention of the Assemblies of God—Ministry of Madureira 56  “História,” Bethlehem Ministry of the Assemblies of God, accessed August 14, 2021, https://www.adbelem.org/quem-somos/historia. The figure on total AD congregations worldwide was calculated in 2015, see “Denomination: Assembleias de Deus,” WCD, accessed June 14, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/ detail/denomination/940/83-general. 57  “História,” Bethlehem Ministry of the Assemblies of God. 58  Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 13.

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(Convenção Nacional das Assembleias de Deus Ministério de Madureira; CONAMAD) is the second largest convention.59 Since the CONAMAD split, the most notable schism occurred in the wake of the 2017 reelection of Bezerra da Costa to the chair of the CGADB. Led by Samuel Câmara, onetime pastor-president of the first AD church (in Belém, Pará), the dissenting party adopted the name, Convention of the Assemblies of God of Brazil (Convenção das Assembleias de Deus do Brasil; CADB). According to one source, the CADB (headquartered in São Cristóvão, Rio de Janeiro) took 10,000 members, primarily from the Amazonas, Pará, Espírito Santo, and Amapá states. Among its distinguishing marks are its sanction of female ordination and the prominence of the charismatic healing ministry.60 Of the major conventions, only the CGADB is a member of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship. While the CGADB and CONAMAD, together encompassing the bulk of the AD, now veer toward an episcopal polity, some smaller ministérios and independent conventions cling to the movement’s congregational mores.61 When comparing the pastor-president’s function with that of the laity, a palpable tension emerges, especially considering the history of Catholic hegemony in the country. The premium on lay involvement masks a protest of Catholic hierarchism. Yet, at the same time, the esteem afforded to the pastor-president infuses the office with a bishopric-like authority.62 The “Pentecostal Pope,” typically selected (like the Roman Pontiff) by his predecessor, is elected by the clergy (represented by the ministério instead of a College of Cardinals). Chesnut describes the pastor-president’s autocratic rule: He rewards those whom he perceives as loyal clients with ministerial appointments, making them the capatazes (foreman or overseers) of the crente flock. Those branded as disloyal or potential subversives are pushed to the  Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 118, 120.  Tiago Chagas, “Nova Convenção da Assembleia de Deus no Brasil é fundada com promessa de apoiar ministério pastoral feminine,” Gospelmais.com, December 4, 2017, https://noticias.gospelmais.com.br/samuel-camara-convencao-da-assembleia-de-deus-­ brasil-­94246.html. The TV network, Boas novas [Good news], now belongs to the CADB. Leiliane Lopes, “Por unanimidade, pastores aprovam saída da Convenção da Igreja-­ Mãe da CGADB,” JMNotícia, November 9, 2017, https://jmnoticia.com.br/ por-unanimidade-pastores-aprovam-saida-da-convencao-da-igreja-mae-da-cgadb/. 61  Alves, “Pentecostalism in Brazil,” 1210–11. 62  Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?, 110; Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 119–20. 59 60

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institutional margins, either through exile (assignment in the interior of the state) or restriction to an office at the congregational level.63

The various ministerial offices appeal to aspiring congregants, not simply as a means of fulfilling the calling of the crente (believer) to spiritual leadership, but by affording dignity or prestige in promise of social mobility. The rewarding of offices provides a means of leverage, exacting fidelity to the aims of the presiding church head. The most coveted positions are salaried clerics (the pastors and evangelists of the mother church). Below these are deacons and presbyters, mediating between the mother church and satellite congregations in the surrounding area. Besides compensation for travel expenses, presbyters are usually unsalaried. The lowest level consists of the dirigentes of the houses of prayer who keep day jobs since they, likewise, receive little compensation. Aiming to not disrupt the balance of power in the ministério, in some districts, the dirigentes serve on a six-­ month rodizio (“rotating basis”).64 The present status of the AD illumines the vast diversity among the worldwide Assemblies of God movement. Each national church admits peculiarities, and as is markedly evident in Brazil, much diversity exists even within a given national context. At the international level, while the AD is indebted to the US AG (in its foundations and development), it differs from its US counterpart in its moderated emphasis on formal seminary training and distinct pastor-president structure. Like the AD, the US AG has national and regional administrations (councils), but the authority of a given council does not adhere to a mother church paradigm. In the US model, one General Superintendent acts as CEO at the national level (overseeing the General Council). A strong executive board and presbytery protect the General Superintendent from subsuming the disproportionate power that is invested in the pastor-president.65 Moreover, the US AG maintains an explicit commitment both to local church autonomy (those able to self-govern and self-support) and the ordinary congregant vote in electing their pastor.66

 Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 131.  Ibid., 132; Willems, Followers of the New Faith, 119–20. 65  “Our Executive Leadership,” General Council of the AG (US), accessed August 28, 2021, https://ag.org/About/Leadership-Team. 66  “Structure,” General Council of the AG (US), accessed August 28, 2021, https:// ag.org/About/About-the-AG/Structure. 63 64

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The contrast between the congregationalism of the US AG and the more episcopal AD style is apparent in the Brazilian mother church’s role in performing the ordinances on behalf of campus churches under its jurisdiction. Rodney Huson is Vice President of a Minas Gerais ministério. Stationed at the mother church in Campanha, he oversees more than twenty-five “campus” churches in the surrounding area. In an interview with Huson, I inquired about the Minas Gerais ministério. Palma: Huson:

What are your responsibilities as Vice President? I oversee all the churches to see if there are any issues, that the pastors are doing well, and we serve communion to those churches to kind of keep touch. So, we have a busy communion season. There are about sixty ministers I oversee that work in these churches and we are closely in touch with them in case there’s anything at all that needs attention. One of the things we do that’s interesting is we do not put a baptismal tank in our campus churches, only in the main church, so that we remain with that connection. And when we have a baptismal, everyone from the campus churches comes together at the main church. That way, we keep close involvement with the main church. … even the appointing of pastors, deacons, and elders comes from within the mother church. The fountainhead of all is the mother church.67

Going to the churches (for communion) and having the churches come to them (for baptism) keep the campus churches connected to the mother church and one another. Among the church’s rites, even ordination is conferred under the authority of the mother church. Proceeding with the interview: Palma: Huson:

Can you comment on why the mother church model, historically, worked so well in Brazil? Considering the fact that we have not had the Bible colleges and we’ve had a lot of people who were more illiterate and uneducated, having the mother church scenario has really been key to developing the churches and evangelization in

67  Rodney Huson, interview with the author, December 10, 2021, video conference, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA. Huson is a third-generation Swedish Brazilian.

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Brazil. Just now we’re starting to see a little more of the idea of campus churches in the States, but in Brazil that form of government has been present ever since the beginning…. When it comes down to it, the pastor-president is basically the king of the church.68 Beyond officiating the ordinances and appointing leadership positions, much of the value of the mother church lies in coordinating the training of member churches. Unlike the US AG, Brazil has been at a deficit of and has, for many years, outright refused building educational institutions. Ministerial training and Bible-based instruction from the seat of the mother church help fill the void of educational centers.69 Despite the decades of US AG involvement, structurally, the AD is most indebted to its predecessor movement, Swedish Pentecostalism. Notwithstanding the Swedish pentecostal movement’s independent character—until 2004, it avoided any official denominational connotation—it exhibits the “mother church” polity that distinguishes the AD.70 Swedish Pentecostalism, the most prodigious Protestant free church movement in Sweden (with, in 2015, about 460 congregations), has no elected officials and maintains unity through several joint initiatives. Nevertheless, like the AD’s pastor-president-style, strong individual leadership orchestrated from a megachurch is a salient characteristic of the Swedish context. From 1911 to his death in 1974, Lewi Pethrus was regarded as the unofficial leader of Swedish Pentecostalism. Pethrus pastored the Filadelfia Church in Stockholm, which in his lifetime he saw exceed 6000 members while founding several of the working bodies that unite the movement’s churches. The Stockholm locale has served as the site of many national assemblies and other initiatives (and several of the churches carry the “Filadelfia” name after the mother church). The Swedish movement has retained its congregationalism—pastors are appointed at local assembly meetings, investing in each member a say in the decision-making process.  Ibid.  On current theological education initiatives in the AD, especially the US AG’s involvement, see José Ozean Gomes, Educação Teológica no Pentecostalismo Brasileiro: política eclesiástica da Assembleia de Deus brasileira com respeito à educação teológica formal (1943–1983) (São Paulo: Fonte Editorial, 2013). 70  Wilson, “Brazil,” 39; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 121–22; Jan-Ǻke Alvarsson, “The Development of Pentecostalism in Scandinavian Countries,” in Kay and Dyer, European Pentecostalism, 36. 68 69

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The AD’s swift transfer to autochthonous leadership was facilitated by the free-church ethos of the Swedish founders who wished to preserve the work from any external ecclesiastical control.71 Gedeon Freire Alencar attributes the heterogeneous nature of Brazilian Pentecostalism to its Swedish roots: “Because of its anarchistic Swedish heritage against each and every process of institutionalization, the AGs arose in different places autonomously.” The Swedish antecedent sheds light on why the AD’s many regional and local expressions compete with the monopolistic impulse of the mother (“headquarter”) churches, while the latter actively restrain any church or ministry within its purview from achieving a rival status.72

Liberation Theology and Catholic Restrictivism Classical Brazilian pentecostal churches have veered from the dynamic congregationalism of their roots. Their polity today calls into question both the extent to which ordinary congregants are involved in the decision-­ making process and the autonomy of individual churches. The AD’s present makeup suggests it has so refined its operations that local churches (except in rare cases) are deprived the means to self-govern. Presently, it resembles more the hierarchism and authoritarianism of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.73 The Italian-founded movements admit a hybrid structure, incorporating elements of presbyterian and congregational polity, however, these constituent systems are often at odds with one another. The CC and CA allot room for the three-fold administration of the president, secretary, and treasurer at local and regional levels. Their presbyterian character is embodied in the Council of Elders (supervising and coordinating efforts between churches), while their congregationalism is exemplified in the voluntary nature of ministerial work (­ encouraging 71  Lauri Ahonen (with J.-E.  Johannesson), “Sweden,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 255–57; “Denomination: Pentecostal Revival Movement of Sweden,” WCD, accessed August 26, 2021, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/denomina tion/8985/83-general; David Bundy, “Swedish Pentecostal Mission Theory and Practice to 1930: Foundational Values in Conflict,” in the 25th Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies and the European Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Association, Assemblies of God Bible College, Doncaster, England, July 10–14, 1995; Alvarsson, “Development of Pentecostalism in Scandinavian Countries,” 25–36. 72  Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 121. 73  Sánchez-Walsh and Patterson, “Latino Pentecostalism,” 76.

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any collections surplus to go toward needy congregants). This manner of resource distribution reflects the voluntary poverty and ethic of cooperative help typifying the Italian Waldensians, who exerted such a prominent influence on the shaping of Francescon’s polity.74 The emphasis on the underprivileged, in the founding of the movements among the marginalized and in the deliberate regard for needy members in the obra da piedade (work of piety), embodies the heart of liberation theology. The CC and CA, through intentional means, uphold the liberationist’s preferential option for the poor. Such an approach, facilitated by Vatican II’s renewed emphasis on the church’s responsibility to the troubles of secular society, was adopted by Latin American Catholic bishops at the 1968 Second General Conference in Medellín, Colombia.75 The preferential option for the poor circumscribed a new awareness for the underprivileged according to the apostolic model of charitable giving. Finding expression in the CC and CA is the Peruvian Gustavo Gutiérrez’s reinterpretation of theology from the horizon of the oppressed. The methodological regard for the poor, represented in the obra da piedade, portends an inversion of the capitalist system of private ownership and profit, an ethic realized in the words of Gutiérrez, who insisted: This is the concrete, contemporary meaning of the witness of poverty. It is a poverty lived not for its own sake, but rather as an authentic imitation of Christ; it is a poverty which means taking on the sinful human condition to liberate humankind from sin and all its consequences.76

The ethic of spiritual privation undergirding the CC exemplifies poverty not for its own sake but for emancipating the indigent. This liberationist framework suspends the line between clergy and laity, imploring each member to unite in the gospel mandate to mend the destitute and disenfranchised.77

 Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 91.  Virginia Garrard-Burnett, “Introduction,” in On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Religion in Modern Latin America, ed. Virginia Garrard-Burnett (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2000), xxi. 76  Gutiérrez, Theology of Liberation, 172. 77  For an erudite defense of liberation theology methodology, building on Gutiérrez, see Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology, trans. John Drury (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1976). 74 75

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Of course, there are poignant contrasts between pentecostals and Catholic liberationists. Pentecostals, and the CC in particular, remain outside the mainstream, exhibiting a potent counterculturality. Catholic Base Communities, on the other hand, are sheltered under the all-­encompassing eye of the Catholic hierarchy, offering members status and access to the various tiers of society.78 Moreover, liberation theology is undergirded by a distinct intellectualism and activism. Catholic liberationists, building on the “consciousness raising” (conscientização) ideology of the Brazilian educator Paul Freire, offer elaborate critiques of capitalist society. Liberation is construed in terms consonant with dependency theory. For example, Freire interprets the epidemic of illiteracy in Brazil as a consequence of the condition of dependency, illustrating the need for knowledge (conscientização), conveyed in “generative” (emotive) words, to overcome it. Drawing from their experience base in Portuguese—an extremely phonetic language—the poor can produce their own texts.79 In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire proposes a route that moves from “pedagogy” (instruction) to “ethics” (principles of conduct).80 On the pentecostal side, Villafañe voices a social ethic in terms of the poor’s freedom from oppression but few pentecostal interpretations venture the line from theory to direct action the way Freire does.81 Perhaps if classical pentecostals had the same access to the societal resources that base communities under the provision of the Catholic hierarchy have, then they too would adopt a more activist stance. Presently, their regard for the poor is expressed in the culto. The original congregationalism of the movements can be observed in several ways. The CC’s emphasis on lay participation during the weekly culto opens space for the voice of the ordinary congregant. The CA insists each local church should have freedom to enact acceptable administrative protocol and nominate candidates for the office of elder. This congregationalism stands in contrast to the episcopal polity of many Western denominations, masking the movements’ ennui with the Catholic 78  David Martin, Forbidden Revolutions: Pentecostalism in Latin America, Catholicism in Eastern Europe (London: SPCK, 1996), 41–42. 79  Paulo Freire, The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation (South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey, 1985), 51, 106. See also Joseph L.  Love, “Ideas and Action in Postwar Brazil,” Macalester International 5 no. 7 (1997), 18–19, http://digitalcommons. macalester.edu/macintl/vol5/iss1/7. 80  Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 2005), 20. 81  Villafañe, Liberating Spirit, 87–89.

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hierarchism dominating the ancestral history of their contadini founders and Portuguese-colonialized Native membership. The CC and CA likewise contravene the single-elder approach, founded on the principle that no one (elected or otherwise) occupies a privileged voice in settling a given congregation’s affairs. Indeed, the CC lacks any formal role for a “pastor” (defining the single-elder-led church).82 Despite the abovementioned considerations, the CC and CA have veered significantly from the vibrant congregationalism of their roots. Francescon wished a happy medium between order and individualism, reflected in his maxim ne geriarchia e ne anarchia (neither hierarchy nor anarchy). Although conscious of the dangers of hierarchism, he also sought to avoid the drawbacks of anarchia (unrestrained individuality), namely, local churches operating without regard for the larger body of like-minded congregations.83 The Italian peasant migrants energizing the movements (in both US and Brazilian contexts) were firsthand witnesses of the ominous power structure of the Catholic Church. In Italy, the peasants came to despise the institutional Church, which they considered an ally of their oppressive landowners. They held the clergy in disrepute as keepers of the Holy Scriptures (of which they were forbidden from touching).84 Reacting to such restrictivism, some embraced individuality, alongside its twin foe of factionalism. Today, the movements teeter on the other end of the spectrum, experimenting with a more enhanced level of government. The CC and CA must walk a thin line if they wish to avoid the pitfalls of unrestrained individualism, on the one hand, and the hierarchism that drove their founders from Catholicism, on the other. The purpose of administrations and presbyteries is to safeguard local churches from dissenters and factionalism, although not at the expense of a congregation’s self-determination or the electoral voice of ordinary members.

82  Francescon, “Fede e regole,” 2; Garrett, “Congregation-Led Church Congregational Polity,” 157–58; Paige Patterson, “Single-Elder Congregationalism,” in Cowan, Who Runs the Church, 133–35. 83  Francescon’s maxim was embodied in the polity of both the IFCA and the Argentine CA. Carmine Saginario, “CCNA Loyalty,” in Galvano, FACCNA, 7; Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Its History and Theology,” 54. 84  Rudolph J. Vecoli, “Prelates and Peasants: Italian Immigrants and the Catholic Church,” Journal of Social History 2 (Spring 1969): 229; Hutchinson, “Rough Blocks,” 245.

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Concluding Remarks: Insights from Calvin’s Congregational-Presbyterianism The dynamic grassroots congregationalism of the CC, CA, and AD has faded, overshadowed by administrations and presbyteries added to preserve the order and unity of extended church networks. In theory, the AD’s body of presbyters was intended as a liaison between the high office of the pastor-presidente and local churches. Today, the president’s role has been so enlarged that it muffles the voice of the presbytery and local assembly. As the appointed successor and incontestable head (with few recognized constraints), each president rewards whom they wish with ministerial advancements while restraining others accordingly. The AD’s Swedish underpinning foreshadowed a dialectic between hegemony and autonomy. In most regions, presidents are the supreme power, with the ministérios and conventions subsumed under their domain and dependent on the mothership for financial and administrative support. On the international stage, however, the AD asserts its independence. Even in the United States, BM churches wish to retain their autonomy from the US AG. Members of the CGADB are formally prohibited from participating in ecumenical activities.85 By design, the presbyterial office ought to provide a safeguard against any one appointed official assuming a disproportionate influence. The Reformer John Calvin, although renowned for his soteriology—namely, the predestination doctrine (more attributable to his followers than the theologian himself)—also contributed immensely to the field of ecclesiology. The “father of Presbyterian polity,” Calvin envisioned a church body wherein all members are equal under one head, namely, Christ: “In this way we grow up in all things unto him who is the Head, and unite with one another; in this way we are all brought into the unity of Christ.”86 According to Calvin, the appointing of new church offices was not the right of a single individual but was achieved through election by ordinary congregants. Assigning offices is a collective responsibility that falls to “the whole church” (i.e., “the people”) through a process supervised by a committee of pastors or elders.87 Consequently, the presbytery’s 85  Estatuto da CGADB, February 28, 2007, Porto Alegre, art. 9., https://www.scribd. com/document/88774997/Estatuto-Da-CGADB. 86  John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 701. 87  Ibid., 707–8.

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r­ esponsibility (as those supervising ministerial appointments) is intended to complement congregational polity, whereby the vote of each member elects new officials. The presbyterial enhancement of the CC, CA, and AD was not meant to replace their congregational mores. The elder council’s purpose, especially at the regional level, is to foster cohesion (a uniformity of standard) in the electoral process among expanding church networks. Nevertheless, for the sake of expediency, the role of presbyters (alongside regional administrations) has tended to dull the voice of ordinary congregants. The AD has veered most profoundly from its congregational roots. The pastor-presidente model has siphoned the influence of both the presbytery and local congregation. When interpreted against the CC’s plateauing growth and the CA’s fragmentation, the AD’s immense size, at least on the surface, portends that the pastor-president approach is the more practical model. To be sure, the episcopal paradigm has facilitated the enormity and expansive reach of other mega-blocs of Christendom, such as Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism. Allotting to a single office the brunt of the decision-making power affords expediency, eliminating the overhead of tedious legislation between multiple offices and regions. Even so, among “evangelicals” (in Brazil, a term synonymous with “pentecostals”), episcopacy has never been the favored model (besides a few Methodist contexts). Evangelicals gravitate toward congregationalism.88 It remains to be determined whether the AD will have to forfeit their evangelical roots to sustain their prominence as the Western Hemisphere’s largest (non-Catholic) denomination. One could conclude that the pastor-­ president model has run its course and recent sociocultural shifts demand another revision of church polity. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, AD membership has stagnated in recent decades, even diminishing (a drop-off of about 2.4 million between 2010 and 2015).89 From a church growth perspective, a polity adjustment stands to benefit each movement.

88  Randall Balmer, Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2004), 549; Deiros, “Evangelicals in Latin America,” 292. 89  Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Assembleias de Deus,” WCD, accessed June 20, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/ denomination/940/83-general.

CHAPTER 8

Navigating the Gender Problem: Dress Codes, Ministry, and the Order of Creation

As a branch of Christianity rooted in the Spirit’s outpouring for all as depicted in the book of Acts, from its beginning, Pentecostalism embraced the equal standing of males and females in the eyes of God, as bearers of the divine image. Nevertheless, since the early pentecostal revivals, the meaning of this equality has been variously interpreted and practiced. Classical Pentecostalism’s first expansion phase, reaching into the 1930s, embodied the enlarging of traditional boundary markers. Women inhabited many of the same ministry positions as men. Also apparent in this timeframe, in step with its predecessor, the Holiness movement, is the sharp contrast between male and female dress in pentecostal churches. As pentecostals climbed the socioeconomic ladder, significant changes emerged in these areas by the close of the World Wars era. This chapter considers these shifts in light of trans-Americas pentecostal expansion. Any comprehensive undertaking of contemporary cross-cultural Christian movements must confront the issue of gender. The parameters defining a given movement are inseparably tied to patterns and variations in how its respective male and female constituents are treated. Among most religious traditions today, women occupy the majority share. Pentecostalism is no exception. According to a US-based study by the Pew Research Center, the only major religious traditions where men

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_8

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significantly outdistance women are Hinduism and Islam. Women occupy a substantial majority among Catholic and Protestant groups (at 54 and 55 percent, respectively). Further, not only do more females attend church, but the average woman prays, meditates, and reads scripture more often than the average male.1 A similar trend is observable in Brazil, where women occupy the majority share in pentecostal and Catholic contexts and among Afro-Brazilian and spiritist groups. According to the most recent (2010) Brazilian Census, women comprise 56 percent of pentecostals.2 Still, the disproportion in pentecostal churches in favor of female participation does not mean the scales tilt in her direction in other facets of religious life. The conventional modesty clause among holiness and classical pentecostal peoples, typically directed at women, discourages short skirts, excessive ornamentation, and makeup.3 Today, the issue of dress is not always, or chiefly, a matter of propriety or formal attire. In many contexts, another dimension is involved, namely, the need to differentiate one gender from another. In contrast to the dress code, which mollified over the twentieth century (especially in the US articulations of the movements), restrictions on female ministry tended to intensify. The unique attitude of each movement toward dress and ministry offers a critical lens into its present status.

1  There is a slight male majority in Buddhism (51 percent) and Judaism (52 percent). “Gender Composition,” Pew Research Center, 2014, https://www.pewforum.org/ religious-­landscape-study/gender-composition/. 2  Censo demográfico 2010, under “Tabela 1.4.1.” Among Latin American pentecostals, women may outnumber men by a count closer to two to one. Chesnut, “Latin American Charisma,” 5. See also Cecília Loreto Mariz and María das Dores Campos Machado, “Pentecostalism and Women in Brazil,” in Cleary and Stewart-Gambino, Power, Politics, and Pentecostals, 41, 52 (n. 2). 3  Wacker, Heaven Below, 124–25; Dara Delgado, “The Practicality of Holiness: A Historical Examination of Class, Race and Gender within Black Holiness Pentecostalism, Bishop Ida Bell Robinson, and the Mount Sinai Holy Church of America,” Pneuma 41, no. 1 (June 13, 2019): 59; Elaine J. Lawless, God’s Peculiar People: Women’s Voices and Folk Tradition in a Pentecostal Church (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 36–38; Amanda B.  Phillips, “Modern Modesty: The Renegotiation of Female Pious Dress in Modern Pentecostal Assemblies” (master’s thesis, University of Arkansas, 2012), http://www.proquest.com/docview/1013854396/abstract/665DAE164AEC4918PQ/1. On the early Church of God in Christ style of dress, see Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, “‘Together and in Harness’: Women’s Traditions in the Sanctified Church,” Signs 10, no. 4 (1985): 685–86.

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The Dress Code: Similarities and Variations On the one extreme, the elaborate code of the Christian Congregation (CC) encourages females to wear skirts and dresses (no pants) inside the church and a head covering during worship and when praying. For men, the standard for weekly worship is a suit and tie. In an interview with Wylian DaCosta, a former CC administrator, I inquired about recent developments in these areas: Palma:

To what extent do CC members still adhere to the dress code? W. DaCosta: For the longest time, makeup, jewelry, and some forms of dress were not allowed. It is not as if someone would come and force you out, but it was extremely frowned upon. This also has been toned down with time and is even less enforced here in America. The “official” attire for men is a suit and a tie for all of us, but unless you hold some kind of position and are exercising it on that day, you don’t have to use it. So regular members may be wearing a suit and a tie, but the ministry will always be wearing a suit and tie, including the doorkeeper, the musicians, deacons, cooperators, and elders. You may see visitors or other members wearing more casual clothes, but in the vast majority it’s a suit and a tie.4 Drawing on his variegated background (as someone who has traveled in North and South American circles), Wylian observes the more relaxed standard among the US CC. In addition to regional considerations, ministry rank is among the factors influencing the code’s severity. While the code stipulates formal (versus casual) attire on the surface, one must reconcile the ambiguity—in many context pants are considered more formal than skirts. It seems that pants are forbidden for women because they are reserved for men, whereas men ought not wear shorts because they might look too much like the skirts mandated for women. The Brazilian Christian Assembly (CA) likewise discourages women from

4

 W. DaCosta, interview.

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wearing pants and insists on suits for men.5 Another specification dissuades women from cutting their hair in the Brazilian CC. Although this expectation has moderated somewhat, as Wylian noted in a subsequent interview response: “Nowadays they aren’t allowed to cut it short, but most all of the sisters will cut the edges of their hair for a healthier hair.” For men, beards are also taboo (but mustaches are acceptable).6 Ostensibly, it seems the emphasis is less on modesty and more on the need to distinguish women from men and vice versa. Among other pentecostal contexts, the second-wave Brazilian (and now international) movement Deus É Amor (God Is Love) adheres to a code stipulating the length of shoe heels and the color of men’s clothing (no red).7 Several Oneness churches, a number based in the United States, observe an austere code. In the position paper “Gender Distinction,” the United Pentecostal Church International specifies hair and clothing “distinctive to one’s own sex.”8 The expectation for women is long hair and no pants or skirts (only dresses extending well below the knees).9 As the study by James C. Richardson suggests, several Black Apostolic denominations in the United States observe a similar code. The Highway Christian Church of Christ, originating in Washington, DC, expects women to wear dresses and skirts and men to wear suits and ties. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, based in Philadelphia, requires females to wear dresses and head coverings.10 The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (headquartered in Indianapolis) promotes conservative dress (no short skirts) and no noticeable makeup or jewelry. As with other pentecostal contexts, most dress demands are directed toward women.11 Several neopentecostal contexts also observe a gender-specific code. A study by Tapiwa Praise Mapuranga indicates that the dress code for neopentecostal churches in Harare, Zimbabwe, delineates the precise length for a ­woman’s 5  Itamar Coutinho, interview. The Brazilian CA follows the more rigid expectations of the Santa Fe CA. Dress in the CA Villa Devoto is more casual. 6  W. DaCosta, interview. See also Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” 325. 7  Paul Freston, “God is Love,” in Clarke, Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements, 237; Frank Usarski, “Brazil,” in Melton and Baumann, Religions of the World, 393–94. 8  United Pentecostal Church International, “Gender Distinction,” 2014 https://www. upci.org/file/169/Gender_Distinction.pdf. 9  See also Phillips, “Modern Modesty,” 44–45. 10  James C. Richardson, With Water and Spirit: A History of Black Apostolic Denominations in the U.S. (Lanham, MD: Seymour, 2019), 86–87. 11  Ibid., 172–73.

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skirt. In the latter case, the code is reinforced by negative labels conveying “patriarchal dominance.”12 In another neopentecostal church, the Kenyanbased Repentance and Holiness Ministry, females are prohibited from wearing pants, mini-skirts, and sleeveless shirts.13 The dress code’s severity is directly influenced by socioeconomic factors. The Brazilian-US scholar Rubia R. Valente describes the influence of social class on the CC: “Lately, especially in large urban areas, middle- and upper-class sisters can be found using pants, cutting their hair, and using makeup and jewelry, despite teachings being preached against these practices.”14 On the other end of the spectrum, in more rural, family-­ oriented settings, traditional practices (like sanctions on pants-wearing) extend beyond the church to public, day-to-day affairs.15 Differentiation in the code’s austerity from church to church is observable among the US CC because of socioeconomic dynamics implicit in Brazilian immigration. For example, CC members in the Sun Belt tend to be more middle class and less concerned about maintaining a distinct identity. On the other hand, churches in the Northeast, based primarily among blue-collar Brazilians, tend to be more separatistic and rigid in practice.16 On a broader scale, compared to those in Brazil, the US churches are less strict. The greater leniency can be attributed to the working climate. Today, women comprise about half of the US labor force, and many jobs demand a specific attire.17 Thus, variables such as region, class, and family tradition significantly influence the code’s severity. The code is more flexible among the Assemblies of God. However, this was not always the case. The movement’s earliest records reveal rigid expectations, with most disciplinary sanctions directed toward women 12  Tapiwa Praise Mapuranga, “Moving Forward in Reverse Gear? Sexuality, Dress and Public Spaces in Harare,” in Genders, Sexualities, and Spiritualities in African Pentecostalism, ed. Chammah J.  Kaunda, Christianity & Renewal—Interdisciplinary Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 38–40. 13  Damaris Parsitau, “Embodying Holiness: Gender, Sex and Bodies in a Neo-Pentecostal Church in Kenya,” in Body Talk and Cultural Identity in the African World, ed. Augustine Agwuele (Sheffield, UK: Equinox, 2015), PDF e-book, 181–201. 14  Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” 325. 15  Wylian, interview. 16  Leonardo Marcondes Alves, e-mail message to author, January 8, 2022. 17  According to one report, women are now the majority shareholders in the American workforce. Laura Italiano, “There are Now More Woman in the Workforce than Men: Feds,” January 10, 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/01/10/there-are-now-more-woman-in-the-­ workforce-­than-men-feds/; Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” 325.

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(who outnumbered men by a ratio of two to one). In the 1930s and 1940s, females in the Brazilian Assemblies of God (AD) were reprimanded for clipping or trimming their hair. Keeping their hair long was thought to serve a purpose akin to wearing a head-covering (the “veil”).18 As with most pentecostal contexts, conservative dress is still favored. Like the CC, some variation can be noted based on socioeconomic status. A few rural underprivileged contexts emphasize modesty concerning jewelry, makeup, and dress.19 Given the more docile AD code, one might speculate that the greater rigidity of the CC and CA is tied to their Italian roots. While ethnicity has some bearing, other contextual factors, culturally and historically, carry significance.

On Wearing “the Veil” An area warranting further inquiry is the expectation that CC and CA women wear a white head covering (“the veil”) during corporate worship and when praying. Several explanations account for why this practice is still in vogue. The first is tied to the persistence of a literalist hermeneutic. The biblical literalism of pentecostals is connected to a broader Protestant interpretive lens, rooted in the Reformation mantra of sola scriptura. Accordingly, one outcome is a “word for word” approach by which NT commands specific to the first-century church are taken as binding on Christians in all times and places.20 Among the historically Italian pentecostal churches, this literalism is a staple of the “abstainers” who concluded, based on Acts 15:28–29, that blood products are off-limits for every generation of Christians everywhere. The same hermeneutic informed the Italian pentecostal practice of the bacio di pace (kiss of peace), alluded to throughout the Epistles.21 In the Americas, among this lineage of churches, only the Brazilian (and Santa Fe) CA maintain the

 Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 32.  See, for example, the study by Mariz and Machado, who note the austerity and “modest apparel” of the AD. Mariz and Machado, “Pentecostalism and Women in Brazil,” 50. 20  John P. Hoffmann and John P. Bartkowski, “Gender, Religious Tradition and Biblical Literalism,” Social Forces 86, no. 3 (2008): 1246; Garrard, New Faces of God in Latin America, 13. 21  Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; and 1 Thess. 5:26. See also the “kiss of love” in 1 Pet. 5:14. 18 19

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practice—known in Portuguese as the saudação com ósculo santo (greeting with a holy kiss).22 The biblical passage cited in defense of veil-wearing is 1 Corinthians 11:2–16. A literalist hermeneutic implies Paul’s insistence on head coverings is obligatory for congregational life today. He instructs the Corinthians: But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ. Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head— it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should wear a veil. For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man. (vv. 3–7)

Among the Corinthians, head coverings (and long hair) were deemed essential aspects of female identity. As a community fraught with sexual immorality, factionalism, and fanaticism, keeping this identity intact in Paul’s eyes was vital.23 According to Linda L. Belleville, the apostle’s concern in this passage is less about social etiquette and more the theological question of gender-based forms of worship.24 The liturgical obligation in first-century Corinth—that women wear a head covering (and men do not)—is best understood in light of practices in vogue elsewhere in the ancient Palestinian world. For example, Roman liturgists, priests and laity alike, often prayed and sacrificed with their heads covered to distinguish themselves from the rest of the congregants. Jewish priestly custom likewise entailed a covering (a linen turban).25 For females, the veil served

 “Estatuto da Assembleia Cristã,” art. 22.  1 Cor. 3:3–4; 6:12–20; 12:1–3; Trevor J. Burke and J. Keith Elliott, “Introduction,” in Paul and the Corinthians: Studies on a Community in Conflict: Essays in Honour of Margaret Thrall, ed. Trevor J. Burke and J. Keith Elliott (Leiden: Brill, 2003), xviii. 24  Linda L. Belleville, “Keφαλη and the Thorny Issue of Head Covering in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16,” in Burke and Elliott, Paul and the Corinthians, 215. 25  Bruce Winter, “1 Corinthians,” in the New Bible Commentary, ed. G.  J. Wenham, J. A. Motyer, D. A. Carson, and R. T. France (Nottingham, Eng.: IVP Academic, 1994), 1178; Belleville, “Keφαλη and the Thorny Issue,” 222. 22 23

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various ends: ancient Greek literature reveals they were a common adornment, and, in the Roman setting, they represented modesty.26 Veil-wearing is commonly interpreted as a sign of a husband’s authority over his wife. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that this was the practice’s primary meaning as alluded to in 1 Corinthians 11. The Greek term kephale ̄ (translated in the above passage as “head”) conveys the concept of superior rank or status. Such usage denotes Christ’s headship: over the entire universe (Eph. 1:22) and all cosmic rulers and powers (Col. 2:10).27 The patriarchal structure of first-century society lends further insight into why an interpreter might infer a husband’s authority from the passage. Still, considering the broader accent in 1 Corinthians 11–14 on appropriate worship practices, one could argue that the more significant cultural precedent is the veil’s liturgical use among Romans and Jews. Alongside distinguishing the liturgist from other worshippers, the head covering symbolized reverence, detracting attention away from the outward features of the liturgist and toward the divine object of worship. Given this historical framework, Belleville suggests kephale ̄ implies the concept of “source” more than “authority.”28 As Christ is the source of man, so man is the source of woman (Gen. 2:22). Like the heathen liturgist, covering a woman’s head, whether by a veil or long hair, ensured attention would not be taken away from her source. At first glance, it appears her source is man, but as soon as Paul says this, he shifts the narrative—“Nevertheless, those in the Lord”—emphasizing the interdependence of man and woman (v. 11) and the origins of both in God, the ultimate source: “but all things come from God” (v. 12).29 The concept of headship pivots on the divine analogy, namely, “God is the head of Christ” (v. 3). If headship implied subordination, then one must conclude that Christ (the “only-begotten Son”) is inferior to God 26  Preston T. Massey, “Long Hair as a Glory and as a Covering: Removing an Ambiguity from 1 Cor 11:15,” Novum Testamentum 53, no. 1 (2011): 52–72; Craig S. Keener, 1–2 Corinthians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 91–92. 27  W. Bauer, F. W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich, eds., Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, rev. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 542; Joseph H.  Thayer, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, rev. ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 345. 28  Belleville, “Keφαλη and the Thorny Issue,” 230. 29  Exousia, the Greek term translated by most versions as “authority” (as “power” in the KJV), occurs once in the chapter in an obscure reference to the unseen world: “a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels” (v. 10, emphasis added).

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the Father and, hence, admit a contemporary form of Arianism (dispelled as heretical by the Nicene Creed in the fourth century).30 However, if with Belleville, the concept of kephale ̄ is understood chiefly as “source,” then Paul is articulating (along relational lines) the principle of origin—“man was not made from woman, but woman from man” (v. 8). As the Son’s origination does not imply subordination (to the Father), neither is Paul suggesting subservience when he speaks of man coming from Christ or woman from man. In a first-century climate where a head covering signified reverence (between the liturgist and God) and differentiation (between the liturgist and others), the veil’s more probable impetus was to promote an atmosphere conducive to worship, by alleviating gender “identity confusion.”31 Rather than stemming from misogynistic motivations, Paul encouraged veil-wearing because it promoted a healthy, gender-affirming sense of identity among congregants. In an interview with Roberta DaCosta, a Brazilian immigrant and former (nineteen-year) member of the CC, I inquired concerning the meaning of the veil: Palma: R. DaCosta:

Some interpret the veil as a symbol of beauty or reverence while others see it as a sign of oppression. In your opinion, what is the meaning behind wearing the veil? I agree with the head covering, not as a symbol of beauty, but as reverence and an order of creation (1 Cor. 11). I do not think wearing the veil is some sign of oppression at all, more like a symbol to cover the man’s glory.32

In DaCosta’s eyes, the veil chiefly represents reverence and in this way is tied to the concept of the “order of creation”—as the husband is the “glory” of God, so the wife is her husband’s “glory” (or “representation,”

30  The Creed was carefully crafted so as to reflect the ultimate equality of the Son with the Father, that is, “being of one substance with the Father.” “Nicene Creed,” in Readings in Christian Thought, ed. Hugh T. Kerr, rev. ed. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1990), 75–76. 31  Belleville, “Keφαλη and the Thorny Issue,” 230. 32  Roberta DaCosta, interview with the author, November 8, 2021, e-mail, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA.

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from the Greek doxa, v. 7). That glory must be covered, as symbolized in the veil, so that all attention may be directed toward God’s glory.33 A similar observation was reached in Valente’s study of a pool of men and women, noting that most Brazilian CC congregants did not object to wearing the veil or believe that Paul’s instruction was misogynistically motivated. One of the expectations is that for females to preach (inside or outside the church), they must wear the veil. In reply to how they felt about this practice, one of Valente’s respondents commented: “It is not a question of misogyny or feminism, but the fact that Adam was created before Eve. It’s an apostolic tradition.”34 Here, again, Paul’s directive is interpreted theologically, as a reference to the order of creation—man, in Adam, came before woman, Eve (Gen. 2:22). When a woman wears the veil, she is upholding a precedent passed down from one generation to the next. The CA offers an analogous interpretation in defense of those claiming Paul’s instruction is misogynistic.35 Regarding the admonishments in 1 Corinthians 11, article 22 of the CA statutes explains: There are some theologians who assume that wearing the veil is about the culture of the time, others who are more radical, believe it to be something personal to Paul. However, the Christian Assembly believes that Paul addresses the issue of the woman “being under someone else’s authority”— just as the Church is linked to Christ, the woman is linked to her husband. And we also believe that Paul relates the woman’s head covering to glory.

33  This analogy is explicit in other translations (e.g., the NIV and NKJV) where the Greek doxa is rendered as “glory.” Belleville follows a similar line of argument. Belleville, “Keφαλη and the Thorny Issue,” 229. “Her head must be covered, not because she is in the presence of man, but because she is in the presence of God and his angels—and in their presence the glory of man must be hidden.” Morna D.  Hooker, From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 119. 34  Valente, “From Inception to Present,” 57. See also Rubia R.  Valente, “Institutional Explanations for the Decline of the Congregação Cristã no Brasil,” PentecoStudies 14, no. 1 (2015): 72–96. 35  The veil issue is not addressed in the CC statutes (only how they should be distributed). “Estatuto padrão,” art. 43.

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Therefore, when a woman covers her head when giving glory to God, she hides her own glory to revere the One who deserves all the glory.36

Such an interpretation pivots on a woman’s head representing not only her husband’s “glory,” but also her own. Here, glory is closely tied to “beauty,” given its connection to a woman’s hair: “but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory” (v. 15). This association was commonplace among ancient Greeks, for whom a female’s hair was considered the focal point of beauty. By following the contour lines of her long hair, the head covering enhanced her natural beauty.37 The meaning of “authority” in this article is significant, defined as a woman being ligada (linked) to a man as the church is to Christ.38 As with Belleville’s rendering of kephale ̄ as “source,” the language of being “linked” is more neutral than terms such as “head” or “authority” with their power-laden connotations.39 Therefore, for the CA, the veil serves a purpose beyond merely symbolizing a woman’s authority under a man. It represents the concealing of a woman’s glory (and beauty) so that attention is directed exclusively toward God. A second explanation for veil-wearing is tied to the Italian roots of the movements. For most pentecostal churches founded among the Italian diaspora, the practice of veil-wearing is no longer observed. However, even into the 1970s, head coverings were still common in Italian American pentecostal congregations, regardless of whether they had direct ties to

36  “Existem de teólogos que pressupõe que o uso do véu trata-se da cultura da época, outros mais radicais, acreditam ser algo pessoal de Paulo. Porém, a Assembleia Cristã acredita que Paulo aborda a questão da mulher ‘estar sob a autoridade de outrem’–Do mesmo modo que a Igreja está ligada a Cristo, a mulher está ligada ao marido. E também acreditamos que Paulo relaciona a cobertura da cabeça da mulher com a glória. Diante disso, a mulher cobrir sua cabeça no momento de dar glória a Deus é esconder a sua própria glória reverenciando Aquele que merece toda a glória.” “Estatuto da Assembleia Cristã,” art. 22. 37  Massey, “Long Hair as a Glory,” 70–72. 38  The analogy of the Church to Christ draws from Eph. 5:23. 39  For further perspective on the meaning of kephale,̄ the veil, and the pattern of headship, see M.  D. Hooker, “Authority on Her Head: An Examination of I Cor. Xi. 10,” New Testament Studies 10, no. 3 (April 1964): 410–16; and Patricia DesMarais, “Husbands, Wives, and Status in Roman Corinth: A Discussion of Headcoverings in 1 Corinthians 11.2–16” (master’s thesis, Dominguez Hills, California State University, 2005), 5–8, http://www.proquest.com/docview/305396379/abstract/C9CDAD37B5AB4732PQ/1.

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Brazil.40 The folk-Catholic roots of the contadini founders of Italian Pentecostalism permitted a greater appreciation for the religious symbolism the veil represents. Tracing to rural Mezzogiorno villages, ingrained in this folk spirituality was a vivid enchantment with ornaments and charms.41 Wearing a head covering (la vela) is still observed among many Italian pentecostal churches in Italy. According to Salvatore Cucchiari’s Sicilian-­ based study, veil-wearing stems from a culture that “regards women as ritual specialists for the family.”42 The veil signifies the elevated spiritual status of women, particularly in the domestic sphere. Alongside the Italian-­ founded churches folk-Catholic roots, the literalism undergirding them can be understood as a reaction to Catholic restrictivism. For centuries, the Catholic commoner had been forbidden from reading the Bible. As Mark Hutchinson describes, Italian pentecostals developed an “extreme respect for the Bible that emerged as a reaction to the Catholic limitations on the uses of scripture.”43 Their strict adherence to passages commanding blood-product abstinence, the kiss of peace, and veil-wearing derived, in part, from their newfound freedom in Pentecostalism to compose their own readings and interpretations of scripture. Their Italian mores therefore offer further perspective into why these contexts maintain a specific precedent on adorning dress, especially the veil, while the Swedish-­ founded AD does not. An additional explanation is needed to account for why churches in Brazil, of the same Italian lineage, still attach so much value to wearing the veil.44 The third source underpinning the veil-wearing tradition is tied to the cultural setting of Brazil, a region of the world where female Muslim migrants commonly wear a headscarf (the hijab) as an expression of their religious identity. Islam arrived in Brazil in significant numbers during the epoch of the African slave trade and subsequently in the twentieth-century 40  Mark P. Hutchinson, Pellegrini: An Italian Protestant Community in Sydney, 1958–1998 (Sydney, AU: Australasian Pentecostal Studies Journal, 1999), 210. 41  Rudolph J. Vecoli, “Contadini in Chicago: A Critique of The Uprooted,” The Journal of American History 51, no. 3 (December 1964): 415. 42   Salvatore Cucchiari, “Between Shame and Sanctification: Patriarchy and Its Transformation in Sicilian Pentecostalism,” American Ethnologist 17, no. 4 (1990): 696. See also Salvatore Cucchiari, “‘Adapted for Heaven’: Conversion and Culture in Western Sicily,” American Ethnologist 15, no. 3 (1988): 435. 43  Hutchinson, “Rough Blocks,” 245; Cumbo, “Your Old Men,” 43. 44  Among the Brazilian CC, former elder John Calegari describes the veil as a “sacred thing.” Calegari, interview.

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Arab migrations. Today, Brazil is home to the largest Muslim population in Latin America and is considered the world’s leading exporter of halal beef (prepared under Islamic law). Hijabis (women wearing the headscarf) adhere to a dress ethic of modesty that includes, especially in rural areas, covering one’s knees and shoulders. There remains tremendous variation in how the hijab is worn. West African women favor a brightly colored, turban-like wrap, while those living in Sharia states such as Iran and Saudi Arabia wear a chador garment covering the entire body.45 To outsiders, the head covering is frequently interpreted as a symbol of oppression. In the Western world and much of Latin America, onlookers view the hijab as a foreign peculiarity. Among the converted, on the other hand, it symbolizes the transition to a new life, membership, and a sense of belonging.46 As Cristina Maria de Castro suggests: The relationship between genders in Muslim societies and communities finds itself in the middle of a very strong political and ideological dispute. On one side there are the critics of what they believe to be an archaic way of life that obstructs women’s rights, where the veil is presented as the symbol of women’s oppression by men. On the other side are the defenders of the right of cultural authenticity of Muslim women in defining their role and place in the world through a different cultural reference than the West offers.47

De Castro implies that Western media is responsible for perpetuating the incriminating view of Muslim women as victims of oppression and polygamist marriages, of which the veil is “the supreme symbol of male domination.”48 Among Muslim women worldwide there is a considerable range of opinion on the hijab’s meaning. Some think it ought not be obligatory. Others, because of the way it “symbolizes dignity and modesty,” consider it a fundamental aspect of female identity. Still, others see it as a form of protest and resistance, particularly in regions where Muslims are persecuted. Among the Brás community, the migrants’ keen sense of 45  Waseem Fayyaz and Anila Kamal, “Practicing Hijab (Veil): A Source of Autonomy and Self-Esteem for Modern Muslim Women,” The Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 22, no. 1 (April 2014): 22–23; Malise Ruthven, Islam in the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 158–60; The Islam Book (New York: DK, 2020), 290, 301. 46  Cristina Maria de Castro, “Perceptions and Practices of the Hijab among Muslim Migrants in Brazil,” in de Castro and Dawson, Religion, Migration, and Mobility, 30–37. 47  Cristina Maria de Castro, Construction of Muslim Identities in Contemporary Brazil (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013), 105. 48  Ibid., 112.

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solidarity ameliorates the stigma experienced when wearing the hijab to work. Despite assimilative pressures, the prevailing sentiment in Brazil, among ordinary women and Muslim leadership organizations alike, is that the veil preserves a sense of religious identity.49 Considering the various contexts—first-century Palestine (for the Corinthian church), the peasant spirituality (of Italians), and the present-­ day Islamic backdrop (of Brazil)—the cumulative evidence suggests that the veil-wearing tradition in the CC and CA derives from some other impulse besides the need to represent being under authority. Foremost, the veil is a physical expression of a theological reality reflecting the “order of creation,” following a path: from God (the Father) to the Son (Christ), to men, and finally, to women. The Corinthian church was confronted with the problem of gender confusion, and a similar explanation could be made for many parts of the world today (including Brazil).50 During the worship service, the veil guises a woman’s distinctive beauty, especially her hair, so that her outlying features do not detract attention from God. Those approaching the matter from a non-veil-wearing culture will interpret it in a much different light than those immersed in cultures where it is commonplace. The Corinthian church embraced the broader first-­ century practice of veil-wearing, which, as illustrated, carried several connotations, including differentiation, reverence, modesty, and beauty. For a community fraught with sexual immorality and dissension, the veil reinforced gender identity.51 Today in Brazil, while outsiders may look at the veil as a sign of male oppression, congregants see it as preserving a sense of religious identity and belonging (as with the Islamic hijab).52 The prevalence of the hijab among Brazilian Muslims carries immense significance. Indeed, as De Castro’s study suggests, the Muslim population in the Brás bairro (in São Paulo city’s Central Region) was so substantial that it insulated those who were discriminated against and lost jobs because of veil-­ wearing. According to one source, Sâo Paulo boasts the highest  Ibid., 112, 115–19.  On the “order of creation,” see also Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002), part 3:314. 51  Keener maintains the head coverings’ primary aim is to serve as “markers of gender and modesty.” Craig S.  Keener, Spirit Hermeneutics: Reading Scripture in Light of Pentecost (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 78. 52  Valente, “From Inception to Present,” 56–57. On veil-wearing and Italian Pentecostalism in Australia and Brazil, see Hutchinson, Pellegrini: An Italian Protestant Community, 21–22. 49 50

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concentration of Muslims and Islamic institutions of any city in Brazil.53 The Brás Muslim presence, which remains the CC’s central hub (home to the mother church), undeniably informs the religious meaning attached to wearing the veil. The salience of the Brás church today among the CC global community illuminates why veil-wearing is still so valued in the movement.

Whither Egalitarian Ministry? Among US evangelicals, pentecostal denominations, historically, have veered toward fewer restrictions on female ministry. While there is a visible penchant for egalitarianism (men and women as partners in every facet of ministry), there remains significant discrepancy among pentecostals, especially from one world region to another. On the other end of the spectrum are those pentecostals adopting a hierarchical view (that women should keep silent in church and only instruct children and other women).54 In light of historical patterns, Lisa Stephenson suggests: Though the tradition has generally affirmed that the Spirit of God empowers women as well as men, the proper spheres of activity for this empowering have been repeatedly limited for women. This is the case because while Pentecostals affirmed women’s capacity to be used by God, they could also affirm a hierarchical anthropology that relegated women to subservient positions with respect to men. Claims to empowerment were simultaneously juxtaposed with claims to divine order.55

While pentecostals affirm that the Holy Spirit empowers and uses women alongside men, this egalitarian principle is often paired with a hierarchical reading and anthropology. For some, the biblical principle of a “divine order”—from Christ to man to woman—implies hierarchy, and thus subordination—but this is a bias the reader brings to the text. Assumptions 53  Hasan Shahid, “Forging a Brazilian Islam: Muslim Converts Negotiating Identity in São Paulo,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 39, no. 2 (June 2019): 232. 54  The AG (US) and Church of God (Anderson, IN) have proved significantly more open to ordaining women than the Evangelical Free Church, the Free Methodist Church, or the Southern Baptist Convention. Aída Besançon Spencer, “Evangelicals and Gender,” in Stiller et al., Evangelicals Around the World, 117; Debra Fieguth, quoted in Spencer, “Evangelicals and Gender,” 118. 55  Lisa Stephenson, Dismantling the Dualisms for American Pentecostal Women in Ministry: A Feminist-Pneumatological Approach (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 18.

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based on a literal reading of passages such as 1 Corinthians 11:3–16, without regard for historical context and figurative language, encourage subordinationism. The “order” of creation can also convey the meaning of “harmony” or “purposeful arrangement.”56 An interpretive lens construing the meaning of order exclusively in terms of hierarchy encourages limitations on female ministry. Reflecting the egalitarian spirit of the early revivals, in the first decades of the twentieth century, women shared many of the same opportunities as men. The pentecostal awakenings nurtured trailblazers for female ministers such as the dynamic preachers and church-planters Maria Woodworth-­ Etter and Marie Burgess Brown. Carrying on the flame was the Canadian radio broadcaster and founder of the Foursquare Gospel Church (FGC), Aimee Semple McPherson, and the noted healer and pioneer of Christian television broadcasting, Kathryn Kuhlman.57 The early revivals reflected broader turn-of-the-twentieth-century trends, including increased employment opportunities for US women. Presaging the new egalitarian climate was the ordination in 1853 of Antoinette Brown by the Congregationalist Church, followed by the initiatives of several US denominations to ordain women in the late nineteenth century. Despite such developments, the exclusive rights of ordained ministry were reserved for the few “exceptional” women.58 Notwithstanding, pentecostal churches still rivalled the autonomy mainline contexts allotted to women, inviting females to serve in a range of leadership positions. Although limits were placed on governance posts, women often became evangelists and missionaries with the liberty to preach, teach, and administer sacraments. And despite some boundary markers, many enjoyed the opportunity to pastor. Mainline churches were appalled at the shift among pentecostal churches from conventional 56  Ananda Geyser-Fouche and Bernice Serfontein, “Creation Order in Sapiential Theology: An Ecological-Evolutionary Perspective on Cosmological Responsibility,” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 75, no. 3 (2019): 1–10. 57  Leah Payne, Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism: Making a Female Ministry in the Early Twentieth Century, Christianity & Renewal—Interdisciplinary Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 2–6; Elizabeth Schuster, “Honoring Glad Tidings Tabernacle New York, On Its 50th Anniversary,” PE, May 5, 1957, 16–17, 20; Dwight J.  Wilson, “Kuhlman, Kathryn,” in Burgess, NIDPCM, 826–27; Helen Kooiman Hosier, Kathryn Kuhlman: The Life She Led, the Legacy She Left (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1976), 146–51. 58  Estrelda Alexander, “The Future of Women in Ministry,” in Synan, Spirit-Empowered Christianity, 376.

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patriarchalism.59 The early paradigm for American pentecostal women extended well beyond the United States. For example, in the Brazilian CC, women served as deaconesses, cooperators, Sunday school teachers, and orchestra conductors; although they were not ordained as elders, many preached as part of their duties as cooperators.60 The original freedom of female ministers evinced a distinct tie to pentecostal eschatology, which interpreted the “early and the later rain” of Joel 2:23 as reaching fulfillment in two separate stages. The events depicted in Acts 2 (the “early” rain) were consummated in the initial pentecostal revivals (the “later” rain). Joel’s eschatological vision—that “your sons and your daughters shall prophecy” (2:28)—was seen as reaching a new level of fulfillment in the empowering of women to preach.61 Moreover, the prophetic urgency of pentecostal premillennialism, hastening Christ’s return, encouraged female voices to be heard. In the business of salvaging as many souls as possible before the imminent demise of the lost at the Parousia, all parties were welcome. Males and females alike were desired as gospel preachers regardless of their predicament. There was no need for a formal promotional system because the baptism and gifts of the Spirit sufficed as proof of one’s fitness to minister.62 During the World Wars era, female ministry opportunities diminished considerably—hitherto “limited restrictions” became “severe restrictions.”63 Charles Barfoot and Gerald Sheppard attribute this development to the shift from the “prophetic” to the “priestly” character of Pentecostalism. During the 1920s, the accent on prophetic preaching and charisma (the Spirit’s anointing) moderated as Pentecostalism became more credal and regimented. One’s fitness to serve was no longer ascribed chiefly to personal calling. The 1931 AG (US) General Council passed a resolution denying a woman’s right to perform the sacraments, pointing to the lack of scriptural precedent for women priests.64 Sociological theory ascribes the shift to priestly forms to the Weberian concept of 59  Ibid., 376–77; Charles H.  Barfoot and Gerald T.  Sheppard, “Prophetic vs. Priestly Religion: The Changing Role of Women Clergy in Classical Pentecostal Churches,” Review of Religious Research 22, no. 1 (1980): 2–17. 60  Valente, “From Inception to Present,” 47–48. 61  Blumhofer, Assemblies of God, 355–56; Barfoot and Sheppard, “Prophetic vs. Priestly Religion,” 4. 62  Alexander, “Future of Women in Ministry,” 381. 63  Ibid., 395. 64  Barfoot and Sheppard, “Prophetic vs. Priestly Religion,” 4–14.

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­routinization”—when charismatic leadership stabilizes into enduring “ roles of authority.65 Accordingly, as the once sectarian, lower ranking pentecostal movement adopted traits of middle-class mainline churches, it acceded to the hierarchism it initially decried. If the “religion of the disprivileged classes,” as Weber maintains, is indeed “characterized by a tendency to allot equality to women,” then Pentecostalism’s growing affluence is linked directly to the erosion of its egalitarian foundations.66 A moderating eschatological outlook underscored the transition from prophetic Pentecostalism. When decades had passed and Christ still had not returned, the pentecostals’ millenarianism streamlined, as did their anti-denominational-and-organizational sentiment.67 The response of pentecostal women to the new climate took on several expressions, as Estrelda Alexander observes: Some established or involved themselves in gender-segregated women’s auxiliaries as a way of maintaining some degree of autonomy and control over the areas of religious life that pertained primarily to women. Others took on areas of less interest to men, such as missionary societies or prayer bands to support the spiritual needs of the broader church. Still others— who bought into the central conservative arguments of “the woman’s sphere” and into a very conservative view of a woman’s place—confined themselves to home responsibilities, giving up hope of undertaking leadership roles in the church.68

This redefined paradigm for female ministry plotted the trajectory for classical Brazilian Pentecostalism for years to come. In the CC, women were no longer granted the honorary status of “deaconess.” Instead, those carrying out the same responsibilities as deacons were designated irmãs da piedade (sisters of piety).69 Women can call hymns, pray, and testify, but if any males are present, regardless of their age, females take the backseat in speaking roles. As Valente’s study suggests, “If there is no adult male member present, but only an unbaptized boy, he will be asked to open the

65  Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 251–52. 66  Max Weber, “The Sociology of Religion,” rev. ed. (Boston: Beacon, 1963), 104. 67  Alexander, “Future of Women in Ministry,” 395–96. 68  Ibid., 377–78. 69  Monteiro, “Congregação Cristã no Brasil,” 139.

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prayer instead of the sisters of piety.”70 Most expressed feeling uncomfortable with women speaking in a congregational setting—and never without the veil. Outside the church, there is greater toleration for women preaching and prophesying (but only if wearing the veil). Valente concludes that the tension surrounding women speaking (and the corresponding use of the veil) was not motivated chiefly by sexism, acknowledging that the CC position was: “based on the assumption of traditions, which include the assumption of a male ministry based on the literal biblical interpretation of Paul’s writing.”71 The extent of female music ministry has also diminished in the Brazilian CC—now limited to organ playing. While a handful of countries follow Brazil’s lead in this respect (such as France, Paraguay, and Japan), most of the CC globally, including the United States, allows women to serve as official musicians (playing whatever instrument they choose). Among the limited positions a woman in the Brazilian CC occupies are cleaner, tailor, youth worker, and usher.72 Despite such changes, the legacy of Luigi Francescon’s wife, Rosina, carries on in the Francescons’ Chicago home church, where she was revered for many years as a distinguished deaconess and Bible school director. To this day, the church to which Luigi and Rosina belonged recognizes women as deaconesses.73 In my interview with Roberta DaCosta, I asked if she could comment on female ministry in the US CC: Palma: R. DaCosta:

What ministry opportunities are afforded women in the CC? Did you enjoy the same opportunities to minister and worship (in song, musically, or speech) as men in the church? In the US CC, women have the same opportunity to worship as men would. They can play with any instruments and/or the organ (men don’t play the organ in the CC). They can testify, pray, teach musical classes, work on the piety. But women cannot preach the Word, and I believe it’s biblical that women should not have a ministry of authority.74

 Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” 326.  Valente, “From Inception to Present,” 58. 72  Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” 326; Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil.” 73  Valente, “From Inception to Present,” 58; Toppi, Madri in Israele, 21–22. 74  R. DaCosta, interview. 70 71

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Roberta’s response encompasses the contrast between the US CC and its Brazilian counterpart. While women can play any instrument and teach music in the United States, there remains notable contrast between male and female roles in corporate worship: organ-playing is a distinctively female activity while only males are supposed to preach. Roberta’s perspective echoes the results of Valente’s study. Both claim such differentiation is not misogynistically motivated. According to Roberta, there is an underlying assumption of authority predicated on the biblical character of male ministry; however, even now as an outsider of the movement, she takes no offense with this issue. Roberta’s problem was not chiefly with the differentiated roles of male and female worship and ministry, as a subsequent response of her reveals: I enjoyed the liturgy, and that everyone participated in the worship. Anyone could request a hymn to be sung, pray or testify. I enjoyed that openness, even though at points it wasn’t as dynamic as services in other churches due to waiting on people to call a hymn or to pray. Unfortunately, with the change of hymnbook, came big changes in the hymns and the doctrine, which made it close to impossible to stay. They have a higher regard for the pulpit than they do for the Bible.75

Roberta’s concern was with a doctrinal shift. By “big changes,” she is alluding to the 2013 hymnbook and article modifications, which reflected a diminishing view of scripture and the Trinity (as addressed in Chap. 6). Across the several variations of the CA there is a noticeable range in attitudes toward women in ministry. While the Argentine CA was initially more flexible about female positions, some congregations developed restrictions, specifically regarding administrative posts.76 Short of ordaining elders, the Brazilian CA encourages women to pursue involvement as deaconesses, administrators, secretaries, gatekeepers, musicians (any instrument of their choosing), and choir conductors.77 The CA’s North American counterpart, the International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies (IFCA), represents an exception to the trend toward increasing restriction. IFCA women have served as licensed ministers and  Ibid.  The Argentine CA (Villa Lynch), now affiliated with the CC, maintained women should not have a vote nor participate in administrative posts. Saracco, “Argentine Pentecostalism: Historical Roots,” 272. 77  Coutinho, interview. 75 76

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preachers since the 1970s. Today, women enjoy virtually all the same ministry opportunities as men, many being ordained and several serving as lead pastor.78 Much like their Italian-founded counterparts, in its formative years, the AD approved of women ministers. A revered leader and newspaper columnist, Gunnar Vingren’s wife, Frida, was consecrated as a deacon in Rio de Janeiro in 1925. She took the helm of Gunnar’s outreach during the many years he was ill. Presently, most of the ministérios (ministries) ban women from official positions. The few exceptions permit women to the role of deaconess but rarely to the pastorate. The highest offices, including pastors and pastor-presidents, are off-limits. As Aretha Beatriz Brito da Rocha observes, “The apex of priestly exercise within the AGs belongs exclusively to the men.”79 The only national convention permitting women to serve in the pastorate is the Ministry of Madureiro. The ban against pastoring traces to the end of the Vingrens’ ministry. Sanctions were placed on female ministry at the 1930 Natal convention, creating a stir among Frida and other women preachers. Frida used her newspaper column to challenge the convention’s proceedings, fending for a woman’s right to preach and pastor. Her actions garnered hostility from the Brazilian leadership, and they refused her petition to continue the outreach in the country.80 The typical offices held by AD women—prayer circle leaders, visitadoras (performing home visitations to the sick and newly converted), choir members, and Sunday school instructors—are bereft of men. According to Andrew Chesnut, the AD’s limitation of female ministry reflects broader societal trends:

 “Eastern District,” Galvano, FACCNA, 238–42.  “O ápice do exercício sacerdotal dentro das ADs é exclusivo aos homens.” Aretha Beatriz Brito da Rocha, Emancipação feminina sob autoridade masculina: Aspectos religiosos e sociais das mulheres assembleianas no Brasil (master’s thesis, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas, 2018), 66. 80  Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 122; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 135–36; Isael de Araújo, Frida Vingren: Uma biografia da mulher de Deus, esposa de Gunnar Vingren, pioneiro das Assembleias de Deus no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, CPAD: 2015); Camilla Veras Mota, “A missionária sueca perseguida no Brasil, internada em hospício e ‘esquecida’ pela História,” BBC News (Brasil), July 22, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/ geral-44731827. For an in-depth treatment of Frida’s objections and the controversy surrounding the Natal convention, see Alencar, Matriz Pentecostal Brazileira, 118–35. The expanding CADB permits women to the pastorate. Chagas, “Nova Convenção da Assembleia de Deus no Brasil.” 78 79

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Though excluded from the centralized decision-making apparatus of their church, women empower themselves through participation in a set of organizations more focused on proselytory and spiritual work than administrative affairs. This sexual division of labor undoubtedly reinforces the stereotyped gender roles of Brazilian secular society. Nevertheless, for many women, the church provides them with their first opportunity to engage in extradomestic activity independent of their husbands or amigos.81

Despite the apparent restrictions, church involvement represents an emboldening force considering the more confined structure of Brazilian society.

Trajectories Moving Forward The need to promote gender distinction offers a viable explanation for some religious practices. Another practice expressing the same sentiment is the physical partitioning of men from women during the CC worship service, with men seated on one side of the congregation and women on the other.82 DaCosta comments on the cause of the separation tradition, noting, “Men would infiltrate to sit next to the pretty sisters. To avoid bad intentions, harassment, and distractions during the service, they separated them.”83 Like the veil-wearing tradition, this practice is not seen chiefly as a means of subserviating women, as much as it is an attempt to underscore a woman’s uniqueness. Indeed, some females find the more austere expectations for dress in classical Brazilian churches appealing, citing it among the reasons they chose to attend a particular congregation. Some feel that dress and makeup regulations afford a platform for communicating the Christian values by which they live. Churches with restrictive codes appeal to disadvantaged Brazilian women, many of whom are overworked and underpaid domestic servants, seeking a safe, affirming church home free of gender discrimination. In a Brazil-based study, Cecília Loreto Mariz and María das Dores Campos Machado suggest that “the discreet, non-­ provocative clothes” of pentecostals “protect poor women from sexual  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 137.  Monteiro, “Congregação Cristã no Brasil,” 142; A.  H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 70; Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” 323. On separating genders during worship in an Italian-Australian pentecostal context, see Hutchinson, Pellegrini: An Italian Protestant Community, 210. 83  W. DaCosta, interview. 81 82

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harassment.”84 Additionally, the dress code provides a congregational standard to be observed by general congregants and ministers alike. In contrast to denominations where clergy are expected to wear distinctive garb, male and female congregants dress like clergypersons of the respective sex. It seems that while the line between male and female remains pronounced, the difference between clergy and laity is softened.85 In view of the influence of first-century Jewish, Roman, and Greek culture on veil-wearing in 1 Corinthians 11, one must admit multiple meanings of the practice. Among these, the veil’s representation of distinction could be interpreted as an attempt to recover the primal harmony of creation—man and woman each bearing the imago Dei yet remaining unique one from another. While a person can argue that gendered-based contrasts in dress and behavior reinforce stereotypes and anxieties, an equal claim can be made in support of the psychological value of such differences. In a contemporary society confronted with gender dysphoria (a clinical condition rooted in feelings of distress or uncertainty about one’s gender identity), perhaps there is a silver lining in a social setting intentionally demarcating males from females.86 From a semiotics perspective, the way a person dresses provides a visual, non-verbal form of identity expression. It may be that dressing in a way that openly affirms the difference between being male and female helps some congregants deal with lingering confusion and uncertainty about who they were made to be.87 The two loci addressed in this chapter—dress and ministry opportunity—consist in a dialectic between differentiation and equality. Understating the equality of male and female is as much of a pitfall as undermining their created uniqueness. As creatures made alike in the image of God, some aspects of the ministry vocation are intended to be shared by males and females. Today, most pentecostal women find themselves navigating the space between traditional patriarchy and feminist individualism, seeking new ways to express the model of gender equality 84  Mariz and Machado, “Pentecostalism and Women in Brazil,” 50. On the “feminization of poverty” in Brazil, see Chesnut and Kingsbury, “Pentecostalism in Brazil,” 5. 85  W. DaCosta, interview. 86  Mark A. Yarhouse, Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015), 19. 87  M.  E. Roach-Higgins and J.  B. Eicher, “Dress and Identity,” Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 10, no. 4 (Summer 1992). http://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/162438. See also Abdu Murray, Saving Truth: Finding Meaning and Clarity in a Post-Truth World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 121–22.

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embodied in Acts 2. Elaine Gouveia’s 1987 study, situated in the framework of a comparison with the Brasil para Cristo, is less favorable, noting specifically the CC’s overt patriarchalism and even oppression of women. While the CC and AD’s more restrictive ministry program veers in the patriarchal direction, women pursue creative ways to make the most of their limited opportunities while embracing Pentecostalism’s solidity for their family life.88 Mariz and Machado, whose study deals extensively with the AD, comment on the status of pentecostal women in Brazil: Pentecostalism seems to adopt an intermediate position between traditional machismo and feminism, which is seen as threatening the continuity of the family that is the raison d’être of many oppressed women. It is for this reason that Pentecostalism seems to be so appealing to women, who, upon conversion, acquire greater autonomy in relation to their husbands and families while avoiding direct confrontation. In entering the church, women are in fact seeking greater independence, but their intention is only their salvation and the salvation of their husbands and their households. According to the Pentecostal view, individuals cannot hold their own happiness as the main goal of their lives; God must be placed above all.89

Despite persistent limits on female ministry, women are drawn to Pentecostalism for the stability it affords in church and home. Also noteworthy is the contemporary “professionalization” of the ministry. As Edith Blumhofer remarked in her 1989 study of the AG, American pentecostal ministry was initially conceived of as “Christian service rather than as sources of income. As a more professional concept of the ministry evolved within the movement, the participation of women preachers declined.”90 Blumhofer’s perspective on diminishing female roles offers insight into the AD, where ministers are salaried. On the other hand, in the CC and CA, the clergy remain unpaid, requiring another explanation for the dwindling number of women ministers. Other reasons are particularly applicable to the Brazilian CC, for which the abovementioned shifts— socioeconomically and regarding eschatology and priestly Pentecostalism—hold sway. 88  Elaine Gouveia, “O silêncio que debe ser ouvido: Mulheres pentecostais em São Paulo” (master’s thesis, Universidade Pontificia Católica de São Paulo, 1987). 89  Mariz and Machado, “Pentecostalism and Women in Brazil,” 52. 90  Blumhofer, Assemblies of God, 357. See also Alexander, “Future of Women in Ministry,” 396.

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I have noted throughout the salient differences between the North American and Brazilian expressions of the movements which, particularly regarding female ministry, are most apparent in the Assemblies of God. In contrast to the AD (including the North American reaching Bethlehem Ministry), the AG (US) has recovered the ethos exemplifying the period of prophetic Pentecostalism. The latter’s 2010 position paper, “The Role of Women in Ministry,” expressly states: After examining the various translations and interpretations of biblical passages relating to the role of women in the first-century church, and desiring to apply biblical principles to contemporary church practice, we conclude that we cannot find convincing evidence that the ministry of women is restricted according to some sacred or immutable principle.91

In practice, the AG followed suit, accommodating numerous women to ordained leadership positions, including that of district presbyter and head pastor. Comprised of a team of women lead and associate pastors, the AG Network of Women Ministers was installed to mobilize women to discover and embrace their ministry calling. In 2019, the AG elected the first female to its executive team, Donna Barrett. As the General Secretary, Barrett oversees credentialing, church chartering, and the AG’s Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center archives (the world’s largest archive of its kind).92 The FGC likewise has taken the lead in this area. Alongside electing the denomination’s founder, McPherson, as president, two women were recently chosen among ten field supervisors to oversee churches within their region.93 Will the classical pentecostal churches of the Americas return to the dynamic opportunities for female ministry marking the early pentecostal revivals? Will a new era welcome in fresh possibilities, exceeding even that experienced in the early period? Despite the work needed to restore (or 91  “The Role of Women in Ministry,” Assemblies of God (USA), adopted August 9–11, 2010, under “Therefore We Conclude,” https://ag.org/Beliefs/Position-Papers/ the-role-of-women-in-ministry. 92  “National Team,” AG Network of Women Ministers, accessed October 8, 2021, https://www.womenministers.ag.org/copy-of-about-nwm; Megan Fowler, “Assemblies of God Elects First Woman to Top Leadership Team,” Christianity Today, August 8, 2019, https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/august/assemblies-of-god-elects-first-­­ woman-general-secretary-donn.html. 93  Alexander, “The Future of Women in Ministry,” 398.

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realize anew) a robust egalitarian ministry, several recent studies agree that Brazilian pentecostal churches afford women a support network—the means to defend their interests while enhancing their self-confidence.94 Although there is limited space for females in the Brazilian CC and AD’s official ministry, many still find a vital sense of faith and belonging in these denominations, emboldening them for Christian service in day-to-day life. Mariz reminds that one’s definition of leadership comes into play here, pointing to examples of AD women who step out and lead despite the limited career opportunities available to them. Women lead by converting their husbands and encouraging them to pursue ministry training and vocational opportunities. According to Mariz, “The unofficial leadership of wives may support some official male leadership.”95 As global Pentecostalism redefines our categories for comprehending gender in the twenty-first century, there remains hope for a renewal of Joel’s collective vision of “sons and daughters” united in worship and ministry vocation.

94  Mariz and Machado, “Pentecostalism and Women in Brazil,” 42. See also David A.  Smilde, “Gender Relations and Social Change in Latin American Evangelicalism,” in Coming of Age: Protestantism in Contemporary Latin America, ed. Daniel R. Miller (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994). 95  Mariz, Coping with Poverty, 86.

CHAPTER 9

Holiness Ethic, Separatism, and the Politics of Trans-Americas Pentecostalism

The dialectic between the church and the world, faith and culture, and private and political pivots on acknowledging the many conflicting spheres of human experience. Such tensions are pronounced within the pentecostal worldview. The pentecostal ecclesia is a sacred space for worship, embodied in a life set apart. Pentecostals have tended toward apoliticism or, at best, an “otherworldly” politics, preoccupied not with present administrations, bureaucracies, and legislatures but with the future spiritual and prophetic divine order. Historically, the classical pentecostal contexts forming the basis for this book, tracing from Chicago to Brazil and back to the United States, followed the typical pattern. However, there remains significant contrast among them, particularly between the Italian and Swedish branches in this transnational and migratory pentecostal flow. Alongside a steady shift in polity and civic involvement after WWII, an evaluation of the movements suggests an increasingly more nuanced politicality. These trends parallel the transition in recent decades to democratic forms of government and privatization at the expense of the poor.1 The ubiquity of pentecostals in the United States and Brazil—the latter surpassing that of any nation—demands a place for them in the public sector. Historically, the Catholic Church has dominated Brazil’s religious (and political) landscape. Despite the establishment of religious freedom  Hunt, “Evaluating Prophetic Radicalism,” 174.

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_9

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in the wake of Brazil’s independence from Portugal in 1822, Catholicism remained the religion of a strongly centralized imperial state. With the rise of the “political priest” (clerics acting as an extension of the state), Pedro II resisted Rome’s ultramontanism. Among other reasons—including hostility from ex-slaveholders (after the 1888 emancipation decree) and failure to represent the emerging middle class—pressure from the Catholic Church contributed to his ousting by military coup in 1889 and the induction of the Old Republic (1889–1930). Because of Pedro’s resistance to anti-Masonic laws, questionable ecclesiastic administration, and vacillation between conservative and liberal parties (many openly opposing the decrees of Vatican I), he fell out of favor and lost the covering of Rome.2 Following another coup, under the presidency of left-wing populist Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945; 1951–1954), Brazil began to industrialize. During the Vargas Era, new policies designed to benefit urban workers and small farmers coincided with rapid population growth. The close of WWII introduced a second republic and widespread democracy. The pendulum swung back in the direction of centralized power from 1964 to 1985 under the military dictatorship. As armed forces wrested power from the state, the Catholic Church reasserted itself according to the new vision heralded by Vatican II to instill strength in the hands of the poor and oppressed. While the military handed control back to civilians and a new democratic constitution was adopted (1988), the 1980s and 1990s were marked by economic turmoil as inflation levels soared.3 Only a half-century ago, religion in Brazil was synonymous with Catholicism—a conservative, antidemocratic entity with close ties to oligarchies.4 The country’s religious and political shape has shifted considerably since then, particularly as “Pentecostals/Charismatics” close the gap 2  George C. A. Boehrer, “The Church and the Overthrow of the Brazilian Monarchy,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 48, no. 3 (August 1968), 382–88, 399. The clergy would have accepted the rule of Pedro’s daughter and devout Catholic, Isabel, however, she was forced into exile with the rest of the royal family (394–95). 3  Eakin, Brazil: The Once and Future Country, 123, 171–72, 192–93; Richard Lapper, Beef, Bible and Bullets: Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021), 7; Martin, Tongues of Fire, 64–65; Eric Patterson, Latin America’s Neo-­ Reformation: Religion’s Influence on Contemporary Politics (New York: Routledge, 2005), 57. 4  Daniel H. Levine, “Conclusion: Evangelicals and Democracy—the Experience of Latin America in Context,” in Freston, Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Latin America, 209.

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on total Catholics (now numbering about 108 and 150 million, respectively).5 Brazil’s stilted economy, alongside several political scandals at the close of the twentieth century, accompanied a lagging interest and involvement in politics on the part of both Catholics and Protestants.6 While the trend has been declining political interest among religious adherents, in recent decades some pentecostals, notably the Brazilian Assemblies of God, have moved against the grain. This chapter broaches the domain of pentecostal politics in juxtaposition to the “holiness ethic” of the classical pentecostal contexts of interest. The early versions of each trended in the separationist direction characteristic of early pentecostals. Today, each maintains a salient countercultural ethic. Such dynamics are assessed across the movements in light of their degree of abstentionism (refraining from commonly acceptable social activities). Abstentionism, and separationism more generally, represent the opposite end in the spectrum of political engagement, indicative of the movements’ pronounced apoliticism early on. I wish to illustrate how three historically similar, yet unique transnational movements inform our understanding of pentecostal politicality. En route to this end, the discussion evaluates the correspondence between the ecclesiology and politics of the Christian Congregation, Christian Assembly, and Assemblies of God. The proceeding argument consists of a sustained dialogue with H. Richard Niebuhr’s 1951 Christ and Culture.

Christ, Culture, and the Apolitical Pentecostal As a segue to considering the unique politicalities of the movements, a closer look at common paradigms for comprehending the relationship between “Christ” (representing the spiritual and ecclesial) and “culture” (the political) will prove illuminating. In their developing years, the transnational movements providing the basis for this study embodied the separatistic ethos common among holiness and pentecostal movements of the early twentieth century. A counterculturalism typified this attitude, reflected in conservative dress and abstention from social activities like smoking, drinking, gambling, and, in the most austere cases, movies and 5   Johnson and Zurlo, “Country: Brazil,” WCD, accessed June 5, 2022, https:// worldchristiandatabase-­org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/country/28/98-churches. 6  In 1993, scandals related to the resignation of President Fernando Collor de Mello and some Congressional matters. Patterson, Latin America’s Neo-Reformation, 57–58.

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sporting events. Their sectarianism consisted of an anti-Catholicism and wariness of Protestants, including, in some instances, other pentecostal movements. Even into the 1960s, the Christian Congregation (CC) avoided other “Spirit-filled” groups and had virtually no contact with the Assemblies of God. The two largest conventions of the AD, the General Convention of the Assemblies of God in Brazil (CGADB) and the Ministry of Madureira, still prohibit its members from participating in ecumenical affairs. Like other classical pentecostals, the movements gave little thought to the pressing civic issues of their day, let alone voting, supporting political causes, or running for office. This austerity has moderated across the board. Today an increasing interest can be observed in social and political matters, especially among the AD.7 Uniting classical pentecostals is an ecclesiology of a people set apart and baptized in the Spirit in anticipation of the future, albeit imminent, in-­ breaking of the kingdom of God.8 The Christly sphere consists of a common pneumatic substructure accented by a premillennial eschatology. In step with most pentecostals, the baptism in the Spirit (complemented by the Spirit’s gifts and languages) infuses the movements with a robust pneumatology. The local, ideally congregational pentecostal church is embodied in the designation of individual parishes as casas de oração (“houses of prayer”), dependent on the Spirit’s leading and forward-­ looking character.9 The impending return and millennial reign of Christ are already (but not yet fully) being realized in the present realm through an energizing expectancy and longing for the divine kingdom. Digressing to Niebuhr’s contribution, one must consider the meaning of “culture.” Can “culture” be defined in general terms, or is it always colored by an individual’s vantage point? Implicitly, the word “culture” 7  Wacker, Heaven Below, 127–29, 221; Holiness Church, Discipline of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, 1925 (London: Forgotten Books, 2016), sec. III, art. 5. Initially, the Italian pentecostal holiness ethic also entailed abstinence from cosmetics and card-playing. Cumbo, “Your Old Men,” 44 See also Usarski, “Brazil,” 392; Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 122; Steven M. Studebaker, A Pentecostal Political Theology for American Renewal: Spirit of the Kingdoms, Citizens of the Cities. Christianity & Renewal—Interdisciplinary Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); and Du Plessis, “1,400 ‘Christian Congregations’ (Pentecostal) in Brazil,” 5. Francescon avoided use of the term “pentecostal” for the title of his denomination. Nichol, Pentecostalism, 165. 8  “Pontos de doutrina,” arts. 7 and 11; “Estatuto da Assembleia Cristã,” art. 22, “Em que acreditamos,” Bethlehem Ministry of the Assemblies of God, accessed September 1, 2021, https://adbelem.org/quem-somos/credo 9  “Estatuto padrão,” arts. 6 and 24; “Estatuto da Assembleia Cristã,” art. 27. On the AD “houses of prayer,” see Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 132.

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carries specific context-laden connotations. While the Westerner holds to one concept of culture, the Indigenous of the Americas proceed from another referent entirely; the latter lacks the ingrained Christian worldview on which Western society was founded. Moreover, as Niebuhr suggests, one’s notion of culture might encompass a place for the Christly sphere (including the church, the Spirit, and the kingdom of God), but only as a single constituent aspect of a culturally pluralistic worldview.10 Given these considerations, Niebuhr arrives at the following definition: Culture is the “artificial, secondary environment” which man superimposes on the natural. It comprises language, habits, ideas, beliefs, customs, social organization, inherited artifacts, technical processes, and values. This “social heritage,” this “reality sui generis,” which the New Testament writers frequently had in mind when they spoke of “the world,” which is represented in many forms but to which Christians like other men are inevitably subject, is what we mean when we speak of culture.11

For Niebuhr, culture is a realm which the Christian, like anyone else, is liable to by virtue of his or her humanity. A purposiveness undergirds culture in so far as it represents what humanity thinks about and does with nature—the “work of men’s minds and hands.”12 Such a definition is not overtly political, inviting the typically apolitical pentecostal to consider its ramifications in light of the broader dialectic between the “church” and the “world” (or, as it is often construed, between “faith” and “culture”).13 On the other hand, Niebuhr admits the basic political dimension of culture. He refers to culture’s “social organization,” suggesting its intrinsic constitutional character. At the risk of reducing Niebuhr’s claims, we may define the core facets of each approach within his five-fold schema as Christ: “against culture” (opposition between the church and a world corrupted by sin); “above culture” (everything good in humanity is a gift from God and nothing in culture compares to the truths or sacraments of the church); “in paradox with culture” (underscoring the tension between God’s present kingdom and the God-ordained worldly institutions Christians must work within); “transforming culture” (all areas of society must be reformed and reclaimed  Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 30–31, 39.  Ibid., 32. 12  Ibid., 33. 13  Examples in the NT of the use of “world” (kosmos) this way include Matt. 4:8; 18:7; Mark 16:15; Luke 12:30; John 1:9–10; 3:16 (among about 30 other occurrences in John). 10 11

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in Christ’s name); and “of culture” (promoting the highest moral and spiritual common ground between Christianity and the values of culture).14 At the outset, we may set aside the “of culture” perspective—the pentecostal always posits some fundamental contrast between churchly and worldly values. As already suggested, within Niebuhrian nomenclature, the early phase of classical Pentecostalism is best comprehended through the “against culture” lens. In classical Pentecostalism’s initial phase, the only fitting response to a corrupt world was separationism, maintained by an ethic of nonparticipation in activities deemed “sinful” (or at least more likely to lead to sin). The “above culture” approach, on the other hand, does hold relevance. Indeed, both in the movements’ early and subsequent phases, the “houses of prayer” were valued as qualitatively superior to anything (or any combination of things) a culturally pluralistic world had to offer. The “above culture” model provides a helpful paradigm for assessing each movement’s progress. But to what degree has the classical Brazilian pentecostal moved beyond his or her stark insulationist penchant to venture the either-or line (either the church or the world, either Christ or culture) to work actively (“in paradox”) within worldly institutions or, taking up the remaining view, to “transform” those institutions? With this end in sight, an analysis of the movements’ abstentionist behavior is revealing. It is worth noting that several contributions have been written since Niebuhr’s landmark work, elaborating and critiquing the ethicist’s claims in view of more recent developments. Craig Carter suggests Niebuhr’s approach is obsolete given the contemporary transition from a Christendom to a “post-Christendom” milieu.15 Carter’s observations speak poignantly to a Western society inundated with secularism and scientific rationalism. It seems, however, taking the cue from Philip Jenkins and Mark Knoll, that one can speak of a “new” or “next” Christendom, specifically regarding the emerging voices of the Global South.16 From one perspective, Christendom has not disappeared but rather has been transmuted into another form and setting. For this reason, Niebuhr’s argument remains  See Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 40–44.  Craig A. Carter, Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006). For a reinterpretation from the standpoint of biblical theology, see D. A. Carson, Christ & Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). 16  Alongside Jenkins’ The Next Christendom, Mark A. Noll spoke of the “new shape” of Christianity in reference to its now decidedly global character. Noll, New Shape of World Christianity, 9–10. 14 15

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pertinent, especially for Latin American contexts like Brazil with a deeply imbedded Catholic heritage and booming pentecostal demographic. Moreover, Niebuhr remains relevant because his line of reasoning frames much of the ongoing “theology and culture” conversation. The ensuing argument makes a leap akin to that of Amy E. Black, who proposes that Niebuhr’s taxonomy is best interpreted in terms of Christian “engagement.” The concept of engagement allows one to read Niebuhr in such a way that the terms “culture” and “politics” become interchangeable—the models entailing the most cultural engagement also demand the most political engagement.17 By “politics,” implicit is the Medieval Latin polı ̄tica, implying “public” or “civic” affairs. This usage leads to the working definition of politics hereafter adopted, namely “engagement in the public square.”18 Such engagement can be understood as the end goal of “political theology,” which, as defined by Amos Yong, at the foundational level “insists that human beings take responsibility for their lives in the public square.”19 Political theology combines proleptic belief in God’s salvific power and future world restoration with concrete practices in the here and now.

Abstentionism’s Abating Grip The degree of political engagedness of classical Brazilian pentecostals is best comprehended against the backdrop of their early separationism. Over the twentieth century, the abstentionist ethic of the movements moderated across the board. Before phasing out in the mid-twentieth century, the holiness ethic expressed a spirituality typical of the early pentecostal. Many of the initial adherents had experienced a decisive conversion, especially Italians and others transitioning from their Native Catholicism. The baptism in the Spirit followed suit as a definite “crisis” experience. Their social behaviors carried on the same vivid contrast between the

17  Amy E. Black, “Introduction: Christian Traditions and Political Engagement,” in Five Views on the Church and Politics, ed. Amy E. Black (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 8–9. 18  Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “politics,” accessed September 29, 2021, https:// www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politics. Health defines politics, in light of Protestant dissent in the Global North, as “the direct involvement with government, or engagement in the public square.” Gordon L. Heath, “Dissenting Traditions and Politics in the Anglophone World,” in Hutchinson, Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, 63. 19  Yong, In the Days of Caesar, 352.

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ecclesia and the world.20 In the early years of the respective Italian- and Swedish-founded movements, the austere ethic fomented ties, establishing a bond for agrarian migrants who found themselves in a foreign, urban industrialized context. The cultural upheaval experienced in the transplantation from the Old to the New World was assuaged by the shared identity discovered in the pentecostal ecclesia. The holiness ethic reinforced communal rapport, especially as the Euro-US migrant cohorts launched their South American outreach. Into the 1920s, both the CC and AD maintained a significant ethnoreligious base among their respective Italian and Swedish diaspora.21 As the movements indigenized and became transethnic, the holiness ethic lost its acerbity but endured. From a comparative perspective, today the Italian-founded CC and Christian Assembly (CA) admit more of an abstentionist leaning than the AD, but this was not always the case. In its formative years, the AD observed a strict moral code of separation. Disciplinary measures were levied for failing to observe not just the usual restrictions (against drinking, gambling, and the like) but also dress protocols. Regarding the AD, Andrew Chesnut describes: “A rigid code of conduct kept the evil world at bay while creating a sense of group solidarity and distinctiveness.”22 Besides the previously mentioned social taboos, the CC and CA faith articles oppose blood product consumption, especially blood sausages (Por., chouriço). Undergirding the “Blood Issue” was a literalist interpretation of the first-century Jerusalem Council restriction of “what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication” (Acts 15:29). The abstinence clause was directed toward Gentile Christians in the interest of promoting table fellowship with their Jewish counterparts; the former hailed from a background where consuming ritually used meats and blood-based foods were commonplace. In return for refraining from such activities, Jewish Christians were urged to cease imposing circumcision on Gentiles (vv. 1–11). The clause against “fornication” (consensual intercourse outside the bonds of marriage) was never a contested matter for Italian pentecostals (nor is it for most 20  Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 21; Wacker, Heaven Below, 29–30; A.  H. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 28–29; Cheryl B. Johns, “From Strength to Strength: The Neglected Role of Crisis in Wesleyan and Pentecostal Discipleship,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 39, no. 1 (2004): 137–53. 21  Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 75–78, 88. The Swedish “free church” heritage played a decisive role in AD expansion in its formative years. Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 119. 22  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 32.

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practicing Christians and Jews) and neither was eating ritually sacrificed meats. But the questions of consuming blood products—and strangling implied blood (intermixing with the animal’s meat when asphyxiated)— created friction among Italians in the United States and Brazil. Drawing on the ceremonial significance of blood in the priestly laws of Moses, Francescon and his followers (the abstainers) interpreted the controversial Acts passage as applying to the present day.23 The average US citizen gives little thought to blood products. Few restaurants in the country feature blood foods as menu items. Nevertheless, the US CC still acknowledges the precedent’s importance. Both US and Brazilian CC liturgy harkens to the Jerusalem Council injunction. At the conclusion of the baptismal rite, the churches recite article 9 (against blood products). In an interview with a US CC church elder, Adrian Galvani, I broached the subject of the baptismal liturgy: Palma:

Can you elaborate on the allusion to blood products in the liturgy? Galvani: After the baptismal ceremony, the person confesses Acts 15, that they will abstain from idols, from blood and strangled meet, and from fornication. Following Acts 15, we will not eat some kinds of sausage because of the blood content, such as foods barbecued in blood, or pig or chicken meet that has been strangled. We have to respect the teaching of the apostles. Because it is a New Testament precedent, we must respect it.24 Reciting the article during baptism, the principal ordinance of the CC, demonstrates alignment with Luigi Francescon and the movement’s Italian foundations. Blood products remained an acceptable food choice for Italy, most of Europe, and South American countries such as Argentina and Brazil. In US contexts, the stigma over blood products has ameliorated. The Italian-founded International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies (IFCA) dropped the clause from their statutes, and US CC 23  See Gen. 9: 4; Lev. 3:17, 17:11, 14; Deut. 12:16, 23. See also French L. Arrington, The Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction and Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 155. 24  Adrian Galvani (pseudonym), interview with the author, January 25, 2019, audio recording, personal files of the author, Hampton, VA.

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members rarely face public situations where one must make a choice. Moreover, it is acknowledged etiquette among members not to inquire with a dinner host whether food has blood content.25 On the other hand, in the South American setting, the precedent on abstaining has practical implications. The Brazilian CC and CA’s decision to forego any blood-­ derived foods entails a countercultural selectivity at restaurants and outdoor barbecues (churrascos).26 While the blood product question was one of the underlying motivations for the first AG (US) national convention, the denomination readily adopted a mediating position.27 In 2001, AG General Superintendent George O.  Wood admitted that the Jerusalem Council’s injunction against blood products “constituted a temporary, but not a permanent concession to cultural sensitivities.”28 Likewise, the AD does not make much of the blood abstinence clause.29 Another point of contention (not restricted to the Italian-founded movements) is alcohol consumption. CA churches in Brazil refrain. Among the CC in Brazil, lay members occasionally drink wine and beer (the expectation for ministers is more stringent).30 The movements’ North American counterparts have moderated their stance. The CA’s US-based predecessor, the IFCA, does not prohibit alcohol, particularly wine-­ drinking. Affording perspective are the movements’ Italian roots. Indeed, Italians played an integral role in popularizing wine-drinking (especially homemade varieties) in the United States.31 While the US CC articles of faith do not explicitly address the issue of alcohol, according to members 25  Calegari (a former CC elder) defends the “abstainers” position, although noting, “The Word of God tells us that you do not ask what you are eating when you go somewhere. I think we should continue not eating blood, but if you eat it by mistake, it is not a sin.” Calegari, interview. 26  P. Palma, Italian American Pentecostalism, 182–85. 27  Burnett, “Forty Years Ago,” 9. 28  Wood, “Exploring Why We Think.” 29  There is no mention of Acts 15 or blood-abstinence in the Bethlehem Ministry of the AD “What We Believe” [Em que acreditamos] statement. 30  Alluding to their fondness for beer, DaCosta (a former member of the CC in Brazil) remarks that members of the AD sometimes refer to CC members, in jest, as “Christian Congregation of the Barrell” (a play on the acronym CCB, Congregação Cristã no Brasil). W. DaCosta, interview. Calegari suggests that CC members occasionally participate in social drinking. Calegari, interview. 31  Edward Albert Maruggi, “Wine Making Tradition,” in LaGumina et  al., Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia, 678; Rose D.  Scherini, “Wine Industry,” in LaGumina et al., Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia, 675–76.

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and former members, occasional consumption (particularly of wine) is acceptable. In my interview with Galvani, I asked for clarification on the CC position: Palma: What is the CC’s attitude toward wine and alcohol? Galvani: The first concern is for the weaker brother. If it causes a brother to stumble, then it is best to abstain. We have to be careful in the eyes of people who are not believers. We do not say “no wine at all.” A little wine every once and while is okay. This is what the apostle Paul meant when he said, “try a little wine for your stomach.” The problem is too much. If someone asks you to have a drink with them, you must be moderate. Maybe at a wedding we will have one glass but that is it.32 Adopting the colloquial “brother” (in Por., irmão), commonly used by members to refer to one another, Galvani alludes to the biblical principle to abstain if it might “make another stumble” (Rom. 14:20). While underscoring the remedial value of wine for one’s digestive system (quoting directly from 1 Tim. 5:23), the emphasis remains one of moderation. The AD, like its US counterpart, opposes alcohol consumption.33 Intriguingly, among the Assemblee di Dio in Italia (the Assemblies of God in Italy), a denomination Italian Americans were integral in pioneering, wine-drinking is acceptable.34 A holiness ethic forbidding alcohol (as well as dancing and smoking) is also observed among pentecostals in transnational Latina/o contexts in Canada. Néstor Medina suggests that some of the impulse behind this ethic is that migrants want to “be vigilant” to clearly delineate themselves from the dominant White Anglo European culture (including church culture) where such practices are condoned.35  Galvani, interview.  “Abstinence from Alcohol,” Assemblies of God (USA), Position Paper, adopted August 2–3, 2016, https://ag.org/Beliefs/Position-Papers/Abstinence-from-Alcohol. 34  Representatives of the IFCA (then the Italian Christian Churches of the USA) and the “Italian District” of the AG (US), supported the Assemblee di Dio in Italia (Assemblies of God in Italy) in their pursuit of religious freedom. Roberto Bracco, Il Risveglio Pentecostale in italia (Rome: ADI, 1967), 33–34; Guy BonGiovanni, “The Pentecostal Movement in Italy,” in Galvano, FACCNA, 116. 35  Néstor Medina, “Hybridity, Migration, and Transnational Relations: Re-Thinking Canadian Pentecostalism from a Latina/o Perspective,” in Wilkinson, Global Pentecostal Movements, 222. 32 33

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The stance against TV and movies likewise has abated across the board for classical pentecostals. Although discouraged in some localities, most CC and CA members watch TV and visit the local cinema.36 While TV and radio were forbidden among the AD well into the twentieth century, today, there are radio programs in some cities and a TV network in the north, Boas novas [Good news].37 A pentecostal scholar and member of the CC, Leonardo Marcondes Alves notes a threefold variation in the conservative ethic along social class lines: In smaller towns and agrarian locations, members often seek adherence to stricter holiness standards. In larger cities, two sets of networks are discernible. The discourse from congregations in poorer neighborhoods emphasizes separation from the world and pursuit of a higher power to overcome everyday trials. Meanwhile, at middle-class congregations, the degree of involvement and the display of the religious practices pertain to a private sphere.38

Alves’ observations have a bearing on churches in both the US and Brazil. In smaller towns, agrarian settings, and poorer urban contexts, the standards remain more stringent. This category is particularly revealing considering the CC’s growth trajectory among family networks. For the middle class, in urban and sub-urban city outskirts, a measure of flexibility is extended. For example, older families, many of Italian ancestry, allow greater discretion in dress. This Weberian interpretation can also be applied to the CA, with those deriving from smaller towns and lower (and working) class contexts exhibiting a more conservative penchant.39 Shedding light on the social class distinction is the theory that pentecostal moral prohibitions (against so-called vices like alcohol and some entertainment forms) are more prevalent among the underprivileged because abstaining is fiscally savvy—saving money and improving household economies. However, as Virginia Garrard suggests, an emphasis on the economic consequences of abstentionist behavior “obscures its greater sociological importance,” which she defines as “the revalorization of the material, psychological, and spiritual currency of the family and the 36  Coutinho (CA elder and a former member of the CC) corroborates the present abstentionist behavior of the churches in Brazil. Coutinho, interview. 37  Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 121. 38  Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil.” 39  Ibid. See also Valente, “Christian Congregation in Brazil,” 325.

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i­ndividuals within it.”40 The purpose of the holiness ethic is to foster solidarity within the church and family in accordance with foundational pentecostal values.

Engaging the Public Square The movements’ abstentionist ethic—toward blood products, alcohol, dancing, TV, and movies—ameliorated over the twentieth century, with each veering from its insular (“against culture”) roots in subsequent years. In light of Niebuhr’s taxonomy, to what degree can it be said that the movements of interest are now either working inside worldly educational, media, and government venues (the “in paradox” perspective) or proactively changing them (the “transforming” approach)? The ensuing argument looks more closely at specific expressions of political engagement among the movements to gauge the degree to which each has evolved beyond its separatistic origins. As a result of economic tumult and scandal in Brazil in the 1990s, the trend among religious advocates, Catholic and Protestant alike, was a waning interest in democracy and supporting the government. According to Eric Patterson’s study, by the mid-2000s, consensus findings “indicate low levels of satisfaction with democracy and declining levels of interest in politics and efficacy.”41 Pentecostals were among those expressing frustration and despondency. Patterson points to the significance of demographic concerns, noting, “We see a system of mutual reinforcement where higher levels of engagement and demographic factors strengthen and build one another.”42 In recent decades, many of Brazil’s classical pentecostals have moved against the grain, exhibiting a religiosity that extends beyond the ecclesia into the civitas, and this level of engagedness is embodied in shifting demographic factors like education. Among the movements, the CC exhibits the least level of political engagement. According to the Brazilian CC’s “Quem somos” [Who we are] statement:

40  Virginia Garrard-Burnett, “Conclusion: Is This Latin America’s Reformation,” in Rethinking Protestantism in Latin America, ed. Virginia Garrard-Burnett and David Stoll (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 204. 41  Patterson, Latin America’s Neo-Reformation, 57–58. 42  Ibid., 81.

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The Christian Congregation has no ties with political parties or ideologies and members of spiritual or administrative positions must refrain from accepting political positions or duties, and the simultaneous exercise of functions in both spheres (political position or responsibility and spiritual or administrative function in the church). Members are recommended to fulfill the civic duties of citizens according to the laws of the country. It is also forbidden for members and those among the Ministry and the Administration to use the name of the Christian Congregation for political, electoral, or ideological purposes.43

The CC articulates a firm separationist stance, forbidding participation in political roles and the use of the denomination’s name for political ends. Such austerity is not fueled by radicalism (anarchical motive) and members still carry out their civic responsibilities according to the law of the land. According to Monteiro, aside from abiding by state laws and condoning the citizenly duty of voting, the CC’s apoliticism consists in “the total separation between State and religion.”44 Despite this history of apoliticism, some members have successfully run for legislative offices in recent years, even in lieu of expressed support from the church, and they were not spurned by the church for doing so (as would have been the expectation decades ago).45 The CC’s separatism extends to the rejection of mass proselytism—avoiding open-air preaching and mass media, including the use of printed material and radio and television broadcasting.46 Keeping with their founder, Francescon, who feigned attention and decried

43  “A Congregação Cristã não tem qualquer vínculo com partidos ou ideologias políticas e os integrantes de cargos espirituais, ou de administração, devem se abster de aceitar cargos ou encargos políticos, sendo incompatível o exercício concomitante de funções em ambas as esferas (cargo ou encargo político e função espiritual ou administrativa na igreja). Recomenda-se aos membros cumprir os deveres cívicos de cidadãos, consoante as leis do país. Também é vedado aos membros, integrantes do Ministério e da Administração utilizar­se do nome da Congregação Cristã para fins políticos, eleitorais ou ideológicos.” “Quem Somos,” Congregação Cristã no Brasil, accessed October 14, 2021, https://www.congregacaocristanobrasil.org.br/institucional/quemsomos. 44  “Na separação total entre Estado e religião.” Monteiro, “Congregação Cristã no Brasil,” 138. Monteiro observes that the CC even prays for their municipal authorities (ibid.). 45  Alves identified the names of several members elected to office, including Coronel Telhada, Bruna Furlan, Jonas Guimarães, Claudia Pereira, Fausto Pinato, Jonas Guimarães, and Edno Guimarães. Leonardo Marcondes Alves, e-mail message to author, January 8, 2022. 46  Freston, “Evangelicals and Politics,” 14; A. Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 70.

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publicity, CC members refuse to promote their weekly worship services.47 Although a website is used, it is limited to essential information like statutes, contact information, and brief explanations of viewpoints. Among the exceptions to this insularity are closed broadcasts for a few senior officials and those living in remote countries. Another recent concession, due to conditions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, was the CC’s decision to publicly stream its services for its English, Portuguese, and Spanish congregations.48 The Brazilian CA is self-described as apolitical, falling somewhere between the CC and AD on the involvement spectrum. It does not, however, prevent its membership from running for political parties (like the CC does). Any advertising for candidates or use of the pulpit for campaigning purposes is forbidden. While congregants are free to vote as they wish, council members must back right-wing candidates. Although the CA, in principle, permits campaigning for office, in practice, it cleaves to its apoliticism, with few actively participating in such a capacity. If the CA shows more willingness than the CC to engage in the public sphere, it is because conciliar initiatives like the General Convention of Christian Churches and the General Convention of Christian Assemblies have expanded their vision. The CA cautiously reaches beyond the insularity that defined the Argentine arm of the movement for so many years.49 More than merely supporting members for political candidacy, the CGADB recently proposed an initiative to start its own political party, the Christian Republican Party (Partido Republicano Cristão).50 Nonetheless, for many years the AD forbade any political involvement. With rising industry and the advent of mass culture after WWII, its public activity increased. Because of its considerable rural presence, the AD benefitted from the 1960s renovation of the rural electorate. In the interest of longevity, by the 1970s it sought the advantages of political ties. Members entered city councils and state legislatures to facilitate building and parade permits and municipal and state employment for congregants. During the 1974 elections, at the urging of the ruling party—who wished to secure a block vote (after obtaining approval from the pastor-president)—two  Du Plessis, “1,400 ‘Christian Congregations’ (Pentecostal) in Brazil,” 5.  See Congregação Cristã no Brasil, accessed October 14, 2021, https://www.congregacaocristanobrasil.org.br/; Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil.” 49  “Estatuto da Assembleia Cristã,” arts. 1 and 12; Coutinho, interview. 50  Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 122. 47 48

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members ran for state deputy. The turning point was the 1985 General Convention, when the motion was passed to elect a member from each state to congress.51 The pastor-president became a point-person between the church and the dominant political entity, carrying out the role of the typical property owner (patrão). As David Stoll suggests: It was not long before politicians realized that senior pastors could perform miracles of a worldly nature, in the same manner as a traditional patrão or hacienda owner. As lord and master of a closed community, the pastor presidente turned into a middleman in the political economy of bossism or patronage. This was the source of the famous duality in the political attitudes of the Assemblies, frequently interpreted as hypocritical. On the one hand, as preachers of separation from the world, leaders claimed to have no interest in politics. On the other hand, as pastors of large lower-class flocks, they told their followers to obey the government because it was ordained by God, discouraged political dissent, and generally behaved like bulwarks of the status quo.52

The AD embodies the incongruity between separatistic ethics and the prototypical modern denomination that carries immense influence over a large demographic of civically responsible people. Within such a framework, the pastor-president navigates the space between shepherd of the flock and political liaison.53 The congresswoman Benedita da Silva embodies one who moved against the grain of traditional pentecostal apoliticism and limited female leadership. Her historic 1986 election marked the first time an Afro-­ Brazilian woman was nominated to the National Congress of Brazil. Among the thirty evangelicals elected that year, she was the only female. Da Silva was raised in a favela (shantytown) by semiliterate parents, one of thirteen children. Her grandmother was a slave (before slavery’s abolition in Brazil in 1888). She started out in her youth as a house cleaner to wealthy families and, later, worked as a nursing aide before becoming a 51   Judith Chambliss Hoffnagel, “Pentecostalism: A Revolutionary or Conservative Movement,” in Perspectives on Pentecostalism: Case Studies from the Caribbean and Latin America, ed. Stephen D. Glazier (Lanham: University Press of America, 1980), 119; Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?, 111; Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 20, 24. 52  Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?, 111. 53  Hoffnagel describes the influence the pastor-president exerts over the candidate for whom their parishioners vote. Hoffnagel, “Pentecostalism: A Revolutionary or Conservative Movement,” 119–20.

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city councilor and pursuing a political education. After being healed miraculously of breast cancer, she converted from her Catholic-umbandista roots to Pentecostalism, joining the AD at age twenty-four. A member of the center-left Worker’s Party, da Silva did not fit the profile of the typical AD churchgoer. She garnered criticism from the movement for her stance on social issues like abortion. As disclosed in her biography, Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman’s Story of Politics and Love, having barely survived a back-alley abortion, she is not in favor of the practice. She acknowledges the physical and spiritual consequences of abortion. Still, she defends a woman’s personal right to choose.54 Despite her stance on such issues, da Silva’s pentecostal mores contributed to her upward mobility. She was nominated Brazil’s first Black woman senator in 1994. With backing from the evangelical base, in 1998 she was elected as vice-­governor of Rio state and then state governor in 2002.55 A minority three-times-­ over (“a black, a woman, and a favelada”), she drew motivation from her background, as she remarks in her autobiography: “I’m proud to be a black woman from a poor family. My origins provide me with a reference point that I will never reject. And it gives me the passion I need to keep fighting.”56 Da Silva used her rare platform to speak out against the social evils of racial discrimination, gender bias, and the marginalization of the poor. Increasing involvement among the AD in the political sector led to recoil, scandal, and schism. Among thirty Protestants elected to congress in 1994, ten belonged to the AD.57 During the elections, an AD editorial warned against Sunday services becoming “the occasion for political campaigns.”58 As the waters muddied—between churchly affairs and constructive societal change—unseemly conduct was inevitable. As Freston surmises, “Since the moralisation of public life had been a theme used by pentecostal leaders to justify entry into politics, the scandals could be 54  Benedita da Silva, Medea Benjamin, and Maria Luisa Mendonça, Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman’s Story of Politics and Love (Oakland, CA: Food First Books, 1997), 95–96. 55  Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 145–46; Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 33–34; Hunt, “Evaluating Prophetic Radicalism,” 167–68; Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1995), 161–62. 56  Da Silva, Benjamin, and Mendonça, Benedita da Silva, 197. 57  Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 42. 58  Mensageiro da paz, April 1994, quoted in Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 36.

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expected to affect the corporate model.”59 In one example, corruption charges were levied against Manoel Moreira, an AD congregational budget committee member. Moreira coordinated with his former father-in-­ law, a head pastor in Campinas who wanted to elect his daughter to office, leading to the embezzlement of 2 million dollars from the church.60 In another instance, amid shifting political allegiances, the AD congressman and radio host Eduardo Cunha was swept up into scandal. In 2016, Cunha was serving as the speaker of the House (third in line to the presidency) when he was removed from office on financial and corruption charges.61 Several ministérios have recently left the CGADB because of political agendas. Among these is the historic ministério of Penha, seceding under the politically prominent pastor Silas Malafaia. Dissension among the ministries has also led to negative attitudes toward the convention’s Christian Republican Party.62 A Brazilian immigrant and longtime Assemblies of God member, Leonardo Thome, observes the contrast between the political atmosphere of the churches in the US and Brazil. In my interview with Thome, he remarked on the AD’s palpable engagement in the public square. Palma: Thome:

Can you comment on the level of political engagement in the AD, particularly in comparison to the US Assemblies of God? The reason the gospel has spread so fast in Brazil is the ability to transform several aspects of culture in a small timeframe. For example, one particular church bought an entire news channel (equivalent to Fox News) years ago, and now they not only have news, but even a TV series that preaches the gospel. Today there is an increasing emphasis on education and many pastors in politics too…. Also, the dynamics of the community are different. I think Assemblies churches here look more like a country club, in my opinion. They don’t seem to be risk takers, they do not talk about politics for fear of offending

 Ibid., 36.  Ibid., 36 61  Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 122. 62  Other ministérios leaving the CGADB include the middle-class-leaning Bethesda, and the historic ministries of Santos and São Cristóvão. Alves, “Pentecostalism in Brazil,” 1209; Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 122. 59 60

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s­ omeone, and they are more protective of their churches as a business in general.63 Alluding to the increasing voice of the movement through television media, educational programs, and politics, Thome attributes AD growth to its transformational influence. Given his transnational background, Thome offers unique perspective into the atmosphere of political correctness that hinders some AG (US) churches from healthy public engagement. Individual AG churches must walk a thin line when it comes to political campaigning. Observing a healthy distance from campaigns—for example, restricting candidate promotion from the pulpit—safeguards local churches from jeopardizing their federal income tax-exempt status.64 Whereas the Brazilian CC has no seminaries or colleges, and many members still eschew formal education, the AD steadily builds its instructional platform.65 The AD has not always been this educationally proactive. Quite the contrary, its Swedish founders opposed efforts to install theological institutes. Wary of permanent seminary “factories,” the Swedes favored short-term Bible schools where ministers trained for a few days at a time and then were released to practice their new skills. Their only theological school, the Institute of the Assemblies of God, was founded in 1958  in Pindamonhangaba, São Paulo, by the German-Brazilian pastor João Kolenda Lemos and his American wife and pastor Ruth Dóris Lemos.66 In 1984 the US AG stepped in and pioneered new theological schools, drawing from their nearly 16-million-dollar Latin American budget. For many years, in place of formal education, theological and musical programs fulfilled the training requirements for ministers. Beyond this, there was little instructional obligation, lessening the gap between clergy and laity. Today, a newer generation of seminary-trained ministers brings

 Thome, interview.  Richard R. Hammar, “The Politics of Religion: How Not to Cross the Political Line,” Enrichment Journal (Spring 2010), https://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/Issues/2010/ Spring-2010/The-Politics-of-Religion. 65  Alves, “Christian Congregation in Brazil.” 66  Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 121–22; Claiton Ivan Pommerening, “Fábrica de pastores: Interfaces e divergências entre educação teológica e fé cristã comunitária na teologia pentecostal” (ThD diss., Escola Superior de Teologia, São Leopoldo, 2015), 40. 63 64

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their informed critique, promising to refine the denomination’s structure yet again.67 Financial incentive is a major source of the increased interest in engaging the public sphere, especially running for political office. In an interview with Rodney Huson, a third-generation Swedish Brazilian and Vice President of the AD Campanha, Minas Gerais, ministério (ministry), I inquired concerning the draw politically: Palma: Huson:

Can you comment on the motivation for running for public office? A number of members of the churches have wanted to become involved in the city council and in different aspects. For one, in a region where the majority of the people are poorer, it is attractive to them because you can serve for one term, but you’ll have an income for life. But there is also the desire to have influence and improve yourself. It has been a blessing and a curse. I tell our pastors to choose what they want to do, but I discourage them from trying to be a pastor and a politician. We’ve seen members losing confidence in their pastor because of their political leanings and the competition it fosters among membership…. Sometimes we have several people that will run for the same office right in the same church.68

In addition to impacting the community and fulfilling personal ambition, the residual income of politicians is appealing. There remains the risk of politics sowing the seeds of division. However, one does not have to run for office to be involved. The membership is encouraged to be vigilant in voting. Pentecostals will have the opportunity to reelect the sitting president of Brazil, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, a right-wing nationalist and former member of the far-right Social Liberal Party, in October of 2022. After four successive victories by Brazil’s left-wing (social democratic) Workers’ Party, ending with the impeachment and six-year tenure of Dilma Rousseff (Brazil’s first female president), Bolsonaro took office in 2018. Ascending 67  Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?, 109; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 129–30; Freston, Evangelicals and Politics, 13–14; Alencar, “Assemblies of God in Brazil,” 122; Read, New Patterns of Church Growth, 134–35. 68  R. Huson, interview.

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under the campaign slogan “Brasil acima de tudo, Deus acima de todos” (“Brazil above everything, God above everyone”), it appears Brazil is seeing the beginning of a new Christian Right.69 Bolsonaro’s administration has been compared to Donald Trumps’ 2017–2021 US presidency, reflecting a similar leveraging of evangelical support to further what some consider a neoliberal agenda.70 The so-called Trump of the Tropics, Bolsonaro shares the former US president’s cynicism about global warming and gender politics as well as the emphasis (during the COVID-19 pandemic) on safeguarding the economy over social distancing.71 Also like Trump, Bolsonaro seems to think evangelical ideals are intrinsically linked to a free market economy and limited government. Critics of such an agenda claim it risks compromising Protestantism’s historic contribution—the separation of church and state. Alexandre Brasil Fonseca points to what some consider a “Neo-Constantinization” of the church under Bolsonaro.72 Should Brazil follow the lead of the United States and its 2021 shift back to leftist leadership with Joe Biden’s inauguration, it will miss the opportunity (at least in the immediate future) to see the outcome of such a “transforming culture” approach. In my interview with Huson, I asked him to comment on the present milieu: Palma: Huson:

Palma:

Can you elaborate on the current political climate in Brazil? Right now we are approaching an election season next year, where Bolsonaro is attempting to win the presidency again. Most of the Assemblies churches are behind him. But there are some ministérios that are not for him who have always been more to the socialist side. So, there’s some division there, but the majority of the Assemblies churches are behind him. How does the level of political engagement in Brazil compare to that of the US AG?

69  Quoted in Patricia Rangel and Eneida Vinhaes Dultra, “Elections in Times of Neo-­ Coupism and Populism: A Short Essay on Brazil’s Right-Wing Presidential Candidates’ Plans for Governance and Their Proposals for Gender and Afro-Brazilians,” Irish Journal of Sociology 27, no. 1 (April 2019), 76. 70  Alexandre Brasil Fonseca, “Afterward,” in Miller and Morgan, Brazilian Evangelicalism in the Twenty-First Century, 353. 71  Lapper, Beef, Bible and Bullets, 217, 226. 72  Fonseca, “Afterward,” 357.

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Huson:

The Brazilians are quite involved in politics. Each year it gets pretty heated. Brazilians are much more involved politically than in the US and in wanting to run for office.73

Although there is a great deal of consensus among the churches, especially their conservative leanings, a minority have adopted a socialist ideology and will vote against Bolsonaro. Having attended a US Bible College and frequented the US churches, Huson offers unique perspective into the AG (US) context, echoing Thome’s valuation of the significantly more enhanced degree of political involvement among the Brazil churches.

Variations in Politicality and Ethnicity Historically, the holiness ethic of classical Brazilian pentecostals has led to distancing even from other pentecostal contexts. While this impulse has moderated, it still complicates social engagement. The nuances of the movements’ politicality manifest in peculiar ways across their respective North and South American settings. Based on the findings above, one could speculate that the persistent apoliticism of the CC and CA is tied to their shared Italian heritage. Among three transnational movements with such common ground—shared roots in the Chicago pentecostal revival and founded in Brazil at approximately the same time—few other factors could account for such discrepancy. One could point to socioeconomic status or regional differences; however, each movement is defined by its success among the lower class masses and widespread distribution across Latin America and abroad. The political dividing line resembles that observed in the previous chapter regarding dress. Just as the CC and CA tilt toward one end of the spectrum (opposite the AD) in their literal interpretation of the Pauline veil-wearing injunction, they also stand at odds with the AD in terms of political engagedness. It remains to be determined whether the locale of the movements’ mother church has any bearing, as it did for the veil-wearing CC (influenced by the considerable Muslim presence in São Paulo’s Brás bairro). From the standpoint of ethnicity, one could argue that the perpetual apoliticism of the CC and CA stems from the history of peasant religious dissent. Informing each is the peasantry’s deliberate protest of the Catholic Church, whom they associate with the landowning aristocracy. Centuries of oppression at the hands  Ibid.

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of the state church left the migrant pentecostal founders ever reticent to engage the status quo beyond the boundary lines of congregational life. Conversely, the AD’s Swedish pentecostal roots positioned it to be much more open to societal engagement. A free church movement, Swedish Pentecostalism participates in the public sector through several joint ventures: mass media (via an official newspaper, broadcasting company, and literature distribution center), a government-funded relief organization, educational institutes, and a banking enterprise.74 The AD has taken a more decisive step away from Niebuhr’s “against culture” position, crossing the chasm of engagement and now actively abetting its membership in political involvements. As early as the 1960s, its radio program “Voz evangelica das Assembleias de Deus” [Evangelical Voice of the Assemblies of God] broadcasted throughout Brazil.75 Today, its members do not merely vote but support political causes and are frequently candidates for public office. At the very least, as embodied in the “in paradox” perspective, the movement is now proactively working inside worldly institutions. The AD congregant enters the crucial sphere of public culture while remaining conscious that in that realm, “God indeed sustains him in it and by it.”76 The seeming illogicality is, at the same time, that the AD remains firmly ensconced in the churchly sphere, privileging that identity more than anything else. Both the “in paradox” and “transforming” approaches assume that one must step into the public square— “the Christian must carry on cultural work in obedience to the Lord.”77 Even still, one could aver that the AD has ventured a step beyond this, appropriating the transforming approach and dynamically seeking to convert culture. Stephen Hunt is less optimistic about the level of political engagement among Brazilian pentecostals. While admitting that pentecostals are moving out into the public arena, if only because of their “pervasiveness,” he asserts that they have “no overall vision or blueprint for Brazil and little notion of civil society beyond the interest of the congregations.”78 Although Hunt’s perspective speaks to the Italian-founded CC and CA’s modest level of engagedness, it hardly accounts for the AD’s proactivity in  Ahonen, “Sweden,” 256–57.  Nichol, Pentecostalism, 165. 76  Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 156. 77  Ibid., 190. 78  Hunt, “Evaluating Prophetic Radicalism,” 175. 74 75

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facilitating the entry of members into political office. Still, more importantly—and marking the denomination as a transformational influence—is what AD members do once in public office. Delegates from the movement take moral concerns seriously through their support of the conservative cause on abortion, homosexuality, and divorce.79 The AD has moved convincingly from their “against culture” roots, venturing the line into the “in paradox” and even “transforming” perspectives. The CC and CA, on the other hand, while showing moderate interest in public affairs, retain the pattern typical among the “against culture” churches. Their reticence to engage politically affords one explanation for the decades of stagnant growth. While the AD seems content to continue their involvement in, and even conversion of, worldly institutions, it is not clear what the future holds for the CC and CA. It is reasonable to imagine that the Italian-founded churches might adopt an “in paradox” or “transforming” approach while maintaining a semblance of their separatistic ethos. Their expansion among the masses, especially the agrarian poor, furnished a support network by which their adherents have climbed the ladder of social mobility.

Integral Mission, Liberation, and Prophetic Religion One entry point into assessing the politicality of the movements is the accent within classical Brazilian Pentecostalism, shared with Latina/o liberation theologies, on prophetic religion.80 According to K.  K. Yeo, Majority World theology places a higher premium than European and North American society on the “social and communal experience of faith,” translating into a regard for the “public nature of theology such as the prophetic voice of faith and justice.”81 Today, an upwardly mobile Brazilian Pentecostalism finds itself somewhere between the typical Majority World nation and the more individualistic peoples of Western society. This unique in-between status affords an opportunity to meditate, through integral mission, the worlds of the affluent and deprived. Harkening to the prophetic voice Yeo alludes to, the movements can build, holistically, into the lives of the marginalized by responding to both spiritual and material  Freston, “Evangelicals and Politics,” 25, 27.  Hunt, “Evaluating Prophetic Radicalism,” 157–59. 81  K.  K. Yeo, “Biblical Interpretation in the Majority World,” in Hutchinson, Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, 153. 79 80

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needs. The initial divine summons to Brazil, attested to by Francescon and, on the Swedish side, Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren, engendered an authentic desire to reach those on society’s fringes. For the CC and CA, it seems the sturdy path forward rests in recovering the outlook characterizing the movements early on, marrying once again an interest in spiritual health with the socioeconomic welfare of the masses. The prophetic nature of the movements is interlaced with an emphasis on the premillennial imminence of the Second Coming. For pentecostals, God’s voice possesses a nearness and personalness, embodied in the spiritual gift of prophecy. Similarly, among early pentecostals, Christ’s Return was regarded as close at hand—a reality that might very well be realized in their lifetime. After several decades passed without the Parousia, their millenarianism streamlined, as did their asceticism, into a desire to see change brought about in the current order. Straddled between the reality of the “already but not yet,” the movements place hope in the final restoration of all things while finding contentment in gradual transformation within the present-day spheres of creation and society. Implicit in the shift to the here and now, according to Niebuhr, is that one lays hold of the transformationalist (conversionist) perspective whereby, “The eschatological future has become for him an eschatological present.” The consistent enactment of such change is more palpable in the AD; nevertheless, if the CC and CA can re-envision their views of history according to “the present encounter with God,” perhaps they likewise can realize the same transformation breaking into the world even now.82 An integral mission approach accommodates the shift of referent to present change. As Miller and Yamamori suggest, such a vantagepoint “continues to affirm the apocalyptic return of Christ but also believes that Christians are called to be good neighbors, addressing the social needs of people in their community.”83 Accordingly, one might adopt a healthy “this worldly” perspective, without forfeiting his or her millenarian, “otherworldly” longing. The post-colonial perspective of the Argentine Methodist and onetime president of the World Council of Churches, José Miguez Bonino, brings the prophetic outlook into clearer focus. Bonino sought to move beyond Roman Catholicism’s colonial heritage and Protestantism’s neocolonialism through an emphasis on “revolutionary action.” Accordingly, he claimed:  Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 195. See also Álvarez, Integral Mission, 81.  Miller and Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism, 2.

82 83

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It can be said that the Christian faith provides today both a stimulus and a challenge for revolutionary action when it encourages us to look and work for historical realizations in the direction of the Kingdom in terms of justice, solidarity, the real possibility for men to assume responsibility, access of all men to the creation which God has given to man, freedom to create a human community through work and love, space to worship and play.84

A theology oriented on the kingdom of God constantly looks toward the improvement of creation, not merely as a distant eschatological reality, but as the byproduct of faith lived out in the concrete actions of the here and now. Bonino’s perspective resonates with the pentecostal, who affirms the divine kingdom’s revolutionizing of social and political structures while valuing each person’s active role in bringing that change to pass. Human identity is not static but dynamically engaged in transforming the world and forming a historical-cultural consciousness. Bonino is not pitting the spiritual against the material but interpreting conversion holistically as the transformation of humanity inwardly and, through acts of “justice” and “solidarity,” communally and economically. He sought to apply an affirmation of the universal liberation of all things in the Cross and Resurrection to concrete action, wherein the Christian ventures into and enacts change in public spaces. Bonino identified with the liberationist ideology of the German Protestant theologian Jürgen Moltmann who, in his Theology of Hope, affirmed a politico-eschatological liberation rooted in the “new creation of all things by the God of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”85 Yet, Bonino wished to improve on Moltmann’s perspective, moving a step further to articulate a sociopolitical rhetoric of the Cross that insists humanity utilizes the best politics and economics at their disposal.86 While there are apparent continuities between liberationist and pentecostal politicalities, there are also significant contrasts. Catholic liberationists are undergirded by a palpable intellectualism and activism. Drawing from Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s “consciousness raising” (conscientização) ideology, liberationist critiques of the global capitalist economy commonly proceed in step with dependency theory. Freire interprets the epidemic of illiteracy in Brazil as the result of dependency, suggesting a  Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation, 152.  Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 33. See also Jürgen Moltmann, “On Latin American Liberation Theology: An Open Letter to José Miguez Bonino,” Christianity and Crisis (March 29, 1976): 57–63. 86  Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation, 148–49. 84 85

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program of conscientização (awareness through emotive ideas) for restoring reading ability.87 According to the Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (in office from 1995 to 2003), the aim of liberation is freedom from the vicious cycle of dependency. The latter arises when cheap labor and raw material offered by developing countries to advanced economies (who turn them into finished goods) are sold back to the underdeveloped at high prices, depleting any capital. Cardoso’s response was economic reform through privatization and heightened foreign investment.88 Among pentecostal scholars, Yong proposes a theory of political praxis, consisting in “performative” prophetic engagement and spiritual warfare but few others venture the line of concrete action like Cardoso’s liberationist platform.89 Among classical pentecostals, the AD offers the best visibility and protection for pentecostalists wishing to traverse into public spaces to renew systemic politico-economic wounds.

Toward a Middle-Road Politicality Brazil, like the United States, remains at a distance from the Christian triumphalism of the Constantine era or the papal padroado (patronage) allotted to the Portuguese in the conquest of Brazil. Niebuhr’s transforming culture approach, as more pentecostals adopt it, does not necessarily entail Christendom in the sense of a religious state. Between the extremes of Neo-Constantinianism (the acquiescence of the state to the purview of the church, or vice-versa) and apoliticism (the church’s disinclination to matters of state), perhaps there is a middle-road approach that navigates the potential pitfalls on either extreme. Classical era Constantinianism presaged both a disintegrating rule and a fragmenting church, and a comparison can be made to the Byzantine Christian Empire of the Middle Ages. The Constantinian shift led to the routinization of violent measures in weeding out heresy and, as Stanley Hauerwas suggests, a civic religion where membership in the body of Christ became linked with citizenship rather than personal decision. Regarding the US milieu, Hauerwas described the consequence of the Constantinian synthesis of church and state as “an adapted and domesticated gospel” according to which the  Freire, Politics of Education, 74–75.  Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Empresário industrial e desenvolvimento econômico no Brasil. São Paulo: Difusão Europeia, 1964. 89  Yong, In the Days of Caesar, 129–34, 238–39. 87 88

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church attempts “to fit American values into a loosely Christian framework.”90 On the other hand, the traditional apoliticism of pentecostals is associated with reclusion and, evident in the comparison of the AD with the CC and CA, stilted growth. Perhaps the contextual approach suggested by Yeo and Bonino offers such a middle-road perspective. Yeo and Bonino arrive at their integral mission methodology by way of contextual theology—according to which their concept of Christian mission is informed (and enriched) through an encounter with specific regions of the world. Yeo highlights the contrast between emergent Majority World theologies and those emanating from European and North American nations. Bonino’s liberationist perspective develops and is indispensably shaped by his Latin American (Argentine) horizon.91 Contextual approaches allow the North American or European scholar to enter into and evaluate global developments through a more robust prism, recognizing that economic and political theories are intrinsically informed by regional context.92 Our understanding (and preconceptions) about integral mission and social justice are illumined when we expand our purview to study and consider people movements shaped in other national settings. Contextual theology provides a constructive paradigm for comprehending the larger sociopolitical implications of trans-­ Americas classical Pentecostalism. The trend toward intensified civic involvement among classical Brazilian pentecostals might lead to the presumption that they have taken the Weberian Protestant turn typical among Latina/o groups. They appear to have adopted the same capitalistic values of evangélicos in other countries, for example, the “hard work,” “thrift,” and “personal responsibility” Amy Sherman credits to the pentecostals of Guatemala.93 Yet, is there anything unique about such a shift as it develops among classical pentecostals? 90  Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens: A Provocative Christian Assessment of Culture and Ministry for People Who Know that Something is Wrong (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989), 17. 91  Yeo, “Biblical Interpretation in the Majority World,” 135. See also José Miguez Bonino, “Latin America,” in An Introduction to the Third World Theologies, ed. John Parratt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 27–31. 92  Stephen B. Bevans, Essays in Contextual Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 31–32. 93  Amy L.  Sherman, The Soul of Development: Biblical Christianity and Economic Transformation in Guatemala (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 46. See also Eric Patterson, “First Steps Toward a Pentecostal Political Theology: Augustine and the Latin American Context,” in Medina and Alfaro, Pentecostals and Charismatics in Latin America, 212.

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Moreover, are they making the Weberian-turn in the same manner or to the same degree? One lens across which the movements can be evaluated is the “prosperity gospel,” originating in the United States, the flagship of free-market competition. The prosperity gospel does not have the same foothold among classical pentecostals as it does among Brazil’s many neopentecostal contexts. The IURD, the benchmark of prosperity (“health and wealth”) theology, dedicates two days of the weekly church calendar to “entrepreneurs” and “prosperity.”94 AD followers, typically from lower- or lower-middle-class settings, earn an income through labor employment via sincere hard work, as opposed to capital assets. According to Hicks, the difference between the AD and IURD is that the latter has given in to “demand shaping practices of the modern media and advertising.”95 On the other hand, the AD’s austerity, embodying Weber’s Protestant ethic, keeps it from the ostentations of consumerism and the allure of putting God’s blessings on display. In this respect, it seems the IURD, a homegrown movement, admits stronger ties to capitalistic US impulses than the classical movements deriving from there. The Latin American mega-­ church movement—which includes IURD congregations like their 10,000-seat headquarter church, the Temple of Solomon—likewise derives from North American models of faith and prosperity. These churches, especially in Brazil and Guatemala, control the Christian media and exert a prominent influence on the political sector.96 If left unchecked, the Bolsonaro administration presents demonstrable obstacles to integral mission. Evangelicals comprise a major demographic and set of values that demand representation. However, the path to rallying evangelical support is a tenuous one that must not risk being in ignorance of the fabric of historic Protestantism. The way forward entails preserving a semblance of the separation of church and state, on the one hand, without undercutting the thrift and hard work so indispensable to 94  R.  Andrew Chesnut, “Prosperous Prosperity: Why the Health and Wealth Gospel is Booming across the Globe,” in Yong and Attanasi, Pentecostalism and Prosperity, 215. See also Virginia Garrard and Justin M.  Doran, “Pentecostalism and Neo-Pentecostalism in Latin America: Two Case Studies,” in The Oxford Handbook of Latin American Christianity, ed. David Thomas Orique, O.P., Susan Fitzpatrick-Behrens, and Virginia Garrard (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 291–308. 95  Douglas A.  Hicks, “Prosperity, Theology, and Economy,” in Yong and Attanasi, Pentecostalism and Prosperity, 248. 96  Álvarez, Integral Mission, 62.

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the Protestant ethic, on the other. The challenge rests in upholding a free market system (which is not inherently the problem) without minimizing the evangelical’s responsibility to other spheres of society. Within the contextual prism of Brazilian Pentecostalism, integral mission remains compatible with the aims of the Protestant ethic. Integral mission encourages pentecostals and politicians sympathetic to the evangelical cause to consider the merit of Bonino’s “revolutionary action” and take seriously their responsibility to human rights, equality, and the environment. Marginalization confronting migrants, income inequality, and natural resource deterioration are problems that cannot be ignored. Integral mission encompasses a political strategy that embraces the evangelical voice alongside, with Yeo, the “prophetic voice of faith and justice.”

CHAPTER 10

Conclusion

In the preceding pages, I have described and assessed the journey of classical pentecostals from Chicago to Brazil and back to the United States, inquiring into what makes this transnational migratory and missional flow of lasting value to the shape of religion in the Americas and beyond, in the twenty-first century. The story began with three sojourners, one Italian and two Swedish, and their pilgrimage from the Old World to the New in search of the fortunes of the promised land beyond the Atlantic. Although not certain if they would resettle permanently and expecting to return to family in the Native land with the strength of the US dollar, they made a tentative home in the United States. Catalyzed by the pentecostal revival fire in Chicago, their journey led them to another distant land, more agrarian and indigent than the urban US Midwest. The rural landscape along which the Italian and Swedish missionaries proceeded in the states of São Paulo and Pará, respectively, mirrored the Old-World setting of their youth. In time, they discovered that all Latin America was a mission field ripe-unto-harvest and, via a “blessed reflex,” ventured new avenues to extend the work back North onto US soil. The flow of the movements, among the underprivileged of Brazil and marginalized of the North American ethnic congregation, followed the pattern of the pentecostal surge in so many other Latina/o contexts. Even though the Catholic Church repositioned its efforts in the wake of Vatican II, prescribing a preferential option for the poor, it seems the “poor opted for the Pentecostal © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8_10

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church.”1 The inexorable twentieth-century expansion of Pentecostalism in Brazil and among Brazuca migrants in the United States was prolonged among the poor and marginalized.

Ethnicity: A “Neglected Dimension” The US holiness and Reformed-evangelical underpinnings of classical Pentecostalism are transparent and, in the case of the Italian and Swedish flows, admit direct roots in the Chicago revival. The Chicago revival hub was stamped not only by the nineteenth-century Holiness movement but by evangelical awakenings associated with the more Reformed (Keswickian) stream of turn-of-the-twentieth-century renewal. The Moody and Zion City revivals indelibly influenced the Chicago awakening, not only because of their proximity to the North Avenue Mission but through the transfer of membership into the pentecostal revival. Alongside and integrally informing this theological heritage, the significance of ethnicity on the beliefs and practices of religious movements cannot be understated. In American historiography of religion, ethnicity has all too often been overlooked. Rudolf J. Vecoli described ethnicity as a “neglected dimension,” akin to “a family scandal, to be kept a dark secret or explained away.”2 The pressure to assimilate to the “Melting Pot” of American culture has led to a disregard for the way one’s ethnic lineage shapes his or her religious and theological perceptions. The Italian and Swedish branches, enriching the contours of classical Pentecostalism, share much in common. As depicted in the primary source literature of the movements, the story of each embarked with prophetic summons to South America. Both cohorts arrived in the country within a year of one another as torchbearers of pentecostal Christianity. Each set of pioneers settled initially among conationals in mainline Protestant contexts—Luigi Francescon among an Italian Presbyterian community and Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren 1  Paul Freston, quoted in Eric G.  Flett, “A Christological Gambiarra: Jesus and Social Engagement in Brazil,” in Miller and Morgan, Brazilian Evangelicalism in the Twenty-First Century, 210. See also Mark J. Cartledge, “‘Liberation Theology opted for the Poor, and the Poor opted for [Neo-]Pentecostalism’: Illustrating the Influence of the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ in Brazil,” in (De)coloniality and Religious Practices: Liberating Hope, ed. Valburga Schmiedt Streck, Júlio Cézar Adam, and Cláudio Carvalhaes (International Academy of Practical Theology Conference Series 2; 2021), 82–83, doi: 10.25785/iapt.cs.v2i0.136. 2  Rudolph J.  Vecoli, “Ethnicity: A Neglected Dimension of American History,” in The State of American History, ed. Herbert J. Bass (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1970), 84.

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among Swedish Baptists. Furthermore, each dissented from the mainline context because of pentecostal convictions about the biblical meaning of baptism: Francescon, because of his insistence on water baptism by immersion, and Berg and Vingren because of their firm belief in the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Although initial expansion proceeded among the groups’ respective diasporas, ensuing growth among the Brazilian poor emerges as the unifying theme of Brazilian Pentecostalism. Comparing the pioneer branches of trans-Americas classical Pentecostalism also reveals significant disparities attributable to ethnic lineage. The Italian and Swedish branches admit differences on ecclesial polity, gender, and politics. The Italian-founded Christian Congregation (CC) and Christian Assembly (CA) retain a greater measure of their original congregationalism, whereas the Swedish-founded Assemblies of God (AD) increasingly favor an episcopal system. The CC and CA codes maintain traditional practices about dress, including veil-wearing and stipulations specific to maleness and femaleness. Concerning ministry opportunity, the AD is more restrictive. Likewise, there is a visible contrast politically— the AD has more readily adopted contemporary forms of cultural engagement. The respective branches also follow variant growth patterns, with diverging trajectories acutely apparent amid urbanization and the advent of mass culture in the post-War era. Another difference is that the AD charted a swifter and more decisive foothold among Brazilian nationals. In these stories of transnational classical Pentecostalism, the respective Italian and Swedish ethnic lineages incontrovertibly inform our understanding of their polity, politics, and practice. Still, while acknowledging their European and US mores, given the ready trend toward indigeneity, their Brazilian character is even more palpable. The prominence of the originating revival centers—Santo Antônio da Platina, Paraná (1910) for the CC and Belém, Pará (1911) for the AD—as networks of US, European, and Brazilian influences, further highlights this multiculturalism. Moreover, the possibility of polygenesis (multiple origins) favors a more inclusive, multicultural assessment. Pentecostal murmurs among Baptists (associated with the outreaches of Paulo Malaquias and Pedro Graudin) point to similar currents of renewal at work beyond the states of Paraná and Pará prior to and contemporaneous with the early CC and AD revivals. As the movements endure today, even via reverse mission in the United States, it is their “Brazilianness” that distinguishes them. The Brazilian backdrop engenders a festive spirituality, appealing to and informed by the country’s prior folk-religious and African spiritist setting.

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This aboriginal groundwork shaped the narrative of the supernatural so prominent in each. Thus, the stories of the prophetic summons to Brazil, attributable to both Italian and Swedish sets of founders, resound from one generation to the next. The folk-Indigenous framework helps explain the prominence of divine healing and deliverance. The remedial character of the cura divina reverberates among Brazil’s displaced (diasporan) peoples who, as characterizing the epoch of African slavery, discovered in supernatural healing the possibility of physical, psychological, and social wholeness. Afro-Brazilian spiritism and other syncretic (mainly Catholic) contexts share the supernaturalism of the pentecostal “world of spirits.” One reason pentecostals have been so effective at converting spiritists is because of the foundational shared belief in the existence of supernatural beings. The pentecostal worldview extends hope in such contexts because it proposes solutions to the problems of spirit oppression and possession rather than undermining the reality of such phenomena as superstitious.3 Indeed, their peculiar folk spirituality and marginal (on society’s fringes) character, is what sets pentecostal movements apart as comprising a novel tradition. The story of classical Brazilian pentecostals in South (and North) America validates the hypothesis that Pentecostalism can now be considered a branch of Christianity in its own right, alongside Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern delineations. While the movements exhibit a pedigree with Protestant (dissenting) traditions and push the boundaries of historic Catholic doctrine and practice, they also display a peculiar Catholic “aesthetic.” In her study of African Pentecostals in Italy, Annalisa Butticci pointed to a shared “aesthetic of presence” between the African churches and Catholics. This point of continuity, informed by traditional African folk practices, is expressed through “the artful combination of gestures, words, images, and objects.”4 The elaborate dress code of the CC and CA (and to a lesser extent, the AD) expresses specific ideals (including reverence, beauty, and distinction) symbolically through external attire. The notable contrasts yet ostensible parallels with Protestant and Catholic contexts, illuminated by ancestral folk-Indigenous heritages, underscore within this Latina/o pentecostal referent a vital, unique trajectory of contemporary religion.

 Read, Monterroso, and Johnson, Latin American Church Growth, 252.  Annalisa Butticci, African Pentecostals in Catholic Europe: The Politics of Presence in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), 9. 3 4

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Among the Italian branch, in both Brazil and the early history in Argentina, we encounter the stigma of ethnocentrism and the “Blood Issue.” The Italian movements clung more adamantly to their ethnic mores than the AD. Years after the Swedish AD indigenized, the CC and CA demonstrated a formidable Italian constituency. Given the far-­reaching economic instability of Italian migrants and their sheer number in Southern Cone cities, their ethnocentricity served the purpose of consolidating identity; however, it receded over time with diminishing migration from Italy and mass culture following the World Wars era. The Argentine CA’s ethnocentrism persisted even beyond that of the CC, reflected in subsequent hymnal editions. In the CC, the hymnal (originally in Italian) was published entirely in Portuguese by the mid-1940s, while the CA continued using Italian into the late twentieth century. The Blood Issue was emblematic of dissension within the ranks of the Italian-founded wing of Southern Cone Pentecostalism. The CA joined the libertà and splintered into a half-dozen variant denominations while the CC embraced the astinenza party. Together with the direction each prayed, the CC facing the altar and the CA facing away, the Blood Issue drove a wedge between them that is only now being resolved through inter-ecclesial efforts like the Brazil-based General Convention of Christian Churches (GCCC). Brazil has served as a unitive force, providing an amicable setting for cooperation between the CC and an historically schismatic CA.  The GCCC has also opened doors internationally for cooperation with the Argentina CA (especially the Santa Fe group), the US-based International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies, and a few networks in Italy.5 The GCCC fosters solidarity among these like-minded churches by acknowledging their historical lineage with the original Assemblea Cristiana (It. for Christian Assembly) in Chicago, held together by the persistent congregational emphasis on lay participation during the weekly culto (worship service). The CC and CA’s more primitive character is informed by their ethnoreligious heritage. The ornate symbolism represented in the dress code (especially veil-wearing) builds on the folk-Catholic lineage of the movements, where the power of charms and religious images circumscribe

5   Josué Giamarco, “O movimento Pentecostal Italo-Americano: resumo histórico,” Assembleia Cristã, under “Origem e resumida no Brasil,” accessed January 3, 2020, https:// w w w. a s s e m b l e i a c r i s t a . c o m . b r / n o t i c i a / 1 2 8 3 2 3 / a s s e m b l e i a - c r i s t % C 3 % 8 3 -­ biografia%2D%2D-resumo-historico.historia.

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the spirituality of the Italian peasant.6 The AD remains relatively uninhibited by such ethnocentrism. Because of their free-church Swedish pentecostal roots, the founders unreservedly handed the movement over to endemic Brazilian leadership. The AD was also less prone to schism and more successful (in sheer number). So then, ethnicity provides an invaluable lens into assessing the trajectory of pentecostal movements. Nationality and ethno-culture lend as much insight into their development and growth as dogmatic and sacerdotal considerations.

Migration, Multidirectional Mission, and Marginalized Ethnicities The expansion of Brazilian classical Pentecostalism encompasses reverse mission among Global North regions. Piloting the charge were bands of Brazilians who discovered that migration provides fuel for missions, a realization the Italian and Swedish forerunners had made decades earlier. A new generation of mobile Brazilian nationals were dispatched to North America, Europe, and beyond. Fresh reverse and diaspora flows followed the migration channels, forging outreach hubs among relocated kinsfolk in the Global North. With their resolve set on renewing post-­Christendom lands of the West, Brazilian ministers pioneered the movements among the Portuguese-speaking throughout the United States. In the 1980s, the economically fueled mass migration of Brazilians to the United States significantly improved outreach prospects. Brazuca congregations throughout the country highlight this reverse dynamic, including seventy CC and close to two hundred AD churches. With the diminishing expansion rate of the Brazilian CC, in steady decline since the mid-1960s, its US success suggests its most promising prospects lie on the North American front. The “reverse flow” underscores the worldwide character of Pentecostalism, and classical forms specifically. The reason I have pointed to the prominence of reverse (and diaspora) mission in the Brazilian context is not to suggest that missionary work from the “West to the rest” is inconsequential or that the Western church is in decline. Indeed, the West today serves as the host country for many vibrant reverse mission outreaches. My aim has been to underline the new shape of Christianity, consisting of the exchange between interlocutors. As Dyrness and García Johnson suggest: 6

 Vecoli, “Contadini in Chicago,” 415.

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Christian reflection needs to be reconfigured in the form of a conversation between different parts of the body of Christ. Rather than seeing the flow of influences either as West to East (or South) or in the reverse, we want to argue that it needs to encompass multiple directions, including flows from South to South and within the Western churches.7

Since the outset of the twentieth century, Christianity has been redefined as a global religion. Its surge in Majority World countries has been so profound in only a fraction (a bit more than a century) of the two millennia of Christian history that only recently are Western centers of theological learning acknowledging the shift. The story of Brazilian classical Pentecostalism illustrates the vibrant multidirectional character of twenty-first-century Christianity. Classical pentecostal missions are anything but linear. Like the CC, CA, and AD journeys imply, expansion is filled with twists and turns, restructuring, and new variations. Numerical growth is not the only marker of a movement’s longevity. While classical Pentecostalism shows signs of thinning today in Brazil (considering the CC’s stagnation and recent waning of the AD), the same movements are branching out into new transnational fields. Their progress in years ahead depends on the fruit of exchange between the horizons of the Global North (or West) and the Global South (or East). Brazuca pentecostal churches in the United States promise to thrive to the degree their multi-directionality-and-culturalism are recognized and affirmed. Another intriguing development is outreach among other marginalized ethnicities. In addition to the US CC’s increasing focus on Spanish-­ speaking audiences, the Brazilian AD’s Bethlehem Ministry has at least ten congregations in the United States that specialize in Spanish American outreach.8 The cause for the trend among the marginalized is twofold. Since the 1980s boom, Brazilian migration has cycled downward. The churches have been forced to build among other ethnicities (in addition to English-speaking peoples) to sustain themselves fiscally and otherwise. One can also point to the cross-cultural imperative of the movements. The same outlook that brought Italians and Swedes to Brazil initially and Brazilian nationals, via reverse mission (and migration), to the United  Dyrness and García-Johnson, Theology without Borders, viii.  “Congregações,” Bethlehem Ministry of the Assemblies of God, accessed December 13, 2021, https://www.adbelem.org/quem-somos/congregacoes. 7 8

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States fuels expansion amid the multicultural American landscape. Born from the inclusive, color-line-erasing spirit of the early Azusa Street and Chicago revivals, classical Pentecostalism, now in its Brazilian articulations, is transcending cultural boundaries in the United States. While integrally shaped within ethnic congregational contexts, these movements seek perpetually to exceed ethno-racial limitations within new national and transnational fields.

Cultural Engagement and the Doctrine of the Word of God Classical trans-Americas Pentecostalism has begun to venture beyond the separatism characterizing their early history. With expansion into new global frontiers, the movements stand at a critical precipice. Despite comparable growth rates in the first half of the twentieth century, notable variations are observable from the 1960s onward. From then to 2010, the AD’s overall rate increased, and the CC’s plateaued. The AD thrived in its early years through its ready transition to autochthonous leadership and the resurging wartime rubber markets. In the post-War era, it excelled through its strategic outreach among the migrant urban masses, insistence on lay ministry, and adoption of mass media evangelism (written and broadcast). The cultural engagement shift is most pronounced among the AD. Once reluctant to open long-term ministry training facilities (given its Swedish underpinning), the movement is now accountable for numerous biblical and seminary institutes. The AD actively supports members seeking political candidacy, encompassing a plethora of congressmen (and congresswomen) and even a speaker of the House. They represent the contemporary pentecostal movement that has transcended its insulationist mores to dynamically transform society. Alongside Brazilian pentecostals of subsequent waves, such as the Foursquare Gospel Church (second wave) and IURD (third wave), the AD has acceded to a politicality enabling them to enlarge institutionally by asserting themselves in the public sphere. They have embraced the cause of political theology, which sees salvation and transformation of the civitas as working hand in hand. The AD embodies the Weberian ethic—the puritanical “this worldly asceticism” Weber claimed as so integral to the Protestant capitalistic

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project.9 Brazil’s classical pentecostals exhibit Weber’s ethic through their austerity in dress and valuing of hard work, illustrating how a lifestyle of simplicity, resisting the allures of consumerism, translates into economic thrift. In this regard, the classical wave differs from more prosperity-­ gospel-­driven pentecostals. For example, the IURD’s insistence, in capitalistic terms, that strong faith is always rewarded, can lead to a preoccupation with changing one’s “own life.” The AD’s focus on serious hard work holds more promise for transforming the “system itself.”10 The AD epitomizes the effort to extend ascetic resolve into worldly and civic domains, standing at the forefront of those pentecostals who have advanced beyond the asceticism of the Catholic cloisters and separatistic religion to adapt moral transformation to tangible change in everyday life. A notable fluctuation is visible, more recently, in AD growth. Between 2010 and 2015, its membership declined significantly (by nearly 2.4 million).11 Several explanations account for this shift. The AD competes in Brazil’s religious marketplace with neopentecostal and New Calvinist movements. The freer, locally oriented polity and egalitarianism of neopentecostalism offer an appealing alternative to those dissatisfied with the AD’s quasi-episcopal structure and gender-biased ministry. New Calvinism holds out the pentecostal emphasis on experience (affectivity) but nurtures more traditional puritanical roots over the apparent superficiality of some evangelical contexts. The AD also contends with emerging smaller churches and church networks. Increasing economic stability has emancipated many leaders from the hierarchical structure of denominations, freeing them to pioneer independent ministries. Another reason for the AD’s waning membership is that it struggles to keep an intact and consistent identity. As mammoth as it is among contemporary religious movements, it is also uniquely heterogeneous. Its many conventions and ministérios function to manage the breadth and diversity of its membership. This contrast is expressed through varying polity and ministry practices from one region to another and disparate sociocultural (urban and rural) settings. The gap between its largest convention, the CGADB, and the US AG is ever-widening. The more limited 9  Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: Routledge, 2005), 118. 10  Hicks, “Prosperity, Theology, and Economy,” 248. 11  Johnson and Zurlo, “Denomination: Assembleias de Deus,” in WCD, accessed June 19, 2022, https://worldchristiandatabase-org.ezproxy.regent.edu/wcd/#/detail/denomina tion/940/83-general.

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stance on female credentialing, alongside an increasing hierarchism (and thinning congregationalism), sets the CGADB in a class of its own, even among other Assemblies of God contexts. The AD’s recent membership drop-off suggests the tension—between its centralized hierarchy, on the one hand, and heterogeneity, on the other—has reached a breaking point. While permitting social activities once forbidden (like going to cinemas with friends), the Italian-founded movements remain wary about political engagement, stipulating the specific candidate a member can vote for. Most problematic for the CC is their stalling South American expansion. Some trace this stagnancy to the 1964 passing of its founder, Francescon, a marker coinciding with the movement’s downward spiral in the 1960s. Practically, it seems the CC’s resources are best directed toward enlargement in markets outside South America. A now international, multiethnic network of churches, the movement has much of the raw material for expansion already in place. Among the obstacles to unity the CC faces is its increasingly authoritarian character. The schism over the 2013 faith article modifications, both in how the changes were made (without a diplomatic consensus) and in the theological implications, offers additional perspective into waning numbers. The revision to the CC article on scripture (broached in Chap. 6) underscores the elevation of prophetic (preached) revelation to the neglect of the written word. There are several routes through the murky waters of such a divide. Weighing in on the contemporary cessationist-­continuationist debate, Sam Storms admits the consequence of indiscriminately practicing spiritual gifts such as “prophecy” and “words of knowledge” (1 Cor. 12:8), conceding that many well-meaning pentecostal-charismatics value God’s “present-tense” (preached) voice over his “past-tense” (written) voice. Even so, the answer to the abuse of spiritual gifts is “not disuse, but proper use.”12 In step with classical pentecostal thinking, the CC values and promotes the practice of the charismata, especially the revelatory gifts; nonetheless, the article 1 amendment has provoked abuses or, at least, “misuses” of prophetic speech that should be addressed accordingly. The Italian Pentecostal theologian Giuseppe Petrelli suggests another route through this doctrinal impasse. In The Redeemer, he describes a multiform rendering of the doctrine of God’s Word commensurate with Barth’s description of the “written,” “preached,” and “revealed” words: 12  Sam Storms, Understanding Spiritual Gifts: A Comprehensive Guide (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Reflective, 2020), 55.

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The Person of Jesus stands high above all external witnesses…. Jesus Himself is the Word of God, and He speaks to every heart that is athirst for the Infinite. People who have never seen the Bible and have never heard of Jesus have nevertheless felt the need of One to reveal the mysteries of the Beyond. But, someone might ask, how are people to believe in Christ if they have never heard of Him? That the Lord has sent missionaries to proclaim the Gospel to the heathen cannot be denied. But must we limit that proclaiming and that hearing only to human sources?13

So then, the written word (scripture) and preached word (gospel proclamation) are mere “external witnesses.” Following Barth, Petrelli’s argument focuses on personal encounter with Christ. Although both written and preached words are vital, they are inherently limited (external) and find proper expression only when the revealed Word (Christ) is allotted his privileged place. While the CC, historically, has stood at the opposite end of the spectrum from Petrelli and his libertà (freedom) party followers, this revealed Word (Christocentric) focus provides an avenue for balancing God’s written and preached communication. The divide over the doctrine of the Word of God underscores something essential about not just the CC but grassroots Pentecostalism more generally. Foundational to the classical pentecostal movements considered in this book is the persistence of a literalist hermeneutic. This literalism, especially characteristic of Latina/o movements, is tied to a broader Protestant interpretive lens. As Virginia Garrard suggests: Christianity, particularly in its Protestant variant, is a religion built around the logos, the Word of God; Protestants have uniquely reified sola scriptura and the reading of the Word as the literal locus of divine truth. In this respect, literal-minded Bible readers in the Global South who use scripture as a roadmap for everyday living are part of a much longer tradition of Christians in other times and places who have done exactly the same thing.14

Biblical literalism is consistent with a theology of revelation that reaches back centuries. One byproduct of this literalism is a “word for word” approach by which NT commands specific to the first-century church are

 Giuseppe Petrelli, The Redeemer (Fayetteville, NY: Theophilus, 1986), 270.  Garrard, New Faces of God in Latin America, 13.

13 14

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taken as binding on Christians in all times and places.15 While Petrelli and the freedom party reacted to this interpretive heritage, a “word for word” approach also ensconces a high view of scripture. Their elevated regard for the Bible affords the movements a concrete locus of identity. Neither the freedom party’s more mystical (allegorical) approach nor the CC’s nuanced revision of the doctrine of God’s Word need detract from the foundational, consolidating significance of scripture. The Brazilian CA provides an intriguing fulcrum for comparison. It is less separatistic than the CC regarding social norms and politics. The CA today permits members to run for public office. However, it is decidedly less political than most AD ministries. Because of its many denominations, the CA’s growth rate is difficult to evaluate. Today, most of its Argentine networks struggle (the Santa Fe churches being the exception) while the Reunited (Brazilian) wing sees steady progress. The CA is lesser-known and considerably smaller than either the CC or AD; however, their joint conventions, encompassing Argentine churches and the Renewed Christian Congregations, promise ongoing inter-ecclesial cooperation with other like-minded pentecostals. While neither the CC nor CA is as “transformational” as the AD (in the Niebuhrian sense), both are active in reaching out to the spiritually needy. Such movements, as Miguel Álvarez suggests, promote integral mission through their commitment to the salvation of others, “Especially those who are close, such as relatives and friends.”16 More insular movements like the CC and CA can still play a transformative role, if on a more intimate scale, among individuals, their families, and their bairros. The CA is the most lay-oriented, maintaining much of its original grassroots identity, and remains robustly congregational. The emphasis on lay involvement in regular worship allots the local church considerable say in administrative measures and electing officers. In line with the definition of grassroots I have employed throughout— privileging the voice of the common people (laity) and the say of local congregations—the AD has taken the furthest leap from its foundational practices. While encouraging the laity to everyday ministry and lived religion, the AD and CC allot little voice to ordinary congregants in official church business (e.g., appointing ministers, handling funds, and ecclesial 15  John P. Hoffmann and John P. Bartkowski, “Gender, Religious Tradition and Biblical Literalism,” Social Forces 86, no. 3 (2008): 1246. 16  Álvarez, Integral Mission, 81.

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discipline). They are better described as clergy-led denominations, and their mother church polity makes them as (if not more) centralistic than many mainline Protestant (such as Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist) denominations. The AD’s increasingly hierarchical structure, particularly true for the Ministério de Madureira and much of the CGADB, favors an oligarchical-­episcopal model with decision-making power vested in the office of the pastor president as the supreme head. The AD’s added structure can be attributed, in part, to its sheer size—administrative measures are conducted more efficiently among such a vast membership (numerically and regionally) when decisions come from one central office. A Logos theology, indispensable to restoring the CC, provides a broader referent within trinitarian thought for actualizing renewal. The Logos (Word) is indirectly connected to the written word (scripture) and harkens to the metaphor in the prologue of John’s Gospel of Jesus as the one and only begotten of the Father and incarnate One. A robust missiology moves beyond eternal (immanent) depictions of the Trinity to the concrete manifestation of Father, Son, and Spirit in creation, redemption, and glorification. The mission of the Son (as the Word sent into the world) extends through the mission of the Spirit (missio Spiritus), whom John depicts as descending on Jesus at his baptism (1:32–34) and the people of God (the church) in Acts 2. The church’s mission today follows this economic rendering of the Trinity, dynamically and imminently restoring the created order. In trinitarian perspective, the pentecostal missional church finds its referent in the Spirit as the link between the church’s mission and that of the incarnate Logos. According to Amos Yong, this connection consists in the comprehension of the Spirit as the creator Spiritus: If a Logos theology emphasizes that the Word became flesh and, as the true light, “enlightens everyone in the world” (John 1:9), then the doctrine of creator Spiritus insists that all life, human life included, exists through the infusion of the divine breath. Thus, as the ancient poets recognized, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Human beings meet one another, thereby, on a pneumatological plane. More pointedly, humans interrelate with one another pneumatically, through the breath of life given by the ruah of God. Christian mission is thus always and primordially missio Spiritus.17

17  Amos Yong, The Missiological Spirit: Christian Mission Theology in the Third Millennium Global Context (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014), 186.

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Pentecostals, particularly the classical movements considered in this book, are a missionally driven people. Movements like these—confronted with division, stagnancy, and incipient hierarchism—find their locus in the mission of God (missio Dei) via the mission of the creator Spirit. The indissoluble link to the incarnate Word and sure footing within the redemptive-historico (economic) unfolding of the missio Dei remains the life-giving power of the Spirit. The doctrines and practices of pentecostal peoples culminate in the baptism and gifts of the Spirit, which are not particular to the high offices of the institutional church but endure as the undergirding and sustaining reality of the everyday missionally driven pentecostal.

Liberative Pentecostalism at the Grassroots The burden for the underprivileged and those on society’s margins remains at the heart of the pentecostal mission. A methodological regard for the poor, as purported by Gutiérrez and Bonino, is more than a theological ploy used to defend the social gospel. It uncovers a biblical theological theme, uniting the Gospel accounts. The “good news” is liberative because it is for the “poor,” the “captive,” and the “oppressed” (Luke 4:18). The kingdom of God is for the “hungry,” the “thirsty,” and the “naked” (Matt. 25:34–36). Jesus says giving from “poverty” and not “abundance” is of utmost virtue (Mark 12:41–44), and that “our treasure in heaven” is tied to giving to those in need (10:21).18 The CC’s obra da piedade (work of piety) embodies the essence of liberation theology at the grassroots. As a supplementary offering reserved for the member in deepest need, all congregants, clergy and laity alike, participate in a unifying act that extends the mission of the church. In giving, the layperson takes part in the foremost mandate of the gospel—there is no higher function, and no high office qualifies one for this task. Men and women alike are invited to participate. Those holding a civic office as well as those reticent to engage in the public square are summoned to contribute to an ecclesiastically and societally transformative act. Such giving is a compelling expression of grassroots Pentecostalism, affording movements that lack a unified polity, sense of gender identity, and political

18  Drawing from the gospels, Segundo delineates a biblical response and hermeneutic in defense of liberation theology. Segundo, Liberation of Theology, 228–37.

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theology a common foundation on which to build and rebuild congregational life. An upwardly mobile Brazilian Pentecostalism today finds itself between the representative Majority World nation and the more individualistic peoples of the Western world. This unique in-between status affords an opportunity to reconcile the worlds of the affluent and deprived. Classical Brazilian Pentecostalism enters unchartered waters. As the story depicted in this book suggests, the course Brazilian pentecostals trod in the years ahead will be anything but linear. In as far as the movements maintain their pentecostal identity, their future will be replete with shifting patterns of growth, schism, and new variations. Such fluctuation is what makes a pentecostal movement pentecostal. Though altering course, they are also highly adaptable in changing historical milieus and diverse contexts. The mobility of classical Brazilian pentecostals suggests the CC will find new momentum if in new regions; the AD will rebound amid present losses, if in taking on novel forms; and the CA, despite (and perhaps because of) its persistent grassroots character, will restore a fragmented heritage. The pentecostal Spirit traverses national and international spaces from North to South and South to North (and East and West) while transcending ethno-racial lines. From Azusa to Chicago to Paraná, from Belém to Lighthouse Point and beyond, the transnational, reversing Spirit will chart new terrain, reaching the unreached. Loosening the stigma of colonialism, among the underprivileged, the liberating Spirit ushers also the Indigenous into the flow of reverse mission. Through these endemic voices the renewing Spirit harkens us today.

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Index1

A Africa, African, 4, 4n6, 6, 18, 21, 27, 28, 40–43, 45, 46, 49–51, 59, 60, 62, 63, 73, 74, 105, 106, 116, 122, 161, 184, 231, 232 African Americans, 27, 28 Afro-BraziKuhlman, Kathrynian religion spiritism, 45, 46, 50, 51, 232 syncretic forms of, 45, 51 Afro-Brazilian religion, 45–48, 50, 51, 119 Alcohol, 208–211 Amazonas, 53, 77, 80, 162 American Bible Society, 34, 43 Anglicans, Anglicanism, 70, 147, 171 Anglo, 116 Anglo-Saxon, 44, 90 Argentina, Argentine, 8, 21, 25, 34, 42, 44, 61, 69, 74, 89–103, 110–113, 128, 130, 132, 138,

156, 157, 192, 192n76, 207, 213, 226, 233, 240 “Articles of Faith,” the CC’s, 36, 69, 110, 134, 149, 208 Asia, Asian, 4, 105, 122 Assembleias de Deus (AD), 2, 7, 45, 54, 75n84, 114–116, 128, 138–140, 147, 159, 178, 201 Assemblies of God (AG) US AG, 70, 79, 84, 116, 163–165, 170, 217, 219, 237 World AG Fellowship, 5, 162 Australia, 30, 116 Azusa Street Mission, Revival, 2, 15, 17, 25, 28, 92, 236 B Bahia, 46, 74, 77 Baptism in/with the Holy Spirit, 12, 39

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13371-8

273

274 

INDEX

Baptism, water, 10, 13, 14, 26, 28–30, 33, 35, 38, 39, 52, 57, 67, 69, 75, 76, 80, 86, 93n15, 164, 189, 202, 205, 207, 231, 241, 242 Baptist, Baptists, 2, 18, 37–39, 37n43, 43, 45, 49, 57, 58, 75–77, 98, 110, 134, 142, 146, 147, 158n48, 231, 241 Barth, Karl, 135, 136, 238, 239 Bartleman, Frank, 15, 28 Belém, 17, 75–78, 76n90, 114, 115, 131, 162, 231, 243 Berg, Daniel, 2, 14, 18, 25, 31, 37, 38n44, 39, 44, 49, 53, 58, 59, 63, 67, 68, 68n52, 68n53, 75–77, 80, 93n17, 114, 223, 230, 231 Bethlehem Ministry (BM), 114–116, 161, 197, 235 Bezerra da Costa, José Wellington, 115, 161, 162 “Blood Issue,” the, 35, 36, 68, 96–100, 103, 107–114, 148, 149, 151, 206, 233 Blood products, 35, 69, 97, 103, 108, 113, 178, 184, 206–208, 211 Boas novas [Good news], 73, 140, 210, 242 Bonino, Jose Miguez, 22, 223, 224, 226, 228, 242 Bosworth, Fred Francis, 30 Brazil, Brazilian Brazilian Empire, 19–20, 42 Brazuca, 21, 21n67, 106, 111, 112, 230, 234, 235 independence of, 3, 42, 43, 200 Brazil for Christ (Brasil para Cristo), 55, 196 Brazilian Assemblies of God, see Assembleias de Deus Broadcasts, broadcasting radio, 133, 140, 188, 212 television, 133, 188, 212

Brown, Marie Burgess, 30, 188 Buddhist, Buddhism, 43 Buenos Aires, 34, 65, 89–91, 93–96, 98, 99, 130 C Calvin, John, 145, 170–171 Camisards, 26 Canada, Canadian, 29, 30, 35, 56, 57, 79, 85, 105, 110, 112, 116, 149, 188, 209 Candomblé, 46, 47, 87 Capitalism, 97 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 225 Caribbean, 4, 122 Catholic Base Communities (CBC), 50, 51, 168 Catholic, Catholicism Brazilian, 40–48 folk, 41, 42, 44, 46, 49, 52, 61, 184, 233 restrictivism of, 166–169, 184 Center for the Study of Global Christianity, 4, 12, 102, 119, 129, 171 Central America, Central American, 4 Charismata, 10, 10n29, 155, 159, 160, 223, 238 See also Baptism in/with the Spirit; Healing; Prophecy; Speaking in tongues Charismatics, 4, 12, 13, 30, 35, 54, 64, 69, 77, 130, 149, 158, 159, 162, 190 Chicago, 2, 6, 16, 17, 21, 25, 28–39, 29n14, 44, 49, 53, 57, 59, 63–65, 67–69, 71, 72, 81, 89, 90, 94–97, 101, 107–114, 133, 148, 149, 191, 199, 220, 229, 230, 233, 243 Chicago revival, 2, 7, 18, 27–29, 54, 67, 94, 148, 149, 156, 230, 236

 INDEX 

Chile, Chilean, 15, 74, 93n15 China, Chinese, 9, 16, 27, 29, 30 Inland Mission, 29 Christian and Missionary Alliance, 146 Christian Assembly (CA) of Chicago (Assemblea Cristiana), 35, 37, 64, 69, 81, 89, 102, 107, 108, 108n10, 113, 233 Reunited in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 8, 89, 101, 113, 157 of Villa Devoto, 99, 100, 103, 128, 137–138, 156, 157, 176n5 of Villa Lynch, 96, 100, 192n76 Christian Base Communities (CBCs), 50, 51 Christian Congregation (Congregação Cristã; CC), 2, 6–9, 11, 13, 14, 17–22, 29, 34, 36, 37, 41, 42, 44, 49, 51–54, 56, 58, 64n35, 65, 67, 69–75, 73n75, 80–88, 96–101, 103, 107, 108, 108n9, 111, 112, 112n27, 112n28, 114, 115, 119, 122, 128–138, 137n26, 140, 142, 143, 146, 148–155, 157, 166–171, 175–178, 181, 182, 182n35, 184n44, 186, 187, 189–192, 192n76, 194, 194n82, 196, 198, 201, 202, 206–213, 208n25, 208n30, 210n36, 212n44, 217, 220–223, 226, 231–235, 238–241, 243 Christian Republican Party (Partido Republicano Cristão), 213, 216 Church growth, 14, 15n47, 21, 112, 127–143, 171 Church of God, 70, 94, 150, 187n54 Church of Promise (Igreja da Promessa), 117, 118 Churrasco, 99, 208

275

Class, 11, 43, 45, 46, 74, 82, 97, 119, 127, 130, 177, 190, 191, 200, 210, 220, 238 Clergy vs. laity, 195, 217, 242 Colonialism Portuguese, 107 Spanish, 40, 44 Columbia, 79, 86 Columbus, Christopher, 56, 59 Communion, 157, 164 Congregationalists, Congregationalism, 136, 146–148, 154, 155, 164–166, 168–171, 231, 238 Constantine, 225 Contadini, 41, 81, 91, 92, 169, 184 Convention of the Assemblies of God of Brazil (CADB), 162 Conversion, 10, 15, 28, 74, 87, 142, 196, 205, 222, 224 Corinthian church, the, 186 COVID-19 pandemic, 213, 219 Creation, order of, 173–198, 223, 224, 241 Credentialing, ministerial, 109, 151, 161, 197, 238 D da Silva, Benedita, 214, 215 Democracy, democratic, 43, 97, 102, 119, 146, 199, 200, 211, 218 Dependency theory, 168, 224 Diaspora Brazilian, 74 Italian, 21, 65, 89, 154, 183 Divine Healing movement, 19, 19n62, 29 Dowie, John Alexander, 29, 30 Dress code, 22, 51, 70, 173–198, 232, 233 Dutch Reformed Church, 40

276 

INDEX

E Earth Christian Church (Sal da Terra Igreja Cristã, SECC), 120, 120n56 Eastern religion, 4, 43 Ecclesiology, 22, 170, 201, 202 Economy, Brazilian, 85, 112 Ecumenism, ecumenical, 99, 103, 170, 202 Education, educational Bible school, 217 seminary, 161, 217 Edwards, Jonathan, 19, 136, 142 Egalitarian, egalitarianism, 141, 187–194, 198, 237 El Salvador, 85 Emmanuele III, Victor, 65 England, English, 3, 16, 19, 44, 71, 72, 112, 116, 120, 149, 213 Eschatology, 10, 189 dispensationalist, 19 millenarian, 223 Espírito Santo, 78, 162 Ethnicity, 11, 14, 22, 27, 31, 112, 116, 178, 220–222, 230–236 ethnocentrism, 96–100, 138, 233, 234 Europe, European, 3–6, 8, 14, 16, 26, 31–43, 46n69, 48, 53, 56–60, 62, 63, 63n33, 80, 82, 90, 92, 93, 102, 105, 106, 111, 112n27, 116, 121, 122, 161, 207, 222, 226, 231, 234 Evangelical Free Church, 146, 187n54 Evangelicalism, 19, 20, 82, 83, 103 Evangélico, 20, 83, 226 Evangelism, evangelization mass media, 132, 139, 236 open-air preaching and, 133

F Fascism, Italian, 65, 138 “Finished work” theology, 13 First National Convention of Italian pentecostals (1927), 108 Foursquare Gospel Church (FGC), 7, 54–56, 88, 132, 188, 197, 236 France, French, 3, 27, 45, 59, 60, 75, 90, 106, 115, 116, 191 Francescon, Luigi, 1, 2, 14, 18, 21, 25, 31–37, 33n25, 42, 44, 49, 53, 58, 59, 63–72, 75, 80, 81, 86, 89, 93–95, 98, 103, 107–111, 114, 130, 133, 134, 136–138, 142, 148–154, 156, 167, 169, 169n83, 191, 207, 212, 223, 230, 231, 238 Francescon, Rosina, 32, 33, 33n25, 191 Freire, Paul, 168 G Gender distinction, 176, 194 dysphoria, 195 General Convention of Christian Assemblies (GCCA), 101, 102, 156, 213 General Convention of Christian Churches (GCCC), 101–103, 148, 213, 233 General Convention of the Assemblies of God in Brazil (CGADB), 80, 161, 162, 170, 202, 213, 216, 216n62, 237, 238, 241 Germany, Germans, 27, 42n56, 43, 44, 60, 62, 90, 116 Global North, 9, 16, 21, 54, 105, 106, 111, 112, 121, 122, 205n18, 234, 235

 INDEX 

Global South, 3–6, 9, 16, 97, 106, 120–122, 204, 222, 226, 235, 239, 243 God Is Love (Deus É Amor), 55, 176 Great Awakening, the, 26 Great Depression, the, 107, 138 Greek, Greece, 27, 98, 180, 180n29, 182, 182n33, 183, 195 Guatemala, 85, 226, 227 Gutiérrez, Gustavo, 18, 167, 167n77, 242 H Head covering (“the veil”), 51, 175, 176, 178–187, 186n51, 191, 195 See also Hijab Healing, 29, 30, 47, 50–52, 55, 67, 69, 74, 75, 79, 80, 86, 87, 95, 162, 232 Hijab, 184–186 Holiness ethic, 22, 88, 199–228 Holiness movement, 17, 19n62, 26, 28, 30, 39, 50, 64, 173, 230 Holy Spirit, 10, 10n29, 12, 33, 35, 38, 39, 47, 86, 103, 109, 134, 136, 149, 150, 187, 231 Huguenots, French, 40 Hutchins, Julia, 27, 28 Hymnbook Italian, 69, 87, 101, 110, 131n11 Portuguese, 87, 101 I Imperialism, 40 India, Indian, 16, 27, 30, 66 Indigenous, indigenization, 18, 26, 40–49, 52, 87, 90, 93, 134n19, 203, 243

277

Inquisition, the, 43 Institute of the Assemblies of God (Instituto Biblico das Assembleias de Deus), 84, 217 International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies (IFCA), 29n15, 37, 69, 71, 72, 72n71, 99–101, 100n44, 107, 109, 110, 113, 113n30, 130, 138, 146, 149, 157, 169n83, 192, 207, 208, 209n34, 233 Ireland, Irish, 90 Irvingites, 26 Islam, Muslim, 174, 184–187, 220 Italy, Italian, 1, 2, 6n17, 14, 17, 20, 21, 26, 27, 29, 29n15, 31–37, 41, 42n56, 44, 53, 57, 58n14, 59n16, 61–75, 61n25, 63n32, 65n40, 72n71, 80–82, 87, 89–103, 107–114, 112n27, 116, 120, 120n53, 122, 129, 130, 131n11, 138, 148–158, 169, 178, 183, 184, 186, 199, 202n7, 205–208, 210, 220, 229–235 southern, 41, 61, 92 IURD, see Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus) J Japan, Japanese, 21, 27, 30, 43, 75, 116, 191 Jerusalem Council, 35, 69, 103, 108, 113, 206–208 Jesuits, 41 Jews, Jewish, 4, 30, 43, 98, 179, 180, 195, 206, 207 Johnson, Berger, 93, 93n17 Julius II, Pope, 60

278 

INDEX

K Kephalē, 180, 181, 183, 183n39 Keswick Movement, 26, 28, 30 Korea, Korean, 9, 16 Kuhlman, Kathryn, 188 L Latin America, Latin American, 3–6, 8, 9, 20, 35, 42, 56, 60, 61n25, 81, 85, 86, 89, 92, 93n15, 102, 105, 106, 122, 185, 205, 217, 220, 226, 227, 229 Lausanne Congress, 83 Liberation theology, 9, 18, 22, 50, 145, 166–169, 222, 242, 242n18 Literalism, biblical, 35, 178, 239 Lombardi, Giacomo, 34, 69, 89, 93–95 Lutherans, Lutheranism, 61, 127, 146, 147 M Macedo, Edir, 119 Macumba, 46, 46n69, 47 Majority World, see Global South Mazzucco, Marcos, 93, 94 McPherson¸ Aimee Semple, 7, 54, 188, 197 Mensageiro da paz (Messenger of peace), 79, 139 Methodists, Methodism, 22, 43, 44, 49, 50, 67, 75, 75n84, 93n15, 127, 147, 171, 223, 241 Mexico, Mexican, 4, 42, 105, 112 Mezzogiorno, 41, 91, 184 Migration Brazil immigration, 111, 177 Great European Migration, 61, 62, 122 immigration policy, 62, 63 return, 58, 59n16, 121 rural-urban, 77, 85, 139

transnational, 199, 229 War Years quotas and, 72 Misogynist, misogynistic, 181, 182 Missions diaspora, 234 integral, 80–88, 106, 222–228, 240 multidirectional, 22, 234–236 reverse, 10n28, 21, 54, 105–123, 231, 234, 235, 243 transnational, 31, 118 Moltmann, Jürgen, 224 Montanism, 25 Moody, D. L., 28, 29, 29n14, 31, 71 Multiculturalism, 27, 83, 231 Multiple origins approach, 15, 16 Mussolini, Benito, 92, 93 See also Fascism, Italian N Natal convention (1930), 193 National Convention of the Assemblies of God - Ministry of Madureira (CONAMAD), 80, 161 Native Americans, 27 Natucci, Narcisco, 95, 96, 98, 103, 138, 148, 156 Neoliberalism, 102 Neoorthodoxy, 135 Neopentecostalism, 140–143, 237 New Calvinism, 140–143, 237 New World, 2, 3, 19, 32, 37, 56, 59, 62, 206 New York, 1, 68, 110, 111 Niebuhr, H. Richard, 12, 22, 201–205, 211, 221, 223, 225 Nigeria, 16, 45 North America, North American, 2, 5, 6, 16, 18, 19, 21, 35, 54, 55, 57, 75, 79, 82, 84, 97, 99, 105–123, 134, 149, 161, 192, 197, 208, 222, 226, 227, 229, 232, 234

 INDEX 

North Avenue Mission, 2, 13, 25, 29, 33, 38, 68, 230 Norway, 16 O Obra da piedade (work of piety), 86, 152, 154, 167, 242 Oneness theology, 137 Ouriel de Jesus, 115 P Palestine, Palestinian (first-century), 113, 186 Pará, 39, 53, 68, 68n53, 77, 101, 102, 114, 130–132, 162, 229, 231 See also Belém Paraguay, 51, 74, 100, 191 Paraná, 17, 41, 49, 53, 61, 66, 74, 78, 101, 102, 115, 129, 133, 149, 231, 243 Parham, Charles Fox, 28n9, 30 Pastor-presidents (pastores-­ presidentes), 80, 115, 140, 152, 158, 159, 161–163, 165, 170, 171, 193, 213, 214, 214n53 Patriarchal, patriarchalism, 154, 180, 189, 196 Patronage, royal, 41, 42 Paul, the Apostle, 209 Pedro I, 42 Pedro II, 42, 200 Pentecostal, Pentecostalism apostolic, 25 classical, 3–13, 25, 26, 40, 48–52, 54, 56, 68–81, 86, 87, 97, 103, 114, 116, 122, 128, 145, 147, 148, 168, 173, 174, 197, 199, 201, 202, 204, 210, 211, 225–227, 229–231, 234–239 grassroots, 10–15, 20, 25, 239, 242

279

Pernambuco, 77 Perón, Eva, 97 Perón, Juan, 97, 103 Peru, 42, 74 Pethrus, Lewi, 37, 75, 165 Petrelli, Giuseppe, 98, 110, 110n18, 138, 238–240 Philadelphia, 34, 111, 176 Piper, William Hamner, 30 Pneumatology, 202 Politics apoliticism, 19, 22, 199, 201, 212–214, 220, 225, 226 political engagement, 19, 201, 205, 211, 216, 219, 221, 238 Polity, ecclesial congregational, 148, 166, 171 episcopal, 148, 162, 168 presbyterian, 146, 148, 166, 170 single-elder, 148 Portuguese, 3, 40–42, 41n52, 42n58, 45, 50, 59–63, 64n35, 67, 71–73, 75, 80, 87, 101, 106, 111, 112, 115, 116, 121, 130, 134, 179, 213, 225, 233 Poverty, 9, 11, 18, 22, 50, 60, 63, 81, 82, 86, 154, 167, 242 Preferential option for the poor, 18, 167, 229 Premillennialism, see Eschatology Presbyterians, Presbyterianism, 1, 18, 19n62, 43–45, 64, 67, 93, 127, 147, 152, 230, 241 Prophecy, 29, 39, 51, 64, 65, 68, 136, 189, 223, 238 Prosperity gospel, 56, 119, 227 Protestants, Protestantism, 3–5, 14, 40–48, 52, 54, 55, 57, 70, 71, 78, 82, 87, 127, 165, 174, 178, 201, 202, 205n18, 211, 215, 219, 223, 227, 228, 230, 232, 236, 239, 241 Publishing House of the Assemblies of God (CPAD), 79

280 

INDEX

Q Quakers, 26, 147 R Race, racism, 27, 31, 61n25, 62, 63n32, 65, 90 Reformed, 18, 26, 30, 31, 40, 44, 142, 143, 203, 230 Restorationist, restorationism, 30, 31, 103 Revelation, doctrine of, 240 Revivalist, revivalism, 19, 29n14, 30, 31, 37, 57, 142 Rio de Janeiro, 37n42, 44, 46, 55, 78, 79, 84, 119, 159, 161, 162, 193 Roman Catholic, see Catholic, Catholicism Rome, 34, 41, 200 S San Cayetano, 94, 95 Santa Catarina, 57, 78, 118, 140 Santo Antônio da Platina, 17, 66, 231 São Paulo, 34, 41, 42, 44, 53, 55, 59n16, 60–63, 65–69, 74, 75, 77, 78, 102, 111, 115, 128n2, 129, 140n36, 142, 151, 152, 154, 161, 186, 217, 220, 229 Scandinavia, Scandinavian, 27, 30, 43, 61, 75 Scotland, Scottish, 19, 29, 30, 120 Separation of church and state, 3, 148, 219, 227 Separatism, separatistic, 22, 76, 114, 177, 199–228, 236, 237, 240 Seymour, William J., 27, 28 Sicily, 41, 92, 92n13 Slavery abolishment in Brazil, 62 slave trade, 184

Social action, 82, 83, 83n116, 85 South Africa, South Africans, 15, 30 South America, South American, 2–4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 16, 20, 25, 31, 34, 41, 44, 48, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 61, 65, 67, 69, 74, 81, 86, 96–100, 130, 138, 149, 161, 175, 206–208, 220, 230, 238 Southern Cone, 21, 41, 61, 69, 74, 89–103, 111, 130, 156, 233 Southern Italy, southern Italian, 61, 92 See also Mezzogiorno Spain, Spanish, 3, 21, 40, 41, 42n58, 44, 48, 59–62, 61n25, 75, 90, 92, 98, 102, 112, 116, 157, 213, 235 Speaking in tongues, 10, 10n31, 28, 29, 48, 49, 69, 74, 75 Spinoza, Baruch, 153 Spiritual gifts, see Charismata Supernaturalism, 27, 49, 76, 232 Sweden, Swedish, 17, 20, 21, 25, 26, 31, 37–39, 44, 49, 53, 57, 63, 67, 75, 77–82, 84, 87, 94, 106, 117, 122, 142, 148, 165, 166, 170, 184, 199, 206, 217, 218, 221, 223, 229–234, 236 mission friends, 29 Switzerland, 83, 116 Syncretism, religious, see Afro-Brazilian religion T Taylor, Hudson, 29 Torrey, R. A., 28, 29 Tosetto, Massimiliano, 29, 109 Transnationalism trans-Americas, 14, 21, 81, 107–114 See also Migration; Missions Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), 60

 INDEX 

Trinity, 69, 136, 137, 192, 241 Trump, Donald, 219 Tusancy, Tuscans, 33, 34 U Umbanda, 46 United Pentecostal Church (International), 137, 146, 176 United States (US), 2, 5–7, 6n17, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20–22, 21n67, 25, 27, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 40, 43, 48, 49, 54, 56, 57, 61, 62, 63n32, 68–72, 79–81, 84, 87, 91, 97n33, 101, 102, 105–118, 112n27, 112n28, 120–123, 130, 131n11, 133, 138, 140, 141, 145–171, 173–177, 187–189, 187n54, 191, 192, 197, 199, 207–210, 209n34, 216, 217, 219, 220, 225, 227, 229–231, 234–237 Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus), 55, 119, 123n64, 141, 166 Urban culture, 231 V Vargas, Getúlio, 78, 119, 200 Vatican II, 167, 200, 229 Venezuela, 74, 111 Vespucci, Amerigo, 57, 61n25 Videla Redondo, Jorge Rafael, 97 Vingren, Frida, 193, 193n80

281

Vingren, Gunnar, 2, 14, 18, 25, 31, 38, 39, 44, 49, 53, 58, 59, 63, 67, 68, 75–77, 75n84, 80, 81, 114, 193, 223, 230, 231 Virgin Mary, the, 41 Vodou, 28, 87 W Waldensians, 25, 32, 33 Wales, 16 Washer, Paul, 133, 134, 134n19, 142 Wave theory, renewal, 18 Weber, Max routinization of charisma, 190 sect-church theory, 8 Wesley, John, 19 West, the, Western culture, 203 individualism, 43 Whitefield, George, 19 Wine-drinking, 208, 209 Woman in ministry, 22, 192 Wood, Alice, 93, 93n17 Woodworth-Etter, Maria, 188 Worker’s Party, 215 World War I (WWI), 43, 93, 95, 135 World War II (WWII), 7, 43, 65, 79, 102, 107, 131, 138, 158, 199, 200, 213 World Wars era, 8, 173, 189, 233 Y Yong, Amos, 19, 205, 225, 241