Religion as a Tool for Political Radicalization in Brazil

By Ana Carolina Evangelista

English translation by Yenni Castro (Valestra Editorial)

Religion seems to spring up from the ground every time politics in Brazil is discussed these days. Whether reporting on the elections or on what has been happening in the National Congress, not a day goes by that we don't hear about the voting intentions among the evangelical wing of the electorate or on the position of deputy A, B, or C, and how they highlight their religious references to justify their vote or the new bill they are proposing. But what is going on? Why are we seeing more religion in politics? Has it always been there, and we just never paid attention or talked about it? Why is it no longer possible to talk about elections and politics in Brazil without bringing up the topic of religion?

Does everything have to do with religion? I don't think so. Are we talking about an indiscriminate invasion of religion into politics, or are we witnessing a systematic, radicalized, and instrumental integration of religion by one of the political-ideological poles? Option two seems more accurate.

Groups with different political and religious identities and across different age groups assess these changes in Brazil in very different ways. In general, there is a strong element of political polarization.

Younger adults tend to defend the separation of religion and government more strongly. They are less concerned about religious pluralization in society and the reduction of religious influence in public life in general. Meanwhile, older age groups and traditional, Christian-based religious segments—Catholics and Evangelicals—express greater unease about Brazil's trend toward greater religious plurality and, depending on the public space, greater diversity of opinions, voices, and worldviews. Religion remains deeply present in a society such as Brazil's, which has historically been predominantly Catholic—and now Catholic and Evangelical—with a Christian foundation, yet this presence continues to be surrounded by tensions, mutual misunderstandings, and political disputes that reinforce already existing divisions.

Far-right forces in Brazil are currently the ones most actively mobilizing religion to address the daily and concrete challenges faced by people amid the social, economic, political, and public safety crises. In this context, politicians, whether religious or not, are mobilizing religiosity and its more individualistic and dogmatic contemporary forms as a way of presenting alternatives that will allow for a return to order, predictability, security, and unity.

In current Brazilian politics, religion is also a discursive resource to promote belonging and the restoration of order, used by ultra-conservatives or neo-conservatives, to advance their agendas in institutional spheres. It is not just a matter of certain religious groups seeking to impose their morals on the whole society through state policies, but also of new facets of Brazilian conservatism, which use religion to communicate with people and create symbolic and affective bonds with them. This configuration makes it practically impossible to dissociate religious morality, political agendas, social demands, and personal dilemmas.

Simultaneously, the presence of religious leaders in the public sphere and in politics has an enormous influence on the configuration of this scenario, and nowadays, religious leaders with political power and a prominent public voice are those with ultra-conservative leanings. This is a two-pronged movement: the political figure who mobilizes those in the religious sphere and the religious leaders, now mostly evangelicals, who use the space of institutional politics to impose the morality of their segment as a general agenda.

Not until 2010 did opinion polls and voting intention surveys in Brazil begin to highlight divisions related to religious identity and belonging. For example, back in 2008, the voting intention survey on the presidential contest following President Lula's two terms in office didn't measure the religious identity of those polled. It wasn't a matter of understanding the voter profile at that time. It definitely wasn't, just yet.

For example, in the midst of the 2010 election year, Datafolha considered it more important to understand how readers of the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo would vote than to identify the voting profile of certain religious segments. The survey conducted on the eve of the first round did not highlight religious affiliation in voting intentions; however, the one for the second round did, when the debate on abortion erupted and became the central theme in the campaigns between the two candidates: Dilma Rousseff (Worker’s Party, “PT” by its Portuguese acronym) and José Serra (Brazil’s Social Democrat Party, “PSDB” by its Portuguese acronym). Since then, and only since then, opinion research institutes began to highlight religion in their analyses.

None of this happened by chance. It was a period of reactions to the Third National Human Rights Program (PNDH-3), presented by Lula's second administration. These reactions led to an unprecedented alliance between Catholics and Evangelicals in the National Congress for the “defense of the family,” mainly focused on the fight against the decriminalization of abortion and the recognition of the rights of the LGBTQIA+ population. These were issues that dominated the electoral race for the Presidency at the time and would remain at the center of public debate and the political activism agenda of religious groups.

In the subsequent national elections, this broader alliance between religious parliamentarians and non-religious ultra-conservatives expanded to other agendas such as education and public safety, as we clearly saw in 2018. This was a kind of new, more radicalized religious-conservative agenda that would become a pillar of Bolsonarism and the Bolsonarism-Bible alliance we see today in the National Congress.

Therefore, the shift of a significant portion of the Brazilian electorate toward the far right had already been observed in previous elections, but it further intensified in the 2018 elections. A possible “Brazilian version of the Christian right”—Brazilian because here it counts on allies who are not necessarily Christian and who are often not religious at all—is an important vector of political radicalization at one end of the political spectrum. This radicalization is intolerant and exclusionary, seeking to impose its morality on the whole society.

As in the United States, rather than a problem related to polarization, we are facing a providential and dangerous use of religion as a political weapon, and this use occurs at one end of the spectrum, with the far right clinging to the Bible, ultra-conservatism, and Christianity as a way to demonize the other and radicalize politics.

On the one hand, we cannot explain all the layers behind a far right that has increased its social support and also occupies public space to express its demands and worldviews. On the other hand, we do not want to accept the idea that these political and ideological forces that have taken over the streets are not going to disappear anytime soon, just as the classic left-wing structures of political articulation and social intermediation in the territories are no longer the ones that play that role with the same credibility and popular appeal.

About the Author

Ana Carolina Evangelista is a researcher and executive director at ISER (Institute for Religious Studies) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is a political scientist and holds two master’s degrees in international relations and public management. She was a visiting researcher at SciencesPo in Paris, France. Her work focuses on research, and she provides press commentary on the Brazilian political system, elections, and the role of religious groups in politics.

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