A dancer from the Tom Maior samba school performs during a Carnival parade in São Paulo, Brazil, early Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)SÃO PAULO (RNS) — The massive Saturnalia of the Brazilian Carnival, the five days of festivities, parades and public debauchery leading up to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, has not historically been a scene for the country’s evangelical Christians. While Brazilians around the country dress in costumes and dance to Afro-Brazilian beats, especially samba, traditional church faiths organize spiritual retreats, hoping to lure churchgoers away from the lustful partying.
But in the past few years, evangelicals, who make up about 30% of Brazil’s population, have taken a new tack, working to short-circuit the festival with displays of Christian faith.
That strategy was behind a major incident at this year’s Carnival, which ended Wednesday (Feb. 14), in the coastal city of Salvador when Ivete Sangalo, a star of axé, a music genre that combines reggae and samba, among other rhythms, saluted Baby do Brasil, a rock legend from the 1970s who converted to Evangelicalism in the 1990s. Interrupting the concert in full swing on her “trio elétrico” — a parade float with a powerful sound system that draws hundreds of partygoers, Sangalo turned the mic over to Baby, who unexpectedly called on the audience to repent.
“Everyone must pay attention because we are getting closer to the apocalypse,” she said, to Sangalo’s apparent surprise. “The rapture has everything to happen between five and 10 years. Seek the Lord while you can.”
When Sangalo replied, quoting her hit “Banging,” that her fans would “bang” the apocalypse, a double-entendre in Brazilian Portuguese as in English, a video of the brief exchange went viral, with some Brazilians criticizing Baby’s speech as inappropriate for Carnival, and others, including many Evangelicals, calling Sangalo disrespectful of Christians.
The next day, an accident involving Sangalo’s float injured two people, which some evangelicals deemed an act of divine justice.
A woman holds up her son, dressed as Simba from “The Lion King,” during the “Ceu na Terra,” or Heaven on Earth pre-Carnival street party, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
Political scientist Joscimar Silva, a professor at the University of Brasilia who studies evangelicals’ rise in Brazilian politics, said Baby’s intervention echoes evangelicals’ past attempts to organize Gospel Carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro and other cities. “Evangelical groups developed strategies like this three or four decades ago,” but, Si …
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But in the past few years, evangelicals, who make up about 30% of Brazil’s population, have taken a new tack, working to short-circuit the festival with displays of Christian faith.
That strategy was behind a major incident at this year’s Carnival, which ended Wednesday (Feb. 14), in the coastal city of Salvador when Ivete Sangalo, a star of axé, a music genre that combines reggae and samba, among other rhythms, saluted Baby do Brasil, a rock legend from the 1970s who converted to Evangelicalism in the 1990s. Interrupting the concert in full swing on her “trio elétrico” — a parade float with a powerful sound system that draws hundreds of partygoers, Sangalo turned the mic over to Baby, who unexpectedly called on the audience to repent.
“Everyone must pay attention because we are getting closer to the apocalypse,” she said, to Sangalo’s apparent surprise. “The rapture has everything to happen between five and 10 years. Seek the Lord while you can.”
When Sangalo replied, quoting her hit “Banging,” that her fans would “bang” the apocalypse, a double-entendre in Brazilian Portuguese as in English, a video of the brief exchange went viral, with some Brazilians criticizing Baby’s speech as inappropriate for Carnival, and others, including many Evangelicals, calling Sangalo disrespectful of Christians.
The next day, an accident involving Sangalo’s float injured two people, which some evangelicals deemed an act of divine justice.
A woman holds up her son, dressed as Simba from “The Lion King,” during the “Ceu na Terra,” or Heaven on Earth pre-Carnival street party, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
Political scientist Joscimar Silva, a professor at the University of Brasilia who studies evangelicals’ rise in Brazilian politics, said Baby’s intervention echoes evangelicals’ past attempts to organize Gospel Carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro and other cities. “Evangelical groups developed strategies like this three or four decades ago,” but, Si …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]