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Evangelical Voters Throw Their Support to a Pro-Israel President - in Brazil

(Wall Street Journal) Walter Russell Mead - Shortly after Jair Bolsonaro's victory in the Brazilian presidential election last week, he said he would follow through on his campaign promise to move Brazil's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Bolsonaro - himself a Catholic but married to an evangelical Protestant pastor - owes his political success in large part to support from evangelical voters. As recently as the 1970s, Brazil was almost uniformly Catholic. But the largest country in Latin America is today nearly as evangelical as the U.S.: 25% of Brazilians identify as evangelical Christians, compared with 26% of Americans, according to the Joshua Project. As in the U.S., many evangelical and Pentecostal Christians instinctively support Israel. The rise of evangelical and Pentecostal Christian support for Judaism and Israel in much of the world is a heartening sign. Based on a literal approach to the Bible and a covenantal theology that attributes a continuing religious significance to the Jewish people and their state, these two rapidly spreading forms of Protestant Christianity tend to promote a climate of respect for individual Jews as well as support for Zionism. Guatemala, which is now about 40% Protestant, opened an embassy in Jerusalem two days after the U.S. did. The writer is professor of foreign affairs and humanities at Bard College.
2018-11-06 00:00:00
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