Fight Nights and
Published:
September 14, 2009
They screamed when a fan favorite, Fabio Buca,
outlasted his opponent after several minutes. They went wild when Pastor Dogão
Meira, 26, took his man down, pinning him with an armlock just 10 seconds into
the fight.
With the crowd
still buzzing, Pastor
Mazola Maffei, dressed in army pants and a T-shirt, grabbed a microphone.
Pastor Maffei, who is also Pastor Meira’s fight trainer, then held the crowd
rapt with a sermon about the connection between sports and spirituality.
“You
need to practice the sport of spirituality more,” he urged. “You need to fight
for your life, for your dreams and ideals.”
Reborn in Christ is among a growing number of
evangelical churches in Brazil
that are finding ways to connect with younger people to swell their ranks. From fight nights
to reggae music to video games and on-site tattoo parlors, the
churches have helped make evangelicalism the fastest-growing spiritual movement
in
Evangelical
Christian churches are luring Brazilians away from Roman Catholicism, the
dominant religion in
Despite
She said more
Brazilians were attracted to
evangelical churches, or Pentecostalism, for the “flexibility of
the religious expression.” They
see churches like Reborn as places where they can express themselves more
freely, and “not only look for solutions to personal problems, but also find a
place to meet and socialize.”
Pastor
Meira said that for young people seeking salvation, evangelism could fill a
void. “Here they enter the church, sometimes to see a fight competition, they
receive the word of Jesus Christ, and they begin a transformation. They will get off drugs, start to respect
their parents and start to cure the illnesses of the soul, like anxiety,
depression, drugs and alcohol, prostitution,” he said.
Amid the youth movement,
Reborn in Christ has suffered its share of
controversy. The church’s leaders, Estevam and Sônia Hernandes,
returned to
Reborn tries to
hire younger pastors who can relate better to adolescent members. Pastor Meira
is a part-time pastor; he also has a day job in marketing for a household
paints company and studies advertising at night.
The night of the Extreme Fight,
dozens of teenagers and young adults hovered around the church. In the front
room, booths sold hot dogs and pizza, and young people lined up in one corner
to get religious-theme tattoos like “I Belong to Jesus.” In the main room,
there were video games, a D.J. spinning a mix of hip-hop and funk, and a
projection screen showing a DVD of the
Though most came
for the main event, the Extreme Fight, they lingered. After four fights and
Pastor Maffei’s sermon, members paired up. One placed his hand over the other’s
forehead and spoke of Jesus Christ; the other closed his eyes tightly.
The growing
evangelical youth movement takes aim at Brazilians of all classes. At Bola
de Neve Church, young professionals blend in with lower-income families
and troubled youths.
Pastors lead a flock of more than 2,500
members on Sunday evenings in rousing reggae and rock songs, with religious
lyrics projected on a huge screen.
The church’s “apostle,” Rinaldo Pereira, said he had a
near-death experience related to drugs and hepatitis some 17 years ago before a
“supernatural” event led him to dedicate his life to God.
Mery Galanternick
contributed reporting from