The country’s evangelical leadership continues to wear the Bolsonarist shirt, but already admits that this fabric has frayed. The feeling was reinforced by (), followed by moments described as embarrassing by pastors, such as the attempt to open an ankle bracelet with a soldering iron.
The legal setbacks, added to his defeat in 2022 by Lula (PT), after a campaign with high messianic voltage, have discouraged many of the leaders who swore their love to him in the past.
That noisy choir from pulpits and lives today sounds more timid, even omissive. Most of the pastors who lined up to anoint Bolsonaro now prefer calculated silence.
Public displays of affection usually come from evangelical politicians, such as senator Damares Alves (Republicanos-DF), who called for the “voice of a Brazil that still has courage.”
Or deputy Marco Feliciano (PL-SP). He says evangelicals will never abandon their captain. “As if the unjust arrest was not enough, to justify it, they blamed the prayer vigil called by Flávio Bolsonaro. This, for us, is unacceptable.”
The evangelical bench is almost an exercise in institutional calligraphy: it repeats the mantra of “due legal process”, expresses solidarity with the family, talks about “high tension” in Brazil — and stops there. There is no attempt to transform Bolsonaro into a spiritual martyr, as has been seen in other times.
The text seems to be written with gloves: it avoids inflammatory adjectives, does not mention Christian values and relies on legal terms. The impression is that the bloc needed to speak out, but chose the neutral zone, almost at the limit of protocol. The group is led by a Bolsonaro supporter considered by his peers to be non-radicalized, Gilberto Nascimento (PSD-SP) — who, by the way, is an electoral campaigner.
There are, of course, Malafaia, in churches, almost like someone preaching in the desert. His inflammatory videos against STF (Supreme Federal Court) minister Alexandre de Moraes, previously capable of inflaming evangelical public opinion, now have a reduced effect.
No other leader of national stature, more than 72 hours after Moraes ordered Bolsonaro’s preventive arrest, made a passionate defense of the former president. THE Sheet he spoke to three of them, who stood on platforms and pulpits with Bolsonaro during the last electoral cycle.
They speak of “consternation” at the arrest of the one they considered the president who most aligned with their values. But it already did. “It is no longer unanimous,” says one of these pastors, who prefers to speak anonymously. He mentions the “Malafaia factor”, which would inhibit many leaders from more openly expressing a certain prostration with Bolsonarism, for fear of being attacked by the Rio pastor.
The pastor, in turn, says he regrets that most leaders do not have “a lot of courage, a lot of conviction and a lot of arguments” to stand up to Moraes. “It’s not just the pastor, my daughter. It’s the whole society. We’ve never had people afraid to post things on social media like they are now.” The retraction, according to him, is the fault of Moraes, whom he accuses of persecuting those who have opinions that displease him.
The fact is that, apart from Malafaia, there is no more combative stance against Bolsonaro’s judicial fate. From Estevam Hernandes (from the March for Jesus) to Renê Terra Nova (influential in the Brazilian North), not a peep.
Speeches like that of César Augusto, in front of the Fonte da Vida church, summarize the willingness to defend the former president at this point in the championship.
HAS Sheet He asks for “humane” treatment for “a 70-year-old man” whose health was weakened by the attack he suffered in 2018, he says. “I, as a priest, continue to pray. I ask that God intervene to bring justice and peace to our nation.”
The tone is similar to that of the note issued by the Evangelical Parliamentary Front. Something, in fact, that “is at odds with the way Bolsonaro presents himself”, says political scientist Vinicius do Valle. “He had this thing about being an ordinary person and at the same time showing strength: ‘I am imbrochable, inedible, immortal’.”
The image of the ruler who emulates both a man of the people, people like us, and a superman now appears compromised. Part of Bolsonaro’s appeal to the evangelical base lay precisely there.
He tried to dress up the fantasy of the virile leader typical of certain biblical readings — the fearless warrior, in the image of a David who faces giants or a Joshua who conquers territories with divine support. This masculine imagery was mobilized to sell the idea of an anointed commander.
With no prospect of an immediate return to the institutional game and with lawsuits accumulating, Bolsonaro ceases to be an electoral asset and becomes a reputational risk.
Prison does not bury Bolsonarism among evangelicals, but the “Tarcísio de Freitas solution”, a presidential ticket headed by the governor of São Paulo, grows stronger with each passing day. With the talk of a pastor, the Catholic son of an evangelical missionary excites many of those pastors who once revered Bolsonaro as heaven’s answer to the Palácio do Planalto.
