Evangelicals and the press: oil and water

Edelberto Behs, SAO PAULO, Brasil, August 6, 2003

Does the press discriminate against believers? In answering this question, in its edition 91 the Taxi Heathrow Airport magazine Eclesia, affirmed that relations between the communication media and Evangelical Churches in Brazil are nearly always problematic.

“The principal cause for this discrimination against believers is the still very visible dominion of the Catholic Church over Brazilian communication media,” sustained journalist Cleber Nadalutti, a member of Our Life Church and editor of the Evangelical magazine Graça.

This influence, Nadalutti told Eclesia journalists Allan Novaes and Carlos Fernandes, encourages a rejection of Protestantism in all cultural production.

For example, said Nadalutti, the media use erroneous terminology, whether it is deliberate or not, in articles about Evangelicals. “The secular press, for example insists on using typically Catholic expressions, such as Mass, when referring to Evangelicals. 

In the mainstream press, Evangelical Churches are commonly treated as “sects” and the word bishop tends to be put in quotations when the article refers to an Evangelical bishop, Nadalutti added.

Reporter Odailson Spada, of Curitiba believes that “there is discrimination on the news. The activities of Evangelicals are, for the most part, considered to be of lesser news value.”

For example, he mentioned the little press coverage given the March for Jesús, a movement that takes more than 1 million people to the streets of Sao Paulo. 

Evangelical journalist Elizeu Lira, author of the book “A new order – new world order – the government of the New Era,” sustained that mysticism and spiritualism dominate Brazilian television.

People linked to these religious currents are shown on television as cultured, capital and illuminated while Evangelicals, in general “are treated like lunatics or ignorant people,” said Lira.

The adjunct-editor of the daily O Globo and member of the Baptist Church, Jorge Antonio Barros, said that Brazilian media, in general, do not do a good job of covering religious themes.”

“While there is no persecution, there is a great deal of skepticism on the part of journalists regarding spiritual questions,” he added.

According Christian ethics professor from the Theological Faculty in the Sao Paulo Adventist University Center, Jose Rocha, the media harshly judges whether believers live what they preach. In the collective imagination, he explained, Evangelicals are known for their defense of moral values, for their honesty, dignity and abstinence regarding vices.

“It is not a coincidence that the media shows no pity for Evangelicals who violate their own ‘behavior code’ used so much to convert or condemn others,” he said.

Francisco Jose Assis, editorial secretary from the daily O Estado de Parana, told Ecelsia that the Church frequency gives the media ammunition.

“The stereotypes are created based on the figure of pastors who use tithing to enrich themselves” or condemn others without having the moral authority to do so, he added.

Walter Altmann, pastor president of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil participated in a panel discussion on “Religion and politics” during the Third World Social Forum in Porto Alegre last January 23-28 and pointed out three specific tasks.

First of all there is a need to do with the homogenized image of the Evangelical. Secondly, there is a need to overcome the usage that the press gives to the word Church, when it refers to Catholic Church and churches when it refers to other denominations in a scornful manner.

The third task is to increase the visibility of the positive testimony of Evangelicals. The World Council of Churches, said Altmann, had a significant role in the “Brazil Never Again” project, coordinated by a Presbyterian pastor. However, the press gave little coverage to this participation.

Experts believe that this lack of opening toward secular media and Evangelical Churches is one of the reason that lead many of them, in particular Pentecostals and neoPentecostals to seek to obtain radio and television stations.