All images © Kevin Moloney

A member of the Deus É Amor church in Rio de Janeiro testifies in a local plaza about how the straight and narrow path in life can only be achieved with the help of the Holy Spirit. The hallmark of Pentecostal faith is belief in the Holy Spirit’s ability to inhabit the soul and bring on behavior such as speaking in tongues.



Children enrolled in a daycare program at the Fábrica de Esperança, or Hope Factory, in Rio de Janeiro pray before they receive their morning snack of juice and crackers. Located in a bankrupt 55,000-square-meter factory in the Acarí slum, the community center offers classes, daycare and jobs to area residents. The outreach program is staffed by evangelicals who try to both serve the community and attract converts.



Church volunteers and children peek out the door of an Assembly of God church in the Jardim Ulysses slum of Rio de Janeiro. Geography plays an important part in evangelical growth, says researcher André Mello. “Most Catholic churches are in the center of the city, where the city already grew. The Pentecostals are arriving where the city is growing. It’s a question of the elephant versus the ant. The rhythm of the ant is crazier, faster.”



Worshippers scramble out of a Rio de Janeiro rain shower to enter the huge central sanctuary of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. The Brazilian-born church is the country's 34th-largest enterprise, with the third-largest TV network, 35 radio stations, a bank, a furniture factory, and 2,100 churches in 46 countries — all gained on the generosity of a congregation drawn from among the poorest people in the world. The church was founded in 1977 by Bishop Edir Macedo, a man frequently investigated for fraud who now spends most of his time in New York. He has filled Rio de Janeiro’s gigantic Maracanã soccer stadium with 250,000 for revival meetings, and dragged out duffel bags full of cash.



“I say yes to Jesus. And you?” asks a banner on Rio’s famous Ipanema beach. Known worldwide as a sun-drenched capital of flesh, Rio de Janeiro boasts five new evangelical churches every week. The city, says researcher André Mello, is “the center of the Pentecostal earthquake.”


All images © Kevin Moloney

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