Brazilian megachurches marketed donations as financial investments

Evidence

Protestant pastors engaged directly with working Brazilians (almost all of whom used to be Roman Catholic), and many reported turning their lives around after finding Jesus in these new churches. Second, pastors often presented donations to the churches not so much as good works done in service of the Lord, but as a kind of investment. If you did what the church asked, you were going to get rich; you were going to eventually get more money out of this whole scheme than you put in. That explained why so many founders of the megachurches were mega-rich, and why countries in Africa, like Angola and Madagascar, actually shut down their churches. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 326

First, they provided a truly meaningful space for regular people. Protestant pastors engaged directly with working Brazilians (almost all of whom used to be Roman Catholic), and many reported turning their lives around after finding Jesus in these new churches. Second, pastors often presented donations to the churches not so much as good works done in service of the Lord, but as a kind of investment. If you did what the church asked, you were going to get rich; you were going to eventually get more money out of this whole scheme than you put in. That explained why so many founders of the megachurches were mega-rich, and why countries in Africa, like Angola and Madagascar, actually shut down their churches. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 326

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Brazilian evangelical rise that Russomanno courted and that later anchored Bolsonaro’s base. — connects to: Impact investing extends finance into the nonprofit sector — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 72; Charitable donations and grants are being reframed as investments requiring measurable social returns — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 69
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to how moral/religious institutions channel ‘sacrifice’ and obligation — adjacent to the sacrifice article’s theme of devotion-as-investment, though here in a commercial-prosperity-gospel register.
• QUESTION: The prosperity-gospel-as-investment-scheme framing is striking — worth comparing to US televangelism economics and how it differs from Catholic alms theology.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 326

Broader Connections

• Charitable donations and grants are being reframed as investments requiring measurable social returns #exemplifies (0.88) — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 69
• Impact investing extends finance into the nonprofit sector #exemplifies (0.82) — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 72