(RNS) — As in the United States, Brazil’s public life has become deeply polarized along political and religious divides, with many evangelical Christians aligning with conservatives opposing progressive policies about minority rights, the role of the state in providing social services and — after former President Jair Bolsonaro’s push for aggressive development in the Amazon — protecting the environment.
The prominent exception among Brazil’s evangelical political class is Marina Silva, a vocal environmentalist with deep Pentecostal faith who is minister for environment and climate change in the left-leaning administration of current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Breaking that mold has come at the cost of savage treatment by her fellow Christian politicians.
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In May, a week after Brazil’s Senate approved a bill — dubbed the “devastation bill” by critics — that would lift many regulations on development in the Amazon and other ecosystems, Silva was summoned to appear before the legislative body, ostensibly to discuss oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon River. But the session quickly took a different turn. Led by Sens. Marcos Rogério, a Pentecostal who is a member of the Evangelical Par …