Abstract:
The thesis has the general objective of investigating the role of the O Brasil Para Cristo Church (OBPC) and its founder, Missionary Manoel de Mello (hereinafter, MM), in adhering to divine healing Pentecostalism and radio. In the early 1950s, American missionaries from the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, Harold Edwin Williams and Raymond Boatright, arrived in the city of São Paulo, bringing with them the use of tents to preach the gospel, emphasizing divine healing. MM, who had been dismissed from the Assembly of God Church, where he grew up, was invited to be part of the tent ministry group. With them, MM learned how to carry out divine healing campaigns, use tents as a mobile temple and the radio to publicize the campaigns. In 1955, MM left the North American missionaries to found his own evangelistic movement, which, due to his nationalism, was called “Brazil for Christ National Evangelization Crusade”. Learning from the quadrangular school led him to promote evangelistic campaigns in the most diverse spaces, including public ones, which were seen by other Pentecostals as profane, and disseminate them through the radio program that aired daily, called “The Voice of Brazil for Christ”. We defend the thesis that, with his entry into Rádio Tupi in São Paulo, the missionary's popularity increased and gave national visibility to the OBPC Church, attracting leaders from other denominations who joined him and opened churches in their states. With the growth of the church, the increase in social demands led MM to engage the denomination in party politics and ecumenism, promoting changes in the Brazilian religious construct.
