Overlapping values: religious and scientific conflicts during the COVID‐19 crisis in Brazil

The following anthropological reflections revolve around the current religious and political disputes between Neo‐Pentecostal Churches (which endorsed the current president, Bolsonaro) and religious minorities like Afro‐Brazilian Candomblé and Umbanda. Conflicts between the two emerged in the last decades over both mundane and ethical matters, like access to public space for religious events and regulations over ritual animal slaughter (Silva 2007).

Since the outset of the COVID‐19 crisis in Brazil, videos and live messages recorded by Afro‐religious priests and priestesses started to appear on social networks. In these videos, Afro‐religious authorities gave practical information about sanitary prevention and social distancing, and some announced the temporary suspension of all public ritual activities. In addition, they suggested hygienic measures like avoiding kissing each other’s hands (a common form for greeting and asking one’s blessing). Moreover, they endorsed social distancing, insisting on the need to ‘protect our elders’, a reference to the importance of age hierarchy in Afro‐Brazilian religions. Religious values were thus used to encourage sanitary prevention habits, adding that the orixás (Afro‐Brazilian deities of nature) cannot protect us from the danger of an imbalanced world.

Meanwhile, Neo‐Pentecostal churches proposed a very different narrative. Endorsed by the minimising attitude of the national government in the face of the pandemic threat, many Evangelical authorities refused to suspend public worship services. Famous pastors like Edir Macedo (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God) and Silas Malafaia (Assembleias de Deus) circulated messages in their blogs and social networks calling for their followers not to fear the virus, as God would protect those who have faith. Closing churches down, in their words, would mean a lack of confidence in the divine power. Neo‐Pentecostal churches were also at the centre of a dispute between President Bolsonaro and the Ministry of Health, as the former argued that churches need to stay open as they provide essential moral and spiritual support for Brazilian society.

These different ways of elaborating beliefs and behaviours in times of a pandemic outbreak can result in interesting observations on the relationship between Western medical science, media communication and religious values in contemporary Brazil. While Neo‐Pentecostal churches always displayed a privileged and sophisticated use of digital media (social networks, TV channels, live streaming sessions, etc.), they are now stressing the importance of in‐presence attendance of services. They call on the power of faith to invoke the continuity of social and economic activities. Conversely, Afro‐religious practitioners, who value bodily engagement and physical presence more than abstract spiritual commitment, have been long reluctant to occupy online spaces and to post content online, and this is still a very recent phenomenon. The COVID‐19 crisis allowed them to occupy those online spaces they had avoided in the past, sewing together social and religious values to promote a pedagogical message, which resonates with WHO recommendations.