Religião e política: a frente parlamentar evangélica no legislativo brasileiro e as eleições de 2018

Abstract

The strong performance of the Evangelical Parliamentary Front (EPF) in the Brazilian Bicameral System confirms that religion and politics have never been closer since the secularization process installed in 1891, which in the long run made Brazil a secular country. The Evangelical Parliamentary Front defines itself with the mission of influencing the public policies of the government, defending society and the family with regard to morals and good customs, and for that purpose the EPF parliamentarians have their actions guided by very strong appeals for demands of a traditionalist and moralistic nature. The present study analyzes the performance of EPF, makes a transversal portrait (2003-2018) in the federal legislatures, identifies and discusses the actions of EPF and defends the thesis that the legitimation of the evangelical political force was decisive for the election of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency of Brazil in 2018. The most relevant authors who supported me in this research were Freston, Baptista and Almeida. The extreme right candidate Jair Bolsonaro built his electoral campaign based on the agribusiness, military and religious tripod, the last of which was based on the appeal to traditional Christian values in line with a conservative, moralistic and liberal discourse in the area of economics, Bolsonaro was a member of the Evangelical Parliamentary Front in the legislature prior to his election. After being elected, he defined that, although secular, his government would be terribly Christian, explaining that it would be based on a confessional power policy. Far beyond the person of Bolsonaro, a movement called Bolsonarism has emerged, which is a mixture of moral conservatism, religious fundamentalism, neoliberal agenda and militaristic authoritarianism