The crowd of 25,000 packing Rio's Maracanazinho Stadium included favela dwellers and members of Brazil's lower middle class, their swarthy faces reflecting their country's racial mix. Decorously dressed in black suits and flowered dresses, they were moved by evangelical zeal: when a 2,000-voice choir began to sing, everyone joined in. Afterward, a trickle of shouted individual prayers grew into a waterfall roar. Last week's rally, at the Eighth Pentecostal World Conference, eloquently illustrated the power and missionary success of one of the century's fastest-growing religious movements.
Pioneered by a turn-of-the-century Kansas...
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