Paul Palma: Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States

Paul J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States: Migrations, Missions, and Mobility (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) 417 pages, ISBN 9783031133701.

In Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States: Migrations, Missions, and Mobility, Dr. Paul J. Palma presents a history of the major Pentecostal movements in Brazil, beginning with how immigrants to the United States who encountered Pentecost took the full gospel message to Brazil, how the denominations were established and how they grew and adapted over time, and how these movements in Brazil then proceeded to reach out beyond their Latin American borders in reverse missions to North America and Europe.

The book consists of ten chapter comprising two major sections: “Classical Pentecostalism in Transnational Perspective,” and “Classical Pentecostalism and Mobility: Challenges and Prospects.” The first part deals with the history of the founding and expansion of Brazilian Pentecostal groups, while the second part deals with contemporary challenges facing the denominations profiled in this book.

Chapter one introduces Luigi Francescon, who emigrated from Italy to the United States for economic opportunities. Once in America, he converted from his childhood Catholicism, moving through Presbyterianism until he eventually became Pentecostal. Francescon’s holiness mission in Chicago became the launching pad for Italian Pentecostalism in the form of the Asamblea Cristiana (Christian Assembly). Another Pentecostal movement—this one among Swedish Baptists in Chicago—involved Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren, who had also left their native land for work opportunities in the United States. All three of these men felt called by God to take the Pentecostal message to Brazil. While Brazil was nominally Catholic, it was not as staunchly Catholic as the former Spanish colonies in Latin America—which had been influenced to some degree by Inquisition-inspired fervor—and thus was more open to Protestantism and other “imported” faiths. After these brief introductions, Palma gives some general statistics about the growth of Christianity, and Pentecostalism in particular, in Latin America, and presents an outline of what will be covered in the other chapters of the book.

Chapter two discusses in detail the origins of grassroots Pentecostal movements in both the U.S. and Brazil. The multicultural character of the Azusa Street revival was reflected in the Chicago outpouring at the North Avenue Mission. Francescon felt the call to carry the message of Pentecost to his fellow members of the Italian diaspora in Argentina and southern Brazil, while Berg and Vingren landed in the northern region of Brazil a few months after Francescon’s arrival in the south. The Pentecostal emphasis on direct encounters with the Spirit of God resonated with many rural Brazilians, whose indigenous folk religions (or Afro-Brazilian religions among the descendants of imported slaves) also held the concept of direct, unmediated spiritual encounters, along with physically and emotionally expressive religious practices. Palma also looks at the influence of other pre-Pentecostal Protestant works in Brazil, since the backgrounds of people coming from Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist/Holiness churches had an impact on how the newly-forming Pentecostal bodies would set up their governing structures.

One particular bit of history in this chapter, dealing with Francescon’s wife Rosina Balzano, really grabbed my attention. “Her desire to read the Bible, freely and on her own accord, finally propelled her to join up with her family [in America]. Rosina had grown irritated with the incessant pleas of priests forbidding her from reading it. When she learned from her father about ordinary people, like herself, reading and preaching the Bible in the New World, she left to meet her family, arriving in Chicago in 1891” (p. 32). Such intense desire to seek for and know God seems to be a recurring theme in the spread of Pentecostal belief and practice around the world.

In the third chapter, Palma discusses the founding and early growth of Pentecostal bodies in Brazil. Initially, Pentecost in Brazil was concentrated among European and U.S. immigrants to the nation. Later migrations of rural Brazilians to the cities for work brought Portuguese speakers into contact with the Pentecostal churches made up primarily of immigrants from other countries. Both groups being “outsiders” often led to solidarity based on the lived experience of migration, whether across or within national borders. Palma notes that “Pentecostalism supplied a ‘common language,’ holding out to the displaced agrarian migrant the promise of solidarity and belonging” (68). In contrast to the missions outreaches of mainline Protestant denominations, which focused on spreading North American versions of Christianity among the lower-middle class of Brazil, the Pentecostal groups “came to be religious-social phenomena by, of, and among the poor, literally a Brazilian religion of the Brazilian migrant poor” (82).

Chapter four looks at Italian Pentecostalism in northern Argentina, where Francescon ministered briefly before moving his focus to Brazil. Argentina had a considerable population of Italian immigrants (about forty percent of all foreigners in the country at the time), and Italian missionaries from the Chicago church saw the opportunity to spread the Pentecostal message to that community. While the Christian Assemblies group witnessed significant growth early on, baptizing about 10,000 new believers between 1926 and 1940, it faced stagnation and later decline due to various challenges (96). The most significant roadblock may have been the group’s tendency to stay focused on its Italian immigrant base, rather than acculturating to the national language of Spanish and reaching out to Argentine natives. Similar concerns have been raised regarding Latino immigrant churches in North America—once second and third generations emerge, who are more accustomed to the host country language and culture, it is hard for groups that focus on immigrant populations to maintain their numbers and growth if there is a downturn in immigration numbers from their home countries.

In the fifth chapter, Palma discusses the growth of Brazilian Pentecostalism beyond the urban and rural poor into “reverse missions,” where the country that was once the recipient of missions efforts ends up sending missionaries back to the countries that previously sent them workers. By 2007, Brazil was sending out more foreign missionaries than Britain or Canada (105). Both the Italian-rooted Christian Assemblies and Christian Congregations, and the Brazilian Assembleia de Deus (Assemblies of God, hereafter AD) founded by Swedes Vingren and Berg, now have congregations in the United States, from which their founders left to minister in Brazil. Just as these group started in Brazil by working among Italian and Swedish immigrants to that country, their U.S. branches started out ministering to Brazilians who had migrated to the States for economic reasons. One church in San Jose, California, that traces its roots to the Brazilian AD (but is independent from that organization) has even planted a church in Santa Catarina in Brazil, adding another half-circle to the missions movement that had already gone full-circle (118).

Part II of the book begins with chapter six, which discusses various aspects of church growth in Brazilian Pentecostalism. In the first half of the twentieth century, the Italian-founded Christian Congregations and the Swedish-founded Assemblies of God followed fairly parallel growth trajectories. After that, however, the CC’s growth rate plateaued, while the AD’s growth curve climbed steeply upward (though it is noted that the AD has seen a decline in membership of over two million members between 2010 and 2015). This chapter dives deep into various factors that contributed to these varying growth patterns, and careful readers will be on the lookout for how those issues may impact the growth or decline of their own church bodies. Special attention is given to the role that the move to autochthonous leadership had on church growth, with the groups that more readily handed leadership over to Brazilian nationals experiencing faster growth.

The seventh chapter takes a look at various forms of church polity in Pentecostal groups in both Brazil and in the United States. The Christian Congregations churches have held steadfastly to a model of unpaid, volunteer clergy. “Except for assistance with missionary travel expenses, ministerial office holders and other administrative personnel are expected to sustain themselves fiscally through their own means” (152). This seems very much in line with what I have heard about the early Pentecostal church planters in the United States, who were generally bivocational. The Brazilian Assemblies of God, on the other hand, has a much more episcopal structure, with authority centralized in the office of the pastor-presidente, who at times exercises authority at the level of a “Pentecostal pope” (158). Palma also discusses some of the differences between how Pentecostal groups incorporate ideas from liberation theology in their work with the poor and the presentation of those in classical Roman Catholic liberation thought.

Chapter eight discusses issues of gender role differences in Brazilian Pentecostal churches. Sex-specific dress codes are still very prevalent, often not so much out of concerns for modesty, but rather for the purpose of clearly identifying the genders. A beneficial side-effect is that, according to one Brazilian study, “the discreet, non-provocative clothes of Pentecostals protect poor women from sexual harassment” (194). Many congregations still practice gender segregation in worship, which likewise keeps young men from seeking to sit by the most attractive young ladies during worship, which leaders feel can cause distractions. Unlike North American Pentecostal denominations, which for the most part accept women’s ordination and leadership in ministry (at least in theological position papers, though maybe not always in practice), the Brazilian movements have lessened the involvement of women in the public worship service over time. While earlier in the history of the Christian Congregations group women served as deaconesses, now those women who perform the same diaconal functions are called by the name “sisters of piety,” with the title of deacon reserved solely for men. “Women can call hymns, pray, and testify, but if any males are present, regardless of their age, females take the backseat in speaking roles” (190). When women do perform these speaking functions in public worship, they are expected to wear a head covering based on a literal interpretation of Paul’s instructions to the Corinthian church.

Chapter nine touches on issues of holiness ethic, separatism, and political involvement. Holiness codes tend to be stricter in rural, less affluent areas, while a bit more latitude is shown among the economically prosperous and believers in urban spaces. Politically, while Catholics and mainline Protestants have become less politically involved in Brazil over time, Pentecostals— especially within the AD— have moved in the opposite direction, in contrast to the early apoliticism of Pentecostal groups in the country: one third of the thirty Protestants elected to the national congress in 1994 were members of the AD. Palma foreshadows the involvement of Pentecostals in the country’s 2022 presidential election, a fact that has been borne out in news reports after the publication of this book. Pentecostals were also reportedly involved in the violent protests in the capital, Brasilia, on January 8, 2023, that eerily echoed facets of the January 6, 2021 events in Washington, D.C. (which saw many neo-pentecostals active in rallies in the weeks just before that event).

In his concluding tenth chapter, Palma summarizes how the different ethnic backgrounds of the founders of Pentecostalism in southern (Italian) and northern (Swedish) Brazil impacted the polity, practices, and politics of the groups they established, yet this ethnic factor is often overlooked. However, despite their origins being traced to European-American immigrants, the CA, CC, and AD movements today are all undoubtedly Brazilian in character. Considering the reverse missions from Brazil to North America and Europe, Palma notes that “the story of Brazilian classical Pentecostalism illustrates the vibrant multidirectional character of twenty-first-century Christianity” seen in many parts of the world (235).

I found Dr. Palma’s book to be an interesting read that increased my knowledge of Pentecostalism in another part of the world from my own upbringing in the southern United States. Part of my credentialing process with the U.S. Assemblies of God included a class on our fellowship’s history, which had a brief mention of two Swedish missionaries from Chicago who felt led by the Spirit to go to Brazil. It was a joy for me to be able to read a fuller account of the Assembleias de Deus founded by Berg and Vingren.

Anyone interested in the development of Pentecostal churches around the world will find this book to provide significant insights into the largest Spirit-filled movement within the borders of a single country today. Knowing where Pentecostalism has come from is vital for those doing Pentecostal church work today, as the roots of a movement, while not exhaustively deterministic of its future, do continue to exert influence. In addition, seeing where other groups may have taken missteps that hampered the mission of the church can help contemporary workers to be on guard against similar errors.

Reviewed by Brian Roden

Tags: brazil, grassroots, Paul Palma, pentecostalism, usa

Category: Church History, Spring 2023