God Squad Under Investigation

This is not a Las Vegas casino hotel. Neither is it a post-modern Opera House. It is in fact a church. I’m looking down from the kitchen of my rented Oscar Niemeyer flat in Belo Horizonte at the regional headquarters of the “Universal Church of Jesus Christ Our Lord.” Occupying a whole urban block, it is a monstrous mixed-use building that comprises of a hotel, helipad, temple, shops, underground parking, and in accordance with holy scripture, penthouse flats. Like betting shops, these ugly machines dedicated to monetary extortion and ideological control have proliferated across the country. The  good news however is that it looks like divine justice is now being served. The gangster evangelical Bishop Edir Macedo, the blessed billionaire founder of the sibling, “Universal Church of The Kingdom of God,” is in the spotlight as part of the Federal Police’s investigations  into corporate financial corruption. I always thought Jesus threw the moneylenders out of the Temple. Not so in the contemporary world of big business evangelical religion. As well as being the owner of the media giant Record TV, Macedo is also the head of Digimais, the banking empire tied to his ‘church.’ 675 million Reais have been blocked and the bank’s secrecy codes broken in an on-going investigation into fraudulent financial manoeuvres. It is not just the frequency with which these white-collar scams are being uncovered that leaves people reeling with bored shock, it is the colossal scale of the thieving. A billion here. A billion there. Ah, well. One of the worst things about these organisations is the way they manipulate the poor, vulnerable and dispossessed. They demand a minimum ten percent of even the most meagre of monthly salaries to ensure safe passage to heaven. They are politically right wing, tend to support the Bolsonaro clan, and convince their devout flocks that anyone critical of capitalism, social injustice or indeed the church, are self-evidently demonic communists who should be condemned to the inferno. The clearly innocent Macedo is not available for comment. As a man of deep religious conviction, he is away on a paradise island enjoying a well-earned break in one of his numerous luxury mansions. His helicopter is in the hanger and his ocean-going cruiser is docked in his private port. A sumptuous barbecue is underway on the lawn with semi-naked dancing girls. Praise be to God.