Posted on 09/17/2008 4:54:15 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Marcelo Bordon is a powerful bear of a man. In football, people like Bordon are known as towering defenders. He is sitting in the club restaurant owned by Schalke 04, the Bundesliga (German football league) team he plays for. With his slicked-back hair, muscular upper body and tattoos, he could easily pass for a prison guard in New Jersey. Yet he speaks softly, talking about the love that helps him when he is in distress, and about the one who has always been there for him, ever since he came into his life.
Bordon is referring to the Holy Spirit.
The Brazilian from Ribeirão Preto, who came to Germany in 1999, is an "Evangélico," or evangelical Christian. He is a member of a pentecostal charismatic church, which advocates strict adherence to the Bible and a "personal relationship with God." This, he says, is the only true church of Jesus Christ. Bordon, 32, sports a tattoo between his shoulders, with the words "Jesus is my Strength" inscribed into his skin in ornate script.
The Bible tells us to be God's soldiers, he says, over a glass of apple spritzer.
An estimated 35 million Brazilians -- almost one in five -- are Evangélicos. Their numbers are growing by two million a year, and 70 percent of them are, like Bordon, members of Pentecostal Charismatic congregations.
Forty years ago, Brazil was still a 90-percent Catholic country. But now that the evangelicals have shifted their focus away from converting the poor and are preaching that wealth and consumption are signs of the true faith, they are beginning to appeal to artists, politicians and higher-paid athletes. Football players, one of Brazil's most successful exports, are carrying the faith out into the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
(Like windup dolls, they would mechanically remove the team jerseys they had been wearing over their Jesus T-shirts.)
The article also talks about how the Church targets wealthy people in order to get money from them. While the article is the usual hit piece against Christianity, it’s enlightening in terms of what the Brazilian players are doing in Europe spreading the Word. Every team already has or is trying to get Brazilians as they are the best soccer players in the world.
An apple spritzer,Yipes.
this is ok... one’s Faith is one’s life...or one’s death when it comes to extremes, like suicide bombers..
Christians, I am one.. believe in The loving and just God... His only son,Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit is our guide to God’s discernment. ..where the money goes is another matter.. we take nothing when we leave.
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