Brazilian evangelicals continue to go forth and multiply

Over the course of seven years, “The Ten Commandments,” a soap opera about the biblical story of Moses, ran three times on Record TV, Brazil’s second-most-watched television station. It was such a success that even when it was broadcast in the middle of the afternoon, it still got better audience results than the station’s primetime shows.

The soap opera was produced to please evangelical Christians, who account for around 30 percent of the Brazilian population and are expected to outnumber Catholics by the end of this decade.

The show was also a hit in Angola, where it was rebroadcast on My Channel Africa, Record TV’s African branch. Not even the characteristic accent of the Brazilian actors — which can be difficult for other Portuguese speakers to understand — has kept audiences from religiously following the show.

Record used to draw one of the biggest audiences in Angola, only trailing Globo, the flagship channel of Brazil’s biggest and most traditional media group. That success ended in 2021 when the local government banned Record Angola for disrespecting media laws, such as failing to have native Angolans on its board. But Record found a way to continue doing business in the country, launching My Channel Africa — a cable station without live news — just a few months later. 

Record is owned by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, one of the biggest Brazilian evangelical Christian churches. It is present in 127 countries, with a congregation of more than 10 million people worldwide.

Other large Brazilian evangelical congregations, such as the Kingdom of God, Reborn in Christ, and Fountain of Life, also spread to dozens of other countries. This is partly a result of Brazilians migrating abroad and bringing their faith with them, and also down to the missionary work of the churches themselves — which have their own projects for geographical...