I want to highlight a fascinating observation by geopolitical analyst Elvin Calcaño. You can find his work on YouTube and X (links below), but I wanted to share this specific reflection in full:
In Brazil, they are attributing the decline of their national football team to the rise of evangelicalism. And I don’t find it far-fetched to think so. For the following reasons:
Brazilian football had an identity rooted in the exuberance, festivity, and color of a culture born from the syncretism between Catholicism and religious imaginaries of African origin. When Brazil dominated the World Cups, its players would arrive at the stadiums singing samba and playing Afro-Brazilian drums. The game on the pitch was nothing more than an extension of the celebration. But that’s how it was when the players were Catholic and practitioners of Afro-Brazilian syncretism. Today, Brazil’s players are mostly evangelical. And evangelicalism, given its dispensationalist framework and closed eschatology, expels all forms of syncretism: of diversity. In other words, it kills the party football. The current players of the Brazilian national team arrive at matches praying... Now, playing the drums and invoking the saints of Afro-Brazilian syncretism is devil’s work. It’s very frowned upon. They’ve become sad, martial, and predictable. Both in their lives and on the pitch.
In Catholicism, when one makes a mistake or things go badly, one must reflect and seek causes to improve. In evangelical eschatology, everything is already written. If they win the World Cup, it’s because God willed it so. And if they lose disastrously, as they are now, it’s because God’s times are perfect... Under such conditions, the player is never ultimately responsible for poor results. They seek to win and improve, but always thinking that whatever happens, everything is in God’s hands, who determines in advance what will happen.
The evangelicalism that reaches Brazil (and the rest of Latin America) is individualist. It’s a religiosity that combines the Calvinist notion of individual effort as devotion to God with neopentecostal prosperity theology. The evangelical prioritizes the individual over the collective. Salvation is for each one. The Brazilian football of Pelé, Garrincha, Zico, Ronaldo, Romário, Rivaldo, and Ronaldinho (when Brazil was unbeatable on the pitch) had a deeply collective component, both in its tactical and aesthetic aspects. Something very difficult to cultivate today in evangelical players who see themselves as individual actors, each in pursuit of their private salvation.
Evangelicalism is severe and punitive. While the Catholicism (syncretic) that prevailed in Brazil was open and nuanced. This fosters creativity and the search for different options. The Brazilian footballer of jogo bonito was above all creative. He saw closed matches as something to overcome by creating and inventing plays. Today, with evangelical players, the Brazilian national team looks predictable and unimaginative.
In short, I invite you to follow the debate underway in Brazil today regarding what they consider the harmful effects of evangelicalism on the identity of their football. Because that debate can be extrapolated to many other areas of that society. And, therefore, to any other Latin American country where evangelicalism has replaced the Catholic (syncretic) matrix as the majority religiosity. In the end, these discourses of hate, democratic hollowing-out, and destruction of the public that we see in our countries don’t come from nowhere.
It might be tempting to dismiss this as a trivial sports anecdote, but I would argue it is anything but. This cultural shift is a direct reflection of a much wider geopolitical process driven by US-led imperialist interference across Latin America and the Caribbean.
This ideological displacement did not happen by accident; it was structurally encouraged starting in the 1970s to counter the more socialist-oriented Catholic Liberation Theology that was rapidly gaining traction across the continent. From an imperialist perspective, this cultural engineering has been highly "successful," albeit to varying degrees depending on the country in question.
I explore this exact dynamic in my latest essay on the new Latin American Far-Right [worldlinesletter.substa…], but I also highly recommend this excellent episode by La Base Latinoamerica on the geopolitical role of evangelicalism in the region [youtube.com/watch?v=dir…]. And here are the links to Calcaño’s X (x.com/elvin_calcano24/s…) and YouTube channel (youtube.com/@ElvinCalca…).