With a population of 213 million, Brazil is the seventh largest country in the world by population. But comes first, with the world’s largest Portuguese speaking population.

In recent years, there has been a major religious shift taking place in the country long dominated by Roman Catholicism, Faithwire reports.

In the 1950s, over 90% of Brazilians identified as Roman Catholic. That was best demonstrated by the massive 30 meter (98 feet) high Christ Redeemer Statue built on Corcovado Mountain that towers over Rio de Janeiro. The project was initiated by the Catholic Circle of Rio in the 1920s and completed in 1931. 

Since there has been a massive religious shift in the country as today only 50% of Brazilians identify as Catholic. .

“In 1950, 93 percent of Brazilians identified as Catholics. The Church was losing about 1 percent of followers every decade,” said Sociologist, Dr. José Alves in an interview with Faithwire. “However, from 1991 onwards, the Catholic Church started to lose 1 percent of followers every year, resulting in a dramatic drop.”

This shift is corresponding with a dramatic increase in the country’s evangelical church. In the 1990s, there were about 7,000 evangelical churches in the country. Today, that number sits at nearly 550,000. One study suggested that 17 new evangelical churches are opening in Brazil every day.

Mega Charismatic churches are also popping up with congregations numbering in the thousands on Sunday morning. The largest is an Assembly of God church in Rio de Janeiro. Pastored by Silas Malafaia, the church has a membership of 100,000.

While Wikipedia reports that over 31% of the country’s population is protestant, if the current trends continues, they will be in the clear majority by 2030.

The Rise of Roman Catholic Apologists

While there is a cataclysmic shift taking place in Brazil, many are noticing an interesting trend on YouTube involving the emergence of Catholic apologists.

Evangelical apologists have been on YouTube for years. While traditionally they have focused their attention on winning the lost, atheists, secularist and non church goers to Christ, Catholic apologists have a different target.

They look at protestants and evangelicals as their primary mission field, Andrew Voigt reports in his article for Gospel Coalition.

“We have from baptism a mandate to evangelize, and Protestantism is one of the fields most ready for harvesting,” writes Dr. James Merrick in his article for the Catholic’s Ascension Press entitled, 10 Steps to Help in the Evangelizing of Protestants.

To do this, Merrick encourages Catholics to “highlight the ways in which you experience Christ personally not just objectively. Evangelicals worry that Catholics keep Christ external and distant and never experience him as an interior presence.”

Essentially, Catholics look at Catholicism as the true church and Protestantism as an apostate church. Their primary goal is to bring their “separated brethren” back into the fold.

And certainly, they have seen some success, as Voigt explains:

In recent years, several notable Protestant converts to Roman Catholicism have made waves online. Influencers like Cameron Bertuzzi of Capturing Christianity, Candace Owens, Joshua Charles, and Eva Vlaardingerbroek crossed the Tiber from various expressions of Protestantism.

Prominent evangelical pastors like Ulf Ekman, Keith Nester, and Brook Thelander made headlines when they converted to Roman Catholicism.

But Voigt adds that their success is due largely to Catholic apologists “misrepresenting actual Catholic doctrine. They soften terminology to appear harmonious with Protestant views on soteriology, among other doctrines.”

But there has been a shift in recent years as apologists including Gavin Ortlund, Mike Winger and Wes Huff are addressing areas where Roman Catholic beliefs vary from Biblical theology.

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