Universal Church of the Kingdom of God

Gazebo of Jardim do Méier Square, place where UCKG began.

In the late 1960s, Edir Macedo converted to evangelical Christianity at the Igreja Cristã de Nova Vida ("Christian Church of New Life"), a Pentecostal church founded by the Canadian bishop Walter Robert McAlister. Macedo wanted to become a minister for McAlister's church, but since he was not accepted by its leaders, he and his brother-in-law, R. R. Soares, decided to change to another denomination. Macedo and Soares joined another church called Casa da Bênção ("House of Blessing"), where they claim to have seen possession by and deliverance from demons for the first time, but only Soares was consecrated as a pastor.[21]

In 1975, Soares and another pastor invited Macedo, who still wanted to start his ministry, to inaugurate the Cruzada do Caminho Eterno ("Crusade of the Eternal Way"), a precursor of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. The services were held in some cinemas they rented for a few hours.[22] In order to increase the number of members, Macedo began to preach in a gazebo at the main square of the Méier neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.[23] In 1977, the UCKG was officially founded when Macedo and Soares rented a former funeral home, which became their church's first temple.[24][25]

Universal Church in New York, United States.

By the time that the UCKG was founded tensions had begun to build between Macedo and Soares, with Soares thinking the rent to their temple building was too high.[26] In 1980, Macedo went to New York State to start a ministry in the U.S., but soon returned to Brazil to solve administrative problems with Soares. Some of Macedo's principles clashed with those of Soares such as, according to Macedo, financial management, the hiring of pastors from other denominations while Macedo was planning a completely fresh denomination, and the centralization of the image of the "Missionary R. R. Soares". Macedo and Soares decided to call a vote for the leadership among the fifteen pastors the UCKG had at the time; Macedo won by twelve votes to three. Soares resigned from the UCKG and founded the International Grace of God Church, using the copyright of the books of T. L. Osborn.[27]

Worship service at Cathedral of Faith in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In 1989, the UCKG expanded to Portugal.[13] The church's style of proselytism was aggressive, and they were accused of charlatanism and commercial interests that put into question their claims to be a religious organisation.[13] During the 1990s, the UCKG were very visible and energetic, attacked the Catholic Church, and amassed contributions sufficient to build a "gigantic" temple in Porto.[13] In 1995, a scandal ensued after the attempted purchase of the well-known theatre Coliseu do Porto[13] to transform it into a UCKG temple. The church then began expanding into eastern Europe.

In 1989, the UCKG purchased RecordTV, which by 2013 was Brazil's second-largest television network.[28] In 2009, the Workers' Party (PT) government in Brazil bought advertising from RecordTV, which it had formerly limited to Catholic publications, in new venues, and paid for public service messages in UCKG media outlets.[28][29]

The UCKG preached prosperity theology, which holds those who believe in a living God should have prosperity as it is promised in the Bible (Malachi 3:10) which asserts that faith and commitment to God are rewarded with Salvation first, but also monetary wealth.[30] In the late 1990s, the church started trying to change its image of being associated with only the poorest people. In 1998, Macedo appointed his nephew, Marcelo Crivella, as a bishop. Crivella said, "We want to win the middle class."[8] In 1992, Crivella began a mission in Africa, resulting in the creation of multiple UCKG temples. He returned to Brazil in 1998, where he lived in a four-bedroom condominium in an exclusive development. Crivella is married to Sylvia Jane, with three children who attend a Methodist school in Río de Janeiro.[8]

Some observers at the time thought that Crivella was being promoted as a competitor to the popular Catholic priest-singer, Marcelo Rossi, who had sold over 4 million albums.[8] In 1999, Crivella was reported to have signed a contract with Sony Music to make three albums, one in Spanish. The first CD, The Messenger of Solidarity, reportedly sold 1.3 million copies that year.[8]

Crivella was the only pastor whom Macedo authorized to hold large events in stadiums. He has been effective at attracting crowds: the first time appearing at the Nilson Nelson gymnasium in Brasília, with a capacity for 25,000 people, and also in the Estádio Fonte Nova in Salvador and the Mineiro in Belo Horizonte. In October 1999, Crivella packed the Maracanã football stadium in Río de Janeiro. By the end of that year, he planned to have sung "in the largest football stadiums in the country" according to weekly news magazine Veja.[8]

Temple of Solomon, headquarters of UCKG

In July 2014, the Temple of Solomon, with 10,000 seats, was inaugurated in the Brás district in São Paulo.[31]

By the 2010s, the UCKG was reportedly encouraging blood donation by its members; in various regions, hundreds of donations have been made, with numbers significantly higher (e.g. by 28%) than before the church's involvement.[32][33][34]

In 2017 the UCKG built and opened more than 100 churches inside federal penitentiaries in Brazil, dedicated to helping inmates transform their lives. The success of the Universal Behind Bars (UBB) Project was so great that the Brazilian government authorized the church to open a congregation inside all 1,800+ jails in Brazil. The church receives zero government funding for this project, it is 100% financed by their followers. The following year, the American branch of the UCKG opened its first church inside of a U.S. jail in Houston, Texas.[35]

Macedo has said he wants to "create a theocratic state" by participating in elections.[16] In 2002, Crivella was elected a member of the Federal Senate as a candidate for the Liberal Party. In 2005, he switched his affiliation to the Brazilian Republican Party, a social conservative party he had co-founded. The party has been described as a vehicle to run candidates for the UCKG.[36] As of 2015 Marcos Pereira was head of the party. Other prominent members are Bishop Marcelo Crivella of the UCKG, former vice-president José Alencar, and journalist Celso Russomanno.[37] Crivella also ran for mayor of Rio de Janeiro in 2004 and 2008, both times unsuccessfully, before finally winning election in 2016; and for governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro in 2006 and 2014.[38]

In August 2009, a judge accepted prosecution charges against Macedo and nine other UCKG leaders, who were charged with fraud against the church and its followers. According to The Guardian, government prosecutors accused the men of laundering more than US$2 billion in donations from 2001 to 2009, and using much of it to purchase property, jewelry and cars; the newspaper also reported, "A $45m (£27m) executive jet, reportedly owned by Bishop Macedo, has become the most visible symbol of the scandal. Macedo was cleared of all charges and was issued a public apology following the dismissal of the case."[12]

Following a ten year investigation, the São Paulo prosecutor reported the operation works as follows: donations were gathered from followers, and placed in private banks in both New York City (via Invest Holding, a private lending bank) and London. The money is sent through Cable Invest, a private bank located in the Cayman Islands. Finally, it is sent to Brazil though domestic lending companies "Cremo" and "Unimetro", lender banks that divide the funds among Rede Record executives, who in turn supply more money to UCKG officials.[12]

On October 19, 2010, the São Paulo Justice Court (TJ-SP) annulled, by a majority vote, all charges made by the São Paulo Public Ministry against the UCKG and its principal representatives. The judges ruled that the São Paulo prosecutors did not have jurisdiction to investigate the case, as the accusations were of a type that fell into the federal jurisdiction.[71]

Francisco Martinez: In 1995, Houston resident and UCKG member Francisco Martinez was promoted to "church collaborator", giving him responsibility to run errands under the order of Pastor Carlos Moncada. Martinez was sent to the grocery store to buy items to be used in church services, including olive oil which was presented to the congregation as "holy oil" imported from Israel, and took delivery of "holy water" which had come from trucks carrying natural spring water. Martinez also contributed an estimated $30,000 to the church; he says that Moncada's administrators later told him that such donation would bring him many godly blessings and that by giving it was "a way in which God could see that in his heart and good character was one that was ideal to obtain blessings from the lord". He then told reporters that the church had pressured him into making such substantial "donation".

In February 1999, Martinez filed a lawsuit against the UCKG in a Houston court for an estimated $2.1 million for the principal, interest and damages. The court ruled in his favor and gave the church 90 days to pay the settlement. By May 1999, the UCKG offered him $1.4 million of the judgment. It is unknown whether Martinez accepted any payment or not. In May 2000, Martinez spoke to Houston television stations KTRK-TV and KTMD, claiming that the church forced him to do illicit acts and non-church related activities that involved money laundering, fraud, and "trash talk" related to other members.

Victoria and Jesus Lorenzo: Victoria Lorenzo and her husband Jesus were a married couple who joined the Houston UCKG in 1996. When, in August 1999, they raised questions with representatives of the state attorney's office about the UCKG's fund-raising tactics, officials said that church members make their donations voluntarily, so there was no legal violation. The Lorenzos left the church in late 1999 after having given $60,000 in a period of three years as members. They lost their office-cleaning business and home and had to declare bankruptcy, claiming that the church did not offer them any help in their time of need.

"Holy Oil of Psalm 23, blessed in six destinations in Israel" as described above was still being used by the UCKG in 2012; it is praised and described as being distributed in London, UK, in the UCKG's UK Web site.[50]

In 1992, Bishop Macedo was prosecuted for tax evasion in the state of São Paulo and imprisoned for 11 days.[14] No charges against him were proved and the case was archived.[72]

Victoria Climbié was an eight-year-old child whose cruel[73] death in the UK led to major changes in child protection policies. She died from abuse and neglect while living with her great-aunt Marie-Therese Kouao and the aunt's boyfriend. Victoria was seen by dozens of social workers, nurses, doctors and police officers before she died, and by a pastor of the UCKG, but all failed to spot or stop the abuse. Kouao and her boyfriend were charged with child cruelty and murder. During police interviews, both claimed that Victoria was possessed by evil spirits. They were both convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.[20] Victoria's murder led to a public inquiry which investigated the role of social services, the National Health Service, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, and the police in her death.[20]

In February 2000 UCKG Pastor Álvaro Lima saw the girl and expressed the view that she was possessed by an evil spirit,[20] saying in a written statement to the inquiry that Victoria had told him "that Satan controlled her life, that Satan had told her to burn her body".[74] He advised Kouao to bring Victoria back to the church a week later,[20] saying later he suspected she was being abused, but he did not notify any officials. He prayed for her with an assistant.[74] He saw her again several days later with her mother, and advised Kouao to take the girl to the hospital, where she died of her abuse.[19] The UCKG had been planning to hold a service to "cast out the devil" from her on the day she died.[19]

In 1997 the Belgian Parliament Inquiry Committee on Cults[75] described the UCKG as a dangerous cult, and recommended its formal proscription. The report said that "[The church] claims that the Kingdom of God is down here [on Earth] and that it [the church] can offer a solution to every possible problem, depression, unemployment, family and financial problems. In fact, [the UCKG] is apparently a truly criminal association, whose only purpose is enrichment."[76] The Belgian report generated controversy for varied reasons, and the Parliament ultimately rejected most of it.[77]

In 1998, UCKG was banned from Zambia under the accusation of "unchristian practices". The ban was lifted after the church appealed to the Supreme Court. In November 2005, it was again banned from Zambia under the accusation of promoting Satanic rituals,[78] and the work permits for its pastors were revoked.[79] The ban was again lifted after appeal to Justice.[80] Zambia is officially a Christian country by its 1996 constitution.

Also in 2005, UCKG was banned from Madagascar, after members were arrested for burning a Bible and other religious objects in public.[79][81] The church was banned with the argument that it had been licensed in 1998 as a "foreign society" and not a "cult society". In later years the UCKG (in Malagasy, Fiangonan’ny Vondrona Kristian’ny Fanahy Masina (FVKFM)) encouraged blood donation by its members; in one campaign 300 donors were recruited, far more than before the involvement of UCKG.[33]

UCKG was suspended for 60 days in Angola in February 2013 after an incident at the Citadela Desportiva in December 2012, which resulted in the death of several people.[82] The Aid Organs of the Presidency of the Republic also recommended that similar churches which have not been recognised by the state be banned, including "Igrejas Mundial do Poder de Deus", "Mundial do Reino de Deus", "Mundial Internacional", "Mundial da Promessa de Deus", "Mundial Renovada" and "Igreja Evangélica Pentecostal Nova Jerusalém"[83] be suspended. In Brazil this news was published with a response from local religious leaders.[84] After a "systematic violation of the rights of members", such as "racial discrimination and violation of statutory rules"; an "imposition and cooperation on castration or vasectomy for pastors", the Angolan government ordered the dissolution of its board of directors and the removal of Bishop Honorilton Gonçalves from his leadership. The act was interpreted by local religious as the official loss of control by Brazilian bishop Edir Macedo over Universal in the country. [85]

The Ten Commandments is a film released in 2016 by UCKG-controlled Rede Record in association with Paris Filmes. It is an adaptation of the eponymous television series presented by Rede Record in 2015.[86] The adaptation was written by Vivian de Oliveira and directed by Alexandre Avancini, with the same cast as the soap opera.[87]

During pre-order the film broke several records. In two weeks, more than 2 million tickets were sold, and it was also shown at more screens in Brazil, over 1,000, than any previous film.[88][89][90] However, it was poorly received by critics.

The UCKG was criticised for heavily promoting the film at their services, and asking those attending for money to buy tickets for those who could not afford them; pastors at church services distributed envelopes with the Ten Commandments logo, and asked for them to be filled with money and returned to help the "cause", interspersed with stressing the importance of tithing 10% of salary, plus extra donations, every month.[91]

The film was widely released, but a news report in São Paulo showed empty screening rooms at the premiere of the film, despite the tickets sold at the box office.[92] It was reported that in Recife a single buyer associated with the UCKG bought all the tickets for all showings of the film in its first two weeks, more than 20,700 tickets.[93] The UCKG officially denied the negative reports about the film.[94][95]

In 2018, the film Nada a Perder (Nothing to Lose), which depicts the story of Edir Macedo, part-funded and promoted by Macedo's Record channel, was similarly reported to be the biggest-selling Brazilian film, but to be playing to rows of empty seats night after night; in one case two sold-out performances played to a totally empty cinema, and to a woman and her two children. A UCKG spokesman said that it was a lie and fake news propagated by media with "a long history of attacks against Universal and the Christian faith" that the film was showing to empty cinemas. He said that the church had "never" bought tickets for the film, but there had been "an initiative so that the biggest number of people possible could see the film—taking needy populations and residents of poor neighbourhoods, the excluded and those who never had access to a cinema where they live".[96]

In December 2017, the Portuguese UCKG was accused of running an illegal child adoption network. Children were allegedly taken from their biological mothers and illegally taken to foreign countries for adoption.[97] The investigation continued as of April 2018; the Portuguese judicial authorities had by then ruled that children were not taken illegally from their parents, but that there were indications of crime in the subsequent process of adoption.[98]

In May 2019, the Portuguese Public Prosecutor's Office determined the termination of investigative procedures, deeming the absence of grounds for any prosecution.[99][100] The Prosecutors’ Office stated that the foster care homes belonging to the UCKG were legally constituted and operated, further confirming the legality of the institutionalization proceedings carried out before the national legal entities.[101] No criminal proceedings were carried out by the Prosecutors’ Office regarding the adoption of institutionalized children.

Following the termination, the Public Prosecutor’s Office has since carried out criminal proceedings for false testimony against two mothers of some of the adopted children. Both mothers issued statements in a public television report, as well as before a court, under oath. One claimed that she had not signed any court documents to authorize any adoption proceedings, while the other stated that she was never notified by the court, or by any other means, of her children’s adoption, saying that she had never signed any notification of said adoptions - both claimed that their signatures had been forged and wrongfully submitted in court, in order for the adoptions to proceed. However, subsequent forensic inspections, carried out by the Prosecutors’ Office, then indicated that the mothers had indeed signed the court documents regarding their children’s adoptions,[102][103] deeming the respective procedures as lawful. Both women currently await trial for false testimony.

One mother has since confessed that she had indeed received and signed a court notification regarding her sons’ adoption, claiming, before the court, that her false allegations of signature forgery were instigated by a journalist from Portuguese broadcast channel “TVI”, whilst further stating the falsehood of her previous accusations to the UCKG.[104][105]

According to the mother’s allegations, journalist Alexandra Borges instigated her to state that she had not signed any adoption papers or notifications, in exchange for reuniting her with her estranged sons.[106]

Bishop Edir Macedo of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God stated in a 2019 sermon that daughters should not be allowed to seek out higher education, because if they do they will be "smarter than their husbands", and that he personally would not allow his daughters to go to college because he believes that an educated woman cannot have a happy marriage: "When they [my daughters] went out, I said they would just go to high school and they wouldn’t go to college. My wife supported me, but the relatives found it absurd. Why don’t you go to college? Because if you graduate from a particular profession, you will serve yourself, you will work for yourself. But I don’t want that, you came to serve God. Because if (…) she was a doctor and had a high degree of knowledge and found a boy who had a low degree of knowledge, he would not be the head, she would be the head. And if it were the head, it would not serve God’s will. I want my daughters to marry a male. A man who has to be head. They have to be head. Because if they are not head their marriage is doomed to failure."[107]