This Brazilian pastor said he was saving souls. Police say he ran a slave-labor ring.

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

This Brazilian pastor said he was saving souls. Police say he ran a slave-labor ring.

By Anthony Faiola and Marina Lopes April 14 at 6:02 PM

MINDURI, Brazil — Welcome to Paradise Farm.

In the fertile hills of southeast Brazil, scores of Christian workers tend banana and citrus fields, rousing iridescent butterflies in the noonday sun. In the evenings, laborers come home to cement dorms, communal meals and prayer sessions far from the secular distractions of urban life.

“We are all Christians who follow the New Testament,” said Paulo Henrique da Silva, president of the cooperative that manages the farm. “We came together to live as one.”

Yet this picture of faith, Brazilian authorities say, is masking a darker truth. Officials describe the ranch as part of a sprawling slave labor and racketeering ring led by Pastor Cícero Vicente de Araújo, a former salesman. Federal police are calling it another in an unusual string of high-profile criminal cases tied to evangelical churches here in Latin America’s largest nation.

The dramatic surge of evangelical Christianity in Brazil in recent decades is giving the religious right an increasingly powerful political voice. But in a country where corruption and malfeasance have already infiltrated the highest levels of politics and business, opportunists are also muscling in on houses of worship.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/this-brazilian-pastor-said-he-was-saving-souls-police-say-he-ran-a-slave-labor-ring-/2018/04/14/184c87fe-230d-11e8-946c-9420060cb7bd_story.html

[Angry Dragon]

1. religion can cause harm

[guillaumeb]

2. Disgusting behavior. eom

[Major Nikon]

3. He does have a point about following the New Testament

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. 2 Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare[a] of their slaves.

1 Timothy 6:1-2

[MineralMan]

4. That is true, of course.

It is one of the verses quoted by slavery proponents justifying enslavement. Thanks for posting that biblical support for slavery. Fortunately, our secular nation did away with slavery. That action was late, but finally did occur, after a terrible civil war started by slave states.

Proof texts can be found in the Bible to justify almost every bad behavior of humans. They are often used to defend horrible practices.