I was going to write about the Christian Ten Commandments in today’s postcard, trying to understand their relevance to modern day society, but I got sidetracked! The word ‘God’ is possibly the most invoked word in our world; ‘the supreme being, ultimate creator and ruler of the universe’ in theistic belief systems. Certainly, Abrahamic faiths like, Judaism, Christianity and Islam see him (her?) as a single, supreme, eternal and all-powerful deity, whereas those who follow polytheism believe in multiple gods and goddesses who control specific aspects of nature or human life.
Early last month American Dennis Hastert, at one time the 51st Speaker of the House of Representatives (Note 1), died. His obituary was an interesting read; a high school teacher and wrestling trainer for 16 years, he followed that with a 20-year career as a Washington lawmaker. However, despite being a ‘born-again Christian’, a sordid tale of the sexual abuse of several of his high school wrestling team emerged in 2016 and he was sentenced to 15 months in prison. A wonderful example of a public persona masking his personal predilection for teenage boys; not very ‘Christian’.
It really doesn’t matter where you look, there’s always a bad apple somewhere, as if it’s impossible to live a completely blameless life. Hot on the heels of Dennis Hastert was the obituary of American Jim Bakker. Bakker’s Christian television network, PTL, attracted over 13 million viewers and raked in some $129m in annual revenue. The wheels fell of his wagon when, in 1987, a local newspaper revealed that Bakker had used $265k of PTL funds to buy the silence of a church secretary who had accused him of drugging and raping her. Denying the allegations he declared: “…. but we’re not hopeless because we have God on our side.” Of course! That’s all right, then? The expose brought renewed attention to his business interests, particularly his Heritage USA, the third most popular theme park in the country.
You couldn’t make it up! It seemed that the park’s 500 room hotel sold ‘lifetime partnerships’, guaranteeing buyers an annual three-night stay. They sold 60,000, twelve times more than the hotel was capable of servicing. (Note 2) I hope he wasn’t still claiming ‘we have God on our side’ when he was found guilty of 24 fraud and conspiracy charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison; he eventually served five.
It has always seemed to me that television evangelists are the modern equivalent of snake-oil salesmen beloved of Americans towards the end of the C19th. I don’t think we have many broadcasting on UK television but many years ago I was sufficiently curious in their craft to attend one of Billy Graham’s broadcasts at a cinema in London. All wonderful stuff, until you came to the diktat, that you couldn’t do ‘x’ or ‘y’ unless you followed Jesus; and if you didn’t you were consigned to hell and damnation.
There’s a large Evangelical Christian following in Brazil. Membership of Pentecostal or neo-Pentecostal churches is now estimated to be about 30% of the population, some 47 million, up from 10% in 1990, following a sharp decline in Catholic adherence, now numbering around 56% of the population. Evangelicals have become a major political force, advocating socially conservative values and supporting the right-wing politics of Jair Bolsonaro and his son Flavio. Bolsonaro senior is currently serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest, whilst his son’s defeat in the second round of the Presidential elections at the end of last month was remarkable.
Having won the first round at the beginning of October (Note 3), there was no historical precedent for Bolsonaro to lose the second. Up stepped Andre Janones, a young Congressman from the state of Minas Gerais and supporter of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, looking to be elected for a fourth term. Realising that some 30 million Brazilians had abstained from voting in the first round (Note 4), Janones set up a WhatsApp group called Lula’s Army, its intention to make those who had not voted before vote for Lula. Membership grew from 50,000 to 5 million a week before the vote; every day Janones sent messages, urging his followers to do certain tasks, focused and co-ordinated. Brazil is a prime territory for online political campaigns, ranking only behind India and Indonesia for time spent on social media. It worked; three million more people voted in the second round than the first.
The surprise result gave Lula 51.79% of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 48.21%. Bolsonaro cried ‘foul’ and vowed to fight the result, but within days had run away to Miami, presumably not trusting that the investigation into alleged money-laundering activities would be fair – or maybe he was just acknowledging his guilt? On reflection, maybe this was not a victory for one party’s policies over the other, but a recognition of the power of galvanising voters through a social media campaign.
Richard 6th November 2026
Hove
Note 1 For those interested in American politics, he replaced Newt Gingrich and was succeeded by Nancy Pelosi.
Note 2 You may remember the forecast visitor numbers for Brighton’s i360 that I mentioned in PC 486 (April 2026)? Somewhere in the initial proposal ‘visitor numbers were estimated to be 700,000 per year. A child could do the maths: open 365 days a year, for an 8-hour day the attraction would need 239 visitors per hour for every hour of the working day, seven days a week, even if it was raining or foggy. The capsule has a maximum capacity of 200; with about one trip per hour it wasn’t realistically possible. No one dared to challenge the promoters; no one applied common sense.” The reality was that in the first year it had some 500,000 visitors but then averaged out around 270,000 per year.
Note 3 Bolsonaro 47% Lula 45%.
Note 4 Lots of people didn’t want to vote for either man, wishing there was someone occupying the middle ground.
