Brazil megachurch scores TV hit with biblical soap operas
Nebuchadnezzar II is about to be crowned in a sumptuous Babylonian palace, and production assistants in Havaiana flip-flops are rushing to get a small army of extras into place.
Welcome to the set of The Rich Man and Lazarus, the latest biblical telenovela from the media empire of one of Brazil’s largest evangelical megachurches.
Edir Macedo, the controversial founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, has already scored two prime-time hits with soap operas based on the Bible: The Ten Commandments, in 2015, and The Promised Land, currently on air.
Macedo is the owner of Brazil’s second-largest television network, TV Record, whose foray into telenovelas is reshaping prime-time in the South American country.
Telenovelas — or “novelas,” in Brazilian Portuguese — are a national obsession in Brazil, nearly on par with soccer.
They used to be strictly secular, with the dominant player, TV Globo — the country’s largest network — dealing with subjects such as gay couples and racial discrimination in its scripts.
But Macedo and TV Record saw an opening for a new kind of series in a country where evangelical Christianity is booming, steadily eroding the numbers of the world’s largest Catholic population.
The shows have proven wildly popular and TV Record is now hoping Lazarus will do the same. RichManandLazarus
The 150-episode series explores a parable of Jesus with two protagonists, one poor and bound for heaven, the other rich and bound for hell.
“It teaches certain tenets of ethical behavior. People are tired of the aggression and ugliness of daily life,” said actor Cassius Scapin, who plays a villain on the show.