Eagerly Awaiting Release of Brazilian Evangelical\'s Autobiography

Michael Appleton for The New York Times People waited in a line that stretched for six blocks for the release of the first installment of Bishop Edir Macedo’s autobiography at a SoHo bookstore.

The crowds of young people began arriving in SoHo in the dark, pitching portable chairs and passing cups of porridge among them. By 3:30 on Saturday morning, more than 200 were waiting. As they huddled together along Prince Street, an early morning drizzle turned the pavement to glitter.

“It’s like Black Friday â€" almost,” said Brittany Francis, 17, her face shining below a streetlight outside the McNally Jackson bookstore, â€everyone camping out in the nighttime to get what they want.”

This was not the release of a smartphone. There were no Beyoncé tickets on sale, no books featuring vampires or boy wizards to be purchased. What these people wanted was to be the first in the United States to purchase the autobiography of Bishop Edir Macedo, a Pentecostal pastor with some five million followers worldwide. Tucked among those millions are 60,000 worshipers in the United States, including about 10,000 in New York and New Jersey, according to an estimate by Mr. Macedo’s church.

The release of the book, “Nothing to Lose,” originally set for Feb. 9, was rescheduled because of the snowstorm. “I almost cried,” said Leslie Guerrero, 17, of the Bronx, who arrived at midnight, parking herself in the bookstore’s doorway. “And now it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh. It’s here.’ As soon as I get on the subway, I’m going to open it and read it.”

The store finally opened at! 10. And by midmorning, the line stretched about six blocks from Prince Street to Canal Street.

Mr. Macedo, who founded the church in his native Brazil, is both revered and reviled around the world. “Nothing to Lose” is the first installment of his three-part autobiography, and it plots his trajectory from low-level lottery office employee to founder and grand master of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.

“He’s so polemical that you’re going to get people who call him the devil incarnate,” said Andrew Chesnut, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of “Born Again in Brazil,” which analyzes Brazil’s rising Pentecostal movement. “Others say, ‘Yeah, he’s avuncular: He’s like me but almost a billionaire.’”

Pentecostalism, born in a ramshackle old stable in downtown Los Angeles, is little more than a centuryold. It is a boisterous, emotional brand of Christianity characterized by a belief in supernatural healing, the power of prayer and God’s direct involvement with the lives of the redeemed. Followers often speak in tongues and participate in exorcisms. Since its inception, the movement has exploded internationally: Today, one in four Christians identifies as either Pentecostal or Charismatic, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. That amounts to about half a billion people worldwide.

In Brazil, Mr. Macedo, who turns 68 on Monday, is a superstar. He is believed to be the richest member of a clique of Brazilian Pentecostal pastors challenging the traditional dominance of the Roman Catholic Church. Several business magazines estimate that he is worth $950 million. He is the owner of Rede Record, one of the largest television networks in Brazil.

Mr. Macedo began the Universal Church in 1977 in an old funeral parlor outside of Rio de Janeiro. He opened his first outpost in ! the Unite! d States a decade later, setting up shop on the Lower East Side. Early attempts to attract Americans were not terribly successful, according to Bishop Aroldo Martins, a vice president of the church in the United States. But when leaders started preaching in Spanish, attendance swelled.

Today, American believers attend churches in 25 states, according to Mr. Martins. The Universal Church has 31 locations in New York and New Jersey alone.

Mr. Macedo preaches a brand of Pentecostalism, often called prosperity theology, which closely connects a person’s donations to the church to God’s blessings. In Brazil, Mr. Macedo is sometimes referred to as “Pedir Mais Cedo,” a play on his name, which means “ask early.”

Much of Mr. Macedo’s flock consists of immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries, former Roman Catholics who are swayed by an energetic, God-wants-to-bless-you form of Christianity that insists they can change their lives. Ms. Guerrero, who was in line for the book release, as born in Honduras, and said she identifies with the idea “that I can go from nothing to something.”

Mr. Macedo and his organization, however, have been accused of misusing billions of dollars in donations meant for charity and have been accused of exploiting worshipers.

Mr. Martins called such accusations “an orchestrated campaign to destroy and to criticize Bishop Macedo and the work of the church.”

On Saturday, several people waiting to buy Mr. Macedo’s book, which cost $20, explained what he had done for them.

Damien Jackson, 30, grew up in Atlanta. “It was rough,” he said. “I learned about drugs through my dad, and I learned about alcohol from my mom. I had no example.” Mr. Jackson said he started smoking marijuana at age 8, and moved on to cocaine, occasionally using crack. He said that at age 15, feeling fractured and lost, he passed a sign outside an Atl! anta chur! ch that read “stop suffering.”

“I said, ‘Wow, I think I need that,’” Mr. Jackson explained. “So I decided to give it a shot.”

Mr. Macedo often visited Mr. Jackson’s church, counseling him personally. Mr. Jackson now leads the church’s youth movement in New York, which has more than 700 members. “When I came to the church, no one forced me to give anything,” he said. “I had no money, and they helped me. I guess that’s how I would answer criticism.”

Mr. Macedo’s churches, like many Pentecostal institutions, hold Friday night ceremonies in which a pastor casts out evil spirits from afflicted parishioners. The church shies away from the word “exorcism,” preferring “deliverance.”

As believers waited to buy books, much of the praise revolved around miracles wrought by these ceremonies.

Jamil Ahmad, 20, said he grew up in Brooklyn in a strict Muslim household, and that he converted to Christianity as a teenager. He said he developed lupus-like smptoms when he was about 14. When a doctor told him and his mother to come in for test results, they instead went to the church. “I was cured,” he said, “by strict faith and sacrifice.” He never received the results.

Another believer, a 26-year-old man who attends the Universal Church on Fourth Avenue and Dean Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, said the church cured his mother of AIDS, and that she did not receive treatment. “We’re not rejecting science,” said Yunus Seifullah, 28, of the Bronx, another convert from Islam. “But at the same time, we put our faith in God. We know at the end of the day, it’s God that’s going to help us.”

Mr. Macedo’s autobiography has already been published in Portuguese and Spanish. The McNally Jackson store was selling those editions on Saturday as well as the English-language version. The second installment of the autobiography is to be published in August.