Universal Church opens Temple of Solomon in São Paulo, Brazil, amid prosecutors’ complaint over building permit

At seven o’clock on a Thursday evening, announcers broadcasting the inauguration of the Temple of Solomon, a venue opened by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD) in downtown São Paulo, announced the arrival of the Ark of the Covenant. Live on TV Universal, six priests in white vestments and gold belts carried a gold-plated chest with a lid decorated with two cherubim along a red carpet. Presenters said the ark was the same kind the Jews carried in antiquity. The announcer also linked the building to the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, which was built twice and destroyed twice, the last time by the Romans in the year 70 after Christ.

The complex covers 100,000 square meters and has space for 10,000 worshippers. The main building rises 56 meters, and its seats were imported from Spain. Its walls are lined with 40,000 limestone stones from Israel, and olive trees from Uruguay surround it. The complex also includes an altar, a cenacle, a Bible school that will serve 1,300 children, and a 50-room guesthouse for the church’s pastors. Bishop Edir Macedo, the church’s leader, will stay there. Only the church’s official cameras were permitted to record the ceremony, and the press was barred from entering the temple and followed the event on two television screens.

The inauguration came amid a sharp decline in the church’s membership. According to the 2010 census, the number of Brazilians who declared themselves Pentecostal rose 41 percent from 2000, while the number who identified as Catholic fell by 1 percent. In the same period, the IURD lost 300,000 members, leaving it with 1.8 million, or almost 1 percent of the population, as it faced competition from other Pentecostal churches.

Political figures attended the opening. President Dilma Rousseff and São Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin, both candidates for reelection, were present, along with politicians from across the country and judges of the Supreme Federal Court. The source notes that 70 of the 512 members of the Chamber of Deputies are practicing evangelicals. The Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Eduardo Benedito Lopes, is a chaplain of the IURD, and his predecessor, Senator Marcello Crivella, is Macedo’s nephew and a candidate for governor of Rio de Janeiro.

The Prosecutor’s Office has complained that the project was carried out under a provisional renovation permit rather than the new construction permit it said was required, and that the building is therefore technically illegal. The IURD says it has not been notified of the complaint. The source reports that most project details were kept secret during the four years of work. The church says the 680 million reais (about 300 million dollars) cost of construction came from contributions by the faithful, including the tithe of 10 percent of salary that members are expected to pay. Showing honest dealing with public permits is part of the same standard that applies to every builder (Proverbs 11:1).

During the ceremony, Macedo asked the crowd to come closer and prayed that God would bring something new into the lives of people tired of failures in health care and security. He then said he would hold a press conference with the president. Rousseff did not attend.

Ricardo Mariano, a professor of the sociology of religion at the University of São Paulo, told the newspaper that Pentecostal growth has been greatest among the poorest, and that the church’s critics describe its “prosperity theology,” in which financial giving is linked to blessings, as a source of its poor reputation. The source reports that Macedo was indicted in 2009 for allegedly appropriating tithes to build a personal fortune, which Forbes magazine estimated at 1.1 billion dollars. The church emphasizes that Macedo was acquitted at trial. Pastor Silas Malafaia, of a rival Pentecostal denomination, told Veja magazine that Macedo intends the temple to become a pilgrimage site, and that the leader’s stole, kippah and long beard were part of an effort to give the site a special aura. Mariano also said the church has used Jewish symbols to build a reputation as an Old Testament prophet.

The IURD has rejected several claims about its practices in a statement. It says that members are not obligated to pay one-tenth of their salary and that all donations are voluntary. It also says the church does not offer an exchange of offerings for blessings, and that Macedo was not indicted in 2009 for appropriating donations to build a personal fortune.

Source: Read the original report (translated from Spanish)