Word: bezerra
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Combative hostility toward competing faiths characterizes Brazil's fastest- growing Pentecostal group, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Its authoritarian bishop, Edir Macedo de Bezerra, 45, began preaching in 1977 to a dozen curiosity seekers in a rented room above a funeral parlor; today his flock is 2 million strong. The movement filled a 150,000-seat Rio stadium twice last year, opens one new church a week, and has added a $45 million Sao Paulo TV channel to its 14 radio stations...
Even more far-reaching is the change within nordestinos themselves. Says Recife Industrialist Renato Bezerra de Melo: "You feel a crazy desire on the part of everybody to learn-even among the illiterate. I can start any kind of course in my factory, and 200 workers will show up." In Rio Grande do Norte, one newly literate farm hand-still thrilled with the simple miracle of being able to read seed packages-explained why: "I have suddenly discovered that...
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