When distrust causes too much suffering. Or why there are (few) Brazilians in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God of Brussels

Brussels has several tens of thousands of Brazilian immigrants and more than twenty Brazilian Pentecostal churches. One of these, the notorious Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) does not attract a lot of Brazilians. It looks more like an African Christian Church and offers few Portuguese language religious services. Most Brazilians in Brussels are undocumented and wish to earn “easy money” in order to return to Brazil as soon as possible. Very often this goal is hard to realize as they have hardly access to the legitimate labour market and have to rely on others, mainly Brazilians, to get ahead as well as possible. Those “others” on whom they are forced to rely turn out to be less trustworthy as time goes by. Consequently, distrust pervades the Brazilian community. For some members it may lead to great suffering, inducing them to break – at least psychologically – with the community, finding arguments on offer by the UCKG to justify such an attitude. However, the church promotes individualism so strongly and questions trust so thoroughly that conversion to the UCKG does not entail an induction into a new “community of brothers”. To the contrary, for those Brazilians, the UCKG is a “non-community”.