Brazilian Church to Build Replica of Jerusalem Temple - July 27, 2010

The controversial Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Sao Paulo Brazil has received permission to build a new church building and it will be a replica of Solomon’s Temple.  At a cost of $200 million, it will seat 10,000 people and house a replica of the Ark of the Covenant.

According to the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, the church received the go ahead from the city’s planning department and construction on the 55 metre high building, the equivalent of an 18-storey building, will begin immediately.  When it is completed in four years it will be twice the height of the famous “Christ the Redeemer” statue in Rio de Janeiro. 

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, which began in Brazil in 1977, claims to now have 8 million members in 180 countries worldwide.  It runs a TV channel and publishes a free newspaper with a weekly circulation of 2.5 million.

The church teaches what is known as a “prosperity gospel” whereby donations are rewarded with promises of material wealth.  In 2009, Sao Paulo’s public prosecutor accused 10 of the church’s leaders, including the founder and leader Bishop Edir Macedo, of siphoning off millions of dollars of donations to buy cars and property.  Macedo, who denies the charges, owns a $45 million dollar private jet.

That wasn’t the first time that the church and its leaders had been investigated.  In 1998, Alan Riding, reported in the New York Times that the Brazilian police investigated charges that the Universal Church “pretends to cure people by expelling the Devil from their bodies, using grotesque and humiliating gestures reminiscent of the barbaric sects of the Middle Ages.”

In a recent televised worship service, Bishop Macedo stated “We are preparing ourselves to build the temple, in the same mold as Solomon's.  His Temple … used tonnes of gold, pure gold ...We are not going to build a temple of gold, but we will spend tonnes of money, without a shadow of doubt."

Macedo went on to say that the church had signed an $8m contract to import stones from Israel. "We have signed the contract and commissioned the stones that will come from Jerusalem, just like the ones that were used to build the temple in Israel; stones that were witnesses to the powers of God, 2,000 ago.  It is going to be a knock-out, it is going to be beautiful, beautiful, beautiful — the most beautiful of all. The outside will be exactly the same as that which was built in Jerusalem.”

Designed by Brazilian architect Rogerio Silva de Araujo, the project will include parking for 1,000 vehicles, TV and radio studios and classrooms for 1300 children.

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