Brazil is a rapidly emerging country. Brazilian theology, namely the Theology of Liberation, has become well known in the 1970s and 1980s. The politically active Base Ecclesial Communities and the progressive posture of the Roman Catholic Church contrasted with a steadily growing number of evangelicals, mostly aligned with the military regime but attractive precisely to the poor. After democratic transition in the mid-1980s, the context changed considerably. Democracy, growing religious pluralism and mobility, a vibrant civil society, the political ascension of the Worker's Party and growing wealth, albeit within a continuously wide social gap, are some of the elements that show the need of a new approach to theology. It must be a theology that is both critical and constructive, resisting and cooperative, a theology that is able to give orientation to the churches, valuing and encouraging their contribution in society while avoiding attempts of imposition. The Churches and Democracy in Brazil, the fruit of years of interdisciplinary study of the Brazilian context and its main churches and theology, makes its case for an ecumenically articulated public theology. It seeks inspiration mainly in Luther and Lutheran theology, emphasizing human dignity, freedom, trust, the disposition to serve, and the ability to endure the ambiguities of reality, as well as a fresh interpretation of the doctrine of the two regiments. These are the fundamental elements of what makes human beings full members of the body politic: citizenship, their right to have rights and to be able to effectively live them, together with their corresponding duties, in a move of growing political participation conscious of their religious motivation in view of the commonweal.

This book details the struggle to establish and maintain democracy and justice in Brazil after 2000. From 1964 to 1984, Brazil had a dictatorship, which was followed by democratic elections. Later, from 2003 to 2016, the nation enjoyed a very popular and democratic government under President Lula and President Dilma, who created many social and educational programs that raised 32 million people out of extreme poverty. However, as this book highlights, since 2013, the nation has witnessed the rise of a very conservative movement, which led to the impeachment of President Dilma (2016), to the imprisonment of President Lula (2018) and to the election of a right-wing president, who represented a decline in democracy and rights from 2018 to 2022. In 2022, we had new elections, with the victory of President Lula, who took office on January 1, 2023. This book advocates for a new period in Brazilian politics, with full democracy, respect for the rule of law and social justice.

Evangelical and Catholic groups are transforming Brazilian politics. This book asks why, and what the consequences are for democracy.

Liberation theology is often characterized as rejecting democracy and, based upon their option for the poor, advocating a form of socialism. This claim is challenged through an analysis of the works of Brazilian liberation theologians, Catholic social teaching, and studies on the base community movements in Brazil from the imposition of military rule through democratization (1964-1992). Liberation theologians initially rejected liberal democracy, but by the nineties were advocating a participatory and ecological democracy. However, they differed on how such a democracy was to be achieved in the competitive political party arena. In addition, increasing ecclesiastical opposition and the collapse of existent socialist regimes marginalized liberation theologians' vision of an inclusive, participatory democracy.

The current work historically reconstructs the role played by the Brazilian Catholic Church during the military dictatorship that governed the country from 1964 to 1985. If in Latin America the denial of identity and rights has for centuries gone hand in hand with the role played by the Church in Brazil, in the twenty years covered by the book the national Catholic Church managed to establish itself as the only democratic bastion against the army, not only acting to safeguard trampled human rights but also to criticize the situation. Thanks to the influence of liberation theology, the church gave priority to the intellectual progress of the working classes, developing one of the largest operations of non-governmental popular education in the contemporary era, which - to cite Antonio Gramsci - provided an opportunity for the "subaltern classes who want to educate themselves in the art of government".

After 21 years of military rule, Brazil returned to democracy in 1985. Over the past decade and a half, Brazilians in the Nova Repœblica (New Republic) have struggled with a range of diverse challenges that have tested the durability and quality of the young democracy. How well have they succeeded? To what extent can we say that Brazilian democracy has consolidated? What actors, institutions, and processes have emerged as most salient over the past 15 years? Although Brazil is Latin America's largest country, the world's third largest democracy, and a country with a population and GNP larger than Yeltsin's Russia, more than a decade has passed since the last collaborative effort to examine regime change in Brazil, and no work in English has yet provided a comprehensive appraisal of Brazilian democracy in the period since 1985. Democratic Brazil: Actors, Institutions, and Processes analyzes Brazilian democracy in a comprehensive, systematic fashion, covering the full period of the New Republic from Presidents Sarney to Cardoso. Democratic Brazil brings together twelve top scholars, the "next generation of Brazilianists," with wide-ranging specialties including institutional analysis, state autonomy, federalism and decentralization, economic management and business-state relations, the military, the Catholic Church and the new religious pluralism, social movements, the left, regional integration, demographic change, and human rights and the rule of law. Each chapter focuses on a crucial process or actor in the New Republic, with emphasis on its relationship to democratic consolidation. The volume also contains a comprehensive bibliography on Brazilian politics and society since 1985. Prominent Brazilian historian Thomas Skidmore has contributed a foreword to the volume. Democratic Brazil speaks to a wide audience, including Brazilianists, Latin Americanists generally, students of comparative democratization, as well as specialists within the various thematic subfields represented by the contributors. Written in a clear, accessible style, the book is ideally suited for use in upper-level undergraduate courses and graduate seminars on Latin American politics and development.