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Brazilian Pastor Removed...Over What?!
A well-known Brazilian pastor’s removal from ministry, other Christian news stories and stats, and the explanation of four more eschatological terms.
Anthony Langer
March 29, 2025
It’s Saturday, March 29, 2025.
Today’s edition covers a well-known Brazilian pastor’s removal from ministry, other Christian news stories and stats, and the explanation of four more eschatological terms.
“Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.” (Proverbs 9:7)
Of Christian Concern
POPULAR BRAZILIAN PASTOR REMOVED FROM MINISTRY OVER SIN—AND IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK
Paulo Junior in his video confession (Instagram)
Paulo Junior, a popular reformed pastor in Brazil (a rare breed), announced this week in a viral video confession that he had been removed from ministry for sin—but not the sin you’d expect.
The Confession
Known for his firm preaching, the now-former lead pastor of Igreja Aliança do Calvário (Alliance Church of Calvary) in São Paulo confessed on Wednesday,
“Many times, that harshness that you saw in the pulpit was manifested in my relationships. In the way I was leading the church, I was hurting people, [church] members—being very harsh, demanding. And the same thing with members of the leadership…”
Yes, in a day when a pastor’s removal from ministry is almost always associated with sexual sin, here is a case that has reminded the Brazilian evangelical world that being “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2) is not the only pastoral qualification.
In the video, Paulo Junior narrates how his church council had confronted and rebuked him over his harshness, but he “resisted this rebuke” and tried to “manipulate” and “dissuade” them. After receiving additional counsel and rebukes, however, “they convinced me of my sin, my eyes were opened, and I saw that I was leading the church in a wrong and sinful way, and I asked them for forgiveness and recognized my sin.”
Following several meetings, it was decided that Paulo Junior’s conduct had disqualified him from his pastoral role in light of 1 Timothy’s pastoral qualifications of sober-mindedness, gentleness, hospitality, etc. In the video, Paulo Junior asks for forgiveness from those he hurt—church members, members of the church council, and those who follow him. He says he received the council’s decision “with affection, with love, with serenity, with sobriety,” and, with his family, will begin a membership process in another church “to be sheltered, to be discipled, to be pastored, to seek my restoration, the restoration of my soul.”
He further announced that he will not engage in preaching, teaching, or public social media for a long time as he furthers his studies at a theological college and then, “if it is God's will, return to ministry.“
A Response
Of many responses, negative and positive, one now viewed over 305,000 times stands out. Rodrigo Mocellin, pastor of Igreja Resgatar (Rescue Church) in the interior of São Paulo, says in a video,
“I’ve never seen someone so well-known making such a correct and humble confession—an impeccable confession of sin. Confessing our errors is not as simple as many imagine. If you are a pastor, someone who is called to be an example, someone who is a leader, it becomes even more complicated. And even more complicated when you are someone well-known. It is a true miracle that can only happen through the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives.”
Mocellin recalls the public confession of another pastor—one who was caught in adultery, “something infinitely more serious”—in which the pastor never attributed sin to himself. He also recalls cases in which there was no confession at all but only a cover-up to protect a denomination’s reputation out of fear that “confessing the error makes the church false.” On the contrary, he says,
“the false church, the false pastor, is not the one who has no errors; it is the church that does not lovingly treat their sins in a biblical way. And here you see a man who humbles himself, who calls his error by name, who does not give details because he does not need to, but also does not omit, who attributes heavy adjectives to himself, to refer to his error—I have never seen it [before].”
He compares Paulo Junior’s confession to that of David, who only mentions his own sin (Psalm 51), contrasted with that of Adam, who implicated his wife (Genesis 3:12). “In view of all this,” he says, “I believe there is only one thing to do: subject closed.”
Watch Mocellin’s full video response here (turn on auto-translate).
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Also Noteworthy
Image: Ruslan KD / Instagram
→ Only 16 percent of “self-proclaimed Christians” believe in the Trinity, according to new research from Dr. George Barna’s Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University.
→ The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s annual report recommends adding Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Vietnam to the official list of Countries of Particular Concern.
→ The Alex O’Connor vs. David Wood debate happened after all. Last week, Ruslan confirmed that the debate between atheist O’Connor and Christian apologist Wood on the question “Did Jesus claim to be God?,” which was canceled from February’s DEBATECON 5, would finally occur this weekend at Bless God Summit.
RELATED: In a video, Ruslan, Wood, and other Christian influencers celebrated O’Connor’s birthday on Thursday. After Ruslan presents O’Connor with some gifts, Wood jokes, “And so this is Ruslan trying to bribe Alex O’Connor into converting to Christianity with some tiramisu and some books.”
→ 58% of Protestants in France are “evangelical Christians,” according to new data. Protestants account for about 9% of regular religious service attendees and about 3% of the general population.
Content Catch-Up
Recent, notable content of Christian interest.*
Eschatology Debate: Kenwood Institute hosted a debate, moderated by Dr. Tom Schriener, between three pastors in Louisville, KY, representing the three popular Christian views of the end times: Jim Hamilton (premillennial), Greg Gilbert (amillennial), and Ryan Fullerton (postmillenial). (Full Debate)
*Not necessarily an endorsement
The Bible, Briefly
Interpreting Eschatological Passages
Cover image of Ready to Harvest’s video (Ready to Harvest / YouTube)
This is the second part of a series defining terms in Christian eschatology (the study of last things, i.e., the end times). Read the first part here.
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
Last week, we defined the three end-time positions about the Millennium, but you didn’t think understanding eschatology would be that easy, did you? Below are four more terms crucial to understanding different views of eschatological events, as described in a helpful video by Joshua of Ready to Harvest, who looks and talks precisely as you’d expect of a young-ish man teaching you complex theological concepts.
1. Preterism (from the Latin praeter, meaning “past”)
Preterists believe eschatological passages mainly refer to events that have already occurred and are “symbolic descriptions of literal events.”
“Most preterists would view [Matthew 24:29 (above)] as being a symbolic description of a literal event surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.,” explains Joshua.
2. Historicism
Historicists likewise take most eschatological passages to be “symbolic descriptions of literal events,” but they believe these events have been happening “sequentially” throughout history (primarily “in the current church age,” i.e., since Christ’s resurrection).
Historicists assign particular passages to specific historical events, such as one who argued that Matthew 24:29 “refers to May 19, 1780, which was apparently a particularly dark day in parts of the early United States.”
3. Idealism (aka the Symbolic or Spiritual approach)
Idealists, unlike the others, do not view eschatological passages as referring to literal events but take them as “spiritual truths” that remain “simultaneously” true throughout “the current church age.” Particular passages do not refer to specific historical events, either past or future, but to “spiritual realities”—such that “the earliest reader of Revelation, for example, could get just as much out of it as we can today.”
4. Futurism
Opposite preterists, futurists believe eschatological passages mainly refer to events that have not yet happened—but, like preterists and historicists, they also take them to be “symbolic descriptions of literal events.”
Futurists take Matthew 24:29 as referring to a literal event in the future, though they differ on whether the celestial events described are literal or symbolic.
For more details and a chart showing how these ideas intersect with the views of the Millennium, watch the Ready to Harvest video. More on this in the next “The Bible, Briefly.”
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