Brazilians' Arrest Focuses Scrutiny on Evangelical Groups

On Jan. 8, they were stopped by U.S. customs officials after Brazilian authorities had warned Interpol that the couple was suspected of smuggling money out of Brazil to pay for personal investments. The Hernandeses, who were traveling with their son, had declared on customs forms that they were carrying less than $10,000. Their arraignment in a Florida court is scheduled for Monday.

According to prosecutors, the $56,467 they carried was part of a personal fortune collected from church donations that has attracted the attention of state tax collectors since 2002. Lemos, the prosecutor, said the church owns a ranch where the family keeps a stable of horses, and Brazilian media outlets have reported that they own at least four houses, 14 cars and shares in a resort. Sao Paulo's state government alleges that they owe more than $3 million in back taxes.

"The church's goals are not spiritual at all but are purely entrepreneurial," Lemos said.

Brazilian authorities said they have been investigating the Hernandeses for several years, believing that they have embezzled funds from church contributors and evaded taxes. Prosecutors are preparing charges of tax evasion and money laundering against the couple.

Other churches in Brazil that allegedly practice what critics label "prosperity theology" -- or a connection between monetary donations and spiritual blessings -- have also been touched by scandal in recent years. For more than a decade, Edir Macedo, founder of Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, has been accused of crimes including embezzlement and tax evasion. But he successfully fought the charges, and his church has prospered, boasting more than 8 million members worldwide and holdings in Brazil that include thousands of churches, television and radio stations, newspapers, a soccer team and its own political party.

The evangelical movement's political connections grew last year to include one of the Brazilian legislature's most powerful caucuses, with 61 elected members. But the caucus's power within congress was diminished significantly by another scandal last year, in which more than half of the members of the caucus were accused of taking bribes to award contracts to overpriced ambulance services.

"These criminal acts and accusations have not damaged the evangelical movement, though," said Lisias Noguera Negrao, a sociology professor who studies religious movements at the University of Sao Paulo. "The accusations are viewed by their followers as persecution. That is what is happening now among the followers of the Hernandeses, and it is the same thing that happened with Edir Macedo. He overcame the scandal with his image intact."

Outside one of the Hernandeses' churches in Sao Paulo on Wednesday, Robson Franchini, 29, stood with a Bible cradled in his arms and ignored the pleas of church leaders who have urged members of Reborn in Christ Church not to talk to members of the news media.

"The charges are all false -- I believe 100 percent in the integrity of the apostle and the bishop," he said, before an angry congregant pointed him out to church officials for speaking without approval.