Social Media>> Religion • Brazil
South America’s media mogul Edir Macedo is also the region’s most powerful televangelist who presides over one of the world’s fastest-growing and controversial churches, Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.
Despite controlling a media empire that includes a TV network, two newspapers and 26 radio stations in Brazil, he is urging his followers to embark on a “media fast”. Twitter and Facebook-obsessed Christians have been told to log-off. “It will be a fast from ...TV, Internet, newspapers, magazines, radios. From everything that isn’t Godly,” Macedo wrote on his blog.
Many suspect the move is a tactic to divert followers’ attention from bad press. Christian news website Gospel+ noted Macedo had called for media fasts twice in the past, both coinciding with bad press. This time his church is under attack after claims that a nine-year-old boy was coerced into selling his toys and donating the proceeds to the church during a televised service.
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