De excrementis diaboli – some reflections on an almost total absence of a practical implication of a theology of creation in the public speech of Brazilian evangelicalism

Abstract

Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves (1933-2014) was one of the most creative thinkers Latin American theology has ever produced. In De excrementisdiaboli (“On the Devil’s excrements”), a short text published in 1998 in Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, Alves plays with the idea of trash as the excrements the Devil puts in the world to mock of God’s creation. Alves states that he never heard any sermon preached by any religious leader about how to care for God’s creation dealing correctly with garbage. Following this Alvesian intuition, this article intends to present that a biblical theology of creation has many implications for both a public theology and for a prophetic speech by the church as well. However, this aspect of dealing with garbage as a way of stewardship of creation is by and large almost ignored in the public speech of Brazilian Evangelicalism. In the majority of Brazilian Evangelicalism, when one speaks about a theology of creation, it is only as an apologetic fight against the theory of evolution. This is an influence of the Fundamentalist movement in the theoretical framework of Brazilian Evangelicalism. The aim of this article is to present how Alve’s text can become the starting point for producing a fresh public theology of creation in Brazilian Evangelicalism leading to effective custodianship of our fragile planet.