Atuação dos missionários assembleianos em países muçulmanos: proselitismo religioso

Abstract

The fact is that in a survey conducted by the World Center for the Study of Christianity (2013, p. 76-77) it was pointed out that in 2010 more than 400 thousand missionaries left their countries to evangelize in other parts of the world. Transporting such data to Brazil, according to the last survey carried out by IBGE (2010, graph 37), 86.8% of the Brazilian population declares itself to be Christian and in the ranking of countries with more missionaries in the world, Brazil occupied the second position, being below the United States, with 34,000 missionaries working abroad (CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY 2013, p. 76).

The importance given to missions for the Christian religion is related to the historical process that involved Christianity in order for it to become a religion. This process began with the so-called apostolic missions carried out by the followers of Jesus Christ. In obedience to a basic principle of all sacred scripture, the master's disciples were to take his teachings to all nations after his death (MARKS, 16: 15-20). Moved by the guidance of Christ, the apostles left the outskirts of Jerusalem and started a proselytizing movement around the world, recorded both in the Bible and in historiographical books, which culminated in the recognition of the Christian religion as the official creed of the great Roman empire and, later, spread to many other countries, given the influence of this empire (CURTIS; LANG; PETERSON, 2003, p. 29-30).