Creation gains in Brazil. Will that help it spread worldwide?

The population of Brazil grows while those of other countries
shrinks. And higher proportions of those people now believe in creation.
That is, they believe that God created human beings and the world. More
to the point, they believe that this happened 10,000 years ago, or more
recently. This trend has run for at least seven years, while Brazil as a
country grows richer, not poorer. These facts suggest that Brazil will
be a powerful force in promoting creation, and specifically young-earth creation, worldwide.

Yesterday, Andrea Madambashi of The Christian Post wrote that Brazil today has more evangelical Christians, and fewer Roman Catholics.
She compared numbers of evangelicals and Catholics ten years apart. She
also noticed one thing that suggests that the trend will only get
stronger. Evangelical Christianity in Brazil is clearly a movement of
the young. The Roman Catholic Church is the church of the old.

At first glance, one might take little from this article other than
“out with the old, in with the new.” But the Question Evolution campaign
points out one thing that Madambashi missed. That is: evangelical Christians are more likely to believe in creation than are Roman Catholics. This should surprise no one. Five years ago, Pope Benedict XVI denounced as “absurd” the clash between creation and evolution.

On one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of
evolution[. This] appears as a reality that we must see and which
enriches our understanding of life and being as such.

On the other hand, said His Holiness, evolution cannot say where
everything came from, nor to what end. (Of course not. Evolution
advocates frown at anyone who dares ask questions like that.)

This is where the Roman Catholic Church stands. Yet the RCC is
yielding to the evangelical movement. And that movement is not so quick
to believe the “scientific proofs” that so impressed His Holiness.

Rosinha Garotinho, Governor of Rio de Janeiro. Photo: Marcello Casal Jr/Agência Brasil, CC BY 3.0 Brazilian License

In 2004, Governor Rosinha Garotinho (a/k/a Rosinha Mateus) of Rio de Janeiro did something wild. She ordered that public schools in Rio would start teaching creation science as well as evolution. A year later, the Brazilian magazine Época surveyed the general public.

The results probably shocked them. Only nine percent of their sample accepted the strict naturalistic view of human origin.
Fifty-four percent accepted old-earth creation, the idea that man
appears millions of years ago but changed only as God said he would
change. Thirty-one percent accepted young-earth creation.

Furthermore, 89 percent of the sample agreed with what Governor
Garotinho did. 75 percent of the sample even said that creation should replace evolution in the schools.

Detractors of creation were quick to excuse the results. A government
official blamed the wording of the survey. The head of the Brazilian
Association for the Advancement of Science called the results a sign of
poor-quality science education. But if that were true, then fewer people
with advanced degrees should believe in creation than people without.
(God forbid they should simply be wrong and the people finally getting
wise to them!)

The survey results did not bear this out. Only ten percent of advanced degree holders accepted the naturalistic view, and six percent of non-holders.

Consider, then, the trends. A politician in Brazil introduces creation into public schools. And the people say, in effect,

Go for it!

Seven years later comes evidence that young people in Brazil are
embracing a new church movement that welcomes young-earth creation
thought. And no one can, with justice, lay this to poor education.

Brazil is not even a poor country. It is rich, and getting richer. And some of them are spending their money to promote creation and “question evolution.”

OK. What say you? Will this help spread belief in creation to the rest of the world?