Evangelical writer and thinker Julio Severo, the father of many children, is an incredibly interesting and extremely courageous Christian who truly lives out his faith–even when it costs him, big time.
After corresponding with him for over a year on all sorts of topics, we decided to interview him so our readers could learn more about his fascinating story.
Following persecution in his home country of Brazil, Julio and his family fled the country to an undisclosed refuge in an undisclosed country.
From his unstable home there–insecure by the standards of the world, but fully trusting in God for all things–Julio writes about Brazil, America, Islam, LGBT, Israel, abortion, Latin America, Trump, and much more. His insights into America are unique and precious.
It is hard not to think of Matthew 5:10 after learning about everything Julio and his family have gone through: “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
We do not necessarily agree with Julio on everything, either theologically, politically, or tactically. In fact, we admire and even personally know some of the people with whom Julio has had high-profile disputes and disagreements.
But with that disclaimer out of the way, this interview is presented unabridged and only lightly edited. We hope it will be a blessing to our readers.
1) Why did you have to flee Brazil?
Federal prosecutors went after me because of complaints from homosexualists and Muslims over articles by me exposing the homosexual agenda and Islam. Because these prosecutors did not have my address, they went after the man responsible for my Brazilian domain (www.juliosevero.com.br). They summoned him two times for court hearings, where in the first hearing they pressured him to give my physical address. With the assistance of a Jewish lawyer, he was able to refrain from answering. He informed me about the pressure they were using against him. So I could take the very hard decision to leave Brazil with my pregnant wife, a 5-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy. On the second hearing, he was able to answer, with the assistance of his lawyer, that I was not in Brazil anymore and that he did not know where I was. Because my friend was under severe legal pressure and to avoid further prosecution against himself because of my blog, he was forced to make a deal where my Brazilian domain (www.juliosevero.com.br) could no longer directly have my articles. So for over 10 years (2009-2019) my own Brazilian domain has not been allowed to direct to my blog and articles in real time. Because of this issue, the usual traffic of www.juliosevero.com.br was redirected to www.juliosevero.com
I am the author of “O Movimento Homossexual” (The Homosexual Movement), published by the Brazilian branch of Bethany House Publishers in 1998. So the most prominent homosexual leaders in Brazil know my name very well. In fact, ABGLT, the largest homosexualist group in Brazil, filed a legal complaint against me in 2007 for “homophobia.” ABGLT is behind the recent measure of Brazil’s supreme court criminalizing “homophobia.”
I could not and I cannot face the “homophobia” battle in courts because I am not a wealthy man (in fact, the survival of me and my family has been dependent on God who has been using readers to bless us through their humble donations). I had and I have other legal battles, including about homeschooling and child vaccination. In Brazil non-vaccination is a crime and by this definition I am a criminal. As a conservative evangelical, I have several conservative stances that are legally costly and punishable in Brazil.
Now you could ask: “Why don’t you come back to Brazil?” Bolsonaro’s Rasputin, Olavo de Carvalho, has publicly asked the Federal Police to “investigate” me on the allegation that my accusations against him involving the Inquisition and occultism are collusions paid by the Russian government. If “Russian Collusion” was a ploy by U.S. socialists against Trump to cover up their real collusion with Ukraine, readers could rightly ask: “What is Carvalho trying to cover up through his ‘Russian Collusion’ charge against Severo?”
Carvalho is not any individual. He received the highest award from the Brazilian government this year, because Bolsonaro loves him passionately. He has lived in his self-exile in the United States for 14 years and he received the award at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington. Readers could ask: “Why hasn’t he returned to Brazil to receive it?”
In an interview with The New American in 2010, he said he left Brazil because he was tired of receiving weekly death threats from leftist maniacs. But since Brazil today has a president who is an Army captain who loves him, there would be plenty of protection for Carvalho to visit Brazil to at least receive the award.
Instead of using his obvious privileges with Bolsonaro to threaten a conservative evangelical who has a large family to protect and support, Carvalho should use his privileges to return to Brazil.
I have no privileges with Bolsonaro and I have the hatred from his Rasputin.
2) What is it that you support about America?
I support and cherish the Christian heritage of America, especially her evangelical Christianity. As a society originally 98 percent Protestant in the foundation of her Republic, America had an extraordinary passion for the Bible and also an unparalleled tolerance for the Jews. While Catholic nations were persecuting Jews, including through the Inquisition, America was welcoming them. It is very interesting that the first Jews in America settled in New York, establishing the first economic system. These Jews came from Brazil, where they were being persecuted by Catholics and their infamous Inquisition in the early 1600s. The Reformed Dutch rescued these Jews and took them to New York. This is the Protestant America I cherish, which saved Brazilian Jews persecuted by Catholics and their Inquisition.
The first Sunday School in Brazil was given in the 1800s in the U.S. Embassy, whose officials gave to American and European Protestant missionaries a protection and assistance that the hard-core Catholic monarchy in Brazil did not give them, because Catholicism was a state religion in the monarchy. Conversion to evangelicalism in Brazil was a state crime. American missionaries and diplomatic officials were fundamental to change this sad reality.
Several U.S. presidents were involved in the Bible societies and they were not ashamed to say that they read the Bible. The U.S. passion for missions is a massive blessing to the world. In the 1970s, when there was Brazil’s military rule, the decisive conservative influence came from U.S. missionaries and U.S. televangelists as Rex Humbard, Pat Robertson and Billy Graham. Brazil’s military rule was not much supportive of Reagan (especially because of the War of Falklands), but U.S. televangelist Jimmy Swaggart always praised the good works of Reagan, bringing information that no one else in Brazil had brought. For example, the Brazilian media and even the military rulers never talked about Reagan declaring 1983 as the Year of the Bible, but Jimmy Swaggart, in his weekly TV show in Brazil, told this. How could the military rulers tell about it, or copy it, when they had instituted October 12 of each year as a date consecrated for Saint Mary? So U.S. missionaries and televangelists were instrumental to bring to Brazilians a Christian worldview that was otherwise unavailable.
The soul of America is a Protestantism that loved passionately the Bible. Remove this, and what is left? I love and cherish this old part of America that has been rejected and repudiated today.
3) What is your advice for the American church? What is your advice to America more broadly?
The church George Washington used to attend has embraced feminism, sodomy and the Liberation Theology. My advice to the American church is to go back to its roots: Passion for God’s Word. It was not politics that made America great. It was passion for God’s Word. It was also the compact of Mayflower. God is a God of compacts. And He took very seriously the Mayflower compact.
My advice to America more broadly is to listen to what candidate Donald Trump said in 2016. He said what the American people wanted to hear: No more neocon wars, no more neocon military interventions in other nations, a ban on Islamic immigration, a comprehensive war against Islamic terror, including with the partnership of Russia, an America more open to Christian immigrants and closed to neocon ambitions. With some improvement, my advice to America would be to follow and implement what Trump said in 2016.
4) What should the role of the church be in politics?
Christians should have a prophetic voice in politics. There are abundant examples in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testament, about such voice. In the New Testament, John the Baptist cried out against the adultery of a ruler. You do not see many Christians today imitating him! If John the Baptist is a good example, Christians should cry out against the adulteries of rulers.
Yet, they should not do it just against politicians who are contrary to them. Conservative Christians should not direct their prophetic voice only to left-wing politicians. For example, the Prophet Nathan in the Bible was a friend of King David. But when David committed adultery, he confronted David, even though David was much more spiritual than Trump is.
The prophetic voice of Christians should confront left-wingers but not fail to confront right-wingers too.
Both left-wingers and right-wingers are condemned to Hell. Both need to hear the Gospel.
Christians should be aware that both the left and the right seek to take advantage of them. So Christians should take advantage of any situation to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Christians should not let politicians use them to do their dirty political game, but use politicians to proclaim the Gospel to everyone.
5) Why do you believe the LGBT movement is such a threat?
Homosexuals are about 1 or 2 percent of population. And homosexual activists are a tiny percentage of it. Yet, they manage a massive influence as if gay activists were about 90 percent of the population. So it is a tiny minority controlling a minority of 2 or 3 percent of homosexuals, who in turn help the dictatorial homosexual revolution that is redefining marriage, sexuality and indoctrinating and increasingly controlling children. Very harsh measures are necessary against such dictatorship, including a total ban on homosexual propaganda to children and adolescents.
6) Why and how have the Big Tech companies tried to censor and destroy you?
Censorship is a common tool used by the enemies of my message. In 2004, when the former socialist Lula administration in Brazil introduced in the United Nations the first resolution classifying homosexuality as a human right, I was the first conservative and Christian writer in Brazil to expose it and launch a campaign against it. In that same year, JesusSite, the largest evangelical website in Brazil, published my articles against such resolution and the website was shut down by the action of hackers, who warned that if they did not remove my articles, their website would not be active again. The website remained shut down for several days. An evangelical website suffering reprisal because of my work. This provides a background for the censorship actions that would come against me during the years. In 2007, Google shut down my blog for hate speech. It was restored only after several influential people, including a federal Jewish attorney, called Google to demand explanation. But such censorship was repeated several times.
More recently, Facebook has imposed several 30-day blocks on my account, because of my views on homosexuality, Islam, the Islamic invasion in Europe and even for defending Jerusalem as Israel’s capital! The only time Facebook unblocked me was when a legal group in California threatened to sue them. Facebook immediately unblocked me after the legal threat. After this, because I had no legal support against several other blocks, Facebook never unblocked me again. On the contrary, Facebook has threatened to terminate my account. In one example, Facebook unblocked me after they had censored me for posting the Bible verse of Leviticus 18:22, where God condemns homosexuality. WorldNetDaily exposed such anti-Bible censorship. Facebook apologized, but never restored my Bible post.
And there the case of PayPal, which terminated my account in 2011 after a homosexual campaign accused me of “homophobia.” The donations coming to PayPal were used only to support my family with several small children, including a baby. Yet, homosexual activists successfully terminated my account and even today I am not allowed to have a PayPal account.
I had also an account on the Medium platform, with many published articles. And Medium terminated my account for “hate speech.”
Often, I feel like I am living in a virtual Soviet Union. I cannot express my Christian views on homosexuality and Islam without suffering censorship. I cannot say that Jerusalem belongs only to Israel without suffering censorship. Over ten years ago, Blogger shut down my blog several times, for “homophobia.” Today, Blogger has stopped doing this, but my readers frequently complain that they cannot access my blog…
7) You have a somewhat different view on Putin than we do. Explain why you support him?
Recently, Scott Lively published a formidable article in WND (WorldNetDaily) arguing that “Trump’s campaign promise (then very popular with conservatives) to partner with Russia against globalism represented an existential threat to the elites. Therefore the Democrat strategy had to accomplish two things: 1) force President Trump to abandon his Russia cooperation promise (which the collusion allegation did by making anything pro-Russian on his part look like confirmation of collusion), and 2) prevent exposure of the Democrats’ crimes in Ukraine (by making any investigation by Trump look like political retaliation).”
Since Putin approved a law banning homosexual propaganda to children and teens in 2014, Obama launched relentless diplomatic attacks on Russia. The Advocate, the most prominent U.S. gay magazine, labeled Putin as enemy of the year in 2015, even though Putin has never advocated the murder of homosexuals. Saudi Arabia, a powerful U.S. ally, does it.
Besides, George Soros said that Putin is a bigger threat than ISIS. John McCain, the most prominent neocon in the U.S. Congress, was also the most prominent anti-Russian and anti-Putin activist in the U.S. politics. He was in Soros’ payroll.
I am not behaving differently from Ronald Reagan, who faced the Soviet Union by inviting the Soviet leader to his own ranch. If Reagan could do it to the leader of the Soviet Union, which was anticonservative, why cannot we do much more for Putin, who is not anticonservative, especially in his example of banning gay propaganda?
WorldNetDaily, my favorite conservative website for 20 years, has published several articles informing about neocons and their actions against Russia. Through WND I knew Michael Savage, who host Trump a number of times and attacked neocons. I knew William Murray, who has exposed neocons and shown that Russia is not the bogeyman portrayed by neocons.
In 2014, Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham, published the cover story of Decision magazine informing about Putin’s law against gay propaganda.
Scott Lively also has informed the public that neocons have worked against Russia. He has even published a public letter encouraging Putin in his example against gay propaganda.
In 2014, as a humble act to honor Russians for their stances against gay propaganda, I attended at the Kremlin a conference attended by the leaders of the World Congress of Families. In fact, they wanted to hold a World Congress of Families (WCF) in Moscow that year, but they were hindered from doing so because they were under heavy pressure and threats from the Obama administration. A prominent WCF leader told me personally that Obama’s State Department was threatening them. So the U.S. government under left-wing Obama was threatening U.S. conservatives for attending a pro-family conference at the Kremlin!
The 2016 campaign of Trump, who sought a partnership with Russia, only reinforced that the U.S. conservatism should have such partnership, which was being encouraged by U.S. evangelicals. In fact, conservative evangelicals voted for Trump because he clearly articulated that he wanted such partnership, which was sabotaged by the fictitious “Russian Collusion” invented by Democrats to cover up their own real Ukrainian Collusion involving money laundering of prominent Democrats.
Conservatism, especially fighting abortion and the homosexual agenda, is supranational. If Trump fights abortion, he deserves to be supported. If Obama promotes the gay agenda, he deserves to be opposed. If Putin fights the homosexual agenda, why not support him?
So about the question on the difference between anti-Putin views and pro-Putin views, as far as conservative values are concerned, the anti-Putin crowd is in a bad company: Obama, McCain, Soros, neocons. The pro-Putin crowd is is in a very good company: Scott Lively, William Murray, Franklin Graham, etc.
I should add the hypocrisy of the anti-Putin crowd. Because I am a Brazilian and my main experience is Brazilian, the main anti-Putin individual in Brazil is Olavo de Carvalho. But his opposition is not only directed to Putin. He has several writings against U.S. evangelicals, including by saying that they champion “lies” against the Inquisition, as if the Inquisition had been a very good thing and today is a “victim” of lying Jews and evangelicals. Actually, because America was essentially Protestant and pro-Jews, no nation in the world fought, through information, the Inquisition, which tortured and killed Jews and Protestants, more than America did.
Carvalho has also many other conspiracy theories, including that smoking does no harm.
As every Brazilian socialist, who attacks the U.S. but prefers to live in the U.S., Carvalho lives in the U.S., to be near hated anti-Inquisition, “lying” American Protestants. His anti-Putin stance draws him to the neocon crowd. Carvalho is the man that said that evangelicals have done more harm to Brazil than the whole Left. Can you really trust in such a mind?
8) How can Americans learn more about you, and support you and your work?
I have a blog in Portuguese and a blog in English, called Last Days Watchman (https://lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com). In the next weeks I will be launching my own website: Hard Report (www.hardreport.org). About supporting me, thanks to left-wing and homosexual groups, it is much harder to do so now after homosexualists convinced PayPal to terminate my account by using the accusation of “homophobia.” But if some reader is moved by God to deposit a donation in a U.S. bank account, just contact me here: [email protected]
9) What do you think about President Trump and his term so far?
When measuring Trump in comparison to Hillary Clinton, he is better. But when measuring him in comparison with what he promised in 2016, the situation is much different. He has not opened the U.S. doors for Christian refugees the way he had told in 2016. Instead of applying a comprehensive ban on Islamic immigration, he has defended a token ban only against Islamic nations hated by the Saudis. He has been unable to confront neocons the way he confronted them in 2016. Most importantly: his administration has housed homosexualists. The homosexual agenda is the most dangerous anti-family agenda in our age. Yet, Trump has shown no willingness to fight it, even though he has shown a few token anti-homosexuality measures to please evangelicals. But virtually all of his measures are pro-sodomy.
I understand that Trump actually does not understand the dangers of such agenda, even though occasionally he has made some compromises to both conservatives and liberals. I think he would like to fulfill his 2016 anti-neocon promises, but neocons are too strong for him.
I like also the fact that he is open to Franklin Graham and Paula White. Yes, I know: she is a female minister. She cannot have any authority over him, as the Bible teaches, but there is no reason for him to avoid her charismatic advice.
10) What do you think about President Bolsonaro and his term so far?
Bolsonaro told Brazilian televangelist Silas Malafaia several times in 2018 that if most evangelicals voted for him, he would be elected. He got what he wanted. But he is not empowering evangelicals in the measure of the support they gave him. He has empowered much more other groups, especially Carvalho’s group, which is known for its strident pro-Inquisition views. It makes no sense to receive support from a group and give power to another. My wife and I, as evangelicals, also voted for Bolsonaro and we have been praying for him to respect and empower not the opportunistic groups, but the group that elected him.
I am so worried about his inconsistency. He opposes completely Venezuela because of socialism, but he has visited China right during the official commemoration of the 70th anniversary of its communist revolution, which killed millions and millions of Chinese. Even today the Chinese communism persecutes millions and millions of Christians. So what is the point for Bolsonaro to have an anticommunist speech against Venezuela if he chooses to embrace the most radical communists in the world?
Millions of evangelicals voted for Bolsonaro because they oppose abortion and the gay agenda. But now, after elected, evangelicals have been given by him a marginal participation in his administration. He has used the victory evangelicals gave him to glorify his personal Rasputin, Olavo de Carvalho, who chose three prominent cabinet members. Besides, many other of his followers are in other posts in the Bolsonaro administration. Ernesto Araújo, who is the Brazilian Foreign Minister, has openly defended Carvalho, the Islamic sorcerer René Guénon and his most prominent disciple, Julius Evola, whose writings advocating witchcraft and inspired Nazism. So even though Bolsonaro has some conservative measures that are helpful to Brazil, there are red flags.
When measuring Bolsonaro in comparison to the former socialist administrations, he is better. But when measuring him in comparison with what he promised in 2018, the situation is much different. For example, in 2018 he opposed the Anti-Spanking Law, approved in Brazil in 2014. The approval of this law was championed by Maria do Rosário, a socialist congresswoman notorious for attacking Bolsonaro. By this law, all and any parental physical discipline on their children is labeled child abuse. After elected, Bolsonaro has no longer talked against this law.
Also, in 2018 Bolsonaro said that ECA, the Brazilian law mirroring the UN Convention on Children’s Rights, should be teared apart and thrown away in a cesspool. ECA, which is a socialist law that was approved by right-wing Brazilian President Fernando Collor some 30 years ago after he ratified the UN Convention on Children’s Rights, bans Brazilian courts from condemning and police from imprisoning underage criminals (killers, rapists, etc.), even if they killed several people. Such criminals are sent to rehabilitation centers with education and entertainment. When they complete 18, his criminal history is erased. ECA grants full immunity and impunity for underage criminals in Brazil. After elected, Bolsonaro has refrained from attacking this violent socialist law, which very successfully has persecuted for decades conservative Christian families who homeschool their children.
11) What is the best way to introduce/describe you?
Above all, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I have passion for Him and His Word. As an evangelical, I do not like the left and I do not like to be exploited by right-wing opportunists.