The pastor who cast out 70 demons and blamed it on Jesus.

While researching content on YouTube to prepare a segment on religion for our program "A Tone of Resistance" on TV 247, I found a video where a pastor promised to exorcise 70 demons that, according to him, were occupying the body of a man approximately 1,60 meters tall, who looked more like he was doing a mini-performance of "The Incredible Hulk" than being possessed. To fully embody the character, he only needed to turn green and tear his clothes. And I, until then, just wanted to understand where 70 demons could fit inside a guy that size? I imagine the discomfort of those demons who had to take refuge in the back room. If you know what I mean. How unpleasant!

Elderly people, adults, young people, and children watched the scene with the same nonchalance as someone watching a "Jequiti Wheel of Fortune" of exorcism, eagerly awaiting the revelation of the names of each evil spirit on the panel. "I wonder if there's one with the letter 'b'?" asked an elderly woman dressed in a gas cylinder cover. "I think so," replied a woman punctuating each sentence with an "Oh, glory!" Taking advantage of the letter's clue, some began to venture other guesses. "Beelzebub," said a man collecting offerings. "Baal," shouted a young man from the praise group. "Bolsonaro," wagered a young woman from the youth group. "Bolsonaro is not a demon," retorted an elder near the altar. "Yes, he is!" countered a child, who was immediately warned by his mother. "Don't say that, boy!"

Even faced with 70 demons, everyone remained calm and attentive to the events. Some even vied for a place closer to the legion of evil that occupied the body of that small man. There was so little land for so many invaders that the members of the demonic movement seemed uncomfortable in the place. So much so that the boy growled, grimaced, rolled his eyes, and let out screams that seemed to be metrically organized within his inconvenient inner disharmony. With so much force he seemed to exert, I was expecting him to evacuate at least 100 demons onto the floor of that church. If we can even call such a confusing and inhospitable environment a church.

And I, even more incredulous, kept wondering how 70 demons could fit into that small, frail body. That guy wasn't possessed; he was a walking model of hell. And the pastor said that they (the demons) had actually come after him to confront him face-to-face inside his church. At that point, I was imagining what that pastor had done that was so serious to mobilize a motorcycle convoy with 70 devils speeding inside that poor boy's body. And how would he manage to fight so many demons? By Thor's hammer! Not even Hercules had to go through such an ordeal to prove his strength.

I confess I started to fear for the life of that pastor. After all, we're talking about 70 demons, my friends! Not even at Gkay's Farofa party were there so many underdeveloped spirits. I think hell should have been on recess that day. However, the pastor, in a fearless act, grabbed the young man by the neck, stared him in the eyes, and in a firm and threatening tone of voice asked the following question to the Bolsonaro supporters—I mean, to the demons who insisted on remaining there: "Why don't you like me?" I thought: who's going to organize this debate now? There are 70 demons, and each one must have their reasons, right? Not to mention that it wasn't going to end anytime soon, and I had to define the program's agenda that day.

Luckily for me, they chose a spokesperson who summarized all the demons' demands in a single sentence, which optimized the group's testimony. After briefly discussing the relationship, the pastor turned to the young man and said, "You want war with me? Then Armageddon has begun." I thought: Wow! What a dirty trick! A pandemic barely ended and we're already entering the end of the world. Following a succession of screams, howls, and grunts emitted by the young man, the operation to dispossess his body began. Incidentally, the Military Police could hire this pastor to teach a course on approach techniques within the institution. The guy was expelling 70,000 demons without firing a shot, without stepping on anyone's neck, without using pepper spray, and without slapping anyone in the face. Now that's humanized security force. And he was still looking at the camera smiling, explaining how he was going to take them down one by one.

I was already preparing to watch an epic battle when suddenly I saw the pastor grab the young man's chin and start asking a series of questions until he staggered and fainted. At that moment, I had a kind of divine revelation telling me that what afflicted that man wasn't demons. It was just Flávio Bolsonaro hiding inside him, running away from a debate. Well! After a few minutes lying on the floor, the young man got up crying, hugged the pastor, and thanked him for having his "property" back. I wondered to myself: are the centrist politicians demons? Until then, I had only seen them become friends so quickly with someone they said they wouldn't ally with. Anyway, everything seemed to have ended well. They just didn't explain where the 70 demons that were inhabiting the young man's body went.

To my utter astonishment, after all the adrenaline and heroism the pastor displayed throughout the operation, he tells the faithful that it was Jesus who expelled all those demons from the man's body. Perhaps he tried to lend more credibility to the scene by saying that. And since Jesus wasn't there to defend himself, let him take the blame or the honor for the deed. I thought to myself: could Jesus be Michel Temer's pseudonym? Because, when it comes to coups, he's more cunning than 70 demons. I waited for the credits to roll to find out who the genius behind the film's script was, but it was at that moment that I discovered that everything I had just witnessed was a true story. At least, the pastor and the demons did everything to make it seem that way to everyone.

The agenda was ready; the problem now was finding a way to "unsee" it all. I made the mistake of accepting a video suggestion from the same platform, intending to detox my mind and avoid having a nightmare about the image of that boy screaming and walking in circles around my bed. And what did I find? A video where the First Lady of the Republic celebrates the selection of a terribly evangelical minister for the Supreme Court, jumping around, screaming, and speaking in tongues. I think I already knew where the demons that had escaped from that boy's body had gone.

May God protect me from all demons and most of their followers!