Solomon's Temple

This guide to Solomon's Temple in São Paulo centers on Bishop Edir Macedo, founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, and his decision to import stone from Israel at a cost of some eight million dollars for this ten-thousand-seat megachurch. It follows the symbolism built into the space — menorahs, a garden of olive trees standing in for Gethsemane, and a gold-covered replica of the Ark of the Covenant — and the sharply different reactions it drew from rabbis in Israel and in São Paulo. Run your hand along the stone the way Macedo once did.