Power, Politics, And Pentecostals In Latin America

Edward L Cleary, Hannah Stewart-Gambino

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780813321295
• eBook ISBN: 9780429977701
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica

Today over forty million Latin Americans classify themselves as Protestant, of which the overwhelming majority belong to some form of Pentecostalism. The rapid dissemination of Pentecostal beliefs has produced vibrant alternatives to traditional dominant culture and changed relations within the family, locality, and workplace. This volume introduces broad issues in the Pentecostal movement, including gender relations, political power and organization, and inter-Pentecostal and ecumenical relations. These themes are then examined more specifically in the country case studies, which address the historical foundations of the Pentecostal movement, patterns of and explanation for its growth, and the consequences of its expanding presence, including increased political influence.

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Introduction: Pentecostals, Prominence, and Politics

EDWARD L. CLEARY

In 1986 Newsweek noted that Protestants, especially Pentecostal ones, were entering party politics in Latin America.¹ From then on many newspapers recorded the surprise of Catholics and the chagrin of leftists as Pentecostals became active in the public arena in Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil. Political activity brought Pentecostals a notoriety that they had until then escaped. Largely ignored on the margins of society, they had grown to impressive numbers. Now journalists, the general public, and other churches found themselves faced with mysterious groups with sufficient numbers to have strong national influence.

Pentecostalism has quietly become the largest Christian movement of the twentieth century.² Some 400-500 million followers are spread over most of the world.³ Their number is almost half that of the largest Christian denomination, Roman Catholicism. Pentecostalism's otherworldly style and growth by conversion and by inherited status are astonishing, given the predictions that modern times would be increasingly secular. Harvey Cox's Fire from Heaven⁴ opened to general readers in 1995 what was barely known even in theological schools.⁵ Pentecostalism is especially prominent in Latin America, where it challenges Catholic, historical Protestant, and Mormon churches, vodoun, macumba, and indigenous religions.

This book is an attempt to provide a unique view of Latin American Pentecostalism. Its contributors are seasoned Latin Americanists dealing with themes and contexts with which they have long familiarity. They examine history, looking at the roots of Pentecostalism rather than concentrating on the recent invasion of the religious right from the United States. They employ social science, especially sociology and political science, rather than polemics or speculation. They represent a mix of Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal, Latin American and North American scholars, all of them highly attentive to Pentecostal perspectives. In contrast to previously published volumes, this collection seeks to present Pentecostal perspectives rather than the agendas that have dominated social science or Latin American Catholic examinations of Pentecostal growth. Who Pentecostals are and why they have taken hold in Latin America are foremost, but related questions of women in religion, ecumenism, and politics are addressed as well.

This volume has important predecessors. They include works most cited by Latin Americans, such as those of Emilio Willems, Christian Lalive d'Epinay, Francisco C. Rolim, and Jean-Pierre Bastian.⁶ Willems's summary article⁷ and later book, Followers of the New Faith,⁸ became minor classics. His book, published in 1967,⁹ opened a window to what Time in 1962 had called "the fastest-growing church in the Western Hemisphere."¹⁰

Willems entered the field as a pioneer, exploring. Rather than emphasizing surveys, he relied especially on repeated interviews and observation of street-corner proselytism, church services, spirit possession, and healing rites. This process resulted in a vivid picture of the conditions in which many Pentecostals lived. He believed that social dislocations among these lower-class persons produced anomie. The churches countered this moral aimlessness with a sense of purpose and a modernizing ethic capable of fitting Latin Americans into modern secular society. Willems emphasized la tomada del Espíritu (seizure by the Spirit) as fundamental. Seizure by the Spirit made it clear to others that one had experienced God, and on that evidence alone one was included in community worship and activities.

In a field where reputations are made by criticism, Christian Lalive d'Epinay, a young European social scientist, took a contrasting view. The title of his main work, Haven of the Masses,¹¹ captured well the thrust of his argument. The study was commissioned by the World Council of Churches, and this sponsorship and publication in Spanish as well as English gave it much wider circulation than Willems's and other studies. Lalive d'Epinay depicted Pentecostalism as a continuation of folk Catholicism, preserving the past, with the authoritarian pastor in place of the old hacendado or patrón. This explanation appealed to many, in and outside of Latin America.

Jean-Pierre Bastian represented a different strain of interpretation, one sometimes critical of Protestantism as too closely tied to liberal and North Atlantic interests. In his view, a number of Latin American Protestants "lent themselves to being true ideological vanguards of North American interests and those of the national bourgeoisie in Latin America."¹² He expressed skepticism that Latin American Pentecostalism, given its authoritarian leadership, would contribute much to democracy.¹³

Samuel Escobar, one of the most respected Latin American scholars, summarizes these studies and those of Catholic bishops, ecumenical organizations, anthropologists and sociologists in academic settings, and the mass media as displaying "an amazing inadequacy to deal with their subject."¹⁴ Harvey Cox points to a number of "large holes" in Lalive d'Epinay's and other accounts.¹⁵ Three studies published before 1990 should, however, be exempted from Escobar's evaluation. Cornelia Butler Flora's Pentecostalism in Colombia¹⁶ was a careful study that opened the door to scholarship about Pentecostal women. Her appraisal of Pentecostal politics—"Their religious doctrine allows them to 'strip halos of sanctity' from those who occupy seats of power, and their class homogeneity allowed them to mobilize toward secular change"¹⁷—shed light on events that would follow. Stephen D. Glazier and colleagues received insufficient attention for Perspectives on Pentecostalism: Case Studies from the Caribbean and Latin America.¹⁸ Eugene A. Nida's "The Relationship of Social Structure to the Problems of Evangelism in Latin America"¹⁹ was a seminal contribution to the understanding of "cultural reconstruction."

For Escobar and others, a new and impressive stage of scholarship began in 1990 with the appearance of the first comprehensive works on Latin American Pentecostalism and politics and the first to appeal to a wide readership: David Stoll's Is Latin America Turning Protestant? and David Martin's Tongues of Fire.²⁰ Their publication opened the way for numerous commentaries, many of them opportunistic and erroneous.

Pentecostalism in Latin America is a complex development with a broad array of implications.²¹ Further, Pentecostal churches do not have the same history or emphasize the same teachings as historical Protestant or evangelical churches. In a word, a good deal of discussion of Protestant history in Latin America has been irrelevant for explaining Pentecostal growth.²²

Elizabeth Brusco, Cecília Mariz, Leslie Gill, Paul Freston, Rowan Ireland, John Burdick,²³ and others have recently completed works of unusual merit, marked by their determination to listen to Latin Americans explain religion in their own terms. Further, only recently have Pentecostal scholars been trained in social research and academic theology, and it was judged essential that their research be part of this volume. For years social scientists and journalists have ignored distinctions considered indispensable by Pentecostals.²⁴

Probing into the complexities of Latin American Pentecostal ism rewards readers with a surer grasp of a phenomenon that will continue to be crucial in the coming years. Without this understanding, one has an incomplete view of Latin American culture and will enter ill-prepared upon any analysis of contemporary Latin American politics.

Lack of comprehension of Pentecostalism is not limited to North Americans, By and large, Latin American politicians, Catholic church leaders, and most of the 70,000 Latin American journalists have given no evidence that they comprehend Pentecostalism, Until recently Pentecostals have been isolated, out of public view, and unreported by the media. As Philip Berryman remarks, "Secular and Catholic critics, most of whom do not seem to have ever stepped foot in an evangelical church to observe for themselves, do not appreciate what draws millions of poor people to join its ranks."²⁵ Pentecostals are emphasized here because they account for 75-90 percent of contemporary Protestant growth in Latin America.²⁶

History and Stereotypes

To focus more clearly on the complexities that Pentecostalism presents it is useful to address next: stereotypes associated with Pentecostal history, theological achievement, distinction from latter-day cousins, and the oft-repeated charge that Pentecostalism will rend the unifying garment of Latin American culture. Because of the many false and blurred depictions of Pentecostalism, one needs to state what it is not as well as describe what it is. First, contrary to a common Latin American stereotype, Pentecostalism is not a North American invasion. It did not begin with a pervasive outside missionary effort, nor are major groups sustained by personnel or money from the United States or Europe.

In the three most prominent areas where Pentecostalism has expanded, Brazil, Chile, and Central America, outside missionaries helped to spark, not create, a Latin American institution. In the case of Chile, contributors to this volume describe North American Willis C. Hoover as accepting an invitation from Chileans to be their leader rather than characterizing him as the founder of Chilean Pentecostalism. In Brazil and Central America, as Douglas Petersen has said,²⁷ the "strong, determined personalities [of foreign missionaries], whose influence was more catalytic than institutional, provid[ed] models for Latin Americans who applied Pentecostal beliefs and practices to their own situations without becoming dependent or subordinate."

Missionary presence at the inception of Latin American Pentecostalism was infinitesimal. In the case of Central America, only two North American families from the Assemblies of God, now the largest Pentecostal church in Latin America, were in the region at any one time before World War JL A slight increase, ranging from two to eight missionaries per Central American country, occurred after World War II.²⁸ Central Americans took the initiative to organize and to staff a complex enterprise with thousands of churches and chapels and numerous projects. In Central America, Panama, and Belize the number of national credentialed pastors within the Assemblies of God alone has grown to 4,500.

Not only leadership but by far the majority of the financial support of "classical" Pentecostals comes from Latin Americans. When David Stoll published Is Latin America Turning Protestant? Pentecostals read it with trepidation, since Stoll had previously studied the Summer Institute of Linguistics and was highly critical of those North American missionary efforts. Stoll himself had expected to find a strong North American hand in financing Pentecostal growth in Latin America. Instead, he found that the Assemblies of God, with some 10 million members, had expended only US$20 million yearly from North America (much of it spent in the United States). More than one Pentecostal has been content to repeat Stoll's judgment that "a mere $20 million a year cannot explain these kinds of results. If evangelical churches were really built on handouts, they would be spiritless patronage structures, not vital, expanding grassroots institutions."²⁹

The fundamental source of financial support for Pentecostal churches in Latin America is the generosity of individual members. Church attenders (many Pentecostals do not attend regularly)³⁰ give frequently and give from their substance rather than their surplus. Contributing 10 percent of income is not uncommon and is often held up as a goal. The results of this generosity are impressive. Petersen estimates that the Assemblies of God in Central America, Panama, and Belize possess combined assets of US$150 million in real estate and improvements.³¹

Is there not a North American inva...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: Pentecostals, Prominence, and Politics,
• 2 Pentecostals, Politics, and Public Space in Latin America,
• 3 Pentecostalism and Women in Brazil,
• 4 Private Power or Public Power: Pentecostalism, Base Communities, and Gender,
• 5 Interchurch Relations: Exclusion, Ecumenism, and the Poor,
• 6 Chilean Pentecostalism: Coming of Age,
• 7 Pentecostalism, Conversions, and Politics in Brazil,
• 8 Guatemalan Pentecostals: Something of Their Own,
• 9 Bricando el Char col Jumping the Puddle: A Case Study of Pentecostalism's Journey from Puerto Rico to New York to Allen town, Pennsylvania,
• 10 The Sound of Tambourines: The Politics of Pentecostal Growth in El Salvador,
• 11 Pentecostals and Evangelicals in Venezuela: Consolidating Gains, Moving in New Directions,
• 12 Latin American Pentecostals: Old Stereotypes and New Challenges,
• About the Book
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Index