Christian Mission in Urban Context

Amador Israel Caviedes Mandujano

• Publisher: Regnum
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781912343874
• eBook ISBN: 9781913363154
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

This book is the result of a socio-theological analysis of the substantial membership growth of the Christian and Missionary Alliance – C&MA – in Lima, Peru, since 1973. The C&MA is a Christian Protestant denomination with a worldwide work, particularly in North America, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and lately in Europe. The focus here is on its work in Lima, Peru. The C&MA started its work in Lima in 1957, and by 1973 had 120 members. Today's membership has grown to about 60, 000 with heterogeneous social backgrounds. It is this substantial membership growth, starting at the end of 1973, which has motivated the main research question: What are the main conditioning factors that have led to the substantial growth of the C&MA in Lima since 1973?

Chapter 1
Introduction, Methodology and Theoretical Frame

Introduction

The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) in Peru started its work in the 1920s, in the Amazon areas of the country.¹ At the end of the 1950s the C&MA began its work in Lima.² In the early 1970s in Lima, the C&MA started to have a meaningful membership growth, with remarkable multiplication of congregations in the city of nearly 8 million people in 2007,³ now estimated in nearly 9 million.⁴ What happened in Lima, and particularly in the C&MA, that produced this unexpected growth from one single congregation of around 120 members⁵ in the beginning of the 1970s to the large Christian denomination the C&MA is now, both in Lima and Peru? The numeral growth of the C&MA in Lima from 120 members in the early 1970s to nearly 40,000 members in 2012, and in the whole of Peru to nearly 56,000 members by 2012,⁶ causes one to wonder why the growth took place, and how it came about.

In order to understand the reasons behind the vast growth of the C&MA, one must look for factors both in the surrounding society and within the congregations that were established. In other words, one needs to identify some important conditioning factors.

Research Question

My principal inquiry or main research question is therefore, What are the main conditioning factors that have led to the substantial growth of the C&MA in Lima since 1973? Accordingly, the objective in my research work is to identify these factors. In the identification and analysis of the main conditioning factors I will include both church-external and church-internal perspectives. This is in line with the view of the missiologist Stephen B. Bevans (2011), who has emphasized that both external and internal perspectives⁷ are important in the effort of relating theology to context.

Conditioning Factors

The external perspective relates the subject matter to the socio-cultural context, and the internal perspective relates the subject matter to the Christian faith itself.⁸ In the case of the church growth in Lima, Peru, the external perspective seeks conditioning factors found in the socio-cultural situation of the society. The internal perspective seeks conditioning factors which are caused by faith expressions within the churches – theology and ethos. In my analysis I regard conditioning factors as both pushing and pulling forces which influence people to adopt Christian faith or activate their Christian faith within a new church community. In this process the pushing forces are mainly – if not exclusively – related to the external, socio-cultural context in which the churches exist. They are forces which discriminate against people in society, alienate them, or otherwise push them to seek a new community of belonging. The pulling forces are mainly – if not exclusively – related to the internal life of the churches and their members, which attract outsiders and motivate them to join these communities. Since the pushing and pulling forces work together, my research will seek to demonstrate how the dynamic interaction between the realities of the external social conditioning factors and the internal conditioning factors promote increased membership. These conditioning factors will be identified by hermeneutical analysis of interviews and participatory field observations, done among church members and in social contexts. Thus the present work is basically an analysis of people’s experiences of how they joined these churches through meaningful events in their lives.

When the conditioning factors have been identified by interpretation of the collected data through interviews, observation and literary sources, the next step will be to understand how the two kinds of conditioning forces interact dynamically, leading people to convert, resulting in a new ethos. Ethos is understood as the tone, character, and quality of life as well as its moral and aesthetic style and mood,⁹ essentially the dominant attitude and emphasis towards life and reality. As Bevans has aptly put it, “Reality is not just ‘out there;’ reality is ‘mediated by meaning,’ a meaning that we give it in the context of our culture or our own historical period, interpreted from our own particular horizon and in our own particular thought forms.”¹⁰ Hence, it is the relationship between context and the internalization of its influence on people that creates new patterns of living. Consequently, my research work will pursue an understanding of the nature of the new ethos, modified by the new Christian view. In order to achieve this understanding I shall make use of a qualitative analysis of descriptions and interpretations¹¹ of relevant events in my informants’ cultural and social context.

Lima and the Christian and Missionary Alliance – C&MA

To know the social and historical contexts is relevant for understanding this church growth experience. The C&MA congregations in Lima are not alienated or isolated from the complex social and cultural environment that surrounds them. The members of these congregations reflect diverse backgrounds. People in the C&MA in Lima represent a variety of geographical as well as cultural backgrounds. Lima is a cosmopolitan city, which started to experience an influx of new migrants from all the regions of Peru in the 1950s. The well-known Peruvian anthropologist, José Matos Mar has called it, the “desborde popular”¹² – in English, “the overflow of people.”

Beginning in the 1950s, the demographic face of Lima changed into a rainbow of Peruvians with many kinds of cultural, economic, social, religious, geographic and historic backgrounds. It is in the midst of this complex society that the C&MA experienced its main changes since the mid-1970s.

In the early 1970s, the C&MA in Lima was represented by a small congregation of 120 members¹³ in a city of nearly three million people.¹⁴ It was not a big group in the already large society of Lima. Nevertheless, this congregation had particular marks in its church life that seem to have influenced the ways in which the membership grew. The C&MA in Lima is an evangelical denomination that is coloured both by universal Christian values and by such local distinctives as any Christian church may have, influenced as it is by its cultural setting. Andrew Walls has explained this phenomenon as follows: “All churches are culture churches, even our own.”¹⁵ In the case of Lima this cultural influence was Peruvian.

The C&MA in Lima has a membership comprised mostly of Peruvians but there are also some foreigners. The latter have become Christians without a former Peruvian cultural heritage.

Methodological Considerations

Ethical Demands of the Investigation

As required, this PhD research project has been reported to ‘Personvernombudet for forskning – Norsk samfunnsvitenskapelig datatjeneste AS (NSD Data Protection Official for Research),’ and is registered as project number 15025. Hence the project has followed the NSD ethical guidelines for research, in particular its guidelines for preserving the anonymity of the interviewees. Thus, all the informants are referred to by fictitious names in the dissertation.

Qualitative Approach

This dissertation is mainly an investigation that makes use of a qualitative methodological approach, which is a way to find a deeper understanding of experiences and thoughts people may have about a particular subject or event.¹⁶ It supplements interviews and participatory observation with scholarly resource material. The latter contains both the theological sources and research publications in related fields, such as socio-historical and socio-anthropological studies. The task of interpreting the collected data, which I obtained through interviews and participatory observations, is central to the overall analysis. These interviews and observations were collected while taking part in peoples’ local situations and they provided data which has been processed through structured thematic groups, analysed, categorised and interpreted in relationship to theories on the subjects.¹⁷ Regarding the art of interpreting data, Hans-Georg Gadamer wrote: “The understanding and the interpretation of texts is not merely a concern of science, but is obviously part of the total human experience of the world.”¹⁸ We interpret in order to understand, and as human beings we do it all the time in all societies, many times in the form of reflection.

Accordingly, I have followed a reflection-based analysis of the local events and the dialogues with my informants. I have approached the dialogue in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction, Methodology and Theoretical Frame
• 2. Conditioning Factors: Historical
• 3. Conditioning Factors: Socio-Cultural
• 4. Conditioning Factors: Spirituality
• 5. Conclusion: What are the Main Conditioning Factors for the Growth of the C&MA in Lima?
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Back Cover