Book Review

The Other Americas

The Rebirth of Latin American Christianity
by Todd Hartch
Oxford University Press, 2014
(294 pages, $24.95, paperback)

reviewed by Leon J. Podles

Todd Hartch, a professor of Latin American history at Eastern Kentucky College, maintains that Latin America has become both more Protestant and more Catholic in the past two generations. He holds that "Protestantism was a blessing in disguise for the Catholic Church. Nothing roused Latin American Catholics more than the spread of Protestantism."

Catholicism was the universal religion of Latin America, but the Catholic Church encompassed a spectrum of religious modes, from the clerical, European Catholicism of the cities to the folk Catholicism of the countryside, where priests were rare, and which faded off into syncretism and paganism.

Mainline denominations established a small presence in Latin America, and were welcomed by progressives as a sign of toleration and modernity. They were followed by fundamentalist and Pentecostal missionaries, sometimes but not always from the United States. The churches they founded were accused of being agents of the United States and were persecuted, sometimes violently, but the new denominations were attractive to the poor and quickly became indigenized. These churches were able to use married men with minimal education as ministers, and they therefore had a far higher proportion of ministers to congregants than did the Catholic Church, whose requirements of celibacy and higher education severely limited the number
of priests.

Roles for the Laity

The Second Vatican Council had an enormous impact on Latin America because of its emphasis on social justice, the role of the laity, and ecumenism.

Liberation theologians decided that the poor in Latin America needed to be freed from sinful, oppressive structures, even, some theologians claimed, by violent revolution. Landowners kept large tracts out of cultivation while landless workers starved; cities did not provide the favelas, or shantytowns, with basic services such as water and sewage. As Latin American countries fell under military rule in the 1970s, Catholic clerics led the resistance to repression and political murder. Some of them, such as Óscar Romero of San Salvador, paid with their lives for their opposition. John Paul II was suspicious of the Marxist rhetoric used by liberation theologians and slowly staffed the hierarchy with bishops less inclined to give a political interpretation to liberation.

The laity found a new role in the Comunidades eclesiales de base, which were religious communities developed from the grassroots. In Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s there were 50,000 such communities; many took on a leftist coloring. Others, like the New Ecclesial movements, were less political and more orthodox and were therefore favored by the Vatican. These were mainly middle-class lay movements dedicated to helping their members lead Christian lives, including serving the poor. Opus Dei is probably the best known and has provoked the greatest criticism. The Cursillo was very active in Mexico; Focolare came to Latin America (and elsewhere) from Italy; the Sodalatium Cristianae Vitae was native to Peru. All these movements were regarded with hostility by liberation theologians because they were not overtly political.

Pentecostalism flourished, especially among the poor. Once they had a few basic services, the poor were not interested in politics, but in miracles and ecstatic experiences, to the disappointment of liberation theologians. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal came from the United States, and provided a way for charismatics to remain within the Catholic Church. In Brazil, half the population belongs to one or the other group.

Possibilities & Dangers

Ecumenism encountered many difficulties. Catholics referred to Protestant groups as "sects." Many Protestants regarded Catholicism as a non-Christian religion. The military dictatorships of the 1970s, opposed by leftist Catholics, turned to Protestants, who were either apolitical or supportive of the military regimes, which they saw as a bulwark against Communism. Rios Montt, the Protestant ruler of Guatemala in the early 1980s, gave radio sermons while carrying out a repressive and murderous policy in the countryside. Leftist Catholics saw Protestants as tools of U.S. imperialism.

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Hartch sees possibilities and dangers in Latin American Protestantism, especially in the indigenous communities. These communities are under pressure to adopt the mestizo culture of the missionaries from which they received the gospel. However, some indigenous communities have allowed the gospel to judge and transform their cultures, achieving a true acculturation.

Pentecostalism has also failed to develop institutions that could achieve a deep transformation of culture, and it therefore remains invisible to Latin American elites. The hostility between Catholics and the new Protestants hampers ecumenical cooperation in combating secularism in Latin America. And of course, Protestant fissiparousness is both an advantage when it comes to adapting to new milieus and an obstacle when it comes to speaking with a united Christian voice.

Conclusions & Contrasts

Hartch's conclusions are largely consistent with what anthropologists and pollsters have found. The rate of conversion to Protestantism that is touted is somewhat misleading. If it were accurate, many Latin American countries would be almost entirely Protestant. In fact, there seems to be a fair amount of switching back and forth between Protestantism and Catholicism. The laity are more eclectic than the clergy.

Anthropologists have found that Protestants emphasize family life far more than Catholics do and are able to convince men to give up destructive macho behavior in order to become the head of a Christian family. Protestants also have more success in removing young men from gangs. Gangs will kill a member if he tries to leave, unless he becomes a Christian, that is, a Protestant who lives morally. Latin American Protestantism emphasizes moral transformation more than Catholicism does. According to the Pew Research Center, Protestants are more likely to oppose abortion, pre-marital sex, divorce, and contraception than Catholics are. Protestants think that preaching Jesus is the most important way to help the poor; Catholics think material aid is; but Protestants in fact help the poor more than Catholics do.

Pope Francis comes from an Argentina that seems still to regard Catholicism as the national religion. By law, the president must be a Catholic, and the military dictatorship persecuted Protestants. The idea of a Catholic society, in which Catholicism is the default position and nearly everyone is Catholic, seems to linger. This means there is a reluctance to exclude people from the church for any reason.

Because of this attitude, and because of his experience in the slums of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis seems to have become tolerant of irregular and immoral behavior; for example, he hopes to lead couples gradually from concubinage to marriage. But Protestantism calls for a decision, a crisis, and a transformation, and in Latin America at least, this seems to be a more effective way of forming Christians.