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Being evangelical in Latin America

From those who in the 1960s analyzed evangelicalism as a communal “refuge” for the masses to those who in recent years have promoted multi-causal analyses, many have tried to explain the strong growth of evangelical groups in recent decades. Especially in its neo-Pentecostal variants, the evangelical movement interacts more and more with new technologies and occupies more “mundane” spaces in society. However, is linear growth possible to the detriment of the Catholic population? Perhaps not, but the truth is that Catholicism no longer has a monopoly on Christianity in Latin America.

Who are the Evangelicals? Borders and Definitions

Some time ago, there was talk in academic circles of the "revitalization of religion" in the contemporary world. It was noted, a few decades ago, that religion, contrary to the predictions of some "prophets" of secularization (Karl Marx, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud, etc.), was not declining, but that an opposite tendency seemed much more visible. Generally, in the debates that problematize this question, some religious phenomena that have been occurring since at least the mid-nineteenth century are mentioned as proof of this somewhat unpredictable process: the noisy expansion of Islam, the emergence of the New Age movement and, what interests us here, the great growth of the evangelical "flock" in Latin America; that is to say, that in the century-old tropical paradise of Roman Catholicism a second Reformation would be taking place.

The growth of evangelical groups in Latin America is, without a shadow of a doubt, a phenomenon of great magnitude and is a very provocative topic for those who study the role of religion in the modern world. However, before talking about this growth, the numbers that attest to it, the explanations at play, some conceptual clarifications are necessary. What does “evangelical” mean? What does this term objectively name?

First of all, it is necessary to undo an incorrect association between the term “evangelical” used in Latin America and the Evangelical Movement or “evangelicalism,” from which the former is supposed to have emerged. Although influences of this latter movement, which emerged in European Protestantism in the 18th century, can be traced, especially in the identity traces smuggled in through missionary movements that traveled from the United States to the southern hemisphere, they are not the same phenomenon. In the United States, “evangelical,” according to David Stoll, is an individual or group that is “theologically conservative and emphasizes the Bible, personal salvation, and evangelism.”1 In Latin America, according to this same author, “evangelical can refer to any Christian who is not Catholic.”2 This grouping, which contrasts it with Roman Catholicism, does not, however, include groups that do not have some relationship with Christianity, the heir of the Reformation, such as, for example, the various Eastern Orthodox churches. Also left out are some groups that, although they originated within American Protestantism, differ too much from the theological positions assumed by Protestant Christianity. These are, mainly, the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), the Adventists (Seventh-day Adventist Church), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society).

On the other hand, one cannot claim that the terms “Protestant” and “Evangelical” are equivalent. As Antonio Gouvêa Mendonça has already observed, the term “Protestant” is more restricted and refers, most of the time, to groups historically linked to the reformist tradition that began in the 16th century: Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, the Salvation Army, etc. In the “Evangelical” category, these groups are included, as well as other denominations that do not define themselves as Protestant, although they may have inherited many theological, liturgical, organizational, etc. traits from the former. In this sense, Baptists are those who most demand a disassociation from “Protestantism.” According to Mendonça, they "do not feel directly linked to the Reformation, but rather claim to be prior to it by identifying themselves [with] the beliefs and practices of the early Christians of the New Testament"3. Another problem, according to this author, are the Pentecostals. There is no doubt that, from the theological and ecclesiastical point of view, the Pentecostals can be perceived as a group included among the Protestants. But there is much resistance from the "historical" segment of this branch of Christianity to admit them as "members of the family", while the Pentecostals do not assume a Protestant identity either4.

In this way, less problematic in its capacity to group all these traditions, the term "evangelical" is more commonly used to designate this modality of Western Christianity, both in the academic world and in common sense.

Latin American Evangelical Churches: Classification Models

Specialists have always sought to construct classification models of local and transnational evangelical groups or movements established in the region. These models or typologies, generally structured on the basis of timelines, attempt to map the growing denominational diversification that resulted from the various processes by which the evangelical flock has been growing in this part of the world. This is always a complicated task, taking into account the notable national differences of these processes distributed over an extensive continental area made up of 20 countries and two colonies5. In the case of Latin America, it is possible to compose a more general model that takes into account some recurring observations of important analysts in this religious field. Thus, it is quite common to mention an initial evangelical movement that arrived through successive waves of migration from Europe, which is called "immigration Protestantism"6, "transplant churches"7 or "ethnic churches"8. These groups are generally described as having little interest in promoting conversion, and their expansion, when it occurs, is based solely on the vegetative growth of their membership. This class includes some groups of Lutherans from Germany, Anglicans and Methodists from England and, to a lesser extent, Mennonites from various origins.

Another class of churches is generally grouped under the title of "mission Protestantism." These are evangelical denominations that were established in Latin America through the work of missionaries linked to historical churches (Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc.). In some classifications, they appear as a subgroup within a larger group called "historical Protestantism," which would also include, as another subgroup, the aforementioned "immigration Protestants."

Finally, a third large group called "Pentecostalism" includes those denominations linked in some way to the American movement in Topeka (Kansas), which occurred in 1901. This movement promoted the renewal of the American Protestant milieu by placing special emphasis on a supposed direct and personal relationship between God and believers through the so-called "baptism in the Holy Spirit," which would make possible the frequent and daily experience of miracles, cures of illnesses, prophecies, glossolalia, etc.

When taken separately, this group can be divided into typologies that account for its internal diversity. For example, Paul Freston sees Brazilian Pentecostalism as a development in three historical waves that produce different identities: the first, beginning in the second decade of the twentieth century, with an emphasis on the experiences of “baptism in the Holy Spirit” and glossolalia; the second wave, which developed in the 1950s and 1960s, which promoted divine healing; and finally, the churches of the third wave, which emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, with an emphasis on exorcism rituals.9 Ricardo Mariano, in turn, speaks of three categories that, in essence, correspond to those of Freston: classical Pentecostalism, deutero-Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism, but he still recalls, with a fourth category (renewed historicals), those “historical” churches that adhered to Pentecostalism and, from that, suffered severe transformations.10

The numbers on evangelical growth in Latin America

A recent report from the Pew Research Center, entitled “Religion in Latin America: Widespread Change in a Historically Catholic Region”11, was published for consultation in November 2014. It is a very important and updated survey of religious affiliation conducted between October 2013 and February 2014, among 30,000 people from 18 countries, an area that is home to 95% of the total population of Latin America.

This research confirms the rapid growth of the evangelical sector in this part of the world, which in 2014 reached 19% of the population compared to 69% of Catholics. Just to give an idea of ??the degree of acceleration of this growth in recent decades, it is estimated that in 1910, 94% of Latin Americans were Catholic and only about 1% were evangelical. In 1950, evangelicals reached 3% and Catholics remained at 94%. In 1970, Catholics fell to 92% and evangelicals rose to 4% of the population. It is therefore clear that the great growth impulse (15%) occurred in a period of just over 40 years. That is to say, a large part of the movement of desertion from Catholicism towards evangelical churches occurred "in the space of a lifetime," as the aforementioned report from the Pew Research Center points out. The data that allows us to certify the role of Pentecostalism in evangelical growth is also important, since the research shows that an average of almost two thirds of evangelicals (65%) identify themselves as Pentecostals. Other interesting data from the research:

- in South America, where the presence of the Catholic Church is greater, Brazil is the country with the highest proportion of evangelicals, with 26%, and Paraguay has the lowest, with 8%; - Overall, 84% of Latin American adults report that they were raised Catholic, 15% more than the number of those who currently identify as Catholic; - On a regional average, 83% of evangelicals say they attend church at least once a month, compared to 62% of Catholics who attend church that often. Evangelicals are also more likely than Catholics to read biblical texts.

Causes and effects of evangelical growth in Latin America

Given the presumed sociocultural impact of a religious phenomenon of this magnitude in Latin America, sociological analyses began to be published in the late 1960s that sought to inventory this transformation. Among the pioneers who formulated more far-reaching socio-historical hypotheses was the Swiss sociologist Christian Lalive D’Epinay, who between 1965 and 1966 conducted research on the growth of Pentecostal Protestantism in Chile and published in 1968 one of the classics on the subject: El refugio de las masas. Estudio sociológico del protestantismo chileno.

The main thesis of this author is that Chilean Pentecostalism “presents itself as a communal religious response to the abandonment of large sections of the population; abandonment caused by the anomic character of a society in transition”. As can be seen, this is an essentially “functionalist” perspective, in which Pentecostalism appears as a sociologically efficient “response” to mitigate the problems faced by Chilean social sectors due to traumatic transformations. In this way,

[Pentecostalism] offers the population a replacement society that is attractive to them, because it conforms to a known model, but renews it. In our view, the success of this sect, which follows the failures of older missionary denominations, rests on the continuity/discontinuity relationship that sinks Pentecostalism into the surrounding society and culture: it is because Pentecostal society appears, from certain angles, radically different from Chilean society, and from others, very similar to it, that this religious denomination has provided a possible and effective response to the needs of the people.


This study begins, then, to inspire new reflections in other quadrants of Latin America but, also, to provoke critical reactions. Ricardo Mariano, who made a detailed survey of the criticisms of several specialists directed at this perspective, recalls, among other points, that D’Epinay ended up elaborating “a type of explanation that treats the Pentecostal expansion as a dependent variable, as if driven by external phenomena”15.

As a critical alternative to the functionalism adopted by D’Epinay – a current that at that time was loudly accused of being a conservative sociology – Francisco Cartaxo Rolim, with a Marxist bias, will warn about the class conflict existing behind the sociopolitical determinations that stimulated the high adherence to Pentecostalism in Brazil and, by extension, throughout Latin America. According to Ricardo Mariano, “Rolim shares with the functionalists (…) the idea that the Pentecostal expansion is favored by socioeconomic contexts that bring about social and economic marginality.” But, unlike functionalist analyses such as D’Epinay’s, which focused on “the sociocultural changes resulting from socioeconomic modernization,” Rolim preferred to emphasize “the political and economic spheres, such as class domination, social and employer oppression, and poverty. However, both analyses converge in perceiving Pentecostalism as a ‘response’ (or solution) to social and individual problems.”16

Later, two decades after D’Epinay raised the sociological alarm about evangelical expansion in Latin America, two other researchers came on the scene and rekindled the debate on this phenomenon: the American anthropologist David Stoll and the British sociologist David Martin. In 1990 they published, respectively, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?17 and Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America18, in which they exhaustively examine this expansion and suggest that a "Protestant explosion" is underway in Latin America that would have the effect of a new Reformation, favoring a modernization of the civilization of this region of the world, historically equivalent to that promoted by Protestantism in Europe and North America since the 16th century.

According to Martin, the nations of Latin America always showed interest in incorporating “some of the cultural forms of Great Britain, the United States, and Germany, in the hope of sharing what seemed to be the movement towards progress.” In this sense, more radical sectors of the local elites saw Protestantism as one of the cultural agents driving the advanced societies of the North Atlantic. The attempts to promote these “Protestantizing” transformations, however, were often seriously hindered by laws, local nationalisms, rejection of foreignisms, etc. The situation began to change in the 1930s, when “a much broader economic revolution began to advance in Latin America and propelled it in the direction of global industrialization and urbanization.” With all the social problems and “anomic” situations that occurred during and as a consequence of this transition, Protestantism, now in its Pentecostal format, found the historic opportunity to expand effectively in the region. It became an efficient provider of “new directions, new meanings, new individual dignity, new networks of support, new opportunities for leadership (…), so that the reorientation offered by evangelical Protestantism grew in power and support, especially in Chile and Brazil, but also in places like Guatemala and Jamaica”19. Stoll, in turn, argues that the evangelical churches growing in Latin America provide the poor with a new kind of social group that enables them to cope with the misfortunes caused by violent social transformations and the bureaucratic indifference of the State to them. As a consequence of this adherence, a structured community life would emerge “on a much more stable basis, by overcoming men’s addiction to alcohol, by curbing male sexual license and by establishing ecclesiastical authorities as a kind of court of appeal for aggrieved women”20. For the author, popular groups have in the evangelical churches something like "a utilitarian exercise, in which the marginalized adapt to capitalist development, organizing themselves into charitable societies." They would be "a new form of social organization, with its own powerful logic"21.

It is necessary, however, to note that Stoll and Martin, although they generalize their interpretations for all of Latin America, focused their research on Central America, a region that presents a somewhat different situation from that observed in South America, especially in the so-called Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay), which does not cease to raise doubts about their conclusions.

Behind this new phase of interpretive analysis of evangelical growth in Latin America, led by Martin and Stoll, it is possible to note that the idea of ??a modernizing "Protestantization" of this continental area still appears strongly. To this idea, rejected by many specialists for its reductionism, one can counter the argument (as Mariano does) that evangelical growth in Latin America, with Pentecostalism as its spearhead, instead of producing modernizing ruptures, tends to enter into symbiosis with what it finds there. According to this author,

as it begins to form syncretisms, to become independent of the influence of North American religious matrices, to promote successive social readjustments, to abandon ascetic and sectarian practices, to penetrate new and unusual social spaces, to assume the status of a large religious minority and to yearn for prestige and social recognition, it tends less and less to represent a break with the surrounding culture.22

Finally, more recently, another specialist, Paul Freston, updated the debate by placing the possible limits of the growth of the evangelical population in Latin America under discussion. In an exercise that includes the variables of this growth, as well as the possible obstacles to it, Freston speaks of a "Protestant transition," of a given moment in the near future when this form of Christianity, by stagnating and ceasing to grow, will undergo internal transformations. His projections begin with the analysis of the Brazilian case:

I think that the Protestant ceiling, in the Brazilian case, will be reached in two or three decades. There are two factors for this. First, the Catholic decline will have a limit; there is a solid core that is not going to disappear, and in Brazil that core constitutes more or less 25% to 30% of the population. Second, Protestantism currently receives little more than one in two people who leave Catholicism. In other words, given current trends, there will never be a Protestant majority in Brazil. In addition, the Catholic Church is learning (slowly, it is true) to compete better and to diversify its membership. With that, it is difficult to imagine that the population that declares itself Catholic will fall below, say, 40%, which would place a ceiling of more or less 35% on Protestant aspirations. But another possibility is that of a Protestant ceiling below that, determined not only by the Catholic reaction, but also by prejudices against the evangelical image itself: scandals, authoritarian leadership, unfulfilled promises, negative political image and limited capacity to bring about social transformations (unlike individual transformations, in which Pentecostalism is very successful). In that case, we would have a Protestant ceiling somewhere between 20% and 35%. We can foresee, then, a Brazilian religious future with a smaller Catholicism (perhaps a little less than half of the population) but revitalized and more practicing and committed, a large but stabilized (and very fragmented) Protestantism, and a considerable sector of non-Christian religions and people "without religion."23

For the case of Latin America in general, the author projects the following situation:

[In] Latin America in general, we would have a pluralistic religious future in which Catholicism maintains its position as the largest religious denomination (and still with a majority of the population in some countries, but not in others) and with residual social and political privileges (even more so, because Protestantism will be unable to create solid representative institutions, and no denomination will be able to compete in isolation with the Catholic institution). But there will be significant variations from one country to another. Certainly, the distance with Latin Europe will increase, because in addition to solid Pentecostalism there will be a large non-religious sector but without European secularism. With numerical stabilization, everything will change for Protestantism. There will be an increasing percentage of born members and older converts, and with that there will be more demands on the educational system and other types of ecclesiastical leaders. There will be less triumphalism and greater expectations in the field of social action, and interaction with other religions will change radically. There will also be other ways of relating to politics.24

The nature of evangelical growth in Latin America

Martin seems to be right when he states that “the evangelical religion that now extends from North to South America is mainly Pentecostal”25. It is undeniable that the growth of evangelical groups in this region of the world only began to be significant when the “explosion” of churches linked to the Pentecostal branch occurred. But, contrary to what this statement suggests, perhaps it is not so much the North American origin that should be remembered in the analysis of the success of this expansion. Pentecostalism of North American origin was introduced into Latin America at the beginning of the 19th century together with other evangelical modalities through successive missionary waves. Its growth, over the course of about six decades, was only slightly greater than that of the “historical” groups, whether they were “immigration” or “missionary”. The moment of the "explosion", according to all indications, seems to have occurred when this Pentecostalism began to become independent of the American matrices and began to
The development of more indigenous forms, formats that are more in tune with the local contexts where they were established, is a question of changes that extend to the way in which these religious groups related to the surrounding society and culture, which is both the cause and consequence of this numerical expansion. This occurs, initially, with the gradual minimization of the traditional puritanical rigor and the notorious sectarianism of a considerable part of the groups linked to this evangelical form in recent decades. But, in addition to this, there are several reasons that increase this tendency towards the indigenous: by becoming a large religious minority, these groups, previously organized in small communities of believers, began to lose the capacity to impose restrictive rules of behavior, especially in the churches that began to hold spectacular mass services in their temples; by diversifying institutionally and socially, they began to include more and more middle-class segments that, in general, are not very fond of rigorist and puritanical behavior; By adopting new proselytizing strategies and, above all, by inserting themselves into unusual and unexpected social spaces – such as electronic media and partisan politics – to the detriment of their previous sectarianism, they had to adapt to the pressures, rules and demands of these media and political institutions; by increasingly opting for marketing, they were forced to adapt their cults, beliefs and religious practices to the ever-diverse demands of individuals interested in the magical-religious solution to their daily problems. With this, they become increasingly indistinct from the surrounding culture and society.

It can even be said that in various cases an unexpected and apparently paradoxical fascination of many evangelical individuals and groups with the worldliness that surrounds them is strengthened. Fascination that is expressed in a certain eagerness to appropriate everything that, produced for worldly or non-religious purposes, is shown to be symbolically and aesthetically seductive, mobilizing attention, consumable on a large scale, rationalizing efforts. Multimedia, marketing, computing, the Internet, visual arts, fashion, modern aesthetics, secular music, avant-garde styles and behaviors are quickly incorporated, re-semanticized or instrumentalized individually and institutionally by evangelical believers and groups to maximize the preaching and dissemination of the Gospel.

It is necessary, however, not to overlook some other factors that can also be listed as causes of these transformations, but which discredit the excessive enthusiasm with the adoption of a linear and simplistic causal relationship between quantitative growth and this evangelical liberation towards areas of worldliness. Factors such as, for example, the natural "detraditionalizing" influence of the new generations that are succeeding one another within the most traditional churches; the transformations resulting from foreign theological influences; the inevitable modernization that evangelical institutions undergo as they navigate in a historically very dynamic world, etc., help to thicken the broth of a disconcerting complexity of factors, difficult to be apprehended through heuristically economic causal schemes. This picture is also complicated by the fact that several evangelical groups follow a different path, that is, they build their symbolic capital on the rejection of the lack of surrounding tradition and prefer, on the contrary, to keep their distance from the seductive worldliness.

Several social scientists have investigated the particularities and above all the consequences of the expansion of this vigorous religious movement in Latin America. Research and field observations allow us to see that, in territories such as those of partisan politics26, sports such as football27 and rhythms and styles of secular musicality28, all of them previously not only uninhabited but also repudiated and demonized –because of their worldliness– by these religious groups, Pentecostal evangelicals are entering in an increasingly intense, participatory, visible and vocal way.

This increases the social and cultural impact that adherence to evangelical groups has on the imaginings, values ??and practices of groups and individuals excluded from Brazilian society. Whether it is due to the appreciation of business autonomy and the devaluation of wage labour promoted by the ecclesiastical disseminators of the "theology of prosperity" in neo-Pentecostal churches29; or as a result of the disciplinary and sanitizing discourses directed at families in the poorest strata by pastors30; or because of the ethical impulse produced by the incessant magic-religious battle against drugs and alcohol31, the evangelical religion has left deep marks on significant portions of the poorest segments of Latin American society, where it spreads.

It is still too early to know whether, as some maintain, all this will result in an inexorable process of "protestantization" of Latin America. The next few decades will tell whether this is a mere passing outbreak of "symbolic protest" against an unfinished modernity experienced in these regions, or whether we are, in fact, facing an inexorable and profound change in the religious landscape in Latin America. Nevertheless, what is certain is that, whatever happens, we will never again have the almost absolute Catholic monopoly that we once had. "Protestantism," even if it does not become the majority, is here to stay and can no longer be ignored in its striking sociocultural agency in the region.

Evangelical impact in Latin America

The evangelical population in Latin America is experiencing exponential growth day after day, while the number of Catholics is declining.

The reasons for the increase in evangelicals are that people identify more with the leaders of that faith because they tend to be more charismatic, another reason is that the evangelical church has found a niche in the increasingly large impoverished communities with the help and support they provide.

Among Latin American nations, of the total of 586,939,696 people, around 160,254,485 declare themselves evangelical, which adds up to a percentage of 27.3%, while, if the United States, Spain and Belize are added to the list, the percentage drops to 25.3.

Below is the complete list of countries with representation in the AEL and their respective percentages of evangelicals, the data was provided by each member alliance of the AEL.

.



It can be observed that the largest number is found in the United States with 86,359,128, followed by Brazil and Mexico, which are also the most populated countries in Latin America.

In terms of percentages, Honduras occupies the first place with 47% of evangelicals and it is predicted that they could be the religious majority in the country in less than 10 years, followed by Guatemala with 43% and Nicaragua with 42%.


EVANGELICALS: THE NEW EARTHLY KINGDOM OF THE FAR RIGHT IN LATIN AMERICA

The Latin American right has seen in the evangelical boom an opportunity to attract voters in a social niche that they have never achieved: the poor. Catholics are still the majority with 70%, although their decline is evident, since in the 60s 94% were Catholics, despite the Vatican's efforts to prevent it.

Edir Macedo, founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, saw his prophecy of the 'divine nation' fulfilled when his friend Jair Bolsonaro touched the sky (of the Planalto Palace) in 2018. Macedo is the archetype of religious leaders who have been accumulating wealth and political power in Latin America. Evangelical churches are advancing without restraint in a region that was the hotbed of the Catholic Church until recently. One hundred million faithful fill their temples and listen to the anti-abortion harangues of Pentecostal pastors. But their discourse is not limited to the religious sphere.

Thanks to media empires like the one Macedo has built in Brazil, evangelicals are now an influential political lobby. Dilma Rousseff almost lost her presidency in 2010 because of her idea of ??decriminalizing abortion. In the midst of an election campaign and under pressure from evangelicals, she had to qualify her proposal. Leviathan for all churches, abortion has now served as an excuse for Argentine evangelicals to denigrate Argentine writer Claudia Piñeiro, scriptwriter of El Reino, a television series that reflects the promiscuous relationships between political power and some spiritual leaders.

Recently released on that audiovisual hell called Netflix, the series has broken audience records in Argentina. The Christian Alliance of Evangelical Churches of the Argentine Republic must have been very upset that the fiction is inspired by the earthly whims of some pastors.

And they have gone after Piñeiro, a best-selling author and defender of women's rights: "The bitterness that the writer and scriptwriter of this work has expressed from her feminist activism during the debate on the abortion law towards the evangelical community in Argentina, represented by millions of citizens who did not agree with her position on the issue, is well known," read their less than beatific statement.

The influence of evangelicals in Argentine politics is still limited and their social presence is less than in other countries in the region (around 15%). The case is different in Brazil, where evangelicals already represent 30% of the population and their leaders have had a notable presence in Parliament and local governments for years. Marcelo Crivella, bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, was a senator, governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro and mayor of its capital between 2017 and 2020. He belongs to the Brazilian Republican Party, closely linked to the neo-Pentecostals.

Before the end of his term as mayor, he was imprisoned for corruption. In prison, he may have heard the litany coming from one of the thousands of evangelical congregations in Brazil: “Stop suffering.” His uncle Edir Macedo has not suffered for a long time. With his powerful media arsenal (he owns the Récord television network, several radio stations and two newspapers), he does as he pleases. She has amassed a fortune and now has a luxury ally in Brasilia, the far-right Bolsonaro, whom she helped win the elections in 2018. Evangelical congressmen were already decisive in the impeachment that removed Rousseff from the presidency in 2016. When it came time to vote, the majority invoked God.

Pentecostal doctrine (the importance of the Holy Spirit, a direct relationship with God, earthly prosperity, etc.) has been taking hold in Latin America since the mid-twentieth century. It had already taken root in the United States, and its influence on Latin American churches has been notable. In the face of the progressive experiences of Catholic liberation theology (with which the Latin American insurgent movements fraternized), from the 1980s onwards, conservative sectors in the United States opted for the "theology of prosperity" preached by charismatic and eloquent evangelical pastors.

According to a study by the Pew Research Center carried out in 2014, nearly 20% of Latin Americans declared themselves to be evangelicals. Catholics continue to be the majority (around 70%) but their decline is constant (they represented 94% until the 1960s) despite the efforts of the Vatican to stop the bleeding. The Popes' constant tours of the region were part of this strategy. A more recent report by Latinobarómetro (2018) confirms this upward trend of evangelical doctrine to the detriment of Catholicism, although its growth is not homogeneous. There are countries such as Mexico or Paraguay where Catholicism is not so affected, while in Brazil the decline is continuous. And Central America already has more evangelicals than Catholics.

Politics has been permeated by the discourse of neo-Pentecostal churches in many countries. The evangelical comedian Jimmy Morales, in the crosshairs of justice for alleged irregular electoral financing, governed Guatemala between 2016 and 2020. And in Costa Rica, Fabricio Alvarado, another leader in the evangelical orbit, was close to becoming president in 2018. He won the first round shouting "Don't mess with families!" », referring to the secular sexual education that was beginning to be taught in Costa Rican schools. It did not make it past the second round of elections, but the power of the evangelical lobby is still very present in the country.

The right-wing populism championed by Bolsonaro in Latin America has looked in the mirror of the evangelical churches. Pentecostal pastors have won over the most disadvantaged by promising them spiritual redemption and financial relief in the same sermon. Their greatest success has been to settle in the corners where the Catholic Church has not managed to penetrate. Migratory currents from the countryside to the city have created gigantic slums in the large Latin American cities. There, evangelical churches have grown like mushrooms with their community support networks to combat drug addiction or alcoholism, thus attracting thousands of faithful to their cause.

The Latin American right has seen in this evangelical boom an open door to attract voters in a social niche that has traditionally resisted it: the poor. The good harmony between right-wing populists and evangelical pastors is evident in many countries. They often agree (although not always) on a defense of neoliberalism and a militant opposition to social rights such as abortion or same-sex marriage. This political-religious connection has not only proliferated in Brazil.

Evangelicals played a relevant role in the rejection of the peace agreements in the Colombian referendum in 2016. The businessman Sebastián Piñera returned to power in Chile after winning the elections in December 2017. Both the conservative leader and the Pinochet candidate José Antonio Kast had evangelical advisors on their campaign teams. And in Bolivia, the coup leaders who ousted Evo Morales from power in November 2019 stormed the Government Palace brandishing Bibles.

Jeanine Áñez, de facto president for a year and now in prison, is a fervent Catholic believer. The political mastermind behind the coup, Luis Fernando Camacho, current governor of the wealthy province of Santa Cruz, is closely linked to evangelicals (in fact, he is known as the Bolivian Bolsonaro). The kingdom invoked by certain churches and evangelical leaders is very earthly. A paradise of votes for the emerging Latin American far right.


ACCORDING IA

The rise of evangelical churches in Latin America has dramatically reshaped the religious landscape of countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Chile, and Nicaragua. Traditionally dominated by Catholicism, these nations have seen significant growth in evangelical Christian movements over the last few decades, with large-scale conversions altering religious affiliations across the region.

Conversion Rates and Comparison with Catholicism

In Guatemala, for instance, approximately 41% of the population now identifies as evangelical Christian, compared to 40% who identify as Catholic. El Salvador and Nicaragua show similar trends, with around 40% of the population in both countries adhering to evangelical Christianity. In Peru and Chile, evangelicals represent between 20% and 25% of the population. This marks a striking contrast to previous decades when Catholicism was overwhelmingly dominant.

The rapid growth of evangelicalism has led to predictions that, in some Central American countries, evangelical Christians could outnumber Catholics within the next decade. These trends highlight the fluidity of religious affiliation in the region, with large portions of the population shifting away from traditional Catholic practices towards more evangelical and charismatic forms of Christianity.

Factors Driving Growth

Several factors explain the surge in evangelicalism in these countries. First, many Latin Americans have grown disillusioned with the Catholic Church, particularly regarding its perceived detachment from everyday social issues. The Catholic Church, often viewed as hierarchical and slow to respond to local concerns, struggles with a shortage of priests, leaving large portions of the population feeling spiritually neglected.

In contrast, evangelical churches often emphasize personal engagement, with pastors actively visiting homes and fostering close community relationships. These churches are more locally rooted and offer a more intimate religious experience. Evangelical services tend to focus on personal transformation, helping people overcome addictions, restore family life, and engage with conservative moral values, which resonates with many who seek social and personal stability.

Another driving factor is the urban migration taking place in many Latin American countries. As people move to cities in search of work and better opportunities, they often find evangelical churches ready to offer not only spiritual support but also a sense of community and social network. This appeal to urban migrants has been a key factor in evangelical growth in places like Peru and Nicaragua.

Economic Impact and Church Funding

Economically, evangelical churches in Latin America operate differently from the centralized structure of the Catholic Church. Most evangelical churches rely on donations from their congregants, making them more dependent on local communities. However, they also benefit from significant financial support from international evangelical networks, especially from the United States. This funding supports church building, social outreach programs, and extensive media operations, such as radio stations and television networks, which help spread their message.

Mega-churches in countries like Guatemala and El Salvador are prime examples of this financial growth. Some of these churches draw thousands of attendees weekly, contributing to large revenue streams through tithes and donations, which fund religious and social programs alike. The economic power of these churches allows them to offer more services and engage in wider social outreach, further solidifying their influence.

Conversion Efforts and Cultural Impact

Evangelical churches are active in conversion efforts, using a variety of means, including mass media campaigns, street evangelism, and large-scale religious events. Their focus on direct engagement with communities and offering practical solutions to personal and social issues—such as addiction recovery, poverty alleviation, and crime prevention—gives them significant appeal in both urban and rural areas.

Culturally, the growth of evangelicalism has led to changes in social norms, particularly around issues such as family values, morality, and social behavior. Evangelical churches often emphasize conservative family structures and moral codes, and many members report positive personal transformations, such as giving up alcohol or drugs and repairing family relationships. These changes can have both positive and negative effects on local cultures. On one hand, evangelicalism provides a sense of purpose and community for many. On the other hand, it can sometimes create tension with traditional cultural practices, especially in indigenous or rural areas where Catholicism has been historically entrenched.

The influence of evangelicalism is also increasingly visible in the political sphere. In countries like Guatemala and Brazil, evangelical leaders are becoming more active in politics, advocating for conservative policies on issues such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and family law. This growing political power is reshaping national debates and aligning more with conservative global trends.

Future Projections

Looking ahead, it is likely that evangelical Christianity will continue to grow in Latin America, particularly in Central American countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. With their focus on community engagement, personal transformation, and social support, evangelical churches are well-positioned to continue attracting converts, especially in urban areas and among younger generations.

While Catholicism remains influential in the region, the ongoing rise of evangelicalism marks a significant shift in Latin America’s religious identity. This transformation is poised to affect everything from cultural norms to political landscapes, with evangelicals playing an increasingly prominent role in shaping the future of these societies.

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