The Coming of Age of Evangelical Protestantism
Berryman, Phillip
The secular Left and progressive Catholics have been bewildered and dismayed at the rapid expansion of what they see as alienating-and imported-religion. At the barrio level, however, the...
...televangelists supported the Nicaraguan Contras against the "godless" Sandinistas...
...The Protestant coming-ofage marks the end of Catholic religious hegemony...
...It is high time that the Left took seriously these religious movements that it has thus far ignored, derided or viewed only from a distance...
...Indeed, rather than simply "turning Protestant," it may be more accurate to say that Latin America is becoming religiously pluralistic Jehovah's Witr for the first time...
...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...
...Perhaps 3,000 young people are swaying-not quite dancing-on the gently sloping floor...
...Indeed, the church workers themselves reflect the culture of the popular classes from which they have come, in contrast to the Universal Church, whose ministers a blesses a parishioner during a fervored moment in a Pentethe Paseo Las Mercedes Cinema in Caracas...
...By contrast, the Universal Church first builds churches, generally on commercial property...
...individuals who do not drink, smoke, dance or engage in "worldly" affairs, including politics...
...Such an event is hardly news anymore in Brazil...
...The "historic" churches-Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and others-are similar to the denominations in Europe and the United States from which they originated...
...concluding with the line: "The revolution is God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ...
...Some Protestant leaders yearn to have a voice in society similar to that of the Catholic bishops' conference...
...Evangelical congressional representatives constitute one of the most important blocs in the Brazilian Congress...
...Drawing strength from the central organization, individual churches-though their members are often desperately poor--exude an air of self-sufficiency...
...Get out...
...Even if in their theology they might discourage social activism, their political stance may be evolving...
...Meanwhile a well-known guitarist who has discovered Christ does a blues arrangement of Psalm 22...
...Yet contrary to common belief, evangelicals are not uniformly conservative...
...By virtue of the fact that approximately 15% of the Latin American population finds meanPacaembu soc- ing in evangelical religion, these churches play an important role in society...
...ISER found that in greater Rio de Janeiro, 710 new churches were established-five a week-between 1990 and 1992...
...Although the evangelical churches are often accused of being foreign imports, at the barrio level they may be closer to popular culture than the Catholic Church is...
...Worship is Pentecostal but there are moments of silence and recollection as well, and intensity of prayer is not measured by decibel level...
...Perhaps due to their fascination with the role of progressive sectors of the Catholic Church in movements for social change, the Left and academics have been slow to acknowledge the significance of evangelical growth...
...Its emphasis is on the positive impact of faith in one's life...
...By contrast, most progressive Catholic priests, while they may be striving to provide an "option for the poor," inhabit another world by virtue of culture, training and class...
...They seek to convince the wider public that their evangelical conduct sets them apart from ordinary corrupt power-hungry politicians (a claim whose appeal may not survive the example of many Jorge esses are baptised at a three-day congress at Sao Paulo...
...At the barrio level, however, the evangelical churches may be closer to popular culture than the Catholic Church is...
...At one such gathering, he told those wearing eyeglasses that their eyes were healed...
...In the poor neighborhoods, the number of churches in proportion to population was three times higher than it was in the wealthy beachfront communities...
...Within the boundaries of a a Sil Catholic parish in Sdo Paulo, one can find a that dozen or more Protestant churches whose Sur offerings range from the historic churches to codE independent congregacall tions that have spun off from a larger Pentecostal church...
...Even if there are, as has often been claimed, 80,000 base communities averaging 25 members a piece throughout Brazil, the total number of participants would number two million out of a population of 160 million...
...Recent research indicates that those estimates may be inflated...
...This pull includes an intensity of prayer, a simple comprehensible message that seems to make sense out of the surrounding The poor Irawn by an intensity of prayer, mple comprehensible message seems to make sense out of the grounding chaos, a firm moral ., a community in which people each other brother and sister, and a sense of self-respect...
...O utsiders tend to see Latin American Protestantism as undifferentiated...
...A seminary student, the young man is more in touch with his audience than the average preacher...
...Crowds of perhaps 5,000 people attended, mostly evangelicals, and those who came forward to accept Christ numbered in the hundreds...
...Later that evening, a casually dressed man in his twenties addresses the audience now seated on the floor...
...Protestant political candidates are more evident than ever before...
...It's the Monday night special youth service at the Renacer church located on a major street near down- town Sdo Paulo...
...By the 1990s, however, the utopian dreams nursed in the climate of military dictatorship have been dashed by the seeming universal triumph of capitalism, the crisis of Marxism, and the scaling back of the Left's agenda to reformist social democracy...
...These broad categories are by no means airtight...
...The widely admired Las Acacias church in Caracas differs significantly from the Brazilian churches mentioned above and from most Pentecostal churches in Venezuela...
...In 1990 the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, headed by Bishop Edir Macedo, paid $45 million for a Sio Paulo television station...
...song catalogues three decades of international youth culture with allusions to beatniks, drugs, yoga, natural foods, and politics ("Do we have to kill...
...Pastor Radl Avil At the Universal costalservice at Church, each day has a theme: "prosperity," "the family," and so forth...
...Later on two or three dozen come forward to accept Christ and are taken backstage (where they are enrolled and receive further instructions...
...One A general Pentecostal mass for "Clamor Day" at Se Square in Sao Paulo...
...His point is simple: "Jesus Christ," he exhorts, "wants to be part of your life, folks...
...Many people attend services at the Universal Church or Deus 6 Amor as they feel the need, and are not active members in a local congregation...
...As a sheer consequence of their size, Protestant movements are at least a potential political force...
...Renacer's exuberance-and successis one facet of the current wave of evangelical Protestantism sweeping Latin America...
...His book on the churches in Central America, Stubborn Hope (The New Press and Orbis Books), will appear this spring...
...Conservatives have rushed to embrace British sociologist David Martin's argument that Protestantism may finally help Latin America modernize by overcoming its Catholic hostility to capitalism...
...In fact, evangelical churches are sustained financially by the generous support of their members, who are generally expected to tithe-contribute a tenth of their income-which some literally do...
...For example, I witnessed about 1,100 ministers from greater Sdo Paulo gathered for their monthly meeting for prayer and planning...
...Benedita da Silva, for example, the black social worker who was elected to Congress and almost won the mayor's race in Rio in 1992, is an active member of the Assemblies of God...
...One area where the evangelicals are dependent, however, is in the intellectual realm...
...look like they could be selling cars or house furnishings...
...They are tempted to attribute evangelical growth to a conscious U.S...
...Worshippers det Macedo of the L Researchers at the Institute for Religious Studies (ISER) in Rio de Janeiro assert that evangelical Protestantism is "the most important movement changing attitudes in contemporary Brazilian society, especially in its poorest urban strata...
...While the Catholic renewal movement was qualitatively important, especially in the role it played in opposition to the military dictatorships and in the struggles of Central America, only a small minority participated...
...Those who convert to Protestantism never "belonged" to the Catholic Church in the sense of being active in a congregation...
...Despite much organizing by many churches in Caracas, for instance, a week-long evangelistic campaign held at the old bull ring (now owned by a church...
...That current within Catholicism, moreover, is to some extent in crisis...
...Contrary to the strict rules of behavior of many evangelical churches which prohibit smoking, dancing, alcohol, movies and TV, and impose a dress code (especially for women), Las Acacias leaves conduct to the discretion of its members...
...Soon they are moaning, screaming, and crawling...
...Although the vast majority of Latin Americans when polled still identify themselves as Catholics, relatively few attend mass regularly...
...In some theologically conservative circles, one hears the assertion that the salvation offered by Christ is "integral": that is, it affects not only the "soul," but the whole person and indeed society...
...Despite its quietist style, the battleship gray churches of the CongregaCqo Cristd continue to spring up in the periphery of So Paulo and along major highways...
...This variety of styles is a major strength of Latin American Protes- are tantism...
...he secular Left and progressive Catholics have been bewildered and dismayed at the rapid expansion of what they see as "alienating" religion...
...The Deus 6 Amor ("God is Love") church, a precursor of the Universal Church, is also headed by a preacher-caudillo, David Miranda...
...In 1993 the church reportedly paid $2 million for an auditorium in the heart of Sdo Paulo...
...The largest single group in Brazil, as elsewhere in Latin America, is the Assemblies of God...
...government strategy during the Reagan and Bush years or heavy funding from the U.S...
...Like services on other days of the week, the Friday service begins with a half hour of singing...
...Bishop Macedo's Universal Church, for instance, reverses the practice of most Protestant denominations, which build new churches as congregations divide, or as small mission groups that meet in homes eventually become congregations Vol XXVII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1994 z 7ANALYSIs/ RELIGION and acquire property to build on...
...These two cities provide a window for understanding some features of the evangelical movement...
...It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the evangelical movement is an invincible juggernaut...
...As a consequence of their sheer numbers, the Assemblies of God have access to financial resources unavailable to many off-shoot churches...
...While considered fundamentalist, the fast-growing Pentecostal churches are yed by Bishop centered not on doctrine or preaching, but on an emotional experience of the spirit...
...glasses were collected and brought forward where he trampled on them...
...The demons obediently depart, leaving their victims spent and their families relieved...
...Moreover, the basis for a distinctively evangelical viewpoint of society has yet to be developed in a coherent way...
...If the post-Cold War Latin American Left is to forge alliances with various sectors of society in its effort to find alternatives to doctrinaire neoliberalism, it must abandon its stereotype of the evangelical churches...
...Christian base communities, in the words of one Brazilian theologian, were to be "the starting point for a social revolution that would lead to a new society...
...This position is analogous to the position in Roman Catholicism that has provided the basis for social action and indeed for liberation theology...
...Macedo can attract 150,000 followers to Rio's Maracani stadium...
...Their message to fellow believers is that their moment has come and that the evangelical movement has a right to political representation...
...The crisis is deeper, however, and has to do with the clash between the hopes invested in the "liberationist project" and the current prospects for Latin American society...
...To work in base communities was to be preparing the future of a new Latin American society, an overall transformation...
...Its services, while Pentecostal, are models of decorum...
...It then assigns ministers who begin to hold services, typically four times a day (morning, noon, afternoon and evening), seven days a week...
...To give but one example, 70% of the 585 evangelical books published in Brazil in 1991 were by foreign authors...
...The final document of the gathering called for greater commitment to social issues...
...It has also been tempting to view the phenomNACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Phillip Berryman did research in So Paulo and Caracas in 1993 with a grant from the Social Science Research Council...
...The minister must attract people to services and motivate them to contribute...
...Moreover, there is great diversity within the Pentecostal sector of the Protestant church...
...The upshot is that the number of active Protestant churchgoers is comparable to that of practicing Catholics...
...Even working-class men arrive in suits, and men and women sit on opposite sides of the aisle...
...Since many local pastors do not see the need for such a voice or acknowledge organizations such as the Brazilian Evangelical Association, however, such voices are not strong...
...The CongregaCqo Cristd in Brazil is in many ways poles apart from the Universal Church...
...drew fewer than one thousand people most nights, almost all of them already evangelicals...
...religious Right...
...The "option for the poor," the Catholic renewal movement that began in the late 1960s, was expressed in new forms of pastoral work, including the defense of human rights and the forging of "base communities"-small layled groups for prayer, discussion and consciousness-raising-which were undergirded by liberation theology...
...A number of people in the adolescent, mostly white crowd wear T-shirts emblazoned with messages, many in English, such as, "Be Cool, Jesus Loves You...
...More importantly, it offers an alternative model to the rigidity of some evangelical churches, one that is being studied and adopted in C 0 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 8ANALYSIS/ RELIGION Venezuela and elsewhere...
...The preacher shouts at the demons and leads singing with repeated chants of "Sai...
...6ANALYSIS/ RELIGION enon in narrowly reactionary terms, especially since Guatemala's born-again president Efrain Rios Montt (1982-83) justified mass slaughter carried out by the Guatemalan army, and U.S...
...A group of conservative Protestant theologians gathered in Medellfin in 1988 criticized liberation theology, but acknowledged that evangelicals had largely failed to address social ills...
...Indeed, the progressive Catholic Church is far more financially dependent on foreign (primarily European) funding agencies than the evangelicals are...
...Of cerstadium in: course a variety of religious expressions, including Afro-Brazilian religion and analogous forms elsewhere, have long flourished behind the Catholic facade...
...Catholic progressives in Venezuela, who did not experience a heroic phase of resistance to military dictatorship and whose hopes were perhaps less utopian, are less in crisis than their counterparts in Brazil...
...Throughout that period, only one new Catholic parish was established...
...At another service at that same church, I observed numerous distinguished guests in the sanctuary, an orchestra, and what seemed to be four choirs...
...Friday's theme, "liberation," has nothing to do with social change but means liberation from evil spirits...
...The audience knows the religious rock tunes well enough to sing a cappella when the band stops...
...chaos, a moral code that provides guidance (and which in some ways is a throwback to the firm moral code of peasant society), a community in which people call each other brothers and sisters, and a sense of self-respect...
...A Vatican policy of appointing conservative bishops for over a decade, along with repeated pressure against liberation theologians, has had its toll...
...In any case, converts to Protestantism come not from Christian Vol XXVII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1994 9ANALYSIS/ RELIGION base communities, but from the large majority of people whose contact with the Catholic Church is marginal...
...The most elementary new reality is that Protestants who a generation ago amounted to approximately 2% or 3% of the population in most Latin American countries have now reached a critical mass of about 15% (with wide variations from country to country...
...Progressive Catholicism has never been a mass movement...
...Some observers dismiss Las Acacias as a middle-class church, though in fact, it is multi-class...
...An article on Latin American Protestantism in Forbes-a magazine which normally pays little attention to either Latin America or religion-gloated that the "cultural upheaval" of evangelical growth "is simply another side of economic transformation" and "offers solid clues to the future-a capitalistic, bourgeois future, not a Marxist or traditional future...
...Pentecostal practices have, for example, been invading the historic churches...
...Those attending daily services at its huge warehouse-like headquarters in a decaying industrial area across the river from downtown Sdo Paulo are obviously quite poor...
...Although the historical churches-particularly the Baptists and Presbyterians-continue to have a strong presence, 90% of the new churches were Pentecostal...
...I recently spent time in Sao Paulo, where there is a thriving evangelical movement, and Caracas, where Protestants are estimated to make up only about 1% of the population (the figure for Venezuela as a whole is 4...
...women without makeup wearing shapeless long-sleeved dresses...
...Then perhaps a dozen people, primarily women, come forward...
...The Assemblies have an impressive degree of organization...
...In general these churches understand the Bible more critically than the conservative churches which interpret the Bible quite literally...
...Clich6d, stock images come to mind: small storefront churches nestled among the houses in the shantytowns...
...Get out...
...of God planned a campaign in downtown Sdo Paulo with the objective of winning from six to ten thousand souls for Christ...
...Today they number at least eight million-they claim 12 million or more-and have 35,000 churches throughout the country...
...It emphasizes healing, and boasts of its hundreds of hours of radio broadcasts per week...
...Without his identity as an evangelical, Jorge Serrano might not have even been a presidential contender in Guatemala, and Alberto Fujimori openly courted the evangelical vote in Peru in the 1990 presidential election...
...It has no clergy, and does not carry out evangelistic campaigns, publish books, broadcast on the radio, or become involved in politics...
...Protestants-or "evangelicals" (evangilicos) as they commonly call themselves-are, however, by no means all cut from the same cloth...
...Evidence indicates, for example, that evangelicals are present in the leftist Workers Party in Brazil in proportions only a little below their presence in society...
...They constitute the largest Protestant denomination in any "Catholic" country and have at least four times as many members as the Anglican Church in England, notes British researcher Paul Freston...
...Serranos...
...The number of practicing Protestants is greater than the total number of members of all other kinds of voluntary organizations-in politics, culture and sports -combined...
...Most Protestant ministers come from the same class and culture as their congregations...
...The seats of this recon- verted theater are stacked along the walls...
...Similarly, in Holy Week, 1993, the Assemblies osit their cigarette packs up front, to be destro Universal Church in SAo Paulo...
Vol. 27 • May 1994 • No. 6
