CONFLICT AND COMPETITION: The Latin American Church in a Changing Environment
edited by Edward L. Cleary / Hannah Stewart-GambinoCHAPTER 10 =================================
Conclusion: Politics and Religion -
Crisis, Constraints, and Restructuring
====================================== EDWARD L. CLEARYThe studies contained in this volume call attention to what is occurring at a critical juncture of religion and politics in Latin America. The preceding chapters depict the broader ways in which religion has been shaped by the social, economic, and political environment. Authors also have shown religion entering actively into the lives of individuals and organizations, thereby shaping society and culture. The interaction of social forces, culture, and religion is crucial to the understanding of the changing position of religion in Latin America, religion which has found the ground shift beneath its feet.
None of the contributors argue forcibly for a special point of view in the theoretical framing of their studies. They have looked carefully, described what they and other researchers found, and have interpreted the relations of religion and politics in a national context. But all the authors carry into their research ideas about how to organize and interpret and, at least implicitly, have been affected by theoretical considerations. So it is important to point out prevailing theoretical influences.
Theoretical Considerations Three theoretical paradigms have dominated the field of study of religion and politics in the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.(1) These are: modernization/secularization theory, world-system theory, and critical theory. I presume that modernization theory has most affected the writers and is the best known to readers. In outline, modernization theory postulates that, as societies progress, a division of labor takes place whereby institutions become more complex in organization and specialized in function. Instead of the tribal chief acting as family, political, and religious ruler, those three functions have been separated and taken over by individuals and groups within family systems, political parties, and religious organizations. Politics, education, medicine, and other institutions become more detached from religion, and religion becomes less diffused throughout society and more limited to practice in churches or families. Religion thus becomes increasingly separated from politics and enters its own sphere.
Closely allied with modernization theory in the minds of many social science practitioners is secularization theory. In some formulations secularization would mean the demise of religion (see Chapter 9). Secularization of this type has not occurred in Latin America. Instead the preceding chapters describe the lively practice of religion in countries from Nicaragua and Guatemala to Chile. The enthusiastic reception given David Stoll's Is Latin America Turning Protestant? and David Martin's Tongues of Fire acknowledges for the first time the grand scale of the "explosion" of Protestantism in Latin America. But, contrary to many expectations, Catholicism also flourishes. Its innovations are imitated in a broad sense by national churches in many parts of the world, lay Catholics by the millions have been actively engaged in the church with a sense of responsibility and ownership, and seminaries are filled or nearing capacity.(2)
Religion in Latin America has been remolded by the changes in larger society. Catholicism, the dominant religious institution in Latin America, has received the most attention. But significant changes are taking place as well in Protestantism and spiritist and native religion.(3) The fundamental basis for societal changes affecting religion is that religion is an institution deeply embedded in society and exposed to the broader social environment. Key to understanding societal changes as they affect religion is not to focus on the ups and downs of style or fad. Rather at issue are long-term changes in Latin American society and culture effected by great forces.
The magnitude of social forces that have impacted on Latin America since World War II is decisive for understanding religious change. These forces include: concentration of agrarian land holdings and food production, vast migrations from rural to urban settings, shifts from agriculture to commercial and industrial production and marketing, increased literacy, frequent reception of radio by almost every person and of television by probably half the population, and unprecedented settlement by migrants in marginal urban areas.
In their work on grassroots movements Levine, Mainwaring, and a number of others have pointed to these societal changes and the effects they have wrought.(4) Levine recalls Max Weber's use of crisis, modifying the drift of Weber's argument to fit what is taking place in Latin America. Thus a great many Latin Americans have gone through experiences of displacement, cutting of family and friendship ties, loss of family status, suffering of various kinds, and have witnessed violence and untimely death. These experiences have had several effects, two of special consequence for religion: loss or reduction of previous allegiances (allowing for new ties) and pressure for innovation (since old ideas and ways frequently do not work well in the new context).
Levine explains:
Crisis (in the Weberian sense of expanded trade, broadened scale of action, and emerging challenges to legitimacy) made religion a particularly likely focal point for change. Religious themes and metaphors (as Bible stories) are culturally familiar, and thus provide a convenient place from which to begin any effort at cultural reconstruction. Religious innovations ... make sense in the setting of "crisis," . . . as a consciously chosen and highly prized avenue for change and self fulfillment.(5)Adaptations to changing societal conditions for the Catholic church meant innovations in religious messages, drawing new meaning from old founts. Liberation theology is one such innovation, marking a distinct change of method, viewpoint, and emphasis from traditional theology. Liberation theology, in contrast to traditional formulations is: existentialist, christocentric, communitarian, participatory, and egalitarian. The founts searched for innovation in religious menage were above all the Bible and secondarily the fathers of Vatican Council II (Karl Rahner, Yves Congar and others), whose strength lay especially in the Fathers of the Church and reinterpretation of tradition.Key for understanding the change in religious discourse in the Latin American church is to see how the systematic statements of liberation theologians have been accepted and formulated by the institutional church. A vivid example of this reformulation of viewpoint and language is the case of the Brazilian bishops, who, in a 1986 publication of CELAM (Latin American Bishops Council), described the Brazilian church as having these goals and messages: (6)
General Objective of Pastoral Action To Evangelize:
the Brazilian people in the process of socioeconomic and cultural transformation
from the truth about Jesus Christ, the Church, and human beings
in the light of preferential action for the poor
aimed at the integral liberation of men and women
in increased participation and communion
oriented to a just and fraternal society
announcing the fulfillment of the KingdomThe above offers a stark change of message from the traditional, otherworldly views of Brazilian and other Latin American bishops that were typically communicated in the first two-thirds of this century. Who is the audience that is presumed to be receptive to the innovations in religious messages? According to Levine, the new Catholics or Pentecostals who are responding to the messages are similar to the "masterless persons" of Puritan revolutionary times, "individuals free of old constraints but not yet bound to definitive new arrangements. ... A prime source of new leadership and an avid clientele for innovations in religious discourse that underscore equality, identity, and an independent capacity to reason, judge, and act together."(7) As a result, Levine believes that a great transformative moment in cultural and political history has arrived in Latin America.(8)
Hannah Stewart-Gambino, in her introduction to this volume, lays the groundwork for understanding the three major challenges to the Catholic church in Latin America that also act as constraints on its activities in the public arena: neoconservative influences within the transnational church, limits of political activity within a democratic society, and the mounting competition of Pentecostal churches.
Influence of Transnational Church The transnational character of the Latin American churches remains as important today as it was earlier in this century when many Latin American national churches needed missionary assistance and outside agencies for its survival. The Peruvian church remains largely a missionary church, as do many other Latin American churches, which still depend strongly on foreigners for their clergy needs.
The direction of transnational influence has changed in important ways. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the Vatican was a major player in influencing the progressive direction of the Latin American church.(9) Rome had a direct and positive influence on the genesis of the progressive church in Latin America, especially evident in Brazil, the largest of the progressive churches. The Vatican modernized structures of the Latin American church by creating many diocesan-sized units (dioceses, vicariates, and other geographic units with a bishop as head) and by encouraging decentralization from Rome through national bishops conferences. Without the national bishops conferences, the Brazilian and other churches would have floundered. The Brazilian church's considerable identification with justice issues reflected the impulse of the larger church, especially as expressed by John XXIII and Paul VI, who captured attention with their emphasis on Third World issues.
Now, in contrast to progressive support, some countries have shown the effects of strongly conservative Vatican actions. The churches of Brazil, Peru, Nicaragua, and Chile have exercised the most independence with respect to Vatican leadership.(10) They have felt the Vatican influence fall like hammer blows. While journalists reported encounters between the Vatican and prominent liberation theologians Leonardo Boff and Gustavo Gutierrez, a much more profound influence has been taking place in the naming of bishops. This is the most effective way to change the orientation of a church. The appointment of bishops means evolutionary and far more lasting change than episodic events.
While appointments of conservative bishops to replace progressive or moderate ones were highlighted in Brazil and Peru, not all new appointees were conservative. It is enough that a new bishop not express active support for grassroots communities or that he emphasize legal concerns in his leadership rather than focus on major pastoral innovations of the Latin American church, such as lay leadership, grassroots communities, and strategies for the poor. These innovations, dependent on voluntary participation, tend to wither without support from above. As Jeffrey Klaiber points out in Chapter 5, the majority of Peruvian bishops are neither conservative nor progressive. But the "powerful weight of Rome," as Klaiber describes it, is the determining factor that inclines centrist bishops to support the conservatives.
In places where economic and other changes have made the lives of grassroots participants and pastoral leaders especially difficult, the greatest hardship in the retrenchment of some bishops is: "The tendency to kill enthusiasm in pastoral agents who need encouragement in the face of astronomical inflation, immense debt, a cholera epidemic, traffic in drugs, and an increasingly cruel guerrilla element, experienced in the Peruvian church."(11)
Moreover, progressives in the Latin American church have always been a minority, but were able to ally themselves with a large group of moderates in the leading progressive churches. Conservative forces have not received the same degree of attention by social scientists as progressives or moderates, but conservatives have long been a major force and their influence understated.(12) The drama of the Latin American church has involved conservatives in prolonged battles over new theological or organizational paradigms and over aspects of reform viewed from conflicting understandings of Vatican II and its interpretation for Latin America. Progressive theologians and pastoral leaders created innovations of liberation theology, options for the poor, and base Christian communities. In response, conservatives counterpoised their paradigms and programs: spiritual liberation from personal sin, poverty of spirit, apolitical stances from the rank and file, acquiescence in educational programs designed by elites unsympathetic to social reform, and strengthening of parishes without small grassroots groups.
Conservatives from outside countries and agencies have strongly attempted to influence the direction of the Latin American church.(13) Ralph Della Cava characterizes this as "Euro-Latin Alliance," supposed especially by the conservative wing of the West German Catholic bishops who set out "to 'conquer' Rome."(14) The conservative impetus is much more extensive than this coalition, and its measure has yet to be taken by historians. Many groups, including Opus Dei and the Institute for Religion and Democracy, worked hard in Latin America, as well as in Washington and Rome, to reestablish conservative priorities. And they succeeded in many ways. The contributors to this volume and many others have described the impact of their efforts in Nicaragua, Peru, and Brazil.
In Della Cava's view, conservatives in Brazil are not about to assume dominant leadership of the church. But conservatives in Brazil have several significant sources of influence: espousal of the democracy of elected parties (understood in an elitist fashion); support for popular religious expressions; access to European conservative groups and resources; and a base within the Brazilian hierarchy,(15) no longer only in Rio and Porto Alegre but also in the Northeast, the region that acted as the greatest driving force of the Brazilian church.
Since the early 1980s various accounts have described a Vatican offensive in Latin America.(16) However -- and this is seldom acknowledged -- neither the direction of Vatican influence nor the instructions of the pope have been uniform. Rome has encouraged progressive leadership of national churches in various countries, such as Bolivia and Guatemala where the nomination of key archbishops and the pope's visits were seen as victories for the progressives. Replacement of conservative Cardinal Mario Casariego with Próspero Penados del Barrio as archbishop of Guatemala City rejuvenated the Guatemalan church and placed it clearly on the path of Vatican II reforms. The Cuban church's opening in Cuba has been carefully nurtured by papal nuncios. In Venezuela, John Paul II was believed to have given Venezuelan bishops instructions to begin speaking up about social issues.(17) Following the pope's visit to Venezuela, bishops issued statements about major issues of unemployment and housing,(18) drawing the attention of other churches for the first time.
Has the impact of the neoconservative movement been overestimated? In Brazil and Peru, despite the conservative proclivity of the Brazilian and Peruvian bishops, conservatism imposed from outside or above has problematical force when lacking popular support. Drogus cites the large number of effective and well-motivated priests, sisters, and pastoral agents in Brazil who have internalized the main tenets of liberation theology.(19) Then, too, the progressive agenda usually has the backing of church pronouncements, as in the Medellín documents or encyclicals dealing with peace and justice themes. Further, the Brazilian church especially does not have enough priests and must continue to rely on whatever pastoral agents are working, progressive or not.(20) Froehle makes the same argument for Venezuela. Another observer points to a new awareness of the social and religious problems causing changes in previously conservative priests who became bishops. (Oscar Romero comes prominently to mind.)(21)
Andrew Greeley argues that the Catholic "restoration" has had a significant effect on the ecclesiastical institution, especially through appointments of bishops, but very little effect on the life of the typical Catholic in the United States. He shows the conservative element of the church as small and believes that the restorationist strategy can be counterproductive.(22)
Klaiber is one of the first writers to describe the progressive counterweight to the neoconservative movement in Latin America. He cites these reasons: (1) the missionary character of the Peruvian church, which allows progressive enclaves to exist and to flourish; (2) the strength of the progressive church since 1968 (and the Medellín conference); and (3) pressure from a society racked by numerous woes that may force conservatives and moderates to choose positions associated with the progressive church.
Church, Democracy, and National Contexts The foremost achievement of the church in politics in Latin America has been its substantial contribution to the establishment of democracy. Samuel Huntington assesses the church's influence as second only to socioeconomic development as the strongest factor in the turn to democracy in the 1980s.(23)
This contribution has been especially evident in Chile and Brazil. For Chile, Stewart-Gambino describes the effective role of the bishops and John Paul II as mediators and moderators in the exceedingly difficult compromises necessary for coalitions to defeat Pinochet and to establish a unitary oppositional force to dictatorship in the country. For Brazil, Della Cava judges: "There is absolutely no doubt that in their moment of unity in the early and mid-1970s the Vatican, the Brazilian episcopacy, the network of CNBB intermediate organizations as Pastoral Commission for Land (CPT), and the priests, nuns, laity, and poor of the 'People's Church' played a crucial role in augmenting democratic pressures in Brazil."(24)
One can point to neutrality, weakness, and inertia at various points in the defense of human rights by the institutional church and these should not be understated. But in the process of learning how to deal with repressive military governments the institutional church carried on courageous denunciations of episodic and structural injustices. The church helped to delegitimize the arbitrarily assumed and prolonged military governments and helped to force a transition to democracy. The church also fostered and protected democratic structures growing at the grassroots in society, such as basic Christian communities, new social movements, and nongovernmental organizations.
The Chilean church deserves special merit for the role that its bishops played in the drama of the return to democratic party rule long before the wishes of General Pinochet. In the years of the Allende government, the church (despite the reservations of many prelates and lay people about the socialist plans of the government) attempted to maintain the continuance of the system of democratic rule. Some observers have argued that this was the church's finest moment.
After Allende's downfall, the church offered the only safe space in society to groups, such as sports clubs and neighborhood associations, which also allowed political parties to maintain influence and leadership cadres and to communicate policy. After 1983, despite reluctance to enter the political arena, the archbishop of Santiago fostered the tortuous process of dialogue necessary to lead to an alliance of political parties. Pope John Paul II in word and symbol threw his weight toward the restoration of the party system of democracy in Chile. On numerous occasions the church acted as mediator and at a few crucial times moderator, as well.
The period from the 1970s on marks a clear turn in the history of the Catholic church from its previous ambiguous or clouded record in dealing with authoritarian governments in Latin America and elsewhere.(25) Nonetheless, acknowledgment of this key role by the church in Latin America has been slow, especially among observers of the Protestant expansion in Latin America. Some of these observers point to the democratizing influence of Protestantism or Pentecostalism in Latin America in contrast to their presumptions of the ineffectiveness of Catholicism in dealing with democracy.
Some observers expect the church to recede from the public arena as political parties and other civic organizations take their rightful place there. If that occurs the church's most important role in future politics may be a continuance of its status as mediator, moderator, or mentor of democracy.
When military rule controlled most Latin American countries, a similarity of church and politics in varying national contexts was presumed to exist. Since then great differences between countries in degrees or stages of democracy have become increasingly clear. These cultural differences affect the church and the various roles it is called upon to play. First, the ability to discuss without penalty basic issues of society, such as who shall benefit from services governments provide and the proper role of the military in civil affairs, forms the basis of democracy and is shown not to exist in some countries with the facade of elected presidents and congresses. Civic culture, which affirms or denies support for democratic institutions (as basic trust in the legal system), also varies from country to country. Intermediate structures (parties, unions, national commercial associations) have to be functioning as instruments to articulate the demands of elite members and people at the grassroots. Finally, popular organizations and movements of citizens greatly enhance the experience and benefits of democratic life. Leftist sociopolitical options and the current role of the military are secondary considerations.
Debating Major Issues
Fundamental to democracy is the capacity in a given society for citizens to debate major issues of the society in a public forum. In Central America (Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador) the absence of the capacity to carry on this debate has been a major issue. In Central America one hears: "La democracia es un engaño." (Democracy is a deceit.) To rely for analysis on the technical aspects of democracy (such as free elections to the presidency and to congress), as many analysts do, is far too narrow a criterion of democracy. Perspectives of the broadest possible scope, including We ability to debate underlying societal issues, such as land tenure, the function and performance of military forces in internal security, distributive justice and which social groups should benefit most from the political system, and administration of justice with equality before the law, are needed to judge the condition of democracy in a country.
One may argue that in Nicaragua political life and relations among political actors have definitively been altered.(26) In Guatemala and El Salvador major issues are excluded from public debate and to discuss them invites death. These issues include: unfavorably representing presidential policy or conduct; reports about specific military or police personnel responsible for human rights violations; reports on large land holdings; investigations into governmental corruption; military involvement in drug traffic; and the benefits and economic structures controlled by the military. Instead of criticism and analysis, there are daily reports of terror. The president and the congress, the press and university and labor representatives may denounce events; they may not point to underlying causes or perpetrators. Thus Guatemalans and El Salvadorans do not have as yet a democratic method of government, that is, an opposition free to discuss the major issues of society. Against the backdrop of the struggles between capitalist/landholders and the marginalized groups, the electoral process and largely sham presidential-congressional interactions are weak measures unlikely to produce definitive results.(27)
The Guatemalan bishops, as their pastoral letters demonstrate, understand that the fundamental obstacle to change in Central America is the entrenched power of oligarchies and their domination of the mechanisms of legitimization. The dominant bishops in Nicaragua, by contrast, never seemed to understand the need to challenge the oligarchical system that supported the Somozas and to establish a more representative political environment.
The leading contemporary, progressive episcopal conferences (Guatemala, Bolivia, and Brazil) are marked by an ability to understand the underlying issues of the democracies in their countries, including the participation by networks of citizens in building up the grassroots structures of civic society, provision of basic public services (as sanitation, health, and schooling), the representation of class interests in public debate, and the acceptance of political conflict in the public arena within tolerable limits. By contrast, the Peruvian episcopacy spent much political currency in a fight over peripheral religious controversies associated with candidates for a presidency. The bishops would have promoted more fundamental change through measures Or the establishment of a working democracy, one including grassroots movements.
Civic Culture
A further consideration for functioning democracy in a country is the rooting of a strong civic culture. The contrast between Chile and Peru says much about the variations in national political cultures and the responses that might be called forth by church bodies. The accounts of Hannah Stewart-Gambino and Jeffrey Klaiber in this volume have to be read against differing histories in Chile and Peru and differing views in those countries of what a person in society is, how one responds to civil law, and how power is manipulated in the political system. Peruvians often find themselves oppressed by police and military applying arbitrary measures to control corruption or guerrilla activity. Chileans debate with profound conviction the necessity to punish military officials for offenses committed during military rule as a means of reestablishing the rule of law, not primarily as retribution. For Chileans one of the primary tasks after the election of a civilian president was restoring the credibility of the court system of law.
Tina Rosenberg offers one way to describe differences in viewpoint of persons in differing civic cultures: those of citizens (Chile) versus inhabitants (Peru). Citizens, she says, believe the political system offers them a voice and a way to satisfy basic needs. Citizens attempt to solve everyday problems through civic institutions; they settle disputes through the judicial system, not through private violence. They trust in a rule of law and abide by the rules of the political game. For them, power is less important than law. Inhabitants by and large do not trust in civic institutions and do not resort to the justice system. They use bribes to influence officials and habitually seek brokers to manipulate bureaucratic regulations.(28) The church in Chile has the luxury of debating whether to back away from politics because of the strength of its civic culture. The churches in many other Latin American countries where persons are more inhabitants than citizens have a number of potential political functions to play, such as tutoring for democratic roles, helping to foster respect for rules by which justice can be achieved, framing debates about civil society in terms of rights and obligations, and acting as voice of persons notably excluded from the benefits of society.
Intermediate Structures
The presence of intermediate structures that function effectively in society, such as unions, professional groups, the press, and universities, helps to articulate demands and to express the interests of various groups in society. Stewart-Gambino shows Chile as a society with an effervescence of political parties, unions, and other associations representing the spectrum of interests in the country and with universities and press free to express themselves. Church groups there, contrary to Brazil, are not reported as considering sponsorship of their own parties or unions. The Chilean church helped to ensure the institutionalization of parties, unions, and associations that have their own autonomy.
Bruneau, Hewitt, and Drogus generally portray Brazil in an intermediate position. Brazil has parties and unions that represent large groups of middle-class and stable working populations but lacks adequately organized representation for many other groups. The Brazilian church attempts political advocacy for major groups, such as the millions of landless persons through, for example, Pastoral da Terra.
At the other end of the spectrum is Guatemala, lacking in intermediate structures sufficient to support a democracy. Guatemala suffers not only a lack, but an intolerance, of parties and unions that have attempted to represent other than the controlling interests. Hundreds of centrist party and union officials have been murdered, and the press and the universities have been muzzled. In such a society in need of structures of democracy and a culture to support them, the church has a far more difficult task than in Chile, and one that has left a long list of threats, murders, and exiles,(29)
Are all classes represented well in society? Fundamental to understanding the church's interest in this issue is the major debate that has raged over the mission of the church, the image of the church that best expresses its self-understanding and that controls to some extent how it will act in society.(30) As stated at Medellín and repeated by many national episcopal conferences, the church has a preferential option for the poor. This would appear to be a clear mandate, but the neoconservative movement has attempted to cast doubt on this option by emphasizing the church's "universal call" to all classes.
Here the actions and contemporary thrust of the Brazilian church may count for a great deal. This church has been one of the bellwethers for the Latin American church, first in justice issues and second in specific concern for groups and persons marginalized in society.(31)
Bruneau, Hewitt, and Drogus assure us that the Brazilian church will not abandon "its justice orientation" nor its special attention to the poor. At the same time they point to a "spiritualizing" tendency in Brazilian Catholicism. Bruneau and Hewitt call this a "devotional" tendency; Drogus describes the trend as one emphasizing the "sacramental and liturgical." Pressed for further explanation, Bruneau and Hewitt point to a trend toward a widening of the gap between religion and politics in Brazil. Bruneau and Hewitt reject the secularization theory in the sense of the diminishing, even disappearing, of religion. Religion flourishes in Brazil, they believe. But as Brazil becomes a more industrialized society (with the world's tenth largest economy), religion and politics will occupy increasingly separated spaces. Hewitt explains that religion in Brazil is becoming more like that of Europe and Canada, increasingly observant of a wall between the two institutions. The thrust of the Brazilian church will be proselytization and evangelization with less political overtones than in the past. Bruneau changes the metaphor: "The religious window will be wide and evident in Brazilian culture and less overlapping with the political window. What the Brazilian church is doing is rearranging itself within the religious picture."(32)
Regarding the other church most closely associated with liberation theology, that of Peru, Klaiber shows that for priests working in the slums distinctions such as Bruneau and Hewitt describe are impossible to make. These priests are described as carrying on a variety of activities with the poor, doing whatever comes along that is necessary to promote life in difficult circumstances.
Further, in many countries of Latin America the church may have to reprise its role of "voice of the voiceless," not as spokesperson against repressive military governments but as the voice of millions who are falling through the cracks of the economic and political systems.
Grassroots Movements
Often hidden from the view of travellers and ignored by social scientists who focused on elite group leaders, grassroots movements have helped to change the face of Latin American politics and religion through the years. These groups, their ideologies, and their links to larger units of society and to the church have been emphasized in recent research as "new social movements" in Latin America .(33) As made clear in the previous chapters in this book, these groups in Latin America are key to understanding the disparities of political response in a complex organization.
The social movements (which are much wider than church-sponsored ones) and the Catholic church itself have been depicted as helping to transform Latin America. The transformation began in Brazil and Chile at mid-century (before Vatican II) and in many other countries through the 1960s and 1970s.(34) Ordinary men and women, typically with the encouragement of priests and other church workers, began organizing a large part of their religious and civic activities through small grassroots communities, often with political consequences.
Along with social movements and base Christian communities, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) form part of the ferment of the social and economic organization taking place at the grassroots. These groups number from two hundred to over a thousand in most Latin American countries.(35) Often established in response to military repression or natural disaster, these organizations continue to be important in helping to organize the lives of lower-class persons. They often have ties to churches and have created programs with extraordinary range, from lending $US 50-100 to help start a micro-enterprise to teaching environmentally safe small gardening techniques for slum dwellers. These groups have achieved political significance and, as Stewart-Gambino says: (they) "represent a partial transformation of the historical political arena in Chile."
The political implications of these communities and the larger movements of which they are a part gained prominence as direct military rule gripped most Latin American countries. These communities might have remained unnoticed had it not been for the repressive climate and the struggle for human rights in which many communities became embroiled. They became carriers of the symbols of popular resistance and survival.
The churches, local and , national, had to make hard decisions about these groups (often accompanied by threats of death or exile). By defining the space that the base Christian communities occupied as church space and by making public statements on behalf of the rights the groups espoused, the national churches acknowledged the political implications. The Vatican, the CIA, military governments, and many activists in Latin America and North Atlantic countries took notice and began choosing sides. For some base community members the choice was lethal.
These communities occupied a prominent place in the churches studied, with the exception of Cuba. Basic Christian communities among the new social movements became icons, targets, or instruments, depending on one's point of view. The Medellín and Puebla conferences said that basic Christian communities are the preferred strategy of the Latin American church and elevated the communities to "being church," and not just parish, organizations. Esteem for the basic Christian communities, however was not bestowed by many conservative and moderate bishops. Colombian bishops, for example, directed their church through a five-year process of reaffirming the parish as preferred pastoral strategy, deliberately excluding comunidades de base from preferential treatment.
Thousands of community members died at the hands of repressive military governments. But the community movement succeeded in helping to displace repressive governments and to establish elective governments in their countries. Political actors and analysts focused on these communities for their political potential, for example, as surrogate political parties.
Beyond unresearched speculations about the putative political potential of the communities, major figures in the field of religion and politics, such as Levine and Mainwaring, have spent years of carefully attuned research listening to grassroots community members and their motivations.(36) What they discovered and the questions they raised to a large extent corresponds with what Carol Drogus vividly portrays. She finds that members of base Christian communities are primarily driven by religious motivations. The communities are essentially neutral in political orientation and only take on a political character as specific issues arise. These communities do not make good surrogate political parties at the state or national level but have been effective at the local level in addressing a variety of neighborhood, and occasionally citywide, issues. What Drogus has shown highlights the importance of messages and reinterpretations: participants in the active grassroots groups filter the messages communicated. Believers at the grassroots are constantly reinterpreting religious messages to suit their circumstances and needs. Out of such reinterpretations are born changes in popular culture and popular religion and account as well for the disparities in messages held by elites and grassroots members.
The Chilean, Peruvian, and Venezuelan churches whose grassroots activities have been described above will continue, I believe, to be with the poor, focusing on smaller scale politics and working in ways that fit none of the typical political categories.
Great internal changes have occurred in community members in attempting to understand that their religion has social implications. This occurs as a crisis for many. Drogus describes this for base Christian community members as a "revelatory experience, giving them practical skills and opening up a realm of unimagined possibilities for participation in the public arena." True crises demand clear decisions to step in one direction or another, and Drogus notes parish members who turn away from participation in the communities, thinking them communist or Protestant options. A similar empowerment is available for new members of Pentecostal churches who are able to make choices, gain social competence, and find opportunities for treasured expression of deeply felt needs.
Community members are effectively remaking popular culture. These men and women are working hard to reshape religion and culture to meet their needs. Levine describes this as a "search for new coherence driven by men and women making themselves into different individuals and communities; ... What changes is their own sense of self and their capacity to act and to judge.(37) Since society gains long-term effects from changes in popular culture, these changes in individual citizens may be more influential for the course of democracy in Latin America than the explicit activities of electoral government for which popular culture is a kind of subsoil.
However, the crucial question becomes the point of articulation between popular culture increasingly stressing independence and active participation and "viable institutions, such as political parties, that people trust and that serve their needs."(38) Drogus believes it is difficult to show how people becoming organized and empowered in popular circles can reach further into politics and society to have a larger effect.(39) In Brazil, for example, basic Christian communities have not reduced skepticism about electoral politics and national political parties without which representative democracy will not function. Further, the state needs to respond to grassroots demands so that the state becomes "theirs," a part of their lives and expectations. Resolving the debt crisis is crucial; otherwise the achievement of grassroots groups in creating a citizenry will be diminished.(40)
Grassroots membership holds implications not only for civil society but for the church, as well. Several issues, consequences, and general trends are still playing themselves out in Latin America and are subject to speculation. Bruneau, Hewitt, and Drogus have suggested a spiritualizing trend and a growing de-emphasis on these communities in the Brazilian church. Hewitt goes so far as to forecast the demise of these communities.(41) By contrast, Madeleine Adriance and Kevin Neuhouser see these communities as having a momentum of their own.(42)
Given the dynamic nature of popular culture and religion in contrast to the presumptive overwhelming support for traditional ways, one may expect new forms of organizing religious and cultural lives to emerge. Creative pastoral agents in the Brazilian church have been experimenting with a igreja da rua (church in the streets) to reach the multitude of homeless found on the streets of São Paulo. Catholic charismatics may act as bridges to the megachurch model, meeting a variety of needs, from clinics to singles clubs, especially for middle-class Catholics. But above all, competition can serve to breathe new life into the small grassroots church.
Leftist Options and Role of Military
Missing from the case studies in this volume is a discussion of notable pressures from the left. The dismantling of the Soviet political system, the anomaly of Cuban communism, and the partial demise of the Nicaraguan revolution have had a profound effect, yet to be measured, on Latin Americans. Christian intellectuals who sought a "third way" -- not capitalism, not Soviet-style communism -- have been hard pressed to articulate political and economic alternatives. The Christian left is muted in many countries. University students, a major audience for the left, are described as profoundly apathetic to politics and inclined to "individualism."(43) Little is known about the effect of events in Eastern Europe on basic Christian community members who had only vague notions of socialismo.
Cuba stands as an ever more glaring anomaly among Latin American countries. Restrictions are placed upon the church due to Marxist-Leninist directives, reinforced by the efforts of clerics and active Catholics to unseat Castro in the early days of his regime in ways that the government considered seditious. Equally important an issue has been legal and informal restrictions placed upon actively practicing members of the church. Restrictions frequently have been understated in depictions of religion in Cuba. Church-going Catholics have been excluded from mainstream schools and other channels that lead to upward mobility in occupation and income. Exclusion of practicing Catholics from Communist party membership, a condition for advancement to many positions in Cuban society, was absolute until the Party Congress of 1991.
Nonetheless, to stress restrictions overlooks the subtle and highly delicate history of negotiation, accommodation, and adjustment that both the church and state have been making in Cuba. Through those subtle changes, the church has found a place in Cuban society. This place, as John Kirk tells us, has become increasingly visible as younger Cubans, often for the first time, make their way to Catholic and Protestant churches and many more Cubans than ever before choose Christian ceremonies for key moments of their lives. The changes in the Cuban church involved more than hostages accommodating captors. From the grassroots up, the Cuban church went through a process of years of introspection about its mission, previous behavior, and stance toward a revolution with many flaws. Cuban Catholics through ENEC (National Church Congress) chose to try to work with the state, albeit painfully, toward social justice objectives.(44)
Radical Christians point to the Nicaraguan revolution as the only revolution in history, at least in modern times, in which Christians actively participated in a revolution on the basis of their religion. Catholics and Protestants at the grassroots and in elite positions took part in the Nicaraguan revolution to a degree that characterized the revolution as: (1) nationalist, (2) Marxist, and (3) Christian in inspiration. The Nicaraguan revolution did not employ these three elements in equal measure, and many supporters of the Nicaraguan revolutionary process increasingly felt reservations about the Sandinista's authoritarian manner of governing in Nicaragua. Nonetheless Christians in the revolution were supported by thousands more outside the country who were struck by the impact that social Christianity apparently was having.
Partial defeat of the Sandinistas in the elections of 1990 (loss of presidency but not of control over important municipalities and organizations) brought a sense of failure to many participants and a reluctance to discuss further religion and revolutionary options. For other participants, though, their goal was improving the situation for the majority who are poor and their work continues.(45) Overall, participants in the revolution could point to these gains: altered relations of power within the country, extension of education and of medical care to new groups, and more extensive land ownership. Radicals and military leaders, looking on from Guatemala or El Salvador, increasingly found reconciliation and formation of political parties within the system better options than violence.
In the classic conceptualization, the military was an arm of the state. During the 1960s the military in many Latin American countries achieved a degree of autonomy from the state and made itself into a much stronger institutional voice in society, an evolution from the usual fostering of personalistic caudillo leadership. This changing military appeared in many Latin American countries, using its role as árbitro (arbiter of the constitution) and creating various doctrines to fit the military's national leadership roles, such as We doctrine of national security.(46) While the military continues to attempt to control the political environment of the state in Guatemala, El Salvador, and to a lesser extent, Honduras, in other countries the military is less evident. But it is never far behind the scenes. In Venezuela, the paragon of Latin American democracy, a military coup attempt in early 1992 showed not only a segment of the military ready to take over government but large segments of the population applauding the effort. In Peru, more than half of the political support of President Fujimori is estimated to come from the military.(47)
The carapintadas (the camouflaged faces) of leaders of military revolts against a civilian president in Argentina was only an outward sign of military discontent with those leaders who sought justice for crimes committed under military governments in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. That the Chilean church has been drawn into that controversy bespeaks a civic culture in which the church has been embedded to a considerable extent. The Chilean church is expected to speak and is given public weight, while Bruneau and Hewitt report that many practicing Catholics in Brazil no longer support the taking of public political positions by the church hierarchy.
The one lesson the Latin American church may have carried away from its long, increasingly acute, and unwanted conflict with the military from the late 1960s to the early 1980s is that the military are constantly learning and attempting to adapt to changing circumstances in society so that institutional size, weight, and strength can be maintained through new rationales and new strategies. The military remains a forceful actor in Latin American politics, maintaining a large share of national expenditures, despite economic hard times.
Pentecostals and Competition In their analyses of religion and politics in Latin America, social scientists seldom included Protestants, except as participants in episodic events. But, as this survey recounts, the flooding of Protestants through Latin America has reached a point where the strong presence of Protestants cannot be ignored. For every practicing Catholic in Brazil, Chile, and Guatemala there is, most likely, an equal or greater number attending Protestant or native religious services. As early as 1982 Bruneau pointed out that the Brazilian bishops were coming to realize the "religion practiced by the majority of the population is not that promoted by the institution, a point dramatized by the rapid growth of other religious movements-particularly Protestant sects and spirit -possession cults."(48)
How large is the growth of Protestants? Exaggerated estimates, favored by partisan missionary spokespersons, describe Guatemala as 50 percent Protestant by 1990 and other countries following closely behind this exponential growth. For a single index of Protestant growth, David Barrett, editor of World Christian Encyclopedia, recommends the estimates of Protestant representation in Latin America and the Caribbean made by Patrick Johnstone in various editions of Operation World.(49) Among the countries studied, the estimates of Protestants are: Chile, 22 percent; Guatemala, 20; Brazil, 17; Nicaragua, 9; Peru, 4; Venezuela 3; and Cuba, 2. If the practicing Catholic population is about 10 to 15 percent, as is commonly believed, then it is clear why "church-growth" enthusiasts (a school of thought centered in Fuller Seminary, Pasadena, California) speak of campos blancos -- wide fields of opportunity for conversion of the majority of Latin Americans -- a religiously inert group who are Catholic by culture but not by active participation as well as formerly active Catholics disillusioned by the changes in their church.
Bruneau and Hewitt view the Brazilian Catholic church as still possessing a religious hegemony over 80 percent of the population but as having its religious monopoly seriously threatened by evangelical growth. Even though large numbers of Brazilians identify themselves as Catholics, the growth rate among Protestants is nearly double that of Catholics. In Peru, Klaiber notes the newly prominent place of evangelicals in public life, and in Venezuela, Froehle recalls a recent period of evangelical growth from 47,000 to half a million members in 14 years.
In some cases this Protestant growth has been fostered by governments displeased with the performance of the Catholic church in human rights. Chile's military government, under President Pinochet, opened the military to Pentecostal evangelization efforts, extended social benefits to Protestant ministers, and held a major ceremonial occasion, Acción de Gracias, in the largest Pentecostal church in Chile. Guatemala's military gave Pentecostal and other Protestants favored places in resettlement and other government projects while excluding Catholics.
For the most part the segment of Protestantism attracting the largest number of converts is Pentecostalism. In the past, sociologists constructed theories to explain this growth in Latin America as churches offering "havens Or the masses," Froehle's evidence contradicts this point of view, as does evidence from Guatemala. Rather, as Levine remarks, it is also the long-time urban residents with property that Pentecostalism attracts.(50)
Further, one can no longer speak of Pentecostalism as a unitary phenomenon. Neopentecostalism is a rapidly growing segment of the Pentecostal wing proven to be especially attractive to the middle and upper levels of society. Many Neopentecostals are said to expect health and wealth from the hand of God. Neopentecostalism has a different history and differing emphases from classic Pentecostalism.
The key assumption made by many theologians and church growth advocates, that Catholicism declines as Protestantism advances, is not verified by the research. ne Catholic church is enjoying an awakening to a degree unknown in contemporary history. The seminaries in most countries are filled or are nearing capacity. Millions of lay persons perform active roles in the institutional church. Hundreds of lay movements within the Catholic church mimic the hundreds of non-Catholic churches. To a considerable extent Catholic lay movements compete directly with nonCatholic churches for the loyalties of Latin Americans. Aggressive lay Catholics may be found knocking on the same doors as non-Catholics.
For many middle- and upper-class Latin Americans whose preference is for a religion practiced without the scrutiny of neighbors, it has come as an unwelcome intrusion to receive ten or fifteen invitations, often with social pressure, from persons in the neighborhood to attend their churches, including the Catholic parish. An effect of Pentecostal competition and Catholic response has been the movement of religious convictions into much greater public view in recent years.(51)
For persons whose interest is the Christian enterprise rather than denominational gain, this enlivening of religion in Latin America is a win-win situation. But this would downplay a strong sense of competition. "We [Protestants and Catholics] steal from one another's nominal members" remarks Clifton Holland after reflecting for many months on statistics reported to him from Central America.(52) Intense and unfriendly competition has reduced gains in ecumenism noted in the 1970s.
Many former Protestants, a category only faintly understood, can be found in Latin America. Pentecostals, as well as Catholics, recruit these former members of Protestant churches. Virginia Burnett noted a marked change in Guatemala as Pentecostals took many of their converts born former members of other Protestant churches instead of from former Catholics.(53) Of special concern are former church members who have gone through an emotional maelstrom of the religious experiences available in many churches and have emerged disoriented or burned out.
When considering why so many Catholics, nominal or active, convened to Protestantism, one cannot assume that converts sought in their new religion a change while Catholicism had remained static. In fact, changes in Catholicism pushed Catholics seeking a religion emphasizing mysticism toward Pentecostal churches. In sum, a marketplace of lively religion exists in Latin America, and Latin Americans, having few restraints, choose more freely than ever the religion with the emphases closest to their own preferences.
The freer competition points out theological or cultural constraints that bind Catholicism in its competition with Pentecostalism. Three restraints are noteworthy. The first restraint is scarce resources, especially in the number of priests. The recent increases in the number of seminary students is not nearly enough to satisfy the enormous needs of the large and ever-growing Latin American population. Not only have priests been in short supply but the scarcity is likely to continue due to lack of flexibility in recruitment and training. Six years of advanced education and a separate culture are required for candidates to the priesthood in societies where literacy is far from universal or where unmarried life is not well understood. Pentecostal ministers require a much shorter education, received in short courses while one exercises ministry in apprenticeship stages and family life continues. The Pentecostal pattern of becoming and being a minister is much closer to that of the numerous semi-educated preachers who formed the backbone of the growth of religion in the North American frontier.
The resulting multiplication of non-Catholic ministers means that in some urban settlements or rural parishes a single priest has to counter the efforts of 25 to 40 competing ministers. In a section of Guatemala City where 55 percent of the population is non-Catholic, Father James Scanlon reported feelings of belonging to a minority religion, "of being suffocated by storefront churches on all sides." In assessing the magnitude of priests to non-Catholic ministers in Guatemala, I estimate about one priest for every eight non-Catholic ministers; I presume that imbalance is becoming commonplace in other countries.
Another restraint on the performance of the Catholic church is the "foreign factor" in countries where the majority of clergy are foreign-born, such as Venezuela, Peru, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, leaving them to suffer the weaknesses of "missionary" churches, as Klaiber describes them.
Further, the Catholic church is often hampered by another important inflexibility, that of As organizational structure. The Christian church took almost a thousand years to refine the idea of the parish as the basic local unit and point of contact for its members. Catholics (and historical Protestant churches) are unlikely to create an innovation to take its place. Thus the Catholic church marks its maps with parish boundaries while the evangelical world sees no similar limits and multiplies congregations along the lines of the black church in the United States, with loyalty to pastor and preference for ritual style but with hardly any regard for territorial exclusivity. This gives evangelical and Pentecostal pastors the capability of locating with flexibility and of concentrating buildings and personnel in places where newcomers find themselves rebuilding their lives through new associational ties.
Nonetheless, the lack of flexibility in clergy and organizational structures in the Catholic church can be overemphasized. Priests, such as Scanlon in Guatemala City, have shown themselves capable of mobilizing hundreds of lay persons to extend the outreach of the Catholic church and to return significant numbers (1,800 in one year in Scanlon's parish) to the practice of Catholic religion. Clifton Holland believes this lay outreach and revitalization efforts among lay Catholics working with priests have "stemmed the tide of Protestant growth in Central America." Hence, studies of the Protestant explosion will need a parallel understanding of the reactions and reshaping of Catholicism.
Contemporary Catholics active in the awakening of Catholicism are not typically traditional laypersons passively responding to mobilization efforts of their pastors, but persons who have internalized their religion often through a sustained small group experience as part of a larger grassroots movement. Through study they have formed their convictions on shared scriptural reflections and, through interaction with evangelical neighbors, have learned to express reasons for their beliefs. Intense competition has added urgency to the pastoral mandates of the Medellín and Puebla conferences for pastoral de cojuncto -- joint ministry of priests and layperson -- as the preferred strategy of the Latin American church.
A slower rate of growth but one of considerable magnitude signals the strong Protestant presence in Central America, and no guarantee exists that the rate of growth will not again accelerate. But, as Levine argues, observers would be better off if they forgot numbers and concentrated on the larger dynamics of the religious situation in Latin America.(54)
Conclusion Religion as part of Latin American culture is changing and adapting; it forms part of the dynamics of society and politics. Religion has not disappeared but flourishes with changing faces -- many more Pentecostals are now evident and the Catholic presence is more vivid.
Latin Americans, often motivated by new Catholic and Pentecostal messages, are forging new associational ties and gaining new political skills at the grassroots. They also have a new firmness of purpose. They have capitalized on their new ties to build a myriad of lower-level movements, limited to localities or single purposes. They suffer the agony of being dependent on political parties for articulation of their interests. Many grassroots needs are not well met by contemporary governments.
Other Latin Americans, working at elite levels as politicians, planners, and economic elites, struggle to find an economic basis Or government in increasingly technological societies. They may succeed in creating new forms of governments besides democracy -- as yet without a name -- forms better-suited to the situation of Latin America in the sociopolitical environment of the 1990s. It is a creative agony, and the church, too, searches for its place.
Notes Comments that were especially useful in the shaping of this chapter were made by Daniel Levine, Hannah Stewart-Gambino, Thomas Bruncau, James Malloy, Eduardo Gamarra, and Carol Drogus. Special gratitude is expressed to Gaddis Smith, director, and Nancy Ruther, associate director, of the Yale Council for International and Areas Studies, and to the community of St. Mary Priory, New Haven, for offering a congenial environment.
1. The three prevailing theoretical approaches are well described by Robert Wuthnow, "Understanding Religion and Politics," Daedalus (Summer 1991), pp. 1-20. See also, Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988).
2. Edward Cleary, "The Vitality of Religion in a Changing Context," Latin American and Caribbean Contemporary Record, vol 8, (New York: Holmes and Meier, in press).
3. See, for example, Boletin Teológico, 23,4 (December 1991), entire issue dedicated to evangelicals and politics in Latin America; and Diana D.G. Brown, Umbanda: Religion and Politics in Brazil (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1986).
4. See especially, Daniel H. Levine, Popular Voices in Latin American Catholicism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992); and Levine and Scott Mainwaring, "Religion and Popular Protest in Latin America: Contrasting Experiences," in Susan Eckste" ed., Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 203-240.
5. Levine, "Protestants and Catholics in Latin America: A Family Portrait," paper prepared for Conference on Fundamentalisms Compared,The Fundamentalism Project, University of Chicago, November 1991, pp. 21-22.
6. Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano, Hacia un mapa pastoral de América Latina (Bogotá: CELAM, 1987) p. 437.
7. Levine, "Protestants," pp. 29-30.
8. Levine develops argumentation and presents research findings in his Popular Voices, which complements perspectives portrayed in this volume.
9. On the progressive church see especially, Mainwaring and Alexander Wilde,"The Progressive Church," in Mainwaring and Wilde, eds., The Progressive Church in Latin America (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), pp. 1-37.
10. Mainwaring, "Democratization, Socioeconmic Disintegration, and the Latin American Churches after Puebla," in Cleary, ed., Born of the Poor: The Latin American Church since Medellin (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, Press, 1990), p. 144.
12. See, for example, Ralph Della Cava, "The 'People's Church,' the Vatican, and Abertura," in Alfred Stepan, Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 143-167.
13. For a view of the neoconservative challenge, see Mainwaring and Wilde, pp. 29-32.
14. Della Cava, "The 'People's Church,"' pp. 153-154.
15. Della Cava, "The 'People's Church,"' pp. 159-160.
16. See, for example, Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Restoration (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981)
17. Interviews, Raul Davila, Sept 14,1988 and Luis Ugalde, March 12,1989.
18. Venezuelan Bishops Conference, "The Church Speaks for the Unemployed," (1986) and "They Will Build Their Houses and Live in Them," (1987) in Cleary, ed., Path from Puebla: Significant Documents of the Latin American Bishops since 1979 (Washington, D.C.: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1988), pp. 313-320 and 321-329.
19. Interview, Sept. 25, 1991.
20. Thomas Quigley, Office of International Justice and Peace, U. S. Catholic Conference, interview, Sept. 23,1991.
21. Philip Berryman, interview, Oct. 14,1991.
22. Andrew Greeley, "Who Are the Catholic Conservatives?" America (Sept. 21, 1991), pp. 158-162.
23. Huntington, "Religion and the Third Wave," The National Interest (Summer 1991), p. 35.
24. Della Cava in "The 'People's Church,'" p. 162.
25. For a summary and references on the church's past record, see Brian H. Smith, The Church and Politics in Chile: Challenges to Modern Catholicism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 283.
26. Edelberto Torres-Rivas, Repression and Resistance: The Struggle for Democracy in Central America (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989), p. 150.
27. Jeffrey Stark, "Going for Baroque: Ways of Thinking about Democracy in Latin America," Journal of Interamerican Studies 31, 1 (Spring 1991), p. 175.
28. Tina Rosenberg, "Beyond Elections," Foreign Policy 84 (Fall 1991), pp. 77-78.
29. See especially, Robert Carmack, ed., Harvest of Violence: The Mayan Indians and the Guatemalan Crisis (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1988); and Dorma Whitson Brett and Edward T. Brett, Murdered in Central America: The Stories of Eleven U.S. Missionaries (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988).
30. For an important discussion on this aspect of the analysis of the church, see Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1916-1985 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986), pp. 3-7.
31. Brazilian Catholics through several movements called attention to educating "non-persons" to facilitate taking their place in modern society. See, for example, works of Paulo Freire, especially, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1981).
32. Interviews, Sept. 16 and 17,1991.
33. See especially Susan Eckstein, ed., Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); David Slater, ed., New Social Movements and the State in Latin America (Amsterdam: CEDLA, 1985); and Diane Davis, review of Eckstein, Journal of Interamerican Studies 31, 4 (Winter 1989), pp. 225-234.
34. See, for example, Huntington, "Religion."
35. Interview, Brian Smith, January 29,1992.
36. Daniel H. Levine, "Popular Groups," pp. 718-764; Levine and Mainwaring, "Religion and Popular Protest," pp. 203-240; and Mainwaring, "Grassroots Popular Groups and Politics in Brazil," in Mainwaring and Wilde, The Progressive Church, pp. 151-192.
37. Levine, "Popular Groups," p. 759.
38. Carol Drogus, private communication, Nov. 2,1991.
40. David Lehmann argues that without institutionalization of mechanisms of access to the state by grassroots groups, democracy will be weakened, not strengthened. See his Democracy and Development in Latin America: Economics, Politics, and Religion in the Post-War Period (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), p. 206.
41. Hewitt, Base Christian Communities and Social Change in Brazil (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), p. 108.
42. Adriance, Opting for the Poor: Brazilian Catholicism in Transition (Kansas City, Mo.: Sheed and Ward, 1986); and Neuhouser, "The Radicalization of the Brazilian Catholic Church in Comparative Perspective," American Sociological Review 54 (April 1989), pp. 233-244.
43. David Miller, "Latin American Students Giving Up Political Activism, Turning Inward," Pulse 26,19 (Oct. 11, 1991), pp. 2-3.
44. See "National Encounter of the Cuban Church," in Cleary, Path from Puebla: Significant Documents of the Latin American Bishops since 1979 (Washington, D.C.: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1988), pp. 91-99.
45. Rafael Aragón and Eberhard Loschcke, La iglesia de los pobres en Nicaragua: Historia y perspectivas (Managua: n.p., 1991).
46. See the helpful discussion of military doctrine and discourse in Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Miltary Politics: Brazil and Southern Cone (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988). See also the church's reaction to military doctrine in the 1970s and early 1980s in Cleary, Crisis and Change: The Church in Latin America Today (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1985), pp. 157-159.
47. Interview with James Malloy, co-director of a large-scale study of political elites in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador; February 15, 1992.
48. Bruneau, The Church in Brazil: The Politics of Religion (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982), p. 151.
49. See David Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?: The Politics of Evangelical Growth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 333-334.
50. Daniel H. Levine, "Protestants," p. 18. Philip Williams reported similar findings in a study in El Salvador in 1991-1992. (Williams, interview, Jan. 20,1992.)
51. In many rural areas residents know the religion of everyone else within a community, and this knowledge became the basis of persecution as informers for repressive military or paramilitary forces pointed to catequistas (Catholic activists) as dangerous; most evangélicos (Protestants) as safe; and los de la costumbre (followers of the Indian religious customs) as probably alright.
52. Interviews, Oct. 30,1990 and Jan. 17,1991.
53. Virginia Gerrard Burnett, "A History of Protestantism in Guatemala," Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1986, pp. 190-191.
54. Levine, "Protestants," p. 32.
INDEX