Christian Soldiers March on Latin America Merrill Collett he Spanish conquest of Latin America was both a reli- New Protestant preachers spring from the ranks of these gious and a political mission. King Ferdinand and converts, while the number of Catholic priests declines. In some T Queen Isabella—Spain's "Catholic Monarchs"—set out parishes there is only one priest for as many as 10,000 par- to evangelize, as well as colonize, the New World. After the ishioners. Not only has the Vatican lost its religious monopoly conquistadors conquered the Indians, the clerics converted them in Latin America, but there is fear that Catholicism could in mass baptisms that made a whole continent Catholic in less become a minority religion. "The springtime of the sects could than a century. also be the winter of the Catholic Church," warned the Brazilian Four centuries after the consolidation of the Spanish Ameri- archbishop Lucas Moreira Neves. can empire, a new wave of Christian soldiers is rolling over Protestantism reached the Latin American mainland in the the region. Supplied with money and materiel from the United 1700s, when British planters migrated from the western Carib- States Bible Belt and armed with the latest merchandising and bean islands to the Atlantic Coast of the Central American media techniques, evangelical Christians are taking Latin isthmus. They were followed by English-speaking missionaries America by storm. One-third of the world's Protestant mis- of the Moravian Church, a German-Czech spinoff of the Refor- sionaries are now deployed over the southern half of this mation. The Moravian missionaries settled among the coastal hemisphere. Faith-healing, Bible-thumping preachers fill soccer Indians and remained isolated from the Spanish-speaking peo- stadiums from Santiago to San Salvador. ples of the rest of the region. The Catholic hierarchy didn't Like the Catholic priests of imperial Spain, the evangelical face a real challenge to its hegemony until the independence missionaries combine Christian duty with defense of empire. movement erupted in the early nineteenth century. These were the twin purposes of the "gospel invasion" of Jamaica Only a few Catholic clergy embraced the cause of indepen- (July 8 to 19) announced in 1987 by United States evangelist dence. The rest allied themselves with local landed oligarchs Lowell Lundstrom. Lundstrom rallied his troops with the threat against the rebels, and this proved to be a very costly alliance that "ours could be the last major Christian offensive in Jamaica" for the clergy. After the independence armies defeated Spain, if approaching elections threw out the conservative government their leaders turned on the church. They expropriated church of Edward Seaga, Ronald Reagan's closest ally in the Caribbean. property, imposed secular government, abolished ecclesiastical Lundstrom warned in a fund-raising letter that Seaga's "pro- courts, and invited United States Protestants to send mission- Christian and pro-U.S." political party was losing popularity aries. to the "strongly socialistic" opposition party. The mainline denominations weren't quick to respond. Lundstrom's gospel invaders never hit the beach at Montego Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist missionaries preferred to Bay. They were blown out of the water by the shocked reaction preach to the "heathens" of Africa and Asia than to the Catho- in Jamaica to the sharply partisan tone of his fund-raising letter, lics of Latin America, who were already at least nominally which made it clear that Lundstrom was more interested in Christians. But new fundamentalist sects were rising out of saving Seaga's pro-Reagan government than in saving souls. America's nineteenth-century religious revival, and they were Although this battalion of Christian soldiers was forced back full of religious fervor. They set out to convert everyone, to the barracks, the evangelical army continues to advance. especially those in the grip of "Romanism." Writing from There were only 50,000 Protestants in Latin America at Guatemala, pioneer evangelical missionary Cyrus Scofield urged the turn of the century. Today there are at least 30 million, a greater effort to challenge the "utterly debased and idolatrous" and that number is increasing at the rate of 15 percent a year, Latin American Catholic church.' according to a 1986 Catholic church report. Four hundred Latin American Catholics convert every hour, 3.5 million every year. he results of those early efforts could be seen one hundred T years later, in November 1982, when Protestant funda- Merrill Collett is an award-winning investigative journalists mentalists held a rally in Guatemala City to celebrate their who reports on Latin America for the Washington Post and Central American centennial. The turnout was truly impressive. other newspapers and magazines. He lives in Venezuela and Over half a million people came to hear Argentinian evangelist has studied American affairs at Stanford University, Johns Luis Palau extol Guatemala's military dictator, a born-again Hopkins University, and Cornell University. general named Efrain Rios Montt. Rios Montt had taken power the previous March, claiming divine guidance. "I have con- Fall 1988 37 fidence in my God, my master and my king, that He will guide they withdrew from the political arena. Now they have returned me, because only He can grant or take away power," the general with reinforcements. A determined Christian Right is out to told a national television audience on the night of his coup.3 organize America's 60 million conservative Christians into a Rios Montt had been converted by a tiny northern Cali- powerful voting bloc united around laissez-faire capitalism at fornia sect that arrived in Guatemala after the 1976 earthquake. home and militant anti-communism abroad. The sect was called Gospel Outreach, and it saw the earthquake Evangelical foreign policy derives from a formula that as a chance to preach the word while passing out relief supplies. equates true religion with America itself. Literally applying the The word was that God had ordered the earthquake to shake language of the New Testament, fundamentalists identify the Guatemala out of sin. Guatemalans listened closely. Living in United States as "new Israel" and see themselves as the new a war-torn, impoverished country where diarrhea is a leading chosen people. It follows that the enemies of America are the cause of death and the daily caloric intake is lower than any- enemies of God. "Godless communism" is the greatest enemy where else in the hemisphere except Haiti, they could easily of all. Communism not only combines atheism and anti- believe they were part of a larger plan of punishment. The Americanism, but holds as its fundamental principle the En- lightenment notion that humans can be perfected—an outright "It is the poor who are flocking to fundamentalists. heresy. Thus communism is anathema; communist states are Trapped in misery, they look for escape through faith- part of an "evil empire"; and communist guerrillas are the earthly fealing, speaking in tongues, ecstatic religious expe- agents of the devil. riences, self-flagellation, or just uniting in prayer with There were communist guerrillas in Guatemala when Rios Montt took over. Guatemala was nearing a quarter-century fellow believers." of insurgency that began after the CIA overthrew a legitimately elected, reform-minded government in 1954. Every Guatemalan message that the next world was better than this one was very government thereafter required military approval. But although good news indeed. the top brass ran the country, they couldn't seem to eliminate In Guatemala, and in the rest of Latin America, the evan- the insurgents. Then came Rios Montt. With church elders gelical movement extends into all social classes, but it is the at his elbow as government advisors, he ordered out the army poor who are flocking to the fundamentalists. Trapped in in what amounted to a holy war against the Red Menace. misery, they look for escape through faith-healing, speaking He called it "a policy of scorched communists." in tongues, ecstatic religious experiences, self-flagellation, or But thousands of Indian villagers, not leftist insurgents, just uniting in prayer with fellow believers. The number of turned up dead. Government aide Francisco Bianchi—admini- potential converts is enormous. There are 60 million people strator of the Gospel Outreach church in Gautemala City— in the region living precariously from one day of poverty to explained this to an investigator from the U.S. human rights the next. The Christian Right that took root in the American group Americas Watch. "The guerrillas won over many Indian Bible Belt is spreading its seeds over fertile soil south of the collaborators," Bianchi said. "Therefore the Indians were sub- border. versives, right? And how did you fight subversion? Clearly you In 1976, the year of the earthquake, the number of evan- had to kill Indians because they were collaborating with sub- gelicals in Guatemala rose by 14 percent. The number jumped version."5 again in 1982, when Rios Montt staged his coup. For the first The slaughter was "systematic and cold-blooded," Americas time, a Protestant fundamentalist had become a Latin American Watch reported. The Guatemalan bishops' conference warned chief of state. The missionaries were delighted. Florida preacher that "never in our history have such extremes been reached, Hap Brooks told a United States interviewer that the coup with the assassinations now falling into the category of geno- was "the greatest miracle of the twentieth century, formed in cide."6 Among those slain were several activist Catholic priests heaven before it was formed on earth."4 and hundreds of catechists. But the Rios Montt regime wasn't The policies of the seventeen-month-long Rios Montt regime the first to attack progressives in the Guatemalan Catholic reveal much about the political agenda of the evangelical move- church.