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85
Latin American Pentecostals: Their Potential for
Ecumenical
Dialogue
Everett A. Wilson*
Latin American Pentecostalism,
despite
its rapid
growth,
remains on the
margins
of the church
world,
in need of better
compre- hension of its nature and influences While the
diversity
and spontaneity
of these
aggressive, popular groups
make
any general- ization tentative, the
following
brief assessment
by
Dr. Carmelo Alvarez
captures
much that is commonly held about the movement.2
The writer
correctly
identifies Pentecostals as legitimate descend- ants of the radical Reformation in their
theology
and
polities.
He traces their Latin American
origins
to
insurgencies
within the historic denominations, from whose
juridical
status and social acceptance
adherents have benefited.3 He graciously acknowledges that Pentecostal
growth
has resulted
primarily
from the
groups’ “important soul-winning process”
and concedes that at least in some
instances
these churches have been a “force of the
Spirit,
a movement for the life of the church.”‘
Holding
to a
sanguine hope
for Christian
unity,
Dr. Alvarez limits his
disapproval only
to the Pentecostals’ exclusiveness in life-style
and
worship, practices
that divide and weaken the
already often tenuous Protestant
(Sp.j Port. evangelico) community.
This disruptive defect,
he asserts, is based on misunderstanding, especially the
assumption
that to be ecumenical is to be nonevangelical. Little credence should be
given prejudiced
statements circulated
by manipulative leaders,
Alvarez contends. He believes that the educational
process
has
already begun
to convince some Pente- costals that ecumenical
theology
is both biblical and
evangelical. Adherents of the movement need not fear
unity,
an authentic element of the
gospel
and one that their
emphasis
on life in the Spirit, by crossing
sectarian
barriers,
will tend to confirm.
Dr. Alvarez
appears
to have an
appreciation
for the
dynamics
of Pentecostalism.
Perhaps
because of his roots in a denomination of the restorationist tradition
(Disciples
of
Christ),
he understands better than most observers the mentality of Pentecostals
and the energies
released
by their emphases.
If all non-Pentecostals were as sensitive as he to the
compulsions
and
priorities
of these
believers, more could be
accomplished
in
dialogue.5
Ecumenists must be aware that Pentecostals have often encountered categorical rejection
of their
premises,
fear of their
expanding influence,
and belittling
of their efforts and achievements. Confident of the truth and effectiveness of their beliefs, Pentecostals see little need
to
1
86
compromise
their
position
that God’s
power
and
presence may
be demonstrated in the lives of rank and file believers.6
While a full discussion of the causes of Pentecostal
expansion
is
precluded
here
by lack of space,
it would be hard to overemphasize the extent to which the movement is
fragmented, popular,
and spontaneous.7
Far from
originating
as denominationally
sponsored missions and client
churches,
these
groups
have
emerged sui generis as expressions of protest
against
an intolerable existence.8
Despite allegations
that Pentecostals
ignore
social concerns and
discourage political activism,
Pentecostals,
for the most
part originating among
the most humble social
classes,
have undertaken their own resistence to the
prevailing
social
system.9
There is a case to be made for
correlating
Pentecostal
growth
with the social elements evidencing
the most unrelieved
frustration,
and hence the
groups
in Latin America which are most
susceptible
to
religious populism.lo
Beyond seeking
national control of churches-as have
many insurgent
movements in Latin America-Pentecostals have character- istically
built from the
grass roots, adopting patterns
of organization that
permit
broad
participation, gather
a
supportive community, emphasize virility, encourage
emotional
expression, provide discipline and
stability,
and remain
sufficiently adaptable
to relate to the desperate
lives of adherents.”
Popular
accounts from Time magazine’s “Fastest
Growing
Church in the
Hemisphere”
in November, 1962, to Newsweeks “The Protestant Push” in September,
1986, emphasize the Pentecostals’
buoyancy
and resilience. While the
rigorous, legalistic
demands of most
groups may
lead to
high
rates of attrition,
the net increases and
high
morale
suggest
that these communities are a consideration in the of social revolution.
12
major process
From a
barely distinguishable grouping
in the
1930s,
Pente- costals now account for
up
to
three-quarters
of all Latin American Protestants,
most of whom are in
any
event conservative in their beliefs. As early as
1960,
ten
percent
of the Chilean
population
was claimed
by
various Pentecostal churches. Brazilian Pentecostals
.
may
constitute as many as ten
percent
of the
population presently, and Pentecostals in Guatemala and El Salvador are
reported
as making up
an even
larger proportion
of those
populations. 13
The emphasis placed
in some
religious
and secular literature on the massive investments of dollars in these
republics
as evidenced
by media
blitzes,
stadium
crusades,
and
flamboyant
television
evangel- ists is highly
misleading.
The attention
given
to General Jose Efrain Rios Montt
during
his
two-year presidency
of Guatamala is a case in
point.14 Despite
the
publicity given
to his
tiny missionary- sponsored
church in Guatamala
City,
neither Rios Montt nor his group
was
representative
of the
250,000
adult members attributed to Pentecostal churches in the
country.
2
87
formation,
despite
its
,-
essentially religious thrust,
Such an effective tool of
community
owes little to outside assistance. Social
subjective experience, non-Pentecostal
evangelicals
sufficient
more and
scientists who have researched these
groups
are
.
apparently willing
than
religious
observers to
recognize
the
indigenous reconstructive character of Pentecostalism.
Ironically,
the
very features
anthropologists
tend to commend
require
the
emphasis
on
freedom of action and view of
reality
that
are
likely
to
reject! 15
This brief sketch of Pentecostalism in Latin America
ought
to be
to set an
agenda
for constructive
dialogue
between Pentecostals and ecumenical Christians.
First,
there must be
that these
groups,
an identifiable and
legitimate
movement
Latin American societies.
recognition nevertheless the
emergent
represent
otherworldly. They solutions
corrupt politics. is based policies may rejection messiahs
Third,
highly
divided and
autonomous,
in
Pentecostals are not
passive
and
,
Second, despite
the
stereotypes,
are in the movement because
they
have found
to
practical problems. They
themselves are
primary victims of social
oppression, dehumanizing
economic
policies,
and
Their
rejection
of political initiatives for revolution
on their
perception
of
options,
not indifference. Their
be expected to reflect their
marginal
social
status,
their
of short-term solutions, and their
cynicism
of
political
and
temporal ideologies.
Pentecostals are
experiencing rapid growth
and
change.
A number of imponderables,
including
a young median
age, diversity
social
origins,
varied doctrinal
emphases,
and differences in
make the future of these
groups
uncertain. The move- ment has enormous
potential
for constructive influence, but is far
an independent social force. Whether the institution-
to make these churches
politically
effective would undermine their character is worth consideration.
of leadership,
from
becoming alization
necessary
Fourth,
the internal structure democratic,
of these
groups, pragmatic
and .
to the
uncertainty
of
are first
frequently
further contributes
their future. In most
republics
a majority of Pentecostals generation.
Moreover,
while authoritarian
leadership
in the tradition
the
cacique (chief
or
boss)
is widespread,
in the
congregationalism
and freedom
of expression
of
are inherent
most churches.
with Latin American
.
fail
democratic tendencies
of
Pentecostals,
hopefully,
will
Dialogue
continue with
profitable
results. But overtures to these
groups
that
to
acknowledge
their
emphases-emphases
to which Pente- costals attribute
their growth-are likely
to meet with little
positive
in the immediate future.
response
3
88
*Dr.
Wilson,
an Assemblies of God
minister,
serves as Vice
President for Academic Affairs at
Bethany
Bible
College
in Santa Cruz,
California. He holds the Ph.D. in
History
from Stanford University
where he
specialized
in Latin American Studies. He spent
the 1968-69 academic
year
in Latin America and has traveled regularly throughout
Latin America for extended
periods
each
year since.
‘The standard statistical source for Latin American Pentecostals is David B. Barrett, ed., World Christian
Encyclopedia (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1982).
2William Read and
others,
Latin American Church Growth
(Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans,
1969) and C. Peter Wagner,
What Are We Missing? formerly
titled Look Out! The Pentecostals Are
Coming (Carol Stream,
Ill.: Creation House, 1973, 1978) are standard works written
by
non-Pentecostals.
sympathetic
3The
legacy
of nineteenth
century
missions and twentieth
century “Protestant
diplomacy”
is treated in several standard
works, including George
P. Howard,
Religious Liberty
in Latin America?
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1944) and
W. Stanley
Rycroff,
and Faith in Latin America
(Philadelphia:
Westminster
Religion
Press, 1958). John A. Mackay, The Other
Spanish
Christ (New York: Macmillan,
1933) remains
a classic interpretation
of the spiritual condition of Latin America from a
of
sympa- thetic Protestant
viewpoint.
Juridical
aspects religion
and the state are treated in John
Lloyd Mecham,
Church and State in Latin
America, rev. ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1966).
4Assessments of Pentecostal contributions to the
larger picture
of Protestant
evangelization
in Latin America are
infrequent.
W.
Are
Dayton Roberts,
“Latin American Charismatics Here to Stay,” and Orlando Costas,
“Pros and Cons; A Latin American
Theologian
Looks at the Charismatic
Movement,”appeared
in Latin American
Evangelist (March- April, 1977),
10-14. See also, Samuel Escobar, “What’s
Happening
to the Fastest
Growing
Church in the World?” His, 34 (October, 1973), 8-1 1, and Walter J.
Hollenweger,
“After
Twenty
Years’ Research on Pente- costalism,”
International Review of Missions, 75 (January,
1986), 3-12 for similar reflective assessments.
‘
5Fairly frequent
notice has been taken of the
rapid growth
of Latin American Protestantism without
distinguishing clearly
between Pente- costals and other
evangelical
Christians.
Examples
of this
genre
of missionary writing
include R. Kenneth Strachan, “Tomorrow’s Task in Latin
America,” Christianity Today
3:6
(December 22, 1958), 3-6;
C. Stanley Lowell,
“New Protestantism in Latin America,”
Christianity Today,
“4:8 (January 18, 1960), 9-12; and Willard F. Jabusch, “Protestants in Latin America,” Commonweal, 72 (September
6, 1960) and 73 (November 18, 1960).
4
89
6There is little Pentecostal literature
dealing
with ecumenism. An assessment of the implications of Pentecostalism for ecumenism is made by Emilio Castro, “Pentecostalism and Ecumenism in Latin America,”
955-7.
Christian
Centurv’, (September 2, 1972),
7 David B. Barrett identifies twelve forms of Pentecostalism, six each in classification “Classical Pentecostal”
(“charismatic,
faith
healing”)
and classification “Indigenous Charismatic”(“Third-World,
charismatic,
enthusi- astic, faith healing”). Barrett, op. cit., 127. The diversity of Latin American Pentecostalism is
explored
in
sociological
studies that include Emilio Willems, Followers of the New Faith (Nashville: Vanderbilt
University Press, 1967) and Christian Lalive D’Epinay,
‘
Haven the Masses (London:
Lutterworth
of
Press, 1969).
“M issionary anthropologists especially emphasize
the
indigenous
character of most Latin American Pentecostals. See Eugene Nida, “The
Relationship of Social Structure to the Problems of
Evangelism
in Latin
America,” Practical
Anthropology [presently ?l?lissiology) (March-April, 1958), 101- 123, and Nida, “The
Indigenous
Churches in Latin
America,”
Practical Al1lhropology (May-June, 1961), 97-110. Specific examples
are
provided by
Donald McGavran’s
analysis
of Protestantism
among
the Otomi in Central Mexico in Church GroH’th in Mexico
(Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans, 1963), 98-103; and Howard A. Snyder’s
study
of a
populist Brazilian
leader, “De Mello the Missionary,”Christianity
Today (ApriI26, 1974).
9Bryan
S. Roberts,
Organizing Strangers (Austin University
of Texas Press, 1973) provides
a penetrating case study of grass roots
evangelicals, the majority of which he identifies as Pentecostal,
using Guatemala
as a case study.
‘()The growth of Pentecostalism in Colombia offers an
extraordinary example
of this phenomenon. See Cornelia Butler Flora, Pentecostalism in Columbia : Baptism h Fire and Spirit
(Cranbury,
New Jersey: Associated University Presses, 1976) and Donald C. Palmer, Explosion of People Evangelism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1974).
II A paradigm of Pentecostal
organizational
features is discernable in much of the literature cited in this work, as for example in Emilio Castro, “Pentecostalism and Ecumenism in Latin America.” A more formal
analysis
is found in Donald McGavran, “What Makes Pentecostal Churches Grow?” Church Growth Bulletin, 13:3 (January
1977), 97-99.
12A conscious effort to place Pentecostal
growth in a revolutionary
Latin American
setting
is found in Everett A. Wilson,
“Sanguine
Saints: Pentecostalism in El Salvador,” Church
History,
52:2 (June
1983), 186- 198. A contrasting view of popular
evangelicalism
in Central America is Deborah
Huntington,
“The
Prophet Motive,”
in an issue entitled “The Salvation Brokers: Conservative Evangelicals in Central America,” Nacla Report
on the Americas, 17:1 (January-February 1984), 2-11.
13Pentecostalism in Brazil is treated in Emilio Conde, Historia das Assembigias de Deus no Brasil
(Rio
de Janeiro: Casa Publicadora das Assembleias de Deus, 1960); Abraao de Almeida and others, Historia das Assemblgias de Deus no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Casa Publicadora das Assembi6ias de Deus no Brasil, 1982); Ivar
Vingren,
Gunnar
Vingren;
0
5
90
Deus, 1973);
provided
Diario do Pioneiro
(Rio de Janeiro: Casa Publicadora
das Assembléias de
and Daniel
Berg, Memorias (Rio de Janeiro:
Casa Publicadora das Assembl6ias de Deus no
Brasil, 1973.) The evangelical setting is
in Willems, Followers
of the
New Faith, and William R. Read, New Patterns
of Church
Growth in Brazil. The Pentecostal movement in Chile is treated in Willis C. Hoover, Historia del A vivamiento Pentecostal en Chile (Valparaiso:
Imprenta Excelsior, 1948); Lalive D’Epinay,
Haven of
the
Masses; Ignacio Vergara,
El Protestantismo en Chile Editorial del
(Santiago:
Pa6ifico, 1962); and J.B.A. Kessler, Jr., A Study of the Older Protestant Missions and Churches in Peru and Chile (Oosterbaan,
1967). Pentecostalism in Central America,
primarily
in Guatemala and EI Salvador,
is treated in Wilson,
“Sanguine Saints;”
Melvin
Hodges,
The Indigenous
Church
(Springfield,
Missouri:
Gospel Publishing House, 1953); Virgilio Zapata Arceyuz,
Historia de la
Iglesia Evangilica en Guatemala
(Guatemala:
Genesis Publicidad,
1982); and Bryan S. Roberts, Organizing Strangers.
The context of these rapidly
expanding
churches is described in Wilton M. Nelson, Protestantism in Central America
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1984),
and of
are found in a
perceptions evangelicals, including Pentecostals,
dissertation
by
a member of the Salesian
Order,
Luis Corral Prieto, Las Iglesias Evangelicas de Guatemala
(Guatemala:
Universidad Francisco
Marroquin, 1980). Indigenous
Pentecostalism in Guatemala is treated in a case study of the Principe
de Paz church, James
Montgomery, “Discovering
Models of Growth,” Global
Church Growth, 20:4 (July-August,
1983), 283-285. An account of the church in the Salvadoran conflict is given in Russell T. Hitt, “El Salvador’s Pain Involves World and Church,”
Eternity
32 (April, 1981), 10-12;
see also, Garry Parker,
“Evangelicals
Blossom
Brightly
amid El Salvador’s Wasteland of Violence,”
Christianity Today (May 8, 1981), 34. Church of God missions in Central America are found in Charles Conn, Where the Saints Have
Trod (Cleveland,
Tennessee:
Pathway Press, 1959).
i4Rios Montt is treated in English in articles in Christianity
Today.
See Tom
Minnery, “Why
We Can’t Trust The News
Media,” Christianity Today,
28:1
(January 13, 1984), 14-21; and
a recent
interview, Kevin Piecuch,
“Rios Montt: From President to Full-time Church Elder,” Christianity Today,
31:3
(February 20, 1987),
46-47. A
contrasting treatment of Rios Montt is found in “The Salvation Brokers: Conservative Evangelicals
in Central
America,”
Nacla 18:1 (January-February,
1984).
15Frank E.
Manning suggests
that there is a new field of Pentecostal studies emerging based on the experience of peoples who are in the process of transition.
Manning’s
assessment and those of nine other
anthropolo- gists
are found in Stephen D. Glazier, ed., Perspectives on Pentecostalism: Case Studiesfrom the Caribbean and Latin America (Lanham,
Maryland: University
Press of America, 1980). Insight into the
spread
of Pente- costalism
among
the middle classes and other Protestants and Roman Catholics in Latin America is found in Samuel Berberiin, Movimiento Carismåtico en Latinoamérica (Guatemala: Ediciones Sa-Ber, 1983).
6
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