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Protestantism in Guatemala: Living in the New Jerusalem
Guatemala has undergone an unprecedented conversion to Protestantism since the 1970s, so that thirty percent of its people now belong to Protestant churches, more than in any other Latin American nation.
Garrard-Burnett finds that while Protestant missionaries were early valued for their medical clinics, schools, translation projects, and especially for the counterbalance they provided against Roman Catholicism, Protestantism itself attracted few converts in Guatemala until the 1960s. Since then, however, the militarization of the state, increasing public violence, and the "globalization" of Guatemalan national politics have undermined the traditional ties of kinship, custom, and belief that gave Guatemalans a sense of identity, and many are turning to Protestantism to recreate a sense of order, identity, and belonging.
Garrard-Burnett finds that while Protestant missionaries were early valued for their medical clinics, schools, translation projects, and especially for the counterbalance they provided against Roman Catholicism, Protestantism itself attracted few converts in Guatemala until the 1960s. Since then, however, the militarization of the state, increasing public violence, and the "globalization" of Guatemalan national politics have undermined the traditional ties of kinship, custom, and belief that gave Guatemalans a sense of identity, and many are turning to Protestantism to recreate a sense of order, identity, and belonging.
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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December 27, 2020
I think this was a great book, ESPECIALLY because it challenged my beliefs.
The author acknowledged in the introduction that for both Catholics and secular people in and outside Guatemala, "real" Guatemalan religion is baroque Catholicism and festivals and the Roman Catholic Church. There is a corresponding tendency to view Protestants as (circle one) heretics / perfidious cults / fifth column for the US / oppressive right-wing capitalists / generally wrong.
The hard pill to swallow - which was hard for the author to swallow too, at first - is that this is unfair. Guatemalan evangelicals are not all mustachioed genocidal maniacs on the CIA payroll, even if I personally regard them as heretical sects. Rather, it is far more helpful to explore the history of Guatemala to identify the material reasons for why people converted to Protestant religious groups.
The underlying premise of the book is that modernization, violence, and cultural disintegration are the social conditions that promote religious conversion (whether that be to greater fervor within your religion or to changing religion entirely). The author explored the sociological history of Protestantism in several chapters:
Chapter 1 Order Progress and Protestants focused on the the beginning of missionary work in post-Independence Guatemala. Liberal governments in the mid 19th century promoted Protestantism as a counterweight to the Catholic Church, although these first missions were not very successful at actually converting people.
Chapter 2 Better than Gunships focused on the late 19th century and early 20th century growth of missionary work and the arrival of more stable missionary bodies and associations. This includes the development of the first fundamentalist churches and the breakdown of the earlier territorial agreements between various Protestant denominations.
Chapter 3 Ethnicity and Mission Work focuses on the increasing role of Indian populations in the Protestant churches. This includes increased outreach and language support, (Catholic) Indian hostility, and the social issues surrounding cofradías and costumbre in the early 20th century.
Chapter 4 Protestants and Politics focuses in particular on the presidency of Jorge Ubico and the aftermath. Ubico's nationalism, authoritarianism, and paternalism at times favored and at times threatened the still small and somewhat foreign-associated Protestant churches.
Chapter 5 The Revolutionary Years focuses on the Guatemalan Revolution from 1944 - 1954 and the rise and fall of Árbenz. This includes Catholic groups such as Catholic Action and Opus Dei, the demographic increase of Pentecostalism, and increasing fears around communism affecting all Christian churches.
Chapter 6 The Postrevolutionary years focuses on the period after 1954, including both increasingly ethnic churches and nationalist breakaways from the mother churches in the US.
Chapter 7 The Earthquake and the Culture of Violence is centered around the 1976 earthquake and the tremendous amount of violence and instability in the wake of this. The earthquake killed 20K, displaced 1 million, and traumatically disturbed the traditional social and economic structures of the cities and the countryside.
Chapter 8 The Protestant President focused on the presidency of Ríos Montt and the Maya genocide, as well as the activities and responses of Catholic and Protestant churches.
I am completely sold. I think the material analysis is brilliant because it explains what are the conditions that lead to mass conversation to Pentecostal groups in the second half of the 2oth century - i.e., why then and not in the 1930s or the 1860s or the 1830s? The general idea is that sustained violence, economic turmoil, and social disintegration destroyed many of the older community bonds that would have supported the inertia of Catholicism, and in fact promoted people to seek a radical change in their lives by conversion to Pentecostal groups.
In addition, the author dispelled some stereotypes that I had held, such as:
1) Catholics were not the only victims of violence. Evangelicals were also killed on a large scale during the civil war.
2) Agency. Maya Guatemalans were attracted to various features of Pentecostalism (accessibility, ecstatic worship, pastor-patrón, emphasis on sobriety, support groups) and shape this style of Christianity according to their own agenda and values.
3) The Catholic Church was always in a rather abysmal spot. In the 1960s there were about 530 priests in the country, of whom 430 were foreign missionaries! That is one of the reasons why Catholicism was so utterly incapable of responding to the crises in the country. Foreign priests often were assigned to the underserved rural areas, rather than to the cities where displaced people were moving and converting. While Catholic Action promoted effective catechesis and had a strong impact on Catholic communities, many Guatemalans had always lived in a purely nominal Catholicism.
4) Catholic = left and Protestant = right is not true. At least not in Guatemala. In contrast to say El Salvador or Nicaragua, the Guatemalan Church was always very conservative. Those elements of liberation theology generally came from the foreign clergy rather than from the native priests. In addition, even liberation theology clergy sometimes hindered their own causes. For example, when the Bishop Gerardi ordered his clergy to leave the dioceses after an assassination attempt, the effect of this moral protest was to leave the laity including lay catechist leaders high-and-dry to be slaughtered without the support of the clergy. Meanwhile, while the Protestant churches did tend to be more right-wing than the Catholics there were still quite a few churches focused on education and social issues (albeit more at a micro than a macro level).
I think that this is a great work of social science and is an excellent analysis of the social conditions that would allow Protestantism to benefit over the traditional Catholicism.
The author acknowledged in the introduction that for both Catholics and secular people in and outside Guatemala, "real" Guatemalan religion is baroque Catholicism and festivals and the Roman Catholic Church. There is a corresponding tendency to view Protestants as (circle one) heretics / perfidious cults / fifth column for the US / oppressive right-wing capitalists / generally wrong.
The hard pill to swallow - which was hard for the author to swallow too, at first - is that this is unfair. Guatemalan evangelicals are not all mustachioed genocidal maniacs on the CIA payroll, even if I personally regard them as heretical sects. Rather, it is far more helpful to explore the history of Guatemala to identify the material reasons for why people converted to Protestant religious groups.
The underlying premise of the book is that modernization, violence, and cultural disintegration are the social conditions that promote religious conversion (whether that be to greater fervor within your religion or to changing religion entirely). The author explored the sociological history of Protestantism in several chapters:
Chapter 1 Order Progress and Protestants focused on the the beginning of missionary work in post-Independence Guatemala. Liberal governments in the mid 19th century promoted Protestantism as a counterweight to the Catholic Church, although these first missions were not very successful at actually converting people.
Chapter 2 Better than Gunships focused on the late 19th century and early 20th century growth of missionary work and the arrival of more stable missionary bodies and associations. This includes the development of the first fundamentalist churches and the breakdown of the earlier territorial agreements between various Protestant denominations.
Chapter 3 Ethnicity and Mission Work focuses on the increasing role of Indian populations in the Protestant churches. This includes increased outreach and language support, (Catholic) Indian hostility, and the social issues surrounding cofradías and costumbre in the early 20th century.
Chapter 4 Protestants and Politics focuses in particular on the presidency of Jorge Ubico and the aftermath. Ubico's nationalism, authoritarianism, and paternalism at times favored and at times threatened the still small and somewhat foreign-associated Protestant churches.
Chapter 5 The Revolutionary Years focuses on the Guatemalan Revolution from 1944 - 1954 and the rise and fall of Árbenz. This includes Catholic groups such as Catholic Action and Opus Dei, the demographic increase of Pentecostalism, and increasing fears around communism affecting all Christian churches.
Chapter 6 The Postrevolutionary years focuses on the period after 1954, including both increasingly ethnic churches and nationalist breakaways from the mother churches in the US.
Chapter 7 The Earthquake and the Culture of Violence is centered around the 1976 earthquake and the tremendous amount of violence and instability in the wake of this. The earthquake killed 20K, displaced 1 million, and traumatically disturbed the traditional social and economic structures of the cities and the countryside.
Chapter 8 The Protestant President focused on the presidency of Ríos Montt and the Maya genocide, as well as the activities and responses of Catholic and Protestant churches.
I am completely sold. I think the material analysis is brilliant because it explains what are the conditions that lead to mass conversation to Pentecostal groups in the second half of the 2oth century - i.e., why then and not in the 1930s or the 1860s or the 1830s? The general idea is that sustained violence, economic turmoil, and social disintegration destroyed many of the older community bonds that would have supported the inertia of Catholicism, and in fact promoted people to seek a radical change in their lives by conversion to Pentecostal groups.
In addition, the author dispelled some stereotypes that I had held, such as:
1) Catholics were not the only victims of violence. Evangelicals were also killed on a large scale during the civil war.
2) Agency. Maya Guatemalans were attracted to various features of Pentecostalism (accessibility, ecstatic worship, pastor-patrón, emphasis on sobriety, support groups) and shape this style of Christianity according to their own agenda and values.
3) The Catholic Church was always in a rather abysmal spot. In the 1960s there were about 530 priests in the country, of whom 430 were foreign missionaries! That is one of the reasons why Catholicism was so utterly incapable of responding to the crises in the country. Foreign priests often were assigned to the underserved rural areas, rather than to the cities where displaced people were moving and converting. While Catholic Action promoted effective catechesis and had a strong impact on Catholic communities, many Guatemalans had always lived in a purely nominal Catholicism.
4) Catholic = left and Protestant = right is not true. At least not in Guatemala. In contrast to say El Salvador or Nicaragua, the Guatemalan Church was always very conservative. Those elements of liberation theology generally came from the foreign clergy rather than from the native priests. In addition, even liberation theology clergy sometimes hindered their own causes. For example, when the Bishop Gerardi ordered his clergy to leave the dioceses after an assassination attempt, the effect of this moral protest was to leave the laity including lay catechist leaders high-and-dry to be slaughtered without the support of the clergy. Meanwhile, while the Protestant churches did tend to be more right-wing than the Catholics there were still quite a few churches focused on education and social issues (albeit more at a micro than a macro level).
I think that this is a great work of social science and is an excellent analysis of the social conditions that would allow Protestantism to benefit over the traditional Catholicism.
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July 19, 2023Good overview of the influx of Protestant denominations into Guatemala. Shows how the spread of Protestantism interacted with Guatemalan politics, social work, and the preservation or fracturing of traditional Mayan communities. The book is a little outdated - it was published at the tail end of the civil war, when Ríos Montt was still involved in Guatemalan politics and the UN Historical Clarification Commission had not yet published its report on human rights violations. Besides the aftermath of the war, certainly there is more that could be said about religious development in the last three decades with the spread of the Internet in Guatemala.
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