Pentecostal Evangelical churches in Chile

As with all world religions, Protestantism reached the New World due to the missionary work undertaken as a consequence of international trade, colonial

expansion, and immigration (Noll 2011). Through the colonies of Portugal, Spain and France, Catholicism was the first denomination to expand. Although in the 17th

century, Protestant nations such as the Netherlands and England started expanding as well, taking Protestantism to non-European countries.

As Vergara (1962) asserts, Protestantism originated in Chile in the first half of the 19th century with the arrival of the British and Foreign Bible Society, whose members travelled to remote places in the country distributing the Bible. The first

Lutherans in 1846. After this, Presbyterianism arrived from America, founding its church around 1868. Then, in 1877, American Methodist missionaries followed, establishing a church which later gave origin to Pentecostalism, the largest Protestant group in the country. Other churches established in this period are Alianza Cristiana y Misionera (Christian Missionary Alliance) in 1897 and Baptists in 1908.

The events that gave birth to Pentecostalism in Chile took place in a Methodist church in Valparaiso, where the Holy Spirit is said to have manifested. These events resulted in doctrinal contradictions between the leaders of the Methodist Church, which led to its separation in 1909 and the rapid expansion of the Pentecostal movement in the country (Vergara 1962; Noll 2011). According to Noll (2011), Chilean Pentecostalism was influenced by the 1905 Indian Mukti revival. However, Sepúlveda (2015)

considers it to be a co-existing version of the Pentecostal identity, what Kamsteeg (1999) identifies as a Chilean indigenous movement, rather than a deviation from classical Pentecostalism. The different groups resulting from this separation called themselves Methodist-Pentecostals (Vergara 1962), but they are also commonly known as Pentecostals or Evangelicals (see Sepúlveda 2015; Fediakova 2002). In the following section I refer to the involvement of the Chilean Evangelical churches in political and social matters.

2.3.2.1. The role of the Evangelical churches in politics and the Chilean

society

According to Fediakova (2012), Evangelicals contribute to Chilean society primarily within their communities, where they promote social development. Although their main interests concern everyday life, they are also known for contributing to the formation of civic habits in their followers, including the organisation of social campaigns, public speaking, argumentation and networking.

According to Lalive d’Epinay (1968), Evangelicals reproduce an old system of paternalism, where the pastor acts as the master, an authoritative figure whom the followers obey and do not question. This authoritative culture led to an ‘ethics of passivity’ in relation to the establishment. Traditionally, Evangelicals did not get involved in politics or social activities. Kamsteeg (1999) considers this withdrawal and submissive relation to authorities a consequence of their doctrine seeing mundane matters and the outside world as the place where sin, contamination and harm reside, in accordance to the teachings in the Bible.

Despite this politically passive tendency, Evangelicals have been involved in broader social matters since missionaries first arrived in the country. This participation was facilitated by the separation between Church and State introduced in the Constitution of 1925, which allowed religions different from Catholicism to play a role in matters such as education, in which they were involved. After this, a minor political

commitment was present in the national Evangelical movement, within which political activity used to be punished with excommunication. However, Fediakova (2002) identifies a change in this pattern, which consists of a shift within the heterogeneous Evangelical movement in Latin America towards a reconsideration of their role in society. This led them to look for their own space in the local political scene, modifying their religious identity and the societal relations of the movement. She identifies this shift as a consequence of the consolidation of this movement and changes in the socioeconomic and cultural paradigms taking place in the preceding decades. Among these changes, Fediakova (2012) identifies age and education as playing a pivotal role in terms of the Evangelical population’s degree of participation and politicisation. At the time of Fediakova’s study, more than 30% of the Evangelical

population in Chile had been born into Evangelical families, with many of them being second and third generation Evangelicals.

Lalive d’Epinay (1968) found that Chilean Pentecostalism formed with the lowest social classes as its main focus, making Evangelicalism the religion of a

predominantly marginalised population. Although Evangelicals can still be regarded as representing this social group, there have been changes in their educational level. In the 1990s, 55% of the Evangelical population had only completed primary education, while 40% and 5% had completed secondary and tertiary education respectively (Fediakova 2012: 128). By 2008, these percentages had changed to 18%, 49% and 33%, showing a significant increase at the level of tertiary education (ibid.). According to Fediakova (2012), these new tendencies have meaningful potential consequences inside the Pentecostal churches, across congregations and within society. As Fediakova (2012) notes, the younger generations of Evangelicals,

especially those who attend university, are more willing to challenge the power of the pastors, feeling entitled to their own opinions and able to express discontent towards church leaders. Additionally, they are more involved in their educational

communities, no longer being socially passive actors concerning national matters. Generally speaking, Evangelicals are a conservative group. Although they do not empathise with a particular ideology, they feel consciously obliged to vote in elections and keep informed about what goes on in the country. Also, they are willing to

support Christians involved in political parties, provided they represent their moral stance or politically contribute towards it. Due to this, they may sometimes be perceived as behaving in a contradictory and ambiguous manner (Fediakova 2002), which has also allowed them to gain notoriety.

As a consequence of its popular roots, various groups in the Methodist-Pentecostal Church supported the Communist government of Salvador Allende at the beginning of the 1970s (see section 2.10.1), while other groups rejected it due to its atheist outlook. Furthermore, during the dictatorship that followed Allende’s government, the

Evangelical movement was divided into two groups, one that supported the military regime and one that opposed and denounced it. At that time, the Catholic Church had withdrawn its support from the military regime, making the support given by the Evangelical section appreciated by the dictatorial government. As a consequence, the Evangelical Te Deum, a thanksgiving Christian ceremony, was made one of the main official ceremonies of the period, which legitimated this religious group.

These changes have given the Chilean Evangelical church a new social consciousness which has resulted in an increased political ambition. In 2018, it was not uncommon to have Evangelical candidates running for a seat in Congress10 _{and at the time this} thesis is being written there are four Evangelical political parties being formed, although none of them has yet become official. In this way, Evangelicals are now playing a more direct political role in the protection and defence of their interests, hoping to obtain the same benefits granted to their Catholic counterpart, which has allowed Catholics to have control over religious education in state schools, as well as hospitals and military chaplaincies (Kay and Hunt 2015). However, the heterogeneity of Evangelical groups makes it difficult for them to agree on unified actions or stances about different topics or events, which can be regarded as a disadvantage (Fediakova 2012). Nonetheless, their heterogeneity has also allowed them to better adapt to the cultural market of the Chilean society, making them able to satisfy the various ethical

10 _{Source “Los candidatos evangélicos que triunfaron en las elecciones parlamentarias” (The}

Evangelical candidates that succeeded in the parliamentary elections) available at

and spiritual needs of the broader population. This has resulted in them having a wider reach than the Catholic Church. Now let us consider the current situation of the

Evangelical and Catholic churches in Chile.

2.4. The rise of Evangelicalism and the decline of Catholicism in Chile