In 1492 Christopher Columbus reached what was for his generation the unknown continent of America, his first landfall probably being one of the Bahamas. It was a prelude to the takeover by Roman Catholicism of the whole American continent except for the United States and Canada — those parts of the continent known as Latin America because the national languages are Spanish and Portuguese, both derived from Latin. Five hundred years later Latin America is still heavily under the influence of Rome, but for how much longer will this influence be dominant?
It is said that 42% of the world’s Roman Catholic population live in South America, but a large foreign mission force is still necessary to keep the organisation functioning. A Roman Catholic publication has complained recently that missionaries from Latin America form less than 2% of its worldwide missionary force. Possibly it is this inherent weakness which is showing itself in the mass exodus from the Roman Catholic Church to Protestantism over recent years. Protestant numbers in Latin America have grown from 15 million in the late 1960’s to at least 40 million now. There has been a significant increase of numbers in Protestant numbers in almost every country in the region, a sixfold increase in some cases. According to a Roman Catholic bishop in Brazil, Latin America is becoming Protestant even more quickly than Central Europe did in the sixteenth century; in his own country alone half a million people forsake Rome each year.
It has been estimated that if numbers continue to increase at the present rate a third of the population of Latin America will be Protestant by the year 2010, with Protestants becoming a majority not very long afterwards even if the rate of growth was to slow down. On the same basis Brazil, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala will have a Protestant majority by the year 2000. It is claimed that the election of Jorge Serrano Elias in Guatemala as the first Protestant to become president of a Latin American country is largely the result of the proportion of Guatemalans who are Protestants — 30%.
How then are we to assess this remarkable phenomenon? If the corrupt system of which the Pope is head is being weakened, this must be good news, especially if this weakening becomes permanent. But one cannot become over-enthusiastic, for there is much room for concern about the quality of the Protestantism to which these ex-Roman Catholics are turning. The danger is not, on the whole, the liberal theology which has so largely overwhelmed English-speaking Protestantism. Latin American Protestantism is still largely evangelical, so that broadly speaking, it accepts the full authority of the Scripture, however deficient its understanding of them may be.
Its weakness is illustrated by what is variously described as the back door, or the revolving door, phenomenon — professed converts from Roman Catholicism are leaving the Protestant churches in droves. A number of reasons are given. One is a lack of teaching in the truths of the Bible, which, at least in part, is the result of church leaders themselves being untaught. One estimate gives the number of pastors without formal training as 175,000. In consequence there is much shallow and erroneous teaching. But even where pastors are trained much of the doctrine is Arminian. In such a situation there is an absence of a sense of the sinfulness of sin and of the holiness of God. And where there is a deficient doctrine of sin the doctrine of the atonement is correspondingly deficient — God is not given the glory of the perfect salvation purchased by Christ for fallen men who are totally incompetent to begin, or even to assist in, the work of deliverance from sin and its consequences.
The fact that a large proportion of Latin American Protestantism is Pentecostalist and Charismatic is another major cause for concern. One amazing example of growth is in this area. The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God is an independent Pentecostal church which began only 15 years ago. It now claims two million worshippers meeting in 800 “temples” throughout Latin America, Portugal, Angola and the United States, with 2,000 ministers, a TV network and a number of radio stations.
However, a movement majoring on signs and wonders of an external kind is not the type of body which will overcome Rome, which itself leans heavily for its support on so-called miracles, especially in the less-developed world.
Latin America is not an area where the results of ecumenical co-operation are being displayed to the world. Protestants there have seen too much of what the Roman Catholic system is really like when it has the upper hand. Accordingly most protestant churches maintain a proper separation from Rome. The Roman Catholic Church has publicly attacked Protestant criticisms with paid advertisements and street marches. Priests continue their attacks in their sermons and doubtless use such means as the confessional to bolster the crumbling structure. Allegations have even been made that the movement to Protestantism is all the result of the CIA plan to destroy Roman Catholic liberation theology and to further US imperialism. Persecution today is not on the scale of the years after 1948 in Colombia when hundreds of Protestants were killed in what was known as la Violencia. However, reports of persecution continue in some countries in the region, notably Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica and Venezuela.
What of the future? Optimistic projections for continued Protestant growth were quoted above. Will these projections be realised? There is good reason to be somewhat sceptical. Apart from doubts about the accuracy of the statistics, what if the number of those who go out the “back door” of the Protestant churches — to the cults, back to Rome, or wherever — begins to exceed the number of professed converts? Already, in 1989, a survey in the small Central American country of Costa Rica found that 8% of the population said that they had at one time been evangelicals, but had then returned either to Roman Catholicism, joined one of the sects, or given up organised religion completely. The growth of the cults in this environment must not be underestimated. The success of Billy Graham’s crusade in Buenos Aires last November was trumpeted on the basis of the large number, 259,000, who attended. However, Jehovah’s Witnesses were also able to pack the football stadium used by Billy Graham. There are reports of growing nervousness within the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and we must never underestimate the capacity for that organisation to recover when it has been weakened. We only have to think of how Rome brought Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe back into its fold during the Reformation period to realise its capacity to recover lost ground.
What Latin America — and the whole world — needs is the faithful proclamation of the true gospel, accompanied by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But “how shall they hear without a preacher”? Certainly God has not left the world without the gospel, nor has He left it without preachers who proclaim that gospel in its purity. “The harvest truly is great,” said the Saviour, “but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth labourers into His harvest.” But, whatever the immediate future brings, we can look forward with confidence to the time when Latin America and the rest of the world will be brought truly to serve the King of kings, when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”