Latin America's Gospel Potential

- by Wes Kawato

What do you think of when you hear of the year 1492? Columbus sailed the ocean blue, right? But before that could happen, Spain, which would soon become a colonial power, had to shake off their own colonizers, the Moors. These North African Muslims had ruled all or part of the Iberian Peninsula (i.e., Spain and Portugal) since 711. The fight to eject the Moors from Iberia had religious overtones, because the Moors were Muslims, and the Iberian peoples were Roman Catholic. Spain and Portugal charged their explorers to not only conquer Latin America politically, but to also conquer these new lands spiritually as well. Catholic priests often accompanied the explorers who colonized Latin America.

Many people don't know that Christopher Columbus had a deep faith in God. We know from his extensive diary that he considered his voyages of exploration to be divine missions. Columbus believed that the new lands he had discovered would one day be used by God to bless all of mankind.

Columbus was sponsored by Spain. Not to be outdone, Portugal also commissioned expeditions to the New World. In 1500 Cabral "discovered" Brazil and claimed the new land for Portugal. Soon the Pope had to draw an arbitrary "Line of Demarcation" to keep the two Catholic powers from fighting one another in South America over their conquests. Portugal received a small toehold on South America, which later grew to become Brazil. The Spaniards put more of their efforts towards conquering powerful empires possessing gold. The Spaniards found that they could either take God to the conquered peoples, or take gold from them.

God and Gold On a Collision Course
Thousands of Spanish and Portuguese colonists poured into Latin America during the early 1500s, and with the exceptions of the Incan and Aztec Empires, they easily conquered the New World. Gold poured into Spain's treasury. The governors sent by Spain and Portugal to rule their new colonies cared only about making a profit for the European rulers. White settlers enslaved many tribal peoples to work in mines and on plantations. Hard work and inadequate food led to disease and death for the Indians. The population of this vast region was drastically reduced. The harsh conditions of slavery sometimes led to revolts, which were brutally crushed. Within a century many parts of Latin America had no large concentrations of Native Americans at all.

Attempts to take the gospel to the native peoples were dismal. Missionaries "converted" the conquered peoples en masse. But many of these conversions were superficial, because there were never enough missionaries to adequately disciple the tens of thousands of Native Americans being conquered each year. Often pagan gods were given the names of Catholic saints, and the old religions continued.

In 1502, Father Bartolome de Las Casas arrived in Latin America and tried to make a difference for the gospel. He not only taught about Christ, but he also argued for the fair treatment of the various tribal groups. Few listened. Some missionaries were even martyred by the Iberians. Most Catholic priests only ministered to the White colonists. In 1542 Las Casas convinced Charles V, the King of Spain, to ban the enslavement of Native Americans in the New World. But these new laws weren't always enforced, and the high death rates continued.

Las Casas inspired a new generation of Catholic missionaries to reach out to the tribal groups of Latin America. The most successful efforts involved gathering Native Americans into protected villages, where they were taught the gospel along with the Spanish or Portuguese languages. Some of these missionaries learned various Native American languages and began the work of Bible translation.

One successful use of the protected village method of outreach was in Paraguay, among the Guarani people group. This effort, led by the Jesuit monastic order, lasted from 1610 to 1773. In 1773 the pope disbanded the Jesuits and the Indians were either disbanded or killed.

By 1773, 90 percent of all Latin American tribal peoples had been wiped out by European diseases or guns. Those who survived the devastation often intermarried with white settlers. That is why many Latin American countries have large mixed race populations today.

That same decade, a Jesuit missionary in Baja California wrote a book entitled, "Observations on Baja California," where he stated that the Protestants are not the true church, because they have no desire to convert people. That situation would soon change.

Here Come the Protestants
The Spanish and Portuguese colonial powers kept out Protestant missionaries until after the countries of Latin America began gaining independence starting in 1815. Many of these new countries didn't have a state religion during the early years of independence. Latin America's first Protestant missionary was a former British naval officer named Allen Gardiner. In 1850, he led six coworkers to Tierra Del Fuego, an island near the southern tip of South America. The party of seven starved to death when a supply ship failed to arrive. Gardiner led no one to Christ, but his sacrifice inspired Protestants to reach out to the people groups of Latin America.

One of the people inspired by Gardiner was an American doctor named Robert Kelly, who began a work among the Catholics in Brazil in 1855. In 1856 James Thompson, another American, became the first Protestant missionary in Colombia. A bit later, British Anglicans began working with the various tribal groups of Chile and Paraguay. By 1914 there were Protestant missionaries in every country of Latin America, and they had won half a million people to the Lord.

Pentecostalism Makes Inroads
Spiritual decay within the Catholic Church opened the door for further Protestant expansion. After 1914 American Pentecostal denominations became a dominant force among the missionaries working in Latin America. Meanwhile, Liberation Theology began making serious inroads into the Catholic Church of Latin America. Many priests blended Marxist thought with Roman Catholicism. Nicaragua was a prime example. During the 1980s the pro-communist Sandinista ruling council counted three priests among its members. The Catholic abandonment of the gospel created a spiritual vacuum that the Pentecostals were all too happy to fill. Today, 20-30 percent of the Nicaraguans are Evangelical, according to a Nov. 2, 2006 article in the "Christian Science Monitor."

Growth among Latin America's Pentecostals exploded after 1960, when newly formed Latin American denominations learned how to conduct large-scale evangelistic crusades, a method that worked well in their cultures. Often the evangelists were Latin Americans like Luis Palau, who conducted numerous crusades during the 1970s. By 1997 there were 64 million Protestants in Latin America, the majority belonging to the various Pentecostal denominations.

Protestants have become a significant social force in Latin America. Protestants make up 18 percent of Guatemala's population and nearly 20 percent of Haiti's population. Brazil elected a Protestant president in 1974. But this growth has been uneven. Evangelical Christians make up less than five percent of the populations of Colombia, Cuba, Uruguay and French Guiana, according to "Operation World."

During the last 30 years, Latin American Protestants have emerged as a mission sending force. There are Brazilian missionaries in southern Africa, and Spanish-speaking missionaries in north Africa. Mission groups like COMIBAM and COMIMEX are mobilizing and sending Latinos to the unreached. Latinos are some of the world's key intercessors. For example, more people are using this "Global Prayer Digest" in Spanish than in English, Korean or Chinese.

Let Us Pray!
Pray that God will multiply His efforts through Latin American missionaries to the unreached people groups during the 21st century. Pray that God will soon break the hold occult practices have in some parts of Latin America. Though there have been strong movements to Christ in Haiti and Brazil, Spiritism, Santeria and Voodoo still have a destructive hold on many. Ask God for a revival within the Catholic Church that will bring them to biblical truth.