The Rise Of Evangelicals: Latin America's Shifting Religious Landscape

Evangelical churches are transforming politics in Latin America like no other force. 

Back in the 1980s, Roman Catholicism had a near monopoly on religion throughout the continent, but as Javier Corrales explains in The New York Times, Evangelicals have risen to become near majorities in some Central American countries, and make up for almost 20% of Latin America's population. 

Evangelicals have diverse political opinions, but they coalesce around conservative values on social issues, typically upholding traditional gender roles and opposing women's and other minorities' rights — notably on issues of sexuality, gender, and LGBT rights. 

Conservative politicians, moreover, have been quick to embrace these religious groups as their core constituencies. As Corrales explains, following decades of right-wing parties finding support solely from the upper strata of society, Evangelicals are bridging the gap between these conservative leaders and broad-based non-elites. 

Part Of A Global Trend

This "perfect marriage" of Evangelicals and right-wing parties in Latin America is worth setting in a much broader context: the trend is global.

Readers may be more familiar with talk of Islamist movements seeking to establish a faith-based political system, but fundamentalisms come in various guises. What they have in common is that they uphold strict, literal interpretations of scriptures, and see in politics a crucial tool to uphold — even impose — their traditional values. 

In the case of Protestantism, the rise of Evangelicals in the United States eventually flowed south of its border, and has over the past decades cemented its control of Latin America's hearts and minds. This shift will prove transformational for the region, as its full effects reveal themselves in upcoming years. 

I also recommend you read Garry Wills' "Where Evangelicals Came From", from the April 2017 edition of The New York Review of Books.