In a wide-ranging book characterized by sophisticated, nuanced analysis, Brian H. Smith covers a terrain that often extends well beyond Chile as he confronts some of the more perplexing issues of religion and politics. Drawing on an impressive array of published and archival sources as well as extensive interview and questionnaire materials, he focuses on four major themes: (1) the transition of the Catholic church from conservative to progressive institution, beginning in the 1930s; (2) the church during the reformist Christian Democratic administration (1964-70); (3) the church during the Marxist-Socialist coalition government (1970-73); and (4) the church during the military dictatorship (1973–).
Properly stressing its internal divisiveness as the church ponders its role in social and economic affairs, Smith considers a range and variety of topics that cannot be suggested in a short review. The treatment of theology of liberation and the move toward approximation of Christianity and Marxism is exemplary (though one wishes he had consulted the work of Robert C. Tucker). Smith’s own ideological preferences are best revealed in the statement (p. 225): “The evidence from Chile bodes well for Church-state relations in other countries should the Left gain power and begin a transition to socialism”; and (p. 278) “the possibility for assimilating some Marxist insights and strategies into the Church by elite groups is still open.” Further, he approvingly quotes Luis Corvalán’s judgment that the church is becoming “more an inspirational force in the struggle for peace, liberty and justice” (p. 335). Yet, in dealing with the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, Smith finds the church has been ambiguous and inconsistent in its role as prophetic critic. Reasonably enough, he suggests that the powers of the church in confronting dictatorships are clearly limited.
Fuller consideration of historical background might have added even more to this valuable study. Since the early Middle Ages, Christian groups have surfaced periodically and set themselves the task of achieving the perfect society on earth. More likely than not, they have appeared at those times of cultural-economic crisis that so often precipitate combined quests for social renovation and religious awakening; and, almost unfailingly, they have manifested a preferential option for the poor. Eric Voe-gelin disparagingly dismisses these movements as recrudescences of Gnosticism. Re that as it may, the new-earth, new-person movements have cropped up in Latin America since the early sixteenth century; and much of what has been transpiring in the past thirty years is not so altogether new as Smith suggests. Moreover, the conservative church in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries presented a searing critique of capitalist, bourgeois modernity that has undoubtedly contributed to today’s Christian Marxism. In the light of the historical background and the findings in recent studies by A. James Gregor, it might be more accurate to view some of the recent stirrings of the Latin American church not as a Marxist phenomenon, but rather as one of “paradigmatic fascism.” Finally, some of my mild reservations about a very fine book might have been obviated had Smith included in his sources Guenter Lewy’s scholarly Religion and Revolution and not included Penny Lernoux’s journalistic The Cry of the People.
