This book, originally published in Geneva as Le protestantisme en Amérique latine: une approche socio-historique (1994), represents an important addition to the historiography of religion in Latin America. Jean-Pierre Bastían, who has published widely on Latin American Protestantism, including Los disidentes: sociedades protestantes y revolución en México, 1872-1911 (1989), here sets out to show some of the more significant social effects of Protestantism in the region and the complex array of historical problems that have arisen around the “Protestant question.”
The work is organized in a linear progression from colonial times to the present. The research utilized a combination of published secondary material and archival primary sources, mostly from Mexico; and the heavy reliance on Mexican examples seems to jeopardize the comprehensiveness and comparative value of the study. The author clarifies this issue at the outset, however, by citing “la ausencia de una historiografía sólida sobre este tema en varios países latinoamericanos” (p. 13).
The richness of this work comes mainly from its historical depth. The informed and appropriate examination of colonial Protestantism focuses on early Protestant colonies in Brazil, Florida, and the Caribbean. Unlike more traditional studies of religion in Latin America that address differences between Protestant and Catholic colonies, Bastian’s work outlines some similarities among Protestant societies with dissimilar religious heritages. Chapter 1 shows how the Protestant English and Dutch colonies were, like their Spanish and Portuguese counterparts in Latin America, directly involved in the expansion of the plantation slave economy in the Caribbean.
Bastian also ties Latin American Protestantism to nineteenth-century political and economic liberalism. Protestant “missions” —associated with technological change and modernity—fought against hierarchical Catholicism and traditional conservativism. Firmly planted in Latin America by about 1912, Protestantism would shape a wide array of reform movements, including Maderos in Mexico, Brazilian tenentismo, and Haya de la Torre’s APRA in Peru. By linking Protestantism with reform movements, the author challenges more conventional interpretations of Latin American Protestants as passive accepters or mere dissimulators of U.S. policy in the region.
The author sees a major shift occurring in about 1965 with the rise of evangelical Protestantism and Pentacostalism, which have offered little in terms of political and economic change or reform. Bastian describes recent Protestant growth in Latin America as “religiosidad de parche” (which implies separateness and exclusivity), authoritarian and vertical in its organization, and clearly “endogenous” concerning its interests and its links with North American Protestantism. The author, in effect, questions the appropriateness of referring to Pentacostalism as Protestantism (implying religious or intellectual reform) and suggests that it might be more viable to describe recent Pentecostal growth in Latin America as merely a new manifestation of popular religious culture, reenforced through more traditional mechanisms of social control.
This book will be enthusiastically received by specialists in the field of Latin American religious history, sociology, or social movements. It should be read in conjunction with recent works by David Stoll and Roger Bastide. One would hope that plans are under way to translate Bastian’s work into English.
