A Sunday sermon in a Latin evangelical church in the United States is lived between moving songs with a live band and speeches from a pastor who uses familiar, even colloquial, language. It is not a particularly solemn event. The only thing similar to a priest’s mass and Eucharist is the constant mention of Jesus. Empirical evidence says that this is a good thing for the objective, which is one of the bases of the faith, of adding members: while all the rest of the religious denominations are in the doldrums, bleeding faithful, the Latin evangelical churches are growing at a remarkable pace. It is a phenomenon that happens a little under the radar – precisely religion in general is of less and less interest – but that, in a planned way, is changing the balance of the immense religious power in the country and also fragmenting the Latin electorate, traditionally very aligned with the Democrats, who in the heat of evangelism are increasingly conservative.
At the Nueva Vida church in Chicago they speak Spanish and the most important mission is that whoever goes for the first time returns. There is a carefully designed protocol because people decide if they are going to return in the first five minutes, says Pastor Jaro Medina one Sunday morning in mid-April.
At the door there is someone who welcomes with a warm smile who pronounces “blessings” to everyone who enters the door of this three-story building, which if it were not for the immense cross that decorates the façade, would be just an old theater. of a neighborhood that has seen better days. Once inside, coffee is offered, people ask “how is he, brother,” and listen attentively to the hardships that the new arrival may bring. Then, the sermon begins the way a party begins: 15 minutes of music, a kind of modern, pop, Latin gospel. The rhythm takes the congregants out of their chairs and makes them dance in their seats in this space carpeted like a convention center and dressed with giant screens, to which people, with arms raised in ecstasy, look attentively to follow the lyrics. , as if I were in a collective karaoke.
Pastor Jaro, a 40-year-old Puerto Rican who has been leading this congregation for a decade, has seen and cultivated that growth himself. “In 2014 things were very different. We were opening the third Sunday service. We started the fourth when the pandemic hit. It hit us hard. But when the restrictions were lowered, and the border began to open, many immigrants entered,” he explains between sermons in his “field”—as they call the parishes—which now has around 500 members, he is part of a group that includes more than 5,000, and is considered small.
The panorama that Pastor Jaro outlines is reflected by the data, but we have to scratch a little. Between 2008 and 2022, the percentage of Latinos who identify as evangelical has remained stable at around 25%; In the rest of the groups the figure has fallen, most notably among the white population, from 33 to 25%. The growth itself goes hand in hand with demographic changes in the country. If in 2008 there were about 50 million Latinos in the United States, now there are about 65 million and by 2050 there will be almost 100, the answer is clear: that 25% represents more people every day.
Furthermore, trends indicate that this proportion, which has remained stable over the last 15 years, is also increasing, driven by changes in two groups in particular. On the one hand, immigrants, among whom in 2008 22% identified as evangelical, and by 2022 they will already be 32%. And, on the other, second and third generation Latinos, who went from 23 to 29% and from 27 to 31% respectively in the same time. If we add that Latin evangelicals are also having more children than the national average, it is foreseeable that within a few years the Latin religious panorama, and even the general one, will be dominated by this amalgam of Christian denominations known as evangelicals; and its political agenda will become increasingly relevant.
In that sense, growing and continuing to grow is an objective that is clearly stated. In the basic discourse it is merely a matter of religious conviction: when the end comes, only those who have accepted Jesus in their souls and hearts will be saved; And if saving souls is in your hands, then let’s get to work. The entire community collaborates in this mission and the script to retain followers actually extends far beyond the first minutes. The week after going for the first time, the members follow up with the newly initiated, calling up to three days to ask “how are you,” to invite them to a dinner, to make them feel like they are already a brother or sister.
This is precisely what Lizbeth Rodríguez says after listening carefully to Pastor Jaro. “For me, the church gives me family, it gives me this companionship… Although we go through things, for example my husband passed away, here I have a sister or a brother who helps me in this journey and encourages me, gives me encouragement, visits me. . “They are family in this world.”
If you are a migrant, this somewhat theatrical kindness comes in differently. The sequence repeats weekly in cities and towns across the United States. Arriving in a new country after a journey so brutal that so many prefer to forget it. Probably not speaking almost any English. Finally, entering a place where they consider you family from the first greeting, where the accents remind you of home, as do the food and affection. For many it is an overwhelming sensation. It doesn’t matter how much the Bible and Jesus have been in your previous lives; Now, more than a thousand miles to the north, perhaps it reminds them of the roots they have dragged along their path or offers them a sanctuary to keep demons at bay. In any case, the willingness to listen is especially open if it is accompanied by a hot dinner.
There is still another attraction, in the form of an idea, that penetrates deep between the lines and opens a ban for the others that make up their political imagination to enter. It is the idea of personal progress, quantifiable and linked to economic prosperity. In these churches, poverty is not a virtue. In people who, for the most part, have known it from the cradle, and who in many cases are fleeing from it, this message finds fertile ground. Suddenly, Jesus is, in addition to being a martyr for humanity, a believer and guardian of the American dream. And from there, the defense of the family, the rejection of vices – a huge umbrella that includes any behavior considered reprehensible, from the consumption of alcohol and other drugs, to the excessive use of social networks – fit together in an orderly manner, and the vision of the State as guardian of that way of life haunted by the moral degeneration of progressivism, thus, so general and so abstract.
Faced with this perceived threat, the conviction is reinforced that the church offers answers to urgent questions in North American society, a particular reading of it. This is confirmed by listening to Pastor Daniel Matos, also born in Puerto Rico, but a citizen of Chicago since he was three years old, who has led the Agapé Christian church, west of the city, for more than four decades. In addition, he is the regional representative for the Midwest of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), the association par excellence of Latino evangelism in the country, which brings together more than 40,000 churches, actively supports the “ planting” of new congregations — it is Amazon for new churches, they offer them everything they may need, says the pastor — and it is not shy when it comes to deploying its political power. “People come with questions and we have to be able to answer them. And if we don’t know the answer, we have to find it… There are questions about the future. What’s coming now? Who should we trust? Who should we not trust?” explains Pastor Matos.
The NHCLC mission statement sheds even more light on the political and social agenda of Latin evangelical churches. Among other things, they point out as a central mission to reform culture by creating influencers in all spheres of society and the market, to transform the image of evangelism from “angry whites who oppose everything” for a multiethnic community, or to build a “firewall.” against “moral relativism, spiritual apathy, cultural decadence and ecclesiastical lukewarmness, while elevating biblical marriage, defending life and protecting religious freedom.” The marketing is transparent: usual ultra-conservatism packaged in the camouflaging idea of “multiethnicity” to make it slightly more digestible.
Along with this declaration of intent, the media appearances of the leader of the NHCLC, Samuel Rodríguez, who is already a recurring guest on the far-right news network Fox and a figure within the religious lobby in Washington, make it clear that Latino evangelism He is flexing his political muscle. He has built on the foundations of white evangelicalism, which has had an enormous influence on both red and blue administrations, reaching its maximum expression in 2016, with the massive support of the evangelical community for Donald Trump; who returned the favor by appointing three justices to form the most conservative court in decades, culminating in the repeal of the federal right to abortion in 2022.
In these elections and those to come, it remains to be seen exactly what a much more powerful Latin evangelical lobby will seek. Without a doubt, abortion will continue to be a central battle point and absolute prohibition the ultimate goal; But that may be aspiring too much; in the current situation, openly advocating for it would be electoral suicide.
Then there are the broader cultural battles, in which the collective has been participating on the more conservative side for years. The model to follow could be Ron DeSantis’ Florida, perhaps the State in which they currently have the most presence and influence, where laws have already been passed prohibiting the teaching of content on sexual diversity, more books have been banned than in any other site and more recently a ban on abortion from the sixth week was approved, one of the most restrictive currently. The great uncertainty comes in the immigration field. When they talk about the issue, they support legal immigration, but they do not reject undocumented migrants who come to work and get ahead either, who are also many of their new members.
In any case, when the sermons echo in the halls of the thousands of Latin evangelical churches in the country, politics is not talked about. It is time to feel part of a community and to be faithful to God’s teachings. The average congregant is not necessarily very politicized, for him the church is the reason he was able to save his marriage, give up alcohol or adapt to a new country. However, by fully trusting it, the one who has the right to vote also entrusts it to the word of the pastor. But the votes are nothing if they are not many and the growth plan is in full action.
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