Latin America’s Protestant “Silent Majority”

by Vergil Gerber

There is no doubt after the Latin American Congress on Evangelism held in Bogota, Colombia that conservative evangelicals represent the overwhelming majority of Protestants in the southern hemisphere. Radical and secular theologians were conspicuous by their absence.

There is no doubt after the Latin American Congress on Evangelism held in Bogota, Colombia that conservative evangelicals represent the overwhelming majority of Protestants in the southern hemisphere. Radical and secular theologians were conspicuous by their absence.

In his book Latin American Theology released in Spanish the very week of the congress and written by congress press director C. Peter Wagner, the author estimates that as much as 95 percent of the evangelicals are of a conservative evangelical orientation. The English edition will be published this month by W.B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Unfortunately, however, for the most part Latin American evangelicals are, to use President Nixon’s popular phrase, a "silent majority." Wagner’s book illustrates this graphically. The author analyzes the writings of 10 representative theologians of the "radical left" position. He underlines the fact that their published works are extensive and incisive. They represent a very "vocal minority." On the other hand, Wagner laments, as he turns in his research to conservative evangelicals, there is almost a vacuum in the field of theological essays with a fundamental, biblical orientation. Not because intellectual conservatives are non-existent, but because they have dedicated their efforts for the most part in the past to evangelistic activism and church planting. When it conies to producing solid theological treatises, they can well be described as the "silent majority."

What was evident at Bogota, however, was that biblical Christianity has made tremendous strides forward in recent years. In the preface to chapter one of the Church Growth Research in Latin America Report published by Eerdmans under the title Latin American Church Growth the authors assert: "The growth of the Evangelical Churches of Latin America is a striking spiritual and social phenomenon. From a small, persecuted minority doubtful of its own role, the Evangelical Church has grown within the last few decades into a potent force whose influence is felt in all of Latin American life."

Peter Wagner asserts that the decade of the 1960’s has unquestionably been the greatest in the history of the Latin American Protestant Church. As it comes to a close it leaves a vigorous church of between 15 and 20 million, growing at a rate of about 3.3 times the rate of population growth. Latin America is, in fact, the only continent of the world where the church is growing even as fast as the population. Its population growth rate of 3.1, the world’s highest, further dramatizes the unusual working of the Spirit of God among a people for centuries enslaved to a lifeless religion of ritual and pomp.

Wagner sees the outlook for the 1970’s as even brighter. If preset growth rates are maintained, the church in the southern hemisphere should more than double. Some even predict that we are now on the threshold of a massive turning to God in Latin America that will surpass all present estimates.

But Latin Americans are sharply though disproportionately divided. Not on the basis of denominational affiliations, but on clear-cut theological grounds. On the one hand, the "radical left" is searching for and producing a new "home grown" Latin American theology in which political revolution becomes the mission of the church. Richard Sturz (Conservative Baptist missionary to Brazil and professor of Contemporary and Systematic Theology, Faculdade Teologica Batista de Sao Paulo, Brazil) compares it to the new "black theology" in the United States. In reality, these secular theologians are but copying the ideas of men like Harvey Cox (The Secular City), John Robinson (Honest to God), Altizer and Hamilton (The Death of God) and others, adding to them Marxist presuppositions which characterize the new left position.

On the other hand, their departure from a truly biblical theology is not representative of the great silent majority. As Dr. Samuel Escobar pointed out at Bogota: "As a church we are not called to form a platform for a political party. We should not expect to construct the Kingdom of God here on earth nor should we look toward a Christianized society." According to Escobar, our hope is eschatological. At the same time our Christian service and social involvement will give testimony to this hope and to the Lordship of Christ in our lives.

The rapid theological polarization taking place points up an urgent need for conservative evangelical thinkers of Latin American origin to give themselves to the intellectual pursuit of biblical scholarship. Just as President Nixon asked the silent majority of fellow Americans to stand up and be counted, so the evangelical majority in Latin America must no longer remain silent when it comes to fundamental biblical verities. The urgent need for reaffirmation of scriptural truths in fresh Latin American expression is imperative. The vocal minority rides on the wave of a secular radical theology which is eroding the very foundations of Christian mission.

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