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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 February 2012
Liberationist Christianity in Central America has faced considerable challenges adjusting to changing circumstances since 1990. Yet the political concerns and economic conditions that animated religious movements for liberation in the region have not disappeared, nor have adherents of progressive religion. Central American Lutherans embody a distinctive dialogue with liberationist religion, one not adequately treated or understood in existing studies focused on religious change and the state. In El Salvador and Nicaragua, Lutherans adapted perspectives from liberation theology through the resources of their own theological inheritance, but both this heritage and they themselves were equally shaped and transformed by their efforts to counter, survive and redeem the inhumanity and political violence of the societies they inhabited. The Lutheran story is an important addition to the current understanding of the diverse ways in which religious communities interacted with theologies and movements of liberation, and engaged with processes of social change in the Central American context.
El cristianismo de la liberación en Centroamérica ha enfrentado retos considerables al ajustarse a circunstancias cambiantes desde 1990. No obstante, las preocupaciones políticas y las condiciones económicas que estimularon a los movimientos religiosos de liberación en la región no han desaparecido, ni tampoco los adherentes a la religión progresista. Los luteranos centroamericanos representan un diálogo particular con la religión de la liberación, que no ha sido tratado adecuadamente ni entendido en los estudios existentes que se enfocan en el cambio religioso y el Estado. En El Salvador y Nicaragua los luteranos adaptaron las perspectivas de la teología de la liberación a través de su propia herencia teológica, aunque tal legado – y ellos mismos – fueron igualmente configurados y transformados por los esfuerzos en contrarrestar, sobrevivir y redimir la inhumanidad y la violencia política de las sociedades que habitaban. La historia luterana es una adición importante al actual entendimiento de las diferentes formas en que las comunidades religiosas interactuaron con teologías y movimientos de liberación, y se involucraron con procesos de cambio social en el contexto centroamericano.
O cristianismo de libertação na América Central enfrenta desafios consideráveis para ajustar-se às conjunturas desde 1990. No entanto, os anseios políticos e condições econômicas que inspiraram os movimentos religiosos pela libertação na região não desapareceram, tampouco os adeptos da religião progressista. Luteranos da América Central incorporam um diálogo distinto com a religião liberacionista, fato que não é adequadamente considerado ou compreendido nos estudos existentes focados em mudanças religiosas e do estado. Em El Salvador e Nicarágua, luteranos adaptaram perspectivas da teologia da libertação a partir dos recursos de sua própria herança teológica, mas esta herança, assim como eles próprios, foram igualmente moldados e transformados pelos próprios esforços ao opor-se, sobreviver e compensar a desumanidade e violência política das sociedades onde viviam. A história luterana é um acréscimo importante ao entendimento atual das diversas maneiras pelas quais as comunidades religiosas interagiram com teologias e movimentos de libertação e como engajam-se em processos de mudança social no contexto da América Central.
1 Levine, Daniel H., ‘How Not to Understand Liberation Theology, Nicaragua, or Both’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 32: 3 (1990), pp. 229–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 ‘Burned-over district’ is a term that was coined by Charles Finney in 1876 to refer to western and central New York state in the early nineteenth century, where waves of religious revivals had left virtually no sector of the population ‘unconverted’ to some form of Christianity. Michael Löwy's notion of liberationist Christianity outlines a wider frame than liberation theology, referencing movements and communities that preceded formalised theology and later maintained effective organic independence. See Löwy, Michael, The War of Gods: Religion and Politics in Latin America (London: Verso, 1996), pp. 33–5Google Scholar.
3 Stoll, David, Is Latin America Turning Protestant? The Politics of Evangelical Growth (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), p. 308Google Scholar.
4 Löwy has concluded expectantly, ‘A seed has been sown by liberationist Christianity … which will continue to grow and flourish in the coming decades, and still holds many surprises in store’: Löwy, The War of Gods, p. 140. A recent effort to update liberation theology is Ivan Petrella (ed.), Latin American Liberation Theology: The Next Generation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005). A fresh alternative look at neo-Pentecostalism in the region is O'Neill, Kevin Lewis, City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010)Google Scholar.
5 Löwy partially summarises this heritage in The War of Gods, pp. 27–31.
6 Figures are from the Lutheran World Federation directory, available at www.lutheranworld.org/lwf/index.php/who-we-are/people/member-directory; and Bachmann, E. Theodore and Bachmann, Mercia Brenne, Lutheran Churches in the World: A Handbook (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1989), p. 492Google Scholar.
7 See Spykman, Gordon et al. (eds.), Let My People Live: Faith and Struggle in Central America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988)Google Scholar; Cook, Guillermo, The Expectation of the Poor: Latin American Basic Ecclesial Communities in Protestant Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985)Google Scholar; and Cook, Guillermo (ed.), New Face of the Church in Latin America (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994)Google Scholar.
8 On Lutheran heritage in the region, see the special issue, ‘Lutherans Plunge into Latin America’, Lutheran Quarterly, 22: 1 (1970), for both historical and current perspectives.
9 See Laur, Hendrik, ‘The Skeleton in the Closet: North American Lutherans in Latin America’, Lutheran Quarterly, 22: 1 (1970), pp. 40–8Google Scholar; González, Ondina E. and González, Justo L., Christianity in Latin America: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 195–8Google Scholar; and Jan Pranger, ‘Lutherans in the World Church: An Overview’, in Arland Jacobson and James Aageson (eds.), The Future of Lutheranism in a Global Context (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2008), pp. 14–6.
10 Löwy, The War of Gods, p. 22.
11 Ibid., pp. 36–7.
12 Ibid., p. 33.
13 As elaborated below, Lutheran teaching about God's kingdom expressed the paradox that the reign of God's justice had already arrived without as yet being fully consummated on earth.
14 ‘Communion is commitment and lived experience, being aware of what Christianity is; it means sharing in the group's struggle. It means saying: I am Christian, and with me, brother, you can sing’: Comunión de Iglesias Luteranas de Centroamérica (CILCA), Himnos y cantos (Managua: CILCA, 2002), p. 113.
15 Medardo Ernesto Gómez Soto, quoted in Chris Hedges, ‘El Salvador: Preferring the Poor’, Lutheran, 15 Jan. 1986, p. 20.
16 Christoph Jahnel (trans. Erika Gautschi), The Lutheran Church in El Salvador (1st English edition, Tucson, AZ: Servicio Educativo Cristiano, 2009), pp. 85–6, 116–17, first published in German as Die Lutherische Kirche in El Salvador (Neuendettelsau, Germany: Erlanger Verlag, 2005). In 1953 the LWF formed the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, serving primarily German-speakers in these countries: see Theodore Bachmann, E., ‘Lutheran Churches in the World: A Handbook’, special issue, Lutheran World, 24: 2–3 (1977), pp. 314–16Google Scholar.
17 On the history of the LWF see Schjørring, Jens Holger, Kumari, Prasanna and Hjelm, Norman A. (eds.), From Federation to Communion: The History of the Lutheran World Federation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997)Google Scholar.
18 Jahnel, The Lutheran Church, chap. 3, ‘Mission in Guatemala’, pp. 113–14, 118–19. Gussick began his missionary work in El Salvador and Guatemala in 1947, setting up educational and theological facilities that would allow local people to be trained as pastors or lay leaders.
19 Jahnel, The Lutheran Church, pp. 139–44.
20 Roberto Pineda, ‘Iglesia luterana salvadoreña: nuestra experiencia pastoral’, available at www.sappiens.com/CASTELLANO/articulos.nsf/Politica, 8 July 2010.
21 Gómez's arrival in San Salvador is described briefly in Pineda, ‘Iglesia luterana salvadoreña’.
22 Romero's transformation is conveyed in a series of poignant vignettes in María López Vigil (ed.), Piezas para un retrato (San Salvador: Universidad Centroamericana, 1993), pp. 89–98.
23 These events are recounted in Jahnel, The Lutheran Church. See also ‘Una iglesia solidaria y profética’, Lidio, 16 Sep. 2004, available at www.ccven.net/canales.php?ver=misiones&file=show&sid=160; and two accounts by Gómez: see Medardo Ernesto Gómez Soto (trans. Mary M. Solberg), Fire against Fire: Christian Ministry Face-to-Face with Persecution (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1990); and Gómez (trans. Robert F. Gussick), And the Word Became History: Messages Forged in the Fires of Central American Conflict (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1992).
24 See Alfaro's story in ‘Una iglesia solidaria y profética’.
25 Edgar R. Trexler, ‘Uprooted in El Salvador’, Lutheran, 18 June 1986, pp. 5–7.
26 Jerry Aaker, ‘A Cup of Water’, Lutheran Standard, 18 March 1983, pp. 10–12.
27 See Schjørring, Kumari and Hjelm (eds.), From Federation to Communion, chap. 9, and summary of the Sixth Assembly held at Dar es Salaam, pp. 397–402.
28 Gómez Soto, Medardo Ernesto, quoted in Phillip Berryman, Stubborn Hope: Religion, Politics, and Revolution in Central America (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), p. 170Google Scholar.
29 Medardo Ernesto Gómez Soto, quoted in Trexler, ‘Uprooted in El Salvador’, p. 7.
30 Jahnel, The Lutheran Church, pp. 42–4.
31 Jorge Lara-Braud, quoted by Bill Dexheimer in Gómez, Fire against Fire, p. 58; Berryman, Stubborn Hope, p. 171.
32 See, for example, ‘Work of AELC/PIM in Central America’, memo, Lutheran World Ministries Collection, Series LWM 3/2, Box 1 (Chicago, IL: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Archives, 21 March 1983).
33 Jahnel, The Lutheran Church, pp. 154–6.
34 Quoted in ibid., p. 143.
35 Quoted in Daniel Cattau, ‘Latins become “People's Church”’, Lutheran, 4 June 1986, p. 18.
36 Telephone interview with Kenneth Mahler, former Central American missionary with the LCMS, PIM and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 1 July 2009.
37 It is important to point out that the LCMS also utilised its political channels to advocate for Gómez and Dr. Angel Ibarra in 1983 when they were detained by Salvadorean security forces, Ibarra for well over six months.
38 Victoria Cortez Rodríguez, ‘A Church of Faith and Hope’, in Jacobson and Aageson (eds.), The Future of Lutheranism, p. 91.
39 Iglesia Luterana de Nicaragua Fe y Esperanza (ILFE), Del éxodo a la esperanza, film in author's possession; Jerome Nilssen, ‘Making Sense out of Nicaragua’, Lutheran, 15 Feb. 1984, p. 7.
40 ILFE, Del éxodo a la esperanza; and Cortez Rodríguez, ‘A Church of Faith and Hope’, p. 91.
41 Interview with Kenneth Mahler, 1 July 2009; and interview with Mark Lester, former Maryknoll priest and current staffer at Casa de Estudios Jaime Mayer, Center for Global Education, Managua, 11 Sep. 2008.
42 Ana María's story is told in Ilo Utech, El reino de Dios: utopía de los pobres (Managua: Universidad Luterana de El Salvador and Iglesia Luterana de Nicaragua, 1991), pp. 97–100.
43 Interview with Victoria Cortez Rodríguez, Managua, 7 Sep. 2008.
44 ‘Todo el sufrimiento que pasa en El Salvador y que pasa el pueblo ahorita no es indiferente a Dios. La [injusticia] y la opresión no están acordes con el Reino de Dios porque el Reino es vida y no muerte’. Utech, El reino, p. 100.
45 Kenneth Mahler came to accompaniment as a preferred approach to missionary presence and purpose through exposure to Catholic liberationist currents in Panama. He illustrates the concept vividly via the story of a missionary colleague in India who learned from a local that, figuratively, he had to surrender the driver's seat of the ox-cart completely and without qualification to local people no matter how bumpy or uncomfortable the ride became.
46 Berryman suggests that the term ‘acompañamiento’ was first used by Archbishop Romero to refer to the pastoral work of ‘[standing] by the people’ who had taken up a ‘political option’ in the people's struggle. See Berryman, Stubborn Hope, p. 173.
47 Utech, El reino, p. 97.
48 Quoted in ‘El Salvador: Preferring the Poor’, p. 20.
49 Quoted in Carol Becker Smith, ‘Chilstrom visits Central America’, Lutheran, 28 Sep. 1988, p. 24.
50 Interview with Mary Solberg, former LWF staffer in El Salvador, St. Peter, MN, 25 Feb. 2010.
51 Interview with Victoria Cortez Rodríguez, 7 Sep. 2008; Cortez Rodríguez, ‘A Church of Faith and Hope’, pp. 93–4.
52 ‘A people that journeys through the world, crying out, Come Lord! A people that looks for great liberation in this life.’ CILCA, Himnos y cantos, p. 95.
53 Quoted in Berryman, Stubborn Hope, pp. 201–2.
54 Mahler's first exposure to Central American realities came in the early 1950s when he worked with Robert Gussick in Guatemala as part of a seminary internship.
55 Interview with Victoria Cortez Rodríguez, 7 Sep. 2008.
56 Dimas Jesús Aparicio, quoted in Jahnel, The Lutheran Church, p. 215.
57 Interview with Victoria Cortez Rodríguez, 7 Sep. 2008; and Utech, El reino, chap. 4, ‘Una pastoral que siembra signos del Reino de Dios’.
58 Women's roles encompassed ordination, formal status as pastors, deacons and bishops, and leadership roles as lay ministers. Gómez's spouse received ordination as a deacon through the ILS, which led to a final rupture with the LCMS in the mid-1980s, according to Kenneth Mahler. Anna Peterson remarks on the progressive stance of the Salvadorean Lutheran Church on gender issues and its acceptance of female leadership in ‘ “The Only Way I Can Walk”: Women, Christianity, and Everyday Life in El Salvador’, in Anna Peterson, Manuel Vásquez and Philip Williams (eds.), Christianity, Social Change, and Globalization in the Americas (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001), p. 38.
59 Medardo Ernesto Gómez Soto, quoted in ‘El Salvador: Preferring the Poor’, p. 20.
60 Ibid.
61 ‘Todos nosotros hemos convivido con la muerte, por eso sentimos a Jesús tan familiar, pues somos tan parecidos a él’. Quoted in Utech, El reino, p. 97.
62 Medardo Ernesto Gómez Soto, quoted in ‘Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gómez Speaks out in El Salvador’, World Encounter, 1 (1990), p. 23, emphasis added.
63 See Vigil (ed.), Piezas, p. 370, where Jorge Lara Braud recalls Romero's response to questions posed by Mexican journalists in March 1980 about threats against his life: ‘Si me matan, resucitaré en el pueblo salvadoreño.’ (‘If they kill me I will rise again in the Salvadorean people.’)
64 Centro Ecumenico Antonio Valdivieso, ‘Nicaraguan Revolutionary Christians Face the Crisis of Civilization’ (New York: Circus Publications, 1991), p. 15.
65 ILFE, Del éxodo a la esperanza.
66 Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, The Politics of Compassion (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986), p. 3.
67 Quoted in Bill Dexheimer, ‘Catequista’, World Encounter, 2 (1989), p. 21.
68 Repatriation stories were reported in the Lutheran press; see Jacqueline Boynton, ‘A Steer for San José’, Lutheran, 28 Sep. 1988, pp. 12–14; Herbert W. Chilstrom, ‘Baptized into Suffering’, Lutheran, 12 Oct. 1988, p. 41; Bill Dexheimer, ‘Going Home’, World Encounter, 1 (1988), pp. 8–11; ‘Resettlement in El Salvador’, photograph, Lutheran, 1 June 1988, p. 37.
69 Kenneth Mahler recounted this story to me.
70 Interview with Victoria Cortez Rodríguez, 7 Sep. 2008; ‘Lutheran Church Now in Nicaragua’, Lutheran, 28 Nov. 1990, p. 33.
71 ‘To plant new values born from the Christian utopia of a future, liberated society whose economic, social, political, and cultural conditions make possible the building of the Kingdom [of God]’: Utech, El reino, p. 4.
72 On millenarian expectations in the Nicaraguan base communities, see Lancaster, Roger, Thanks to God and the Revolution: Popular Religion and Class Consciousness in the New Nicaragua (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Faroohar, Manzar, The Catholic Church and Social Change in Nicaragua (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Montoya, Rosario, ‘Liberation Theology and the Socialist Utopia of a Nicaraguan Shoemaker’, Social History, 20: 1 (1995), pp. 23–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
73 Levine, Daniel H., ‘Considering Liberation Theology as Utopia’, The Review of Politics, 52: 4 (1990), p. 605CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
74 ‘Para el pueblo pobre y los cristianos comprometidos con la causa de los pobres y perseguidos, el Reino de Dios es motivo de alegría, es una Buena Nueva. Es ánimo y fuerza para continuar la lucha en el mundo presente. Para estos el Reino es utopía porque se trata de la posibilidad de construir un mundo en donde no haya hambre, desempleo, inseguridad etc.’: Utech, El reino, p. 89.
75 Quoted in Jahnel, The Lutheran Church, p. 143.
76 Medardo Ernesto Gómez Soto, quoted in David L. Miller, ‘Gómez Goes Home’, Lutheran, 11 April 1990, p. 20.
77 Levine, ‘Considering Liberation Theology as Utopia’, p. 618.
78 Medardo Ernesto Gómez Soto, quoted in James Henneberger, ‘In Touch with Life and Death’, World Encounter, 3–4 (1988), p. 12, emphasis added.
79 See Jahnel, The Lutheran Church, appendix 2, ‘Documents and Pictures from the Lutheran Church in El Salvador’, pp. 330–1.
80 ‘Lutero … decía que el cristiano vive en el mundo, como una rosa bajo las espinas, o sea la vida del cristiano provoca rechazo y escándalo en la sociedad. Pero, todo el sufrimiento y oposición del mundo no lo abate, porque está seguro del acompañamiento de Dios’: Utech, El reino, pp. 84–5.
81 See Medardo Ernesto Gómez Soto, ‘The Subversive Cross’, Lutheran, 8 Aug. 1990, p. 47.
82 Ibid.
83 See Jahnel, The Lutheran Church, pp. 216–17.
84 Tutela Legal (Legal Protection) began as a project of Catholic lay lawyers in 1975 under the name Socorro Juridico (Legal Aid), and later received the official recognition of Monsignor Romero as an archiepiscopal institution; see Legal Aid Service of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, El Salvador: One Year of Repression (Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, World Council of Churches, 1981), originally El Salvador: del genocidio de la junta militar a la esperanza de la lucha insurreccional, p. 5. See also Leigh Binford, The El Mozote Massacre (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1996), pp. 121–4, 229; Tutela Legal, ‘Recording the Terror: El Salvador's Tutela Legal’, in Marvin E. Gettleman, Patrick Lacefield, Louis Menashe and David Mermelstein (eds.), El Salvador: Central America in the Cold War (revised and updated, New York: Grove Press, 1986), pp. 247–53; and Danner, Mark, The Massacre at El Mozote (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), pp. 164, 170–1, 279–80Google Scholar.
85 See Montgomery, Tommie Sue, Revolution in El Salvador: From Civil Strife to Civil Peace (2nd edition, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 209–10Google Scholar; and Jahnel, The Lutheran Church, pp. 39, 217–19.
86 Schjørring, Kumari and Hjelm (eds.), From Federation to Communion, pp. 342–3.
87 Interview with Mark Lester, 11 Sep. 2008; author visits to Lutheran communities in Somotillo, Chinandega, Nicaragua, 17 Sep. 2008, and Somoto, Madriz, Nicaragua, 18–20 Sep. 2008.
88 Mery Arias, ‘La familia luterana en el mundo’, El Nuevo Diario, Managua, 31 Oct. 1998, available at http://archivo.elnuevodiario.com.ni/1998/octubre/31-octubre-1998/opinion/opinion4.html, emphasis added.
89 Cortez Rodríguez, ‘A Church of Faith and Hope’, p. 92.
90 Hegg, Manuel Ortega and Castillo, Marcelino, Religión y política: la experiencia de Nicaragua (Managua: Ruth Casa Editorial, CASC-UCA, 2006), pp. 205–6Google Scholar.
91 Obispa Victoria Cortez, Carta Pastoral, Managua, 2 July 2009, author email correspondence; see also ‘28 de septiembre: condenamos cierre de medios y violencia en Honduras’ and ‘Manuel Zelaya: de presidente a prisionero’, under ‘Sala de Prensa’, available at http://premper.info/iglesia-luterana/, 10 July 2010.
92 CILCA, Himnos y cantos, p. 95.
93 Levine, Daniel H. and Stoll, David, ‘Religious Change, Empowerment, and Power: Bridging the Gap in Latin America’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 1: 1–2 (1995), pp. 1–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
94 See Scott, James C., Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), p. xviiGoogle Scholar.
95 Jahnel describes ecumenical conversations under way in the ILS community, a point I observed during visits with ILFE groups in 2008; see Jahnel, The Lutheran Church, pp. 285–8. Earlier, Edward L. Cleary underscored the potential impact of ecumenical dialogue for societal change as well as for both theological and political convergence, in ‘Protestants and Catholics: Rivals or Siblings?’, in Daniel R. Miller (ed.), Coming of Age: Protestantism in Contemporary Latin America (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994), pp. 205–31.
96 Berryman, Phillip, ‘Is Latin America Turning Pluralist?’, Latin American Research Review, 30: 3 (1995), pp. 118–19Google Scholar.
97 See Pineda, ‘Iglesia luterana salvadoreña’, author's translation.