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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2005 
Bush's Brothers In Faith Baptise Mexican Politics
 Jeremy Schwartz - Scotsman.Com
Mexico City - Clad in white cloaks, about 150 evangelical Christians last week gathered in the Calacoaya Christian Centre, a 7,000-seat mega-church in a Mexico City suburb, waiting to be reborn.
Clad in white cloaks, they filed into the baptismal waters of the church fountain where they were swept under by church leaders. One by one they emerged, sobbing and smiling, and fell into the arms of family members and friends.
The newly baptised converts are emblematic of growing numbers of Mexicans leaving the Catholic Church and making evangelical Christianity the fastest growing religion in Latin America, according to some experts.
Evangelicals as a group, traditionally with no influence on the national political scene, are beginning to flex their muscles, and are looking north to the US for their model.
Arturo Farela, who heads an umbrella organisation of Mexican evangelical groups, claims there are as many as 20 million evangelicals in Mexico, accounting for one-fifth of the country’s population.
Academics say that figure is exaggerated - a 2000 census reported more than four million evangelical Christians. But the share of Mexicans who identify themselves as Roman Catholics, officially reported as 88% of the population, is declining, a trend throughout much of Latin America.
Farela said: "We could bring the next president to Los Pinos [the Mexican president’s official residence]. Unfortunately, we don’t have an evangelical candidate, but soon we hope to have one."
When Mexican evangelicals discuss their political ideal, they look no further than the advances made by conservative Christians in the US.
"President Bush is a brother in the faith and he is what we hope happens here," Farela said.
Political heavyweights have begun to take notice of the evangelicals’ rise. Three potential presidential candidates - interior secretary Santiago Creel of the ruling National Action Party (PAN by its Spanish initials); former Mexico City mayor Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD); and the governor of the state of Coahuila, Enrique Martinez of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), are scheduled to speak at a gathering on Wednesday which is hosted by Farela’s National Brotherhood of Evangelical Christian Churches.
But religious experts in Mexico doubt that evangelicals will have much of an effect on the 2006 presidential race.
Roberto Blancarte, a professor of sociology and religion at the College of Mexico, says evangelicals in the past have shown political independence, not aligning with particular political parties.
He said: "It’s not a monolithic vote. That doesn’t mean they won’t carry weight, but they won’t act as a bloc."
Alfonso Vietmeier, a theologian at Mexico City’s Centre for Ecumenical Studies, said Mexicans tend to live their faith outside the political arena.
"These religious changes won’t be a decisive factor in 2006, much less so than in the United States," he said.
But Farela said evangelical organisations plan to take a more active role in the 2006 election. While Mexican law prohibits clergymen from campaigning from the pulpit, Farela said the faithful will pick up signs from their leaders.
Who stands to benefit from the potential evangelical vote? Unlike the US, where evangelicals have found a home in the Republican Party, no such link exists in Mexico.
Although the ruling right-wing PAN party may most closely reflect the movement’s conservative values, it has long, historic ties to the Catholic Church. And analysts say Protestant groups helped the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party win a recent governorship in the state of Guerrero.
For his part, Farela said only that "we don’t want a populist, corrupt or lying candidate".
Fuelling the rise of evangelicalism in Mexico is the more recent trend toward converts among the middle and upper classes.
Traditionally, evangelicalism has found a home among poorer, indigenous communities that have tended to retain a certain religious autonomy despite outward acceptance of Catholicism. The southern, largely indigenous state of Chiapas has the country’s highest proportion of non-Catholics, at 36%, and has also experienced religious violence associated with the rise of evangelism.
An estimated 30,000 evangelicals have been expelled from their communities in the past 30 years and reportedly dozens of evangelicals have been killed or assaulted because of their beliefs. Vietmeier said this violence has less to do with religion than fears that evangelism will tear away the social fibres that bind indigenous communities.
Migration to the US has also played a role in furthering evangelism. "Some migrants living in the US, in situations of crisis turn to local churches and have an experience of conversion," Vietmeier said. "They return with money and the conviction that they need to save their companions."
For many converts, evangelical Christianity gives them an immediacy and hope they find lacking in the Catholic Church.
At the Calacoaya Christian Centre, 22-year-old Ruben Barajas said his faith has given him a fellowship and peace he had been seeking since he began experiencing emotional problems several years ago. As he emerged dripping wet from his baptism, exchanging tearful bear hugs with other young men, he says he couldn’t find what he needed in Catholicism.
"When I gave my life to Jesus, I found more love in my family, I began to see that change," he said. "I feel the presence totally. That’s why you see the tears because you really feel something." |
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