Las ’sectas‘ protestantes y el espíritu del (anti-) imperialismo Entrelazamientos religiosos en las Américas

A potent brew is made up of Latin America, the United States, religion, and politics. These four factors are intertwined in a complex and, for the most part, violent relationship. Historically, the Protestant mission in Latin America and its pan-American objectives have primarily shaped this relationship. The American religiosity of the missionaries has taken on different, more charismatic forms under Latin America's conflict-ridden living conditions and is now primarily shaped by the subcontinent's class antagonisms. However, this does not mean that evangelical organizations do not continue to represent the political interests of the United States. Conversely, the political religiosity of Latin America contributes to ideological struggles in the United States, as seen in the 1980s with Liberation Theology and today with solidarity with Latin American migrants. This book aims to reveal the logic of these inter-American interconnections and unravel them. The narrative tension of the plot is generated by framing it between the great Pan-Americanist conference of the US missions in Panama in 1916 and a conference of Latin American Pentecostals in 2016, which aims to critically examine the previous project. The author traces the history of this religious and political intertwining between the Americas.

Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer