History and Development of Pentecostalism — Unit 6: Pentecostalism in Latin America: Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Central America

Key Verse

"For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." (Acts 2:39, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Describe the religious setting in which Pentecostalism entered Latin America.

2. Tell the story of the 1909 revival in Valparaiso, Chile, and the churches that came from it.

3. Explain how Pentecostalism began in Brazil in 1910 and name the two early churches that came from it.

4. Describe the early story of Pentecostalism in Mexico and in Central America, and state what we do not know in detail.

5. State the objection that Latin American Pentecostalism is a foreign import and give the Pentecostal answer.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the classical Pentecostal tradition, for students who belong to it. Many of you serve in Latin America, so this is your own story. We believe the Spirit who fell at Pentecost has also been at work in Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Central America. We also try to be honest. Some parts of this history are well documented, and others are known only in outline. Where we do not know, we say so.

The Setting: A Catholic Continent

When Pentecostalism came, Latin America had been shaped for four centuries by the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic faith was part of the nation, the calendar, the schools and the family. Protestant missionaries had arrived in the 1800s, including Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists, but their churches were small. To be Protestant in many places was to be a minority, sometimes a despised one.

Into this world came a message that did not need a large building, an educated clergy or foreign money. It needed a Bible, prayer and a believer who had met God. That is one reason Pentecostalism spread among ordinary people. Peter's words at Pentecost are our key verse. The promise is "to all who are afar off." No continent is too far, and no people is too poor, for the promise of the Spirit.

Chile: The Revival in Valparaiso

The best-known beginning in Latin America is in Chile. Willis C. Hoover was a Methodist missionary from the United States who served as pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church in Valparaiso. Hoover and his congregation had been praying for revival. He had been influenced by reports of the revival at the Mukti mission in India, where Minnie Abrams, as we saw in Unit 1, had written about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. In 1909 a revival began among the Methodists of Valparaiso, with prayer meetings, repentance, healing, visions and speaking in tongues.

Historians note three things about this revival. First, it began among Methodists, in an existing church, not from a foreign Pentecostal mission. Second, Chilean believers took a leading part from the start; the Spirit came upon men, women and young people, and local believers prayed, prophesied and preached. Third, the revival was criticized by some Methodist leaders. Some of them did not accept the manner of the meetings or the claim of Spirit baptism with tongues. In 1910, Hoover and many of his people left the Methodist Episcopal church, and they formed the Methodist Pentecostal Church (Iglesia Metodista Pentecostal).

What the Chilean story shows

The Chilean church grew with Chilean leaders. It was self-governing from an early date. In the 1930s there was a division within the movement, and a second body, the Evangelical Pentecostal Church (Iglesia Evangélica Pentecostal), was formed. Divisions grieved the church then, as they grieve us now. Yet both bodies grew, and Chile became one of the places where Pentecostals form a large part of the Protestant community.

The Chilean story supports the "many origins" view we met in Unit 1. The revival was not simply a copy of Azusa Street. It was the Spirit's own work in a new place, and it gave a Latin American church with a Latin American face.

Brazil: Two Churches in 1910

Brazil's Pentecostal story begins in the same year as the Chilean separation, 1910, and it begins with two groups of immigrants.

Congregação Cristã no Brasil. Luigi Francescon was an Italian immigrant who lived in Chicago and had been baptized in the Holy Spirit in the first decade of the century. He traveled to South America and worked among Italian-speaking communities in the state of São Paulo and Paraná. In 1910 the Congregação Cristã no Brasil (Christian Congregation in Brazil) began its work. It became a large church among Brazilians.

Assembléias de Deus. Gunnar Vingren and Daniel Berg were two Swedish immigrants to the United States who met in the American Pentecostal movement. They believed the Lord was calling them to Brazil. They arrived in Belém, in the northern state of Pará, in 1910 and began to preach. A small congregation was formed, and in 1918 it took the name Assembléia de Deus (Assemblies of God). From Belém it spread across the country. It is today one of the largest Pentecostal churches in the world.

The beginnings in Brazil were foreign, but the growth was Brazilian. Within a few decades the churches were being led, planted and supported by Brazilians, many of them poor and with little formal education.

Later waves in Brazil

Scholars of Brazilian Pentecostalism often describe the growth in three waves. After the first wave of the 1910s came a second wave in the 1950s and 1960s, with healing evangelists and tent campaigns and new Brazilian churches such as Brasil para Cristo, founded by Manoel de Mello in 1955. A third wave, often called neo-Pentecostal, came in the 1970s. The best-known example is the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus), founded by Edir Macedo in 1977. It is large and uses television and radio, and it stresses prosperity and spiritual warfare.

Classical Pentecostal bodies in Brazil and elsewhere have often been critical of teachings that promise wealth as a sign of faith. They agree with Scripture that God provides for His children (Philippians 4:19), and they also agree that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). We return to this question in Unit 10.

Mexico: Return, Migration and Local Leaders

Mexico's Pentecostal beginnings are harder to trace than Chile's or Brazil's. We have some facts and some gaps.

First, much of the early movement was connected with the movement of people across the northern border. Mexicans and Mexican Americans in California and Texas heard the Pentecostal message in the early years and carried it back and forth. One well-known example is Romanita Carbajal de Valenzuela, a Mexican woman who was baptized in the Holy Spirit in Los Angeles and who returned to northern Mexico in the 1910s to preach. Historians of Mexican Pentecostalism give her a place among the early workers.

Second, missionaries from the United States worked among Spanish-speaking people. Henry C. Ball in Texas and Alice E. Luce in California are two names often mentioned in connection with Assemblies of God work among Spanish speakers, and a Spanish-language branch of the denomination grew from this work. Several Mexican Pentecostal bodies came into being in the early decades, some Trinitarian and some Oneness. The Oneness division, which we study in Unit 4, was present in Mexico as in other places.

Third, in Mexico the Pentecostal churches grew under particular legal and social pressures. The Mexican state placed limits on churches for much of the twentieth century, and constitutional changes in 1992 gave religious associations a clearer legal status. Pentecostals, as a small minority beside a large Catholic majority, also faced opposition from neighbors and sometimes from local officials. In some southern states, including Chiapas, evangelical churches grew among indigenous peoples, and in such places Pentecostal churches often became centers for the poor and the marginalized.

We must say plainly that the early Mexican story is not as fully written as the story of Chile, and many local histories remain to be told. Pastors in Mexico who keep records of their own congregations are contributing to history.

Central America

In Central America, Pentecostal and other evangelical churches grew strongly in the twentieth century, in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In Guatemala especially, evangelical believers are now a large and growing minority of the population, and most of them are Pentecostal or charismatic.

Missionaries from the United States and local believers began this work together. The Assemblies of God missionary Melvin Hodges worked in Central America, and in 1953 he published The Indigenous Church. In it he taught that new churches should become self-supporting, self-governing and self-propagating, meaning that they should pay their own way, lead themselves and spread the gospel themselves. These three principles were not new with him. They had been taught earlier by missions thinkers, and Hodges applied them to Pentecostal work. We study them in Course 5. For now, note that the best Pentecostal missionaries understood that the work must belong to local believers.

Central America also suffered from poverty, civil conflict and natural disasters in the twentieth century. Many people turned to the churches for comfort, healing and community. Historians do not agree on how to explain the connection between hardship and Pentecostal growth, a question we take up below.

Competing Explanations and Our Answers

Objection 1: Latin American Pentecostalism is a foreign import.

Some critics, including Catholic writers and some political leaders, say Pentecostalism is a religion of the United States brought to Latin America by missionaries, and that it harms national and cultural identity.

Our answer. The record shows a mixed picture. Some churches did begin with foreign missionaries or immigrants, such as the Assemblies of God in Brazil. But the Chilean revival began among Chileans in an existing church, and the large majority of the leaders, pastors and members in all these countries are Latin Americans. The three-self principle taught by Hodges shows that Pentecostal missionaries aimed for local ownership. And the promise of Acts 2:39 was never given to one culture. A faith that is carried by people from one place to another is not for that reason foreign. The gospel came to all of us from Jerusalem.

Objection 2: Pentecostalism grows because people are poor and in distress.

Some sociologists say people join Pentecostal churches because of poverty, migration to the cities and social disorder, and that the churches offer comfort and belonging.

Our answer. We agree that the churches serve the poor, and we do not apologize for it. Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor" (Luke 4:18). But hardship does not explain everything. Many poor people did not join, and many believers testify to a real encounter with God, not only a social benefit. Social conditions may explain why some were ready to listen. They cannot explain the transformed lives, the healings and the new churches that the believers themselves attribute to the Holy Spirit.

Objection 3: Pentecostals take members from the Catholic Church and divide families.

Catholic leaders have sometimes accused evangelical churches of this.

Our answer. We should listen. Families are sometimes divided when one member converts, and pastors should work for peace at home wherever possible, since Scripture says, "If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men" (Romans 12:18). We also hold that every person has the right to hear the gospel and to follow Christ according to conscience. We respect our Catholic neighbors as people for whom Christ died. We also rejoice that many Catholics have themselves received the baptism in the Spirit through the Catholic charismatic renewal, a subject for Unit 9.

Pastoral Application

A young pastor in a town in Jalisco is told by an uncle at a family gathering, "Your church is a gringo religion. Our grandparents were Catholic, and you have left your own people." The pastor is hurt and wants to answer in anger.

First, he remembers that his uncle is not his enemy. He thanks his uncle for his concern and does not argue at the table.

Second, he prepares to answer well. He learns that a revival began among Chilean Methodists in 1909, that Brazilian Pentecostalism now is led and carried by Brazilians, and that Mexican believers carried the message from Los Angeles to Mexico. He can tell the history briefly and without pride.

Third, he teaches his own congregation the same story, so that they stand on firm ground. He keeps the church's own records: when it began, who prayed, who was healed.

Fourth, he shows his uncle the best answer, which is a changed life and a loving family. He continues to attend family events and to honor his parents.

Summary

Pentecostalism entered a Catholic Latin America in which Protestants were few. The revival in Valparaiso, Chile, began in 1909 among Methodists under Willis C. Hoover and, after the 1910 separation from the Methodist Episcopal church, produced the Methodist Pentecostal Church and later the Evangelical Pentecostal Church. In Brazil, Pentecostal work began in 1910 with the Congregação Cristã no Brasil under Luigi Francescon and with the work of Gunnar Vingren and Daniel Berg in Belém, which became the Assembléia de Deus in 1918. Later waves included Brasil para Cristo and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. In Mexico, early Pentecostalism spread along the northern border through believers such as Romanita Carbajal de Valenzuela and through Spanish-language missions. In Central America, Melvin Hodges taught the indigenous church principles in 1953. Critics say Pentecostalism is a foreign import or a product of poverty. We answer that the leadership has been overwhelmingly local, that hardship does not explain changed lives, and that the promise of Acts 2:39 belongs to all who are afar off.

Further Reading

• Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (2nd ed., 2014).

• Cecil M. Robeck Jr., The Azusa Street Mission and Revival (2006).

• Grant Wacker, Heaven Below (2001).

• Burgess and van der Maas, eds., New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (2002), articles on Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Central America.

• Minnie Abrams, The Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire (1906), a primary source.

• Pew Forum, Spirit and Power (2006).

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