Independents

Summary

Although it is well known that Latin America has been a predominantly Catholic continent, this has been changing rapidly in recent decades. Currently in the region, hundreds of churches that have no formal or institutional relationship with the Catholic Church, nor with any of the other historical Christian denominations, are inaugurated weekly. In addition, most of the new churches, although they can be located within the Pentecostal movement, are not born in traditional Pentecostal denominations (such as Assemblies of God, Church of the Foursquare Gospel, Church of God, Church of God in Christ and Pentecostal Holiness Church) or join them. These new churches also show no interest in being part of the World Council of Churches. Thus, the clear majority of the new Latin American Christian churches can be defined as ‘Independent churches’ or, at least, this is what their founders and pastors consider them to be.

The ‘Independent churches’ category attempts to encompass a great diversity of Christian communities, since – more than a doctrinal category – it encompasses a certain form of religious organisation or ecclesial government that has become recurrent, or, rather, predominant in Latin America. To attempt to describe this phenomenon, an exposure method based on what the sociologist Max Weber called ideal types or pure types is proposed here. This means that, given the great diversity of Independent churches that are found on Latin American soil, the present description tends to generalise from some cases that can be considered emblematic, extracting data from these cases that allow the reader to have a general idea of the characteristics of the Independent churches and of the reasons why they proliferate and prosper in Latin America.

It is pertinent to clarify, however, that the present description (due to its generalising claims and its schematic nature) omits details of the trajectory and characteristics of each of the churches that fall in the category ‘Independent’. For this reason, the description offered here should be read with caution, since although simplifying the phenomenon helps us to understand it, this general description omits details that can be considered fundamental for another observer, or for a member or supporter of any of the churches mentioned here.