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Sanguine Saints: Pentecostalism in El Salvador

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Everett A. Wilson
Everett A. Wilson
Affiliation:
professor of history and academic dean inBethany Bible College, Santa Cruz, California.
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Extract

Students of Latin American pentecostalism often have viewed it more as a symptom of emerging mass society than as a vital religious force. Studies based on development theory, especially, assume that popular movements in the Third World, such as Brazilian pentecostalism, Spiritism, and Umbanda, may promote national integration by offering marginal peoples rudimentary preparation for civic roles. Presumably the decision-making and leadership experience gained in religious participation later may be applied to community and political activities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 1983 , pp. 186 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1983

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References

1. Contributions to the topic include Willems, Emilio, Followers of the New Faith (Nashville, 1967);Google ScholarRoberts, Bryan S., Organizing Strangers (Austin, 1973);Google Scholard'Pinay, Christian La Live, Haven of the Masses (London, 1969);Google ScholarButler, Cornelia Flora, Pentecostalism in Colombia (Cranbury, N.J., 1976);Google Scholar and Howe, Gary, “Pentecostalism and Umbanda,” in Perspectives on Pentacostalism: Case Studies from the Caribbean and Latin America, ed. Stephen, Glazier (Washington, D.C., 1980).Google Scholar

2. The minutes of the Conferencia Evangélica de las Asambleas de Dios de El Salvador have been published annually since 1946.

3. Quoted in Luna, David Alejandro, Manual de historia económica de El Salvador (San Salvador, 1971), p. 204.Google Scholar

4. Anderson, Thomas P., Matanza: El Salvador's Communist Revolt of 1932 (Lincoln, 1971), p. 12.Google Scholar

5. Grubb, Kenneth S., Religion in Central America (New York, 1938), pp. 77, 78.Google Scholar

6. Patria (San Salvador), 29 12 1928, p. 1;Google Scholaribid., 17 January 1929, p. 4. See also Wilson, Everett A., “The Crisis of National Integration in El Salvador” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1970), pp. 121–122.Google ScholarPatria was a reform newspaper edited by Masferrer, Alberto, whom White, Alastair (El Salvador [New York, 1973])Google Scholar describes as “tender minded,” but who nevertheless provides considerable insight into contemporary reform efforts. For background on the dislocation of the peasantry, see White, El Salvador, and Anderson, Matanza.

7. Useful background to the social problems of rural El Salvador is provided by Smith, T. Lynn, “Notes on Population and Rural Social Organization in El Salvador,” Rural Sociology 10 (1945): 359–379;Google Scholar and Adams, Richard N., Cultural Surveys of Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras (Washington, 1957).Google Scholar

8. Damboriena, Prudencio, El Protestantismo en América Latina, 2 vols. (Bogotá, 1963), 2: 96;Google ScholarParker, Joseph I., ed., Interpretative Statistical Survey of the World Mission of the Christian Church (New York, 1938), p. 15.Google Scholar

9. Knowles, James Purdie, Samuel A. Purdie, His Life and Letters (Smyrna, N.Y., 1908), p. 230;Google ScholarRead, William R., et al. Latin American Church Growth (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1969), p. 152.Google Scholar

10. Domínguez, Roberto, Pioneros de pentecostés, 2 vols. (San Salvador, 1975), 2: 221.Google Scholar

11. A dozen songs by Salvadoran composers of the 1940s are found in Himnos inspirados selectos (Springfield, Mo., 1965).Google Scholar

12. Ralph Williams, interview with author, Los Angeles, 15 October 1976.

13. Isabel Navas de Paredes, “Origen de las Asambleas de Dios en Las Repúblicas de El Salvador y Guatemala,” paper delivered at a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Asambleas de Dios, San Salvador, 8 March 1980.

14. Wilson, pp. 52–53.

15. Ruhl, Arthur, The Central Americans (New York, 1927), p. 206.Google Scholar

16. Frodsham, Stanley Howard, With Signs Following, rev. ed. (Springfield, Mo., 1946), pp. 214–215.Google Scholar

17. Francisco Ramírez Arbizú, interview with author, San Salvador, 16 July 1976; Jose Irene Granados, interview with author, San Francisco, 17 August 1981.

18. Arbizú, interview with author.

19. Ramírez, Cristóbal, Las Asambleas de Dios en El Salvador (San Salvador, n.d.), p. 12.Google Scholar

20. Parker, Garry, “Evangelicals Blossom Brightly amid El Salvador's Wasteland of Violence,” Christianity Today, 8 05 1981, p. 34.Google Scholar

21. Ramírez, pp. 24–25.

22. Manual de doctrinas y práticas cristianas de las Asambleas de Dios; Reglamento local (Panama, 1972).Google Scholar

23. Navas de Paredes, p. 4.

24. Ramírez, pp. 27–28.

25. Anderson, pp. 22–25.

26. Williams, interview with author.

27. Grubb, pp. 77–78; Granados, interview with author.

28. See Hodges, Melvin, The Indigenous Church (Springfield, Mo., 1953);Google Scholar Norman Chugg and Kenneth Larson, “Chugg-Larson Report to TEAM's 1970 Conference on Their Church Planting Study Trip to Central America,” Evangelical Alliance Mission, Wheaton, Illinois; William R. Read et al., Latin American Church Growth; Fife, Eric and Glasser, Arthur, Missions in Crisis (Chicago, 1961), pp. 184–187.Google ScholarDamboriena, Prudencio, El Protestantismo en América Latina, 2:95,Google Scholar offers similar findings while questioning their significance. “Según los informes diocesanos…, el grupo más desarrollado y más eficiente es el de los pentecostales. Por otro lado, la prevalencia de esos grupos sectarios (y sobre todo la presencia de los pentecostales) nos obliga a aceptar con extrema cautela la afirmación de que: entre 1957 y 1961 el protestantismo ha ordenado a 479 pastores, elevando con ellos a El Salvador al primer rango entre las naciones sudamericanas en materia de pastorado autóctono. Las realidades no son tan brillantes.”

29. Garry Parker, p. 34.

30. Ramírez, p. 34.

31. Estatutos reformados de la Conferencia Evangélica de las Asambleas de Dios de El Salvador, C. A., rev. ed. (San Salvador, 1974), p. 12;Google Scholar Minutes of the Conferencia Evangélica de las Asambleas de Dios de Salvador, El (San Salvador, 1978).Google Scholar

32. Quoted in Conn, Charles W., Where the Saints Have Trod: A History of the Church of God Missions (Cleveland, Tenn., 1959), p. 143.Google Scholar

33. Granados, interview with author.

34. Jeffrey, Richard E., Fields Afire: Revival in El Salvador (Dallas, nd.) p. 76;Google Scholar Fife and Glasser, p. 187.

35. Aniversario, 1930–1980 (San Salvador, 1980).Google Scholar This was a commemorative pamphlet issued by the Asambleas de Dios.

36. John Bueno, interview with author, Santa Cruz, California, 22 May 1981.

37. Garry Parker, p. 34.