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Evangelical protestantism and democratization in contemporary Latin America and Asia

This article examines the new mass Protestantism of Latin America and Asia, which is largely a pentecostalized evangelicalism. Looking at case-studies from Asia (South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Burma, India and China) and from Latin America (Brazil, Guatemala, Peru and Nicaragua), the article stresses the importance of locating evangelical politics within the national religious and political fields. Evangelicalism is highly fragmented and its political effects cannot be read off from its religious doctrines. Fragmentation means that its direct political impact is always smaller than might be hoped or feared and therefore no evangelical neo-Christendom potentially dangerous to democracy is feasible. In addition, it does not seem that Third-World evangelicalism will line up with the First-World Christian right on many issues. But the results for democracy are paradoxical. Totalitarian regimes or movements are firmly resisted, as are non-Christian religious nationalisms, but authoritarian regimes which do not impinge on evangelical religion may not always be. The evangelical world is too fissured and independent to provide a firm basis for nation-wide movements advocating major political change. It is thus less ‘use’ during democratic transitions than during periods of democratic consolidation.