Native Evangelism in Central Mexico

Notes

Notes Introduction 1. Amistad y Vida, Inc., was founded in Mexico City in 1982 by a Presbyterian minister. Within a few years, congregations had been established in cities and rural communities of central Mexico. 2. Statistics on evangelism in Mexico are notoriously unreliable; evangelical sects tend to overestimate their numbers, while the Catholic hierarchy tends greatly to underestimate them. Based on our survey of evangelical congregations in the Córdoba-Orizaba region, and the list of sects and their congregations kept by the authorities of the state of Veracruz, the number of evangelists is much greater than the estimates of the Catholic authorities. 3. We are not theologians, but merely students of comparative religion . Thus, to us “heresy” is a relative term. For example, Nestorianism is heresy for Catholics, but dogma for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Therefore, when anthropologists and sociologists study religious systems and analyze concepts such as heresies, dogmas, and in general any doctrinal elements, they are not dealing with matters of fact, but with perceptions of ideological constructs that cannot be proven true or false. This is the case with all ideational constructs, namely, beliefs , values, ideologies, and worldviews: they are accepted or rejected, but they cannot be falsified. This, of course, is the doctrine that has been called the “subjectivity of values,” which evidently applies to all ideational constructs. Bertrand Russell (1997:237–239) characterizes this scientific stand as follows: “This doctrine consists in maintaining that, if two men differ about values [or about any ideational construct ], there is not a disagreement as to any kind of truth, but a difference of taste. If one man says oysters are good and another says I think they are bad, we recognize that there is nothing to argue about. 168 Notes to Pages 11–12 The theory in question holds all differences about values are of this sort, although we do not naturally think them so when we are dealing with matters that seem more exalted than oysters. The chief ground for adopting this view is the complete impossibility of finding any arguments to prove that this or that has intrinsic value.” Science, in other words, can prove or disprove only matters of empirical fact, but has nothing to say about truth or falsity of ideational constructs. This does not mean, however, that anthropology (as a science) has nothing to say about religion—quintessentially an ideational subject. But what it has to say is not about theology, teleology , and doctrinal constitution, but rather the consequences of these constructs in the social and cultural life of a group. We shall elaborate on this analytical strand but we wanted to state at the outset how the analysis would proceed. 4. The situation in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico , has become even more violent since the onset of the indigenous movement, Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN). The connection between EZLN and the expulsion of evangelists from the municipio of Chamula has not been properly explored, despite the able work of López Meza (1992). It is quite likely, however, that the empowering aspects released by the EZLN movement have radically changed the local relationship between evangelists and Catholics . In our estimation, what this means is that indigenous people now consider themselves entitled to make their own decisions concerning internal matters affecting their own municipios. Similar movements , particularly in the state of Guerrero, have led to the same developments . Such drastic developments have not yet occurred in the Córdoba-Orizaba region and the Tlaxcala-Pueblan Valley, but our prediction is that they soon will take place. 5. We have designated all rural and urban Protestants who do not belong to mainstream denominations as “evangelist sects.” This is a justified appellation insofar as all sects mentioned in the text share a strong concern with proselytism, a consuming desire to spread the word of God as dictated by their beliefs and practices. This usage seems to us to denote the essence of evangelism in the Christian tradition from the beginning, although we are well aware that contemporary students of religion may specifically denote something else by the term. Moreover, we have not specified our usage of terms such as “sect,” “denomination,” “church,” “millenarianism,” and several others. These points have been studied by students of contemporary Protestantism in most of its forms, but they are not immediately pertinent to our description and analysis of native evangelism. Nonetheless , for the sake of keeping matters straight, we shall...