In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Like Leaven in the Dough: Protestant Social Thought in Latin America, 1920-1950
  • Karla Ann Koll
Like Leaven in the Dough: Protestant Social Thought in Latin America, 1920-1950. By Carlos Mondragón. Translated by Daniel Miller and Ben Post. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2011. Pp. 186. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $60.00 hardcover.

This concise work by Carlos Mondragón, a psychologist and historian who is professor of Latin American Studies in the Itzcala Faculty of Advanced Studies of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), locates the development of Protestant social thought within the history of ideas in Latin America. Through their books and [End Page 630] articles, the intellectual leadership of Protestantism influenced public debate far beyond the membership of their churches. Daniel Miller and Ben Post, through their highly readable translation, have given English readers access to this piece of Latin American and political history.

Mondragón demonstrates clearly how the social positions taken by the authors he studied flowed directly from the foundational theological positions shared by Protestants. For example, the promotion of religious freedom was not simply a pragmatic defense of their own religious movement. Protestants believe that individuals are responsible before God for their actions and beliefs, and thus that the freedom of conscience inherent in human beings created in the image of God cannot be controlled by any state or ecclesiastical institution. From this basic right flows the freedom of worship, the right to practice one's religion without interference. These Protestants went further and demanded religious liberty—the free exchange of religious ideas in the public sphere.

As Mondragón shows in the brief historical chapter, Protestant ideas had circulated in Latin America, despite prohibitions, since colonial times. By the decades under study, Protestant churches had existed for at least half a century in most Latin American countries. Against those who identified Latin American culture with Catholicism, Protestant authors constructed an alternative identity that was both Latin American and Protestant. On one hand, they argued that Protestantism had historical roots in Latin nations such as France and Spain. On the other hand, they asserted their right to adapt ideas coming from outside the region to local conditions while rejecting interference by foreign governments and economic interests.

Mondragón characterizes the Protestantism of the writers he surveys as "a religion of individual and social regeneration" (p. 61). Given the supreme value of human persons in their anthropological vision, these writers rejected Soviet collectivism and took a critical stance toward capitalism. As Mondragón points out, these authors expounded on many themes that would be taken up in Latin American liberation theology, such as the Kingdom of God and Jesus's identification with the poor as well as his working-class origins.

Given that Mondragón emphasizes the contributions of Protestant writers in this period to the debates over the shape of Latin American societies, two gaps in this work are particularly striking. Of the 114 individuals included in the useful annotated list of people mentioned in the text, only four are women. Like many venues of the time, Protestant publications did not give much space to women writers. Yet during precisely these decades, women in several Latin American countries were organizing to gain the right to vote. In their proposals for society, the writers Mondragón cites did have ideas about the roles of women. Did the belief in the priesthood of all believers translate into a vision of the rights of women in society? Despite the multiethnic composition of Latin American societies and the presence of Protestant churches in those countries, Mondragón makes no reference to the indigenous populations or the debates of the period around indigenismo. What did Protestant leaders think the role of indigenous [End Page 631] minorities, and in some countries indigenous majorities, should be in the construction of Latin American nations?

Though the Protestant churches represented by the intellectual leadership whose thought Mondragón surveys are a minority today among Latin American Protestants, the political positions these writers advocated remain relevant. Protestant communities in the southern part of Mondragón's own Mexico continue to suffer violent attacks motivated by religious intolerance...

pdf

Share