On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Religion in Modern Latin America (review)

This collection of essays explores the diversity of religious experience in Latin America, focusing primarily on the twentieth century and regionally on Mexico, Central America, and Brazil. The implication for broader applicability, however, is clear. Garrard-Burnett states in the introduction that, contrary to traditional social science paradigms (which conclude that as a society becomes more advanced the role of religion becomes more circumscribed), modernization has not brought secularization in Latin America. The selected articles make clear that religious experience has not lessened in modern Latin America even though changes from the monopoly once held by the Catholic Church have taken place.

Garrard-Burnett has organized the book into four sections that divide it somewhat chronologically. The first section presents two articles focused on nineteenth-century Church-State conflict that provide background for several later articles. Douglass Creed Sullivan-Gonzales not only describes the generally cordial relationship of the Rafael Carrera administration and the Catholic Church, but also explores the elite struggles for state formation that sometimes strained this arrangement. Jan Rus analyzes the Caste War of Chiapas and concludes that politics, religion, and race are joined in such a manner as to make each indistinguishable in this struggle.

The second section explores popular religions and folk Catholicism. Allison Gardy describes a Jewish settlement that thrived where institutional Catholic culture was weak. Duncan Earle uses ethnographic analysis to conclude that a Guatemalan fusion of Christianity and indigenous religion resulted in the creation of a new contextualized religion. Lindsay Hale uses interviews of adherents to focus on a revival of African religion that combines with Christianity and indigenous religions to form a distinctly Brazilian religion.

The third section investigates Liberation Theology and its implications for communities of the future. Christian base communities (CEBs) and the wide spread adoption of liberation theology in Brazil has created an active presence of the Catholic Church among the poor. Scott Mainwaring sees this activism as paving the way for political participation generally. Phillip Williams reviews the role of CEBs from their establishment in the 1960s through developments after the1979 Sandinista administration in Nicaragua. He finds a weakening of the early alliance between the institutional Church and the government as the administration assumes its position.

The final section includes two articles on Protestant involvement in Latin America. Sheldon Annis uses Max Weber's analysis of Protestantism as embodying an ethic that promotes capitalism and individualism to systematically investigate the economic differences between Catholics and Protestants in a Guatemalan town. R. Andrew Chesnut looks at the rise of Pentecostalism in a predominantly female congregation in Brazil through a series of interviews to conclude that these individuals are removed from oppressive realities through ceremony and mutual aid societies.

None of the selected articles specifically explores the evolution of the Catholic experience in Latin America from colonial times in order to place the religious studies in context; however, Garrard-Burnett includes a helpful introduction that recounts the importance of the Reconquest and the spiritual conquest of the new world as background to the later experiences and events. The Catholic Church was the most powerful political and economic institution in the colonial world as evidenced by the patronato real. When independence became a reality, the role of the Church remained one of the primary questions for new governments. While the nineteenth century witnessed a retreat of the institutional Catholic Church from the frontiers and from the indigenous areas, folk Catholicism took its place. Later in the century, other beliefs, political and religious, competed for attention. From Rerum Novarum in 1891 to the declarations at the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church proclaimed its relevance to a modern world. Out of this movement for a more action-oriented faith, liberation theology emerged. By the 1990s, the institutional church had moved away from liberation theology and Protestant evangelicalism made inroads, particularly in Brazil and Guatemala. The face of religion...