Discipleship In Latin America

I have been working on a paper entitled, "Obstacles to Discipleship in Latin America." I will be including several selections from that in the coming weeks. Not much humor... but it does give you an idea of what I have been thinking about.

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In an attempt to respond to the question, “What cultural barriers exist to healthy discipleship in Latin America?” one is also forced to answer the question, “Is there anything that we can truly identify as the Hispanic culture?”

It should be understood that "Hispanic" does not indicate any particular race but instead refers to a group bound together by a language and some elements of common culture. Factors such as nationalism, regional distinctions in language, varying degrees of oppression or foreign domination and many other differences cause individuals from the Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America to have very different outlooks and values. It can be assumed that obstacles in developing disciples capable of organic, Christ-centered, multiplication will also be varied.

Further complicating any definition of Hispanic culture are factors of education and wealth. The differences between Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Nicaragua in this regard are significant and cannot be ignored.

Just as the Hispanic community is not monolithic in nature, neither is the Hispanic church. Evangelical Christianity in Latin America is characterized by evident strains caused by incredible diversity. Not only do Evangelical Christians reflect the diverse cultural and nationalistic characteristics of their own countries, they also reflect the denominational diversities of their adopted Protestantism. Often the Hispanic church leadership does not have the training or the experience which would equip them to learn from each other rather than competing in the race to build their respective organizations and/or disciples.

In summary, Hispanics are divided by theology, class, politics and national origin. Even language and religion can be points of difference.

Having provided this caveat regarding differences in culture in Latin America, it is important to realize that a Hispanic “supra-culture” is recognized intuitively by most Latin Americans and anthropologists. For the purposes of our discussion, we will identify the Hispanic culture as the underlying values, perspectives and cosmology of the people in any country [excluding Argentina] that was colonized by the early Spanish conquistadors.

While current data shows a marked decrease of Hispanics who identify with the Roman Catholic Church and a corresponding rapid growth among Evangelical groups, there are also large numbers of Hispanics who are abandoning organized religion altogether. In fact, fully half of the people in Mexico who ceased to identify with the traditional religion in the last five years have given up on any organized religion. In Costa Rica, Catholic statistics indicate that over 600 individuals abandon the historic, Roman church everyday. It can be assumed that many of this number do not become involved in any expression of biblical Christianity.

Because of statistics like these, the Evangelical and Charismatic churches across Latin America face even greater pressure to quickly develop effective, Christ-focused and centered discipleship strategies.