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The Growth and Development of Non-Catholic Churches in Chile

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Review of Religious Research

Abstract

Different varieties of Protestantism and Pentecostalism have been very successful in Latin America, where Chile, Brazil, and most Central American countries are now 15–30 % Protestant. This article analyzes the growth and development of the ten major non-Catholic churches in Chile, one of the most Pentecostal countries of Latin America. It describes the history and growth of the following churches in the chronological order of their arrival or start: Anglicans, Methodists, Seventh-day Adventists, Baptists, Iglesia Metodista Pentecostal, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Iglesia Evangélica Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, Church of God, and Latter-day Saints (Mormons). I end with an analysis of average annual growth rates for each church and for the entire Protestant community. Chile was famous for strong Protestant growth in the past, but there are few recent data on church growth. My main question here is: which non-Catholic churches in Chile have been most successful in terms of membership growth and when did this growth occur? The conclusion analyzes why non-Catholic churches in Chile have been successful in the past and why they currently struggle to grow.

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Notes

  1. Espinosa (2004) based himself on 2003 statistics from Todd M. Johnson and Peter Crossing at the Center for the Study of World Christianity. Similar to Johnstone and Mandryk (2001), these data were based on self-reporting by the churches, which tend to over-estimate their membership and ignore the drop-outs. The data for Chile generally used throughout this article are based on the most reliable census of 2002 (Holland 2006, p. 205), rather than the controversial 2012 one.

  2. Anomie can be defined as the absence—or strong erosion—of generally accepted norms and values, which threatens to cause the disintegration of society. Durkheim ([1897] Durkheim 1966, p. 253) was especially worried that with the gradual unfolding of the modernization process, human needs and desires could not be kept under control by society, leading to a situation of anomie. See also Gooren (2001a, p. 179).

  3. At 57.1, Chile’s Gini income inequality index was the fourth highest of Latin America after Colombia (58.6), Brazil (58.0), and Paraguay (57.8).

  4. The wide fluctuations in Baptist membership suggest a lack of standardization and/or problems with recollection.

  5. In the 2002 national census, 115,261 people self-identified as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Considering that the total community of Jehovah’s Witnesses, including less-actively witnessing members and children, is typically about 1.7 times bigger than the total membership reported by the church itself (Gooren 2013, p. 17), this would suggest an active JW membership of about 67,800.

  6. Chile is a country where the Jehovah’s Witnesses have had about average success in Latin America so far. The population proportion of the total JW community in Chile is 1.04 %, compared to the Latin American average of 1.1 % (Fortuny and Gooren 2014, p. 28).

  7. The wide fluctuations in Assemblies of God membership suggest a lack of standardization and/or problems with recollection.

  8. Vergara (1962, p. 180) reported 1950 as starting year for the Church of God in Chile.

  9. Taking into account the inactivity rate of around 80 % (see above), the population percentage of active Mormons in Chile is still an impressive 0.67 %.

  10. In Guatemala, there were seven Pentecostal churches among the ten biggest non-Catholic churches (Gooren 2001a, p. 194).

  11. Cleary and Sepúlveda (1997, p. 106) likewise reported “a slight deceleration” of growth in the 1960s.

  12. The most urbanized countries of Latin America are also the most industrialized: Venezuela (93.6 %), Argentina (93.1 %), Uruguay (92.4 %), Chile (89 %), and Brazil (85 %).

  13. On average, about 5 % of priests participated in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the Latin American countries in 2000.

  14. See Gooren (2012) for a detailed analysis of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Chile and Paraguay.

  15. Guatemala and Nicaragua, by contrast, had Protestant boom periods in the 1980 s, coinciding with the global economic recession following the 1982 debt crisis (Gooren 2001a, 2003).

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Cristián Parker and Juan Sepúlveda for their comments on earlier versions of the text and on the original research design. The research was made possible by an individual Pentecostal-Charismatic Research Initiative (PCRI) Grant of the John Templeton Foundation, administered by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. For more details on the PCRI, see their website: http://crcc.usc.edu/initiatives/pcri/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice, Oakland University, 518 Varner Hall, Rochester, MI, 48309, USA

    Henri Gooren

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Correspondence to Henri Gooren.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Chronology of the Arrival or Atart of Non-Catholic Churches in Chile, 1837–1991

#

Type

Church name (country or church of origin)

Year

01

HPC

Anglican Church (United Kingdom)

1837

02

HPC

Presbyterian Church (USA)

1845

03

HPC

Lutheran Church (Germany)

1846

04

HPC

Methodist Church (USA)

1877

05

IC

Seventh-day Adventists (USA)

1890

06

HPC

Baptist Church (Germany)

1892

07

HC

Iglesia Alianza Cristiana y Misionera (USA)

1897

08

PC

Iglesia Metodista Pentecostal (Methodist Church)

1909

09

PC

Assemblies of God (Sweden)

1925

10

HC

Plymouth Brethren (USA)

1928

11

IC

Jehovah’s Witnesses (USA)

1929

12

PC

Iglesia Evangélica Pentecostal de Chile (IMP)

1934

13

PC

Ejército Evangélico de Chile (IMP)

1937

14

PC

International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (USA)

1940

15

PC

Assemblies of God (USA)

1941

16

PC

Iglesia Pentecostal de Chile (IMP)

1946

17

PC

Iglesia Evangélica Metodista Pentecostal (IMP)

1950

18

PC

Iglesia de Dios de Chile (Church of God Cleveland, USA)

1951

19

IC

Latter-day Saints [Mormons] (USA)

1956

20

HC

Church of the Nazarene (USA)

1962

21

PC

Church of God of Prophecy (USA)

1975

22

PC

Voz de Desierto (Voice of the Desert, USA)

1980

23

NPC

Dios es Amor (Deu è Amor, Brazil)

1990 (?)

24

NPC

Iglesia Universal del Reino de Dios (Igreja Universal, Brazil)

1991

  1. Sources: Barrett et al. (2001, pp. 189–190), Freston (2001, p. 203), fieldwork 2011
  2. HPC Historical Protestant Churches: roots in Reformation (Methodists, Baptists), HC Holiness Churches: resulting from nineteenth century schisms in HPC in the USA (Church of the Nazarene), PC Pentecostal Churches: resulting from early twentieth century manifestations of the Holy Spirit, principally in the United States (Assemblies of God, Church of God), IC Independent Christian traditions: Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Latter-day Saints (Mormons), NPC Neo-Pentecostal Churches: resulting from late twentieth century manifestations of the Holy Spirit, often—but not always—in historical Protestant churches (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus: the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God)

Appendix 2: Membership Change (in Percent Divided by Number of Years) of Main Churches in Chile, 1900–2012

1900–1907:

Methodists + 35.7 %

Total Protestants + 2.6 %

Roman Catholics + 1.3 %

1907–1930:

Baptists + 22.0 %

Seventh-day Adventists + 14.9 %

Total Protestants + 3.4 %

Roman Catholics + 1.6 %

Methodists + 1.2 %

1930–1940:

Total Protestants + 9.3 %

Baptists + 7.5 %

Seventh-day Adventists + 5.6 %

Methodists + 1.2 %

Roman Catholics + 0.9 %

1940–1960:

Latter-day Saints/Mormons + 1250 % (1956–1960)

Jehovah’s Witnesses + 197.5 %

Total Protestants + 12.1 %

Seventh-day Adventists + 8.3 %

Baptists + 7.1 %

Roman Catholics + 2.2 %

Methodists + 1.9 %

1960–1970:

Latter-day Saints (Mormons) + 246 %

Assemblies of God + 29.2 %

Baptists + 25.3 %

Jehovah’s Witnesses + 24.2 %

Methodists + 19.1 %

Iglesia Evangélica Pentecostal 16.7 %

Seventh-day Adventists + 14.7 %

Iglesia Metodista Pentecostal + 10.0 %

Christian and Missionary Alliance + 5.6 % (1964–1970)

Anglicans + 4.3 %

Total Protestants + 3.2 %

Roman Catholics + 1.0 %

1970–1992:

Latter-day Saints (Mormons) + 86.5 %

Jehovah’s Witnesses + 22.3 %

Seventh-day Adventists + 14.7 %

Total Protestants + 6.0 %

Roman Catholics + 0.1 %

1992–2000:

Total Protestants + 13.5 %

Latter-day Saints (Mormons) + 7.7 %

Roman Catholics + 6.25 %

Seventh-day Adventists + 4.6 %

Anglicans + 1.7 %

Jehovah’s Witnesses + 0.8 %

Methodists − 1.8 %

Baptists − 2.5 %

Iglesia de Dios − 3.1 %

Iglesia Pentecostal de Chile − 5.3 %

Iglesia Metodista Pentecostal − 8.5 %

Christian and Missionary Alliance − 9.1 %

Iglesia Evangélica Pentecostal − 11.0 %

Assemblies of God − 12.8 %

Evangelical Army of Chile − 70.8 %

2000–2002:

Jehovah’s Witness + 3.3 %

Latter-day Saints (Mormons) + 1.8 %

Seventh-day Adventists + 1.8 %

Roman Catholics − 0.45 %

Total Protestants − 6.1 %

2002–2012:

Jehovah’s Witness + 1.9 %

Latter-day Saints (Mormons) + 0.9 %

Seventh-day Adventists + 0.8 %

Total Protestants − 1.1 %

Roman Catholics − 2.1 %

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Gooren, H. The Growth and Development of Non-Catholic Churches in Chile. Rev Relig Res 57, 191–218 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-014-0180-3

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