The Protestants and the Second Episcopal Conference of Latin America: convergences

Abstract

As minor religious groups in Latin American, the Protestants built up their identity closely linked to the opposition to the Roman Catholic Church, at the same time they proposed their religious message influenced by morality and civilization-oriented premises. The social relevance of such Protestantism received divergent interpretations by researchers of the Latin American religious field. On the one hand, the aforementioned Protestantism can be viewed from an imperialistic perspective, mainly in the United States. On the other hand, the Latin American Protestantism might come out as an answer to liberal minorities in the ascendant on our continent, in the second half of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th. As to social responsibility, the Protestants offered a myriad of assistance-based activities and projects. This article portrays some displacement regarding the social consciousness of such Protestantism in the second half of the 20th century, as discussed in the Second Episcopal Conference of Latin America, in Medellín, Colombia, in 1969. Inspired by a critical perception concerning the social context in Latin America, ecumenism between Catholics and Protestants is likely to flourish.