Religion Debated in the 1920s in Latin America

Catholicism or Protestantism?

Abstract

Since the early nineteenth century, when most Latin American countries achieved independence, politicians and intellectuals of this region have had long debates about religion over the treatment of Catholicism, which exerts a powerful influence on politics and society. For a combination of several reasons, including the fact that after the end of World War I, Protestant missionary activity from the United States increased and Latin America became one of its main targets, and the influence of the Mexican and Russian revolutions, by the 1920s the debate about religion in Latin America was developing in some different directions. The Spanish-language monthly magazine La Nueva Democracia (The New Democracy), launched in 1920 under the leadership of American Protestant missionary Samuel Guy Inman (1877-1965), published articles, some of which were written by high-ranking politicians and well-known intellectuals, and provided the authors with a forum for discussions on religion. This paper will focus on those articles, with particular attention to discussions involving Catholicism and Protestantism and how the debate evolved into “spirits” and civil religion.