Reflections of a New Missionary - Lutheran Society for Missiology

60 Missio Apostolica
It is interesting to note that even the Roman Catholic Church is aware of the need for
a "nueva evangelizacion" and has launched such programs around Latin America.
However, and unfortunately, this new evangelization is seen, especially by the hierarchy,
as a way to try to regain lost ground and go back to the old days. In other words, the
purpose of the nueva evangelizacibn has changed from no doubt what was the vision of
some Catholic leaders-a preaching of the Gospel-to attempts by the hierarchy to use
its power and worldly influence to tear down the competing religious movements,
insisting that they are "foreign religions" that came "from outside." I think you can see
that for many Latin Americans the arrival of the first conquerors 500 years ago,
accompanied by their monks and priests, might as well have been last year or even
yesterday. The Catholic Church, too, must recognize that in the mind of many Latin
Americans it is just as much an implant as Protestantism, neo-evangelicalism, or
Mormonism or Islam, for that matter.
Perhaps I have said too much about this, but I have often been asked why we are
doing mission work in Latin America. In the history of our own church body it is a
known fact that President H.C. Schwann, who lived in Brazil from 1843 to 1850 before
he immigrated to the United States, was against mission work in Latin America.
Although there were many calls to begin in Brazil it was not until Franz Pieper became
president of the LC-MS in 1899 that our first missionary, Christian Broders, was sent to
Brazil in 1900.
The reports of David Barrett notwithstanding, I believe that the proclamation of the
Gospel in Latin America is still of urgent necessity. At the risk of overstating the point, I
must agree with Rene Padilla, that Latin America is no longer a Christian contment, if it
ever was.
Materialism, Consumerism and Secularization
Besides the proliferation of animistic religious beliefs, the popular religiosity that
Padilla talks about, in many respects Latin America is also now under the same kinds of
influences that we experience here in the U.S. The secularization of society, the rampant
materialism and consumerism that form our core values, the relativism, the postmodernism
that characterizes our culture-all these things are influential in Latin
America too, besides other problems of injustice, poverty, and corruption in government.
Christ Will Establish His Church
What will the 21" century see in terms of the role and place of Christianity in Latin
America Of course only God knows, but there is every reason to believe that Christ will
establish His church (note, I said "His church" and not "Christendom") in Lam America,
and it will take on ever increasing responsibility and initiative in the spread of the Gospel
around the world.