In Argentine lore, dates such as May 18–25, 1810 (the May Revolution), October 17, 1945 (the demonstration for Perón’s release from prison), and December 19–20, 2001 (piquetero and cacerolazo demonstrations against the government), are at the center of the national-mythic-celestial calendar, because they represent moments when el pueblo seemingly seized public space and time. For Latin American evangélicos, there are few such mythic moments in their collective history because they have long been a sector, in the words of José Míguez Bonino, condemned to gather members from “the loose dust on the surface of Latin American society” (1997, 53). However, September 11, 1999, finally marked one such prodigious moment, as between 150,000 and 400,000 evangelicals converged on the Obelisk in downtown Buenos Aires to the sounds of a two-hundred-instrument band and a large choir. El Obelisco, as the event came to be called, featured a central stage from which prayer and speeches were interspersed with songs. The event restated long-standing grievances over unequal legal recognition of religious rights and voiced prophetic critiques and concerns about national augmentation of poverty, unemployment, violence, and the disintegration of the family. It was a coming of age for evangelicals, a demonstration of social capital of seismic proportions. One national newspaper reported that a mini-earthquake was felt in the vicinity. While for some evangelicals the rumbling constituted a recapitulation of Acts 4:31—when early Christians felt the place in which they had gathered to pray start to shake—the more likely cause was the two hundred instruments, singers, and loudspeakers that shook the city with the sounds of Christian rock, anglicized cumbia, and alabanza y adoración (praise and worship),1 all musical genres that form what I term “Latin American Charismatic Music” (LACM). However, perhaps it is best to interpret those urban rumblings as revelatory, as a seismic event that was in part the fruition of the moving beats and exponential proliferation of LACM.
This chapter will explore why it is not trifling that LACM accompanied the evangelical pueblo on that day. While a large body of work examines recent Latin American evangelicalism and its exponential growth, particularly through pentecostalism, there has been scant focus on the tunes and beats that have accompanied this expansion. Through the lens of Argentina, this chapter examines the significance of LACM in the formation of an influential “pentevangelical” culture. The first section will set the stage, contextualizing the conversation about LACM through an examination of its fruition amid the charismatic and neocharismatic growth and mobilization in Argentina in the 1980s and 1990s. Second, I will examine LACM as a constituent of the process of creation of a pan-pentevangelicalism, paying special attention to the instrumental and international figure of Marcos Witt as well as the Argentine Christian rock band RESCATE. Lastly, while recognizing that LACM represents a formidable attempt to produce a pentevangelical culture and to transform Latin America, I will raise some questions concerning the transformative possibilities of LACM and pentevangelicalism. Offering a fraternal theological critique of LACM and pentevangelical culture, I will argue that they have failed to form a worshipful culture that embodies Oscar Romero’s declaration that “the glory of God is that the poor should live” (Trigo 1993, 299).
In Latin America, evangélico is a catchall term that, similar to the German Evangelische and the English Protestant, encompasses all types of Protestant groups and their different ideological stances—liberal, progressive, and conservative—and ecclesial traditions, including the many shades of Latin American pentecostalism.2 In this chapter, I will use the terms “evangelical” and “evangelicalism” in this sense, unless otherwise noted. I use the acronym LACM in a broad sense to encompass praise and worship music focused on congregational and mass gatherings, as well as the numerous and varied styles of popular music for listening and dance (cumbia, salsa, merengue, reggaeton, rock, and so forth). When I use the term “pentecostalism” with a small “p,” I am referring to the kaleidoscope of pentecostal ecclesial traditions, culture, and practices among classic Pentecostals, charismatics, and neocharismatics3—both those who self-identify as such and those who do not, but have pentecostal beliefs and practices. For example, Argentine neocharismatics do not typically self-identify as Pentecostals but rather as evangélicos or Christians. Finally, I use the term “pentevangelical” to refer to a culture and practice that self-identifies as evangelical but demonstrates the direct influence of pentecostalism, in particular neocharismaticism.
Pentecostalism arrived on the shores of Latin America long ago, and certain contexts with established evangelical populations, such as Argentina, proved resistant to this new Protestant cousin. This changed in Argentina during the infamous “lost decade” of the 1980s and the neoliberal boom of the 1990s. In Argentina, one can poignantly speak of at least three principal changes since the last and most heinous dictatorship (1976–83): profound socioeconomic structural changes under the guise of privatization and neoliberalism, a mutation of national political structures, and the formation of an exclusionary sociocultural context (Svampa 2005). The neoliberal boom, in which Argentina served as a trendsetter for Latin America, featured a plan of savage privatization and parallel openness to foreign economic and political influence (Brennan 1998, xii). This resulted in a sharp augmentation of poverty, a growing divide between the rich and the poor, and an influx of new religious groups as the religious market expanded (Wynarczyk 2009, 171–73). This period was marked by significant pentecostal growth, far outpacing decades of lackluster growth among classic Pentecostals, and a profound pentecostalization of evangelicalism as a whole.
While Tommy Hicks and Billy Graham generated mass gatherings in Argentina in 1954 and 1962, respectively, their efforts, as well as those of classic Pentecostalism and early evangelicalism, did not yield large-scale gains. It was only in the 1980s, with the rise of neocharismatics such as Omar Cabrera and Carlos Annacondia, that Argentine evangelicalism embraced the constellation of pentecostalism. A profound metamorphosis occurred in the formation of a parallel and associated pan-pentevangelical and supra-denominational culture (Wynarczyk 1989, 2009; Maróstica 1997, 1999, 2011). Annacondia, in particular, proved influential in preaching a gospel of power with the double message of repentance and liberation, as represented in the enduring theme “Jesus loves, saves, and heals you” (Algranti 2010, 79). Unlike evangelists of the past, Annacondia employed “power evangelism” (Annacondia 1998), a confrontational style of evangelism that used preaching and prayer as tools of spiritual warfare and liberation to confront and exorcise evil spirits. The flamboyant Annacondia would confront demonic powers in the opening prayer of his crusades by calling out, “¡Oíme bien, Satanás!” (Listen to me, Satan!).4 Moreover, he effectively engaged local churches in the organization of his crusades, which produced a network through which to distribute a burgeoning pentevangelical culture, as well as generate growth among evangelicals (Maróstica 1997, 1999, 2011).
In the 1990s, the genus of pentecostalism was impressed even more firmly on evangelicalism with the neocharismatic renovación (renewal).5 In 1992, Claudio Freidzon, pastor of the Assemblies of God church Rey de Reyes (King of Kings), made a trip to the United States to meet Benny Hinn after reading his books Good Morning, Holy Spirit and The Anointing. During this visit, Hinn prayed for Freidzon to receive la unción (the anointing), and Freidzon subsequently brought this anointing to his church in Buenos Aires, from which it spread far and wide (Deiros 1998, 38; Holvast 2009, 60–61). While the anointing and renewal came well after the advent of neocharismaticism, nevertheless, as Hilario Wynarczyk has stated, it became “the most important cognitive area of neo-pentecostalism,” incorporating prior existing practices (power evangelism, spiritual warfare/mapping, inner healing, liberation,6 and the prosperity gospel) and becoming the functional power base upon which these practices operated (1997, 10).7
These tactical practices are rooted in a cosmology that views the physical world as intimately intertwined with a contentious and dualistic spiritual reality divided between warring forces of good (God) and evil (the demonic). As Wilma Davies has commented, neocharismatics have “recreated a meta-narrative based around the cosmic story of Spiritual Battle” (2010, 211). For neocharismatics, the salvific message of Jesus Christ and the personal encounter with God through the Holy Spirit save not only believers’ souls from eternal damnation but also their bodies from sickness, disease, and poverty in the present (Yong 2010, 122–26, 258–63). While even classic Pentecostalism understood Jesus as savior and healer, neocharismatics have developed practices that go beyond physical healing to include the spiritual, psychosomatic, and economic. Moreover, neocharismatics directly confront demonic spirits in order to bring healing and liberation; they understand themselves to be empowered through the Holy Spirit to confront and defeat the present powers of evil. Subsequently, neocharismatic practices frequently focus on proclaiming healing and blessings or breaking evil curses and exorcising evil spirits in the name of Jesus (Frigerio 1994, 11).
The rhythms and beats of LACM were not unconnected to these developments. The preaching of influential evangelists, such as Annacondia, was always accompanied by music, and networks of local churches functioned to distribute songs and a particular style of worship, prayer, and preaching. Moreover, LACM proved to be a powerful conduit for the novice and confrontational evangelical culture of the 1990s. Freidzon’s church, Rey de Reyes, proliferated the anointing and LACM, as its praise and worship band wrote and produced seven albums between 1997 and 2004 that became widespread within Argentine worship. LACM became part of the neocharismatic repertoire built upon the foundation of the anointing. “Anointed” praise and worship and rhythm-induced spiritual warfare served as evangelistic tools and begetters of a pan-pentevangelical culture and practice.
The changes in the Latin American religious and social landscape in recent decades are as undeniable as the streets, city centers, and plazas that quake to the beats of LACM. A journalist noted that on the prodigious day of September 11, 1999, all in attendance appeared to sing a ballad asking God to “heal our nation” as if “they knew it by memory” (Reches and Iglesia 1999). The fact is that most probably did! Indeed, the planners of the event intentionally selected well-known songs and an all-encompassing theme: “Jesus by all and for all” (Proietti 2013). This is significant because it means that there was an existing, unbound evangelical songbook8 from which to choose, which would not have been the case decades earlier.
In the 1960s and 1970s, change started with the development of coritos—short, repetitive, and easy-to-memorize songs that were typically written by Latin Americans and incorporated folkloric instruments, including guitars, tambourines, and drums (Palomino 2011, 19–26). Transmitted orally and not through notated scores, coritos began to displace the hymns from denominational hymnbooks that had been the mainstay among evangelicals since the nineteenth century. Whereas the hymnbook helped maintain a wall of separation between denominations, the coritos signaled a break with denominational musical traditions.
However, it was LACM that ultimately produced a common evangelical musical lexicon and form of praise and worship. Through radio, television, concerts, evangelistic gatherings, and musical production and marketing, evangelicals began to adopt more of the same beliefs and practices and to standardize the instrumental and stylistic repertoire in worship services (Palomino 2011, 31–32; Maróstica 2011). The proliferation of shared cultural practices, such as LACM, has fomented a genuine sense of unity. This shared pentevangelical culture has also helped make possible the repeated gathering of one hundred thousand or more—as in the first (1999) and second (2001) Obeliscos and the Luis Palau festivals of 2003 and 2008.
A prominent exemplar of LACM is Marcos Witt, an award-winning artist (five Latino Grammys won and more than eleven million records sold), megachurch pastor, and longtime influential leader in the development and diffusion of LACM (Deiros 1998, 42–43). The efforts of Witt and others have “made it possible that evangelical churches in the region sing the same songs, in the same musical scale and even with the same musical arrangements,” effectively creating a “musical uniformity” (Palomino 2011, 22). The songs of the pioneer Witt became almost ubiquitous in evangelistic crusades, festivals, and churches in the 1990s and early 2000s. He has routinely led worship for the evangelist Luis Palau, an Argentine expatriate based in the United States, and performed throughout Latin America during the last three decades. Witt is the author of more than thirteen books, as well as the founder of a record label (CanZion Productions) and a praise and worship school (CanZion Institute), which comprises eighty sites in the United States, Latin America, and Europe.9 His record label has its own website, Nuhbe, where people can purchase and download LACM,10 and he has a significant social media presence, with almost six million followers on Facebook as of early 2015.
Witt’s influence in Argentina has been, in the words of the president of ACIERA (Alianza Cristiana de Iglesias Evangélicas de la República Argentina), Rubén Proietti (2013), “tremendous... on the level of the growth of the church.” Proietti also notes that, while Witt has long-standing ties with neocharismatics,11 his music and influence have extended broadly across all sectors of evangelicalism and even to Catholicism. He is arguably “Latin America’s best-known worship leader” (Deiros 1998, 42), but he has also had a presence throughout Argentina through repeated performances and conferences in numerous cities. He led worship before forty-five thousand people in Buenos Aires in 1997 and was invited to lead worship at the second Obelisco on September 15, 2001, although he declined (Deiros 1998, 43; Wynarczyk 2009, 314–16). In 2006, he led worship at an ecumenical event organized by the Executive Commission of the Renewed Communion in the Holy Spirit of Evangelicals and Catholics, in which he shared the stage with the then archbishop of Buenos Aires and future Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio. He also founded his first praise and worship institute outside of Mexico in Buenos Aires in 2000 and wrote and produced the song “Argentina te bendigo” with this institute.
Witt’s influence extends to the creation of the theology and practice of LACM. He is widely considered to be “the architect of the entire renovation of worship in Latin America,” which entailed a change in both the evangelical hymnology and the format of worship services (Palomino 2011, 14, 31). Two of his books—Adoremos (1993) and ¿Qué hacemos con estos músicos? (1995)—have been extremely popular and influential in the creation of LACM’s theology of praise and worship. In Adoremos, Witt makes a clear distinction between alabanza (praise), celebration, and adoración (worship), the desire to be with God. While he advocates the exuberant celebration (alabanza/praise) of God through music, the central argument of the text is that celebration is not enough, because God desires adoradores (worshippers) (1993, 85). Using Old Testament imagery, Witt asserts that true worshippers are akin to priests in ancient Israel who sought to be with God in Zion and the Holy of Holies in the Temple. However, the modern temple, according to Witt, is the individual Christian believer, not an edifice, and praise and worship is led by anointed leaders who guide the masses into the presence of God—the Holy of Holies within each person. In ¿Qué hacemos con estos músicos?, Witt instructs musicians on practical and professional issues such as playing quality music (1995, 55–58) and how to use money (101–17). However, the text’s central concern is that musicians should be “psalmists” who worship God. Using the example of the religious cult under the Davidic kingship (38–47), Witt envisions musicians as full-time professional staff who function as priests, prophets, and servants for God’s people (51–99, 120–61). Under the influence of Witt, the modus operandi of LACM has become that of a professional music team that acts as a priestly mediator to prepare and guide the people toward a personal encounter with God. Indeed, Witt is an archetypal leader because of his successful unification of the priestly model of the worship leader with the marketing model of the successful producer and businessman. In short, he helped prove that LACM can be popular and marketable.
Lastly, Witt has been influential in the proliferation of the marriage of LACM with neocharismatic practices, such as spiritual warfare. Borrowing again from the Old Testament, Witt teaches that music is used in the Scriptures for praise and worship as well as war (1993, 46–53; 1995, 139). For Witt, the music that accompanies church services and evangelistic crusades is not only praise and worship but also a weapon for battling the powers and principalities of evil. This “warrior worship” is a sacramental, grace-infused “weapon in the hand of God to make demons flee and liberate the captured” as well as a means to boldly declare blessings over the Latin American nations (1995, 65–68, 139). Traces of this confrontational style of worship appear in the aforementioned song “Argentina te bendigo” (Argentina I bless you) from the album Otra generación. The song’s title and a repeated chorus declare blessings of “peace,” “victory,” “favor,” and “joy” on the nation of Argentina “in the name of Jesus.” The song also hints at the theme of confronting demons and liberating people from oppression with the lyric “we break curses.”
Argentina te bendigo. |
Argentina I bless you. |
Con la paz del Señor |
With the peace of the Lord |
Te bendigo |
I bless you |
Con su luz y su amor |
With his light and his love |
Te bendigo |
I bless you |
Argentina te bendigo |
Argentina I bless you |
Te bendigo, te bendigo |
I bless you, I bless you |
En el nombre de Jesús |
In the name of Jesus |
Te bañamos con la luz de su gloria |
We wash you with the light of his glory |
Rompemos maldición |
We break curses |
Declaramos bendición y victoria |
We declare blessing and victory |
Recibe el favor |
Receive the favor |
Recibe el amor y el gozo del Señor. |
Receive the love and the joy of the Lord |
Argentina te bendigo. |
Argentina I bless you. |
While Witt has been extremely influential in the formation of the theology and practice of praise and worship music, LACM also encompasses a variety of styles of music for listening and dancing, such as cumbia, salsa, merengue, reggaeton, and rock. This branch of LACM has expanded through the radio, Internet, concerts, and evangelistic events, influencing the formation of an evangelical culture that actively engages mainstream musical genres while at the same time professing to be “countercultural” (Semán and Gallo 2008, 86; Jungblut 2007, 155–56). A poignant example is the hit Argentine rock band RESCATE, which has produced eight albums, filled soccer stadiums, toured in more than twenty-five countries, and played before Pope Benedict XVI at the twentieth World Youth Day in 2005. The name of the group is an acronym for Reyes al Servicio de Cristo ante Tiempos Extremos (Kings at the Service of Christ in Extreme Times) as well as a Spanish term used in youth culture to refer to a “rescue” from issues such as drug use and rebellion (Semán and Gallo 2008, 77). Ulises Miguel Eyherabide and his North American friend Jonathan Thompson founded the group in 1988, inspired by Christian rock bands such as Petra, White Heart, and the Newsboys. However, the group quickly developed a style akin to Argentine rock nacional, as exemplified by the bands Los Piojos and Divididos, which mix rock and folkloric tunes. RESCATE has also engaged mainstream youth and rock culture as a “countercultural” presence, appearing several times at the Pepsi Music Festival, the largest music festival in Argentina, and making a crossover from Christian rock to mainstream rock in 2004. Christian rock groups such as RESCATE have also served to “rescue” dance styles (such as el pogo)12 and the rock and party (fiesta) scene and make them palatable for certain evangelical venues (Semán and Gallo 2008, 81–83, 85–86). Accordingly, the group has headlined with Luis Palau at his festivals and with fellow Argentine Dante Gebel in his Superclasicos de la Juventud (Youth Super Classics).13 These events are not preaching venues where select songs serve as accompaniment, but a mix between a concert, a musical festival, and preaching, with a particular focus on attracting youth through a Christianized youth culture. While such festivals feature praise and worship tunes such as those popularized by Witt, the celebration of Christian folkloric, rock, and other music styles for listening and dancing sets them apart as youth festivals. Performances of groups such as RESCATE at these events represent an evangelical engagement of popular culture as well as the creation of a “Christianized” popular culture. In turn, this branch of LACM has been influential in forming a pentevangelical culture and practice intent on transforming Latin America.
Once condemned to gather “the loose dust on the surface of Latin American society,” Latin American evangelicals now constitute a significant minority who are no longer willing to be accepted as “second-class citizens.” Indeed, Argentine evangelical leaders used these exact words in defending their right to hold El Obelisco to city government officials in 1999, after first being denied permission (Wynarczyk 2009, 301; Proietti 2013). This change in self-perception, coupled with the ability to engage in shared practices and repeated mass gatherings, has served to infuse evangelicals with confidence that they are active agents of transformation. However, the reality is much more complex.
This novel pentevangelicalism has proved adept at helping evangelicalism engage Latin American popular cultures and religion. It has been able to bridge the spiritual and physical, the premodern and postmodern, and the preindustrial and late capitalist. For example, neocharismaticism does not disdain the cosmology and practices of Catholic popular religion as superstition or magic but engages them through the lens of spiritual warfare. Likewise, the entrepreneurial know-how of businessmen turned preachers such as Annacondia and worship leaders turned record label owners such as Witt, linked with a cosmology that engages popular religion and culture, has given neocharismatics a clear competitive advantage in a context defined by neoliberalism, deregulation, and privatization (Chesnut 2003; Meyer 2008; Yong 2010, 19–38).
LACM is representative of this battery of practices of confrontation. Neocharismatics have embedded this confrontation in the warring task of musically led praise and worship. The focus is often on transforming geopolitical areas—the nations of Latin America. In Bolivia and across Latin America, preachers and worship leaders call out to God to sanar la nación (heal the nation) at the March for Jesus events, and, in Argentina, they sing songs declaring blessings over the nations, such as Witt’s “Argentina te bendigo.” These actions are more than mere symbolism, as they have fomented the emergence of new forms of religiopolitical structures and ecclesial polities that demonstrate a consolidation of social capital (Algranti 2010, 293–302; Petersen 2004, 2009; Wightman 2007, 245–52; Wynarczyk 2009, 296–325).14
The LACM styles for listening and dancing also engage with Latin American popular culture. This engagement has not occurred through confrontation but rather through selective interaction with Latin America’s folkloric music traditions as well as youth cultures. Returning to the example of RESCATE, Christian rock has arisen from an open engagement with Latin rock, through the incorporation of music styles (such as rock nacional), dances (such as el pogo), and rock party venues. This incorporation represents a Christianizing of rock and youth culture, as it becomes a tool to spread Christian messages to non-Christian youth. It also represents the creation of a novel evangelical youth culture that understands itself as both a fiesta and a counterculture (Semán and Gallo 2008, 80–81). This desire to express a Christianity that fits in and yet is different is reflected in common slogans at rock venues and festivals—for instance, the “Christians are not boring” signs carried at March for Jesus events (Wightman 2007, 251).
While these creative interactions reflect the creation of a Latin American popular pentevangelical religion and culture, they also embody a confusing cultural hybridity. First, LACM bears the indelible marks of a sustained relationship with North American cultural and economic influence. The diffusion of LACM has been paved by Latin American worship leaders and organizations who made it not only influential but also profitable. Marcos Witt again serves as an apt example. Born in San Antonio, Texas, Witt was raised in Durango, Mexico, as the son of Methodist missionaries. As mentioned above, he has demonstrated his entrepreneurial skills and influence as an archetypal leader through the development of his own record label, music institute, and influential books (Aguirra Arvizu 2009; Palomino 2011, 31, 36). However, his music style demonstrates the unmistakable influence of North American music, as it incorporates an adult contemporary pop style and the standardization of musical instruments—electric and acoustic guitars, drums, and digital pianos. The same could be said for other worship leaders as well as rock groups such as RESCATE, who developed as a result of the inspiration of North American Christian rock. There also exist clear monetary ties to production and distribution studios and publishers based in the United States. Although Witt began in Mexico, he has since moved to the United States to live and produce his albums, and U.S. publishers (Thomas Nelson in Nashville and Casa Creación in Lake Mary, Florida) have published the majority of his books. He is the cofounder of a leadership school, Lidere, that utilizes and distributes the leadership teachings of the North American pastor John Maxwell.15 Similarly, RESCATE has attempted to make the move to mainstream rock through the production of an album with Sony Music. Thus, while LACM is not a direct North American importation, it demonstrates strong North American economic and cultural influence.
Second, while pentevangelicalism engages popular culture, it has not clearly developed a critique of the deep-seated social divisions that exist in Latin America. The growth of pentevangelicalism and LACM was spurred by the neoliberal turn of the 1980s and 1990s, which also resulted in an augmentation of poverty and consolidation of power in the hands of the wealthy (Svampa 2005, 9–196). However, the songs of LACM have not actively engaged this social reality or challenged neoliberal ideology and social structures. Indeed, ideologically speaking, pentevangelicalism and LACM grew out of conservative Latin American evangelicalism and pentecostalism, which distanced themselves in the 1960s from liberal and progressive evangelicals who engaged with what Jürgen Moltmann has called “the other side of reconciliation”: the hope of justice, the humanization of humanity and society, and peace for all creation (1967, 329).16 The result is that pentevangelicalism espouses an engagement of popular culture (including Roman Catholic, folkloric, and youth cultures), but it is not necessarily popular. Here I use that term—as Néstor Míguez, Joerg Rieger, and Jung Mo Sung have—to mean being representative of the poor and marginalized sectors of society by standing on the side of the margins against the centers of power and influence (N. Míguez, Rieger, and Sung 2009, 179; D. Míguez and Semán 2006, 24). While pentevangelicalism has occupied public space in the name of transformation, the songs of LACM have not tended to move beyond a generalized nationalism—for instance, “Argentina para Cristo”—or to engage the songs, stories, and struggles of el pueblo. Within the emerging pentevangelicalism, there have been occasional proclamations against corruption and injustice, such as during the first Obelisco, but these proclamations are significant precisely because they are unique.
Given LACM’s ideological underpinnings, it is not surprising that there is not a clear engagement of el popular and issues of injustice in the songs of Witt as well as other big-name stars such as Jesús Adrián Romero and Alex Campos. Moreover, Witt’s theology of praise and worship, which advocates for an anointed priestly and professional praise and worship team, represents a challenge to open engagement of those who are on the margins. For Witt, power and prosperity characterize those who are set apart as priests of worship. This division potentially creates a charismatic classism and clericalism that does not aid in breaking down the barriers between the rich and poor, but instead raises new ones. Finally, Witt advocates a marriage between worship and spiritual warfare that confronts demonic forces, such as popular Catholic saints, but does not adequately confront political and social structures that create and sustain poverty.
Similarly, there has been limited interaction with the themes of poverty and injustice in the LACM styles for listening and dancing.17 This is surprising, given that genres such as reggaeton, rock chabón, and the folkloric traditions are noted for expressing social critiques (Semán, Vila, and Benedetti 2004). Groups such as RESCATE have undoubtedly influenced society by making evangelicalism more palatable to “mainstream” culture. For example, RESCATE won the inaugural Gardel Award, the most well-known music award in Argentina, in the newly created evangelical music category. However, it appears that RESCATE has ultimately been more instrumental in changing evangelical culture through the engagement of rock youth culture than in transforming rock youth culture itself (Semán and Gallo 2008, 76, 84–86). While evangelical rock groups such as RESCATE openly present themselves as “countercultural” and transformational, they have not developed songs that counter the unjust social structures of Latin America. Clearly, Latin American societies are more open to evangelicals today, but this change has come through evangelicals assimilating into the mainstream culture, not by their standing against the oppressive centers of power and influence. It is hard to speak of LACM as popular, because the critiques of long-standing social ills such as poverty, racism, and class division are few and far between.
This chapter has demonstrated many ways in which LACM is used in formidable, innovative, and conscious attempts to form a pan-pentevangelical culture. Through its pervasive presence in evangelical congregational singing, mass events in public squares, and the profitable sounds of Argentine youth culture’s music, it demonstrates a creative incorporation of diverse music styles and genres, powerful neocharismatic techniques and practices, a cosmology of spiritual conflict, and a theology of worship. Its participatory rhythms incorporate evangelical practices and culture and aid in their diffusion and systemization. However, the theology and mission of LACM have thus far failed to recognize the dialectical relationship between its success and neoliberal ideology and structure. Although the entrepreneurial skill of neocharismatics within LACM has clearly given them an advantage in the contemporary deregulated cultural market, entrepreneurial success is no guarantee of the pursuit of justicia (justice/righteousness). While LACM has been at the forefront of declaring God’s desire to conquer Argentina and Latin America para Cristo, there has sadly been little critique of social injustices, poverty, and socioeconomic divisions. In this sense, LACM has failed to form a worshipful culture that embodies the proclamation of Oscar Romero that “the glory of God is that the poor should live” (Gloria Dei vivens pauper) (Trigo 1993, 299).
1. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
2. In the English-speaking world, evangélico refers to a certain “type” of Protestantism. This is not the case in Latin America, where the term is most often used as a synonym for the lesser-used term “Protestant.” However, there are many types of evangelicals, and not all are ideologically conservative, as it is often assumed. For example, since the 1960s, it has been possible to talk of at least three ideological perspectives: (1) ecumenical/liberal, (2) conservative, and (3) progressive. During the 1950s and 1960s, ecumenical/liberal evangelicals emerged through the formation of ecumenical organizations and the development of liberal theological perspectives that intentionally engaged social reality. Rejecting what they saw as liberal and unbiblical theology that was focused on social activism instead of evangelism, conservative evangelicals formed their own separate ecumenical organizations, such as the Latin American Conference on Evangelism (CLADE) in 1969. Subsequently, another significant group emerged from within conservative evangelicalism that rejected both liberalism and conservatism and developed a progressive evangelical theology that was intentionally biblical and attentive to social reality. These progressive evangelicals formed the Latin American Evangelical Fraternity in 1970 and are recognized for their development of a theology of integral mission (Escobar 1995).
3. Here I borrow the threefold Pentecostal typology laid out in The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Burgess 2002, xviii–xxi), but like Amos Yong (2005, 18–22), I use the terms “pentecostal” or “pentecostalism” with a small “p” to refer to the movement in general (that is, the conjunction of all three types of pentecostals) and “Pentecostal” or “Pentecostalism” with a big “P” to refer to classic Pentecostals. In Latin America, the term “neo-Pentecostal” is preferred to “neocharismatic,” particularly among Argentine sociologists of religion, but I have chosen to use the term preferred in English for reasons of facility. For examples of Latin American scholarship on neo-Pentecostalism, see the work of Alejandro Frigerio (1994), Pablo Semán and Guadalupe Gallo (2008), Daniel Míguez and Pablo Semán (2006), Hilario Wynarczyk (1989, 1997, 2009), and Joaquín Algranti (2007, 2010).
4. Annacondia also wrote a book by this title (1997).
5. This is the common term used to describe the movement that began in 1992 and the churches and individuals who received the anointing.
6. This is a direct translation from the Spanish term liberación; it refers to spiritual deliverance.
7. Wynarczyk uses the term “neo-pentecostal” instead of “neocharismatic.”
8. I speak metaphorically of an unbound songbook to refer to a conglomeration of well-known evangelical songs that were primarily transmitted orally and, unlike bound hymnals of the past, transcended denominational affiliation.
9. See http://www.canzion.com.
10. See http://www.nuhbe.com/en/.
11. Witt writes about his indebtedness to Annacondia and the influence of North American neocharismatic Peter Wagner (1995, 65). The promotional material for the CanZion Institute in Argentina refers to Annacondia and Freidzon (see http://www.institutocanzion.com/argentina/).
12. This is similar to the mosh dance that became popular in Anglophone alternative rock in the 1990s.
13. The term superclasico is borrowed from Argentine soccer and refers to the game between the two most popular club teams in the country.
14. One prominent and formal Argentine example is the Consejo Nacional Cristiano Evangélico, formed in 1996 in the wake of evangelical efforts for full freedom of religion during the constitutional reforms of 1994. It accounts for some twelve thousand churches among the various groupings of evangelicos and was instrumental in the organization of the first and second Obeliscos (Wynarczyk 2009, 296–325).
15. See http://www.lidere.org.
16. Neo-Pentecostalism represents an intensification of conservative evangelicalism’s understanding of the Christian mission as the conversion of individuals through evangelism and church growth. Accordingly, it has shared conservatism’s resistance to social activism and care for society and the creation.
17. One example is the song “Dale la mano” (Give a hand) from the album Especie en peligro (2003) by the reggaeton singer Funky. In the song, Funky exhorts others to “give a hand to the fallen, to the naked give a coat, to the hungry give food, and to the sad comfort,” and he critiques those who “have not compassion.”
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