Salvador Abascal: Prophet or Crank?

In the late 30s and the early 1940s (until Dec. of 1941), the most powerful man in Mexico outside of the ruling party was Salvador Abascal. Called a caudillo by some, he rose to become the leader of the Union Nacional Sinarquista - UNS. The group operated as an anti-political, quasi-fascist organization based on Catholicism and corporatism and the idea that the Mexican Revolution had impoverished Mexico worse than Porfirio Diaz. As he grew the ranks of the UNS to well over 500,000 members (I've seen the figure of 600,000), he inspired fear in the heart of Rome's priests (Abascal believed Catholic practice was a local matter), other members of the UNS (who feared his influence), and the loathing of Manuel Avila Camacho and Miguel Aleman who feared he posed a real non-violent threat to the Revolutionary Family's control of the peasantry and the Catholic middle class.

As expected, Abascal was no fan of non-Catholic religion, and he often argued that the introduction of Protestantism into Mexico would lead to the division of society and a collapse of family and community unity. Of course this has been one of the talking points of the Madre Iglesia for centuries, and such a statement from a medieval mind like Abascal is no shock. However, while looking at many of the headlines in Latin America over the last week, one has to begin to give Abascal more "props" than as a simple conservative Catholic crank.

Headlines out of Argentina discuss a murder in Santa Rosa where a man murdered his daughter over a religious dispute. Brazil is abuzz with the increasing influence of the Pentecostal community in going after the minimal protections there for gay society. In Chile the Concilio Nacional de Iglesias Evangelicas has ranked higher than the Catholic church in discriminatory behavior and the rejection of human rights. A glance at the United States will even see evangelical and pentecostal groups cheering on the idea of leaving the Union so that they can impose their own theocratic moralities. While Abascal would be right there with the Pentecostals in degrading the human rights of homosexuals or religious movements that disagree with him, I think he has hit on an important idea that Protestantism tends toward the division of civil society.

I have a grad student who is a vocal, vocal, vocal Baptist (as in witness to people during class Baptist) that once made a joke on Matthew 18:20 (where two or three are gathered in my name) saying "Where two are three are gathered in my name, there also are two or three potential Pentecostal churches."

While I certainly agree that people can - at at times should - stand by their ideas of absolute truth, I find it entirely unreasonable to demand that others adhere to those norms. If they would like to believe that everybody is bound for Hell then so be it, but if they insist on the dissolution of civil society, the disintegration of the community, and the movement away from national entities that have the potential to protect the rights of all, I think we have moved beyond religious dispute into entirely dangerous areas of national and civil security. As Tariq Ali so eloquently calls it (in a book that is not so good otherwise), we have something of a "Clash of Fundamentalisms" on our hands.

Vodka and Visions: Zoning Hispanic Pentecostals

Tooele, Utah, (pronounced too-WILL-uh) has a problem. And, yes, I do mean beyond being the site of the US Military chemical weapon storage and disposal facility. Tooele can't seem to get their Hispanic store-front churches and their alcohol-licensed establishments worked out. What?

Hispanic pentecostal churches in Latin America and the United States tend to use homes and small rental properties, usually in crumbling down town areas, as places of worship. From the Azusa Street Revival of the early 1900s to modern-day East L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley, pentecostal and evangelical churches rely on cheap rents in high working-class Hispanic zones for sacred space. Being affordable is an issue, but so, too, is the convenience of being near a population that may not have access to private vehicles for traveling to Sunday and mid-week services. Pick a decaying down town area and watch the pattern: first come the lawyer's offices, then the pawn shops and check loan offices, and finally, the churches.

In Utah, this is a problem because apparently you cannot sell alcohol within so-many feet of a religious establishment. However, because of the 2000 Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act you cannot ban a religious institution from land use. Thus, as Toole is trying to revitalize a crumbling down town with restaurants, it is running up against a wall of pentecostal Hispanic churches that have occupied the so-called "prime" real estate of the area.

I think this raises an interesting side issue of the religious right in the United States. While crying for the absolute freedom of business to do what it wants, there is a simultaneous cry for the absolute freedom of religious practice (well, WASP practice), and I think this issue points out one of the problems of the "big tent" the Republicans are trying to create. How can you protect the explosive growth of Hispanic evangelicals and Pentecostals in the US - natural moral allies of the religious right - while at the same time promoting immoral (by their own definition of practice) business. This is like trying to have Liberation Theology curates and the United Fruit Company in the same party.

Thanks, Tooele, for an interesting thought point of the day.

The OTHER Missionaries

US Evangelicals travel to Mexico to distribute food, sing songs, and build houses. That's why many Mexicans come to the US, as well.

That aside, I might point out that some Mexicans find the United States the target of their own missionary work. The Iglesia Luz Del Mundo has sent missionaries to the United States since at least the 1950s. Similarly, Mexican missionaries have been coming to the US from the LDS (Mormon) church for decades as well, and not just the gringos refritos of Colonia Juarez in Chihauhua, but "Mexicanos de Raza y Sangre," as well.

It isn't just Mexicans who come to convert the heathen Americans. Members of Daniel Comboni's institute of missionaries have been arriving in the US since 1939 to "consolidate" and "convert" the Catholic gospel message, and Evangelical Venezuelan singer / preacher Rafael Saracual felt called to come to the US to preach, teach and convert. And they are certainly not alone.

Aside from leading conservative brain (snark intended) Chuck Norris' comments about President Obama as a Muslim Missionary, I'm not sure most Norteamericanos consider the United States and themselves as a destination for conversion. But if I was a dedicated Mexican Evangelical, sitting in Mexico surrounded by family and civility, and I looked at a country where going to the mall or school could get you shot, where most children are exposed to pornography before literature, and where bigotry and hate are considered "free speech" I might be moved to pack up and come to the US to convert the heathens.

US Evangelicals - Doin' It Franciscan Style

US evangelicals may be in something of a pickle as they look for spring break ministry options this year. Evangelicals have turned to Mexico for decades for "short time" ministries where couples, school groups, or friends get together, build houses out of garage doors in T.J., pass out Wonder Bread and cheese sandwiches, teach Bible school, and return to the states the following week. The crisis? The death of evangelical Nancy Davis near Reynosa has some groups cancelling their trips. In fact, just before the shooting, the Dallas Morning News religion blog began a discussion of how to make things better in Mexico - without actually going to Mexico. Changing US policy and gun laws as well as reducing demand for drugs in the US topped the responses of many theologians. Americans, listen to your pastors.

I see that an Oklahoma Church is going to Mexico to "spread the word" to Catholics via ... Passion Plays. It seems Mexicans may not be familiar with acting out the gospels, so teenagers from Tulsa are going to help them out with that. Did some pastor get his hands on Sahagun's field guide to converting Mexicans?