A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*
March 6, 2007 | PANAMA CITY, Panama (UMNS)

Cardona shared the story with participants in a March 1-4 consultation of the Methodist Churches of Latin America and the Caribbean and The United Methodist Church. The consultation, in Panama City, was sponsored by a committee studying the relationship among those churches.

Cardona is the first bishop of a small but growing church that was formally organized only 10 years ago but has received national recognition both for its inclusive membership of women, youth and various ethnic groups and the respect it has gained from both the guerrillas and paramilitary at war in Colombia.

“All of our churches are in the conflict zones,” Cardona explained. “We can travel in the heart of the conflict, and we ourselves are not in danger.”

Danger and threats to human rights have been a constant concern in Latin America over the past few decades, according to Bishop Neftali Aravena Bravo of Chile, who tried to put the continent’s social context into perspective for consultation participants.

Many Latin American countries suffered military coups in the “very recent past which is still affecting us in Latin America,” Aravena said. Militaries remain a threat to weak democracies, while economic “improvements” often mean large North American industries moving polluting plants south where there are fewer regulations.

“We are countries where the social fabric has been shredded,” Aravena said. “Now there is no one who can represent the great majority of the population.”

Large Roman Catholic population

Aravena said Methodism is not valued in a culture dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. “Nevertheless, we’ve been growing in surprising levels in Latin America. This growth is leaving the Catholics very concerned,” he said.

In Chile, for example, 73 percent of the population identifies itself as Catholic but only 9 percent regularly attend Sunday mass, according to the bishop. Aravena himself has been chosen as the Protestant chaplain to the new Chilean government and is on equal footing with the Catholic chaplain.

However, Latin American Protestants have less of an impact on society, according to Aravena, partly because they don’t speak in a unified voice. Also, historic mainline denominations are “extremely small” compared to the growing Pentecostal movements.

Brenda Armstrong, vice president of the Methodist Church of the Caribbean and Americas, said the Caribbean has a “kaleidoscope of people” with a history of exploitation and enslavement.

“The Caribbean was seen by European nations and explorers as a place where you could come and take things,” she said. A legacy of that colonialism exists today, she added, particularly as people search for identity and unity.

U.S. culture

United Methodist Bishop Peter Weaver, describing the current social culture in the United States, noted an increasing sense of self-centeredness and isolation at the same time that U.S. culture is being exported around the world.

“The mission movement helped people in the United States learn that their world is not the only world,” he said. But, today, many are not experiencing those global connections.

Still, Weaver is observing a new spiritual hunger among Americans and pointed to new coalitions that combine wealth and creativity to end poverty and address other social needs worldwide.

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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Resources

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