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III. Persecution with the Tables Turned

Here is precisely where we can begin to see how the tables have turned. Roman Catholic activism, though in the past the legitimizing force behind the powers that be, has come in recent years to be suspect by the authorities. Many members of parishes, basic ecclesial communities, or more loosely organized religious groups have broken out of the mold traditionally assigned to them. They carry their activism, based on Biblical reflection, to political issues such as civil rights for Indians or land rights. for peasants.

Another element crucial to understanding the milieu in contemporary Latin American Christianity is that both Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches have large percentages of their members among the poorest of the poor. Roman Catholic priests, of course, began their work with poor Indian tribes during the Conquest. The exceptional priests championed their exploited charges, though most frequently the priests were more faithful to the crown than the cross. Protestants worked with the poor from the outset. Although they tried to separate them from the Roman Catholic society, as pointed out earlier, they were not successful.

Now in many countries of Latin America the common element of being poor is beginning to unite many Christians. They are growing ever more aware of the close relationship in the Christian Gospel (whether communicated by Roman Catholics or Protestants) between spiritual well-being in this world and the next, and a reasonable hope to improve their impoverished lives while still on this earth. The message that the poor Christians of Latin America hear comes straight from the Bible. Isaiah 65, Amos 5, and Psalm 146 are, among many others, passages that Latin American Christians are reading as promises God holds out to them both now and when Christ returns. Or it comes in the course of reflection sessions on the Bible led by religious workers who no longer accept the un-Biblical separation between spiritual prosperity and physical misery that had been tacitly accepted and even encouraged as part of mission work for centuries. The

poor, because they were Christian, were to accept their lower lot in life and await their reward in heaven.

Oddly enough, natural disasters such as the Nicaraguan earthquake of 1972 or the Guatemalan earthquake of 1976 have helped bring this process to a boiling point. The discontent that simmered in the societies grew more out of control following the great influx of international and church aid. Instead of calming a beleaguered people, abuses in the distribution of the aid caused greater instability. Relief workers became aware that the people were often poor, not because they chose poverty, but because they could not escape it.

Still their efforts bore some fruit. Among large groups of Guatemala's poor, for example, cooperatives were formed as part of the relief-developmental process. Distribution and communication networks were set up, often with governmental supervision and participation. International and church groups worked closely with the government as one condition for being in the country.

In communities where aid was distributed, opposition and repression often followed. In the case of the aid distributed in the name of Christ, we must define the subsequent repression as religion, and not simply political, persecution. The Christians in these communities--whether Roman Catholic or Protestant--were basing their newly awakened hope not on political acumen, but rather on a profound spiritual hope in God's promises for His people. No longer do they see this as separated from the political process as Christians had been taught for many years. Hence their hope encompasses more than a political power play. It is more tenacious than any desire for mere self-improvement. Nevertheless, when Christian development workers and missionaries begin to work together with poor communities to develop both Biblical acuity and to help obtain titles to land, the community sooner or later calls unwanted attention to itself. The unwanted attention will come from the supposed owners of the land who are trying to get an outrageous price for it. It comes also from military or governmental authorities who

harass peasant settlers on request from the powerful. The owners are finding that a previously pacified or desperate population is expressing some hope and is willing to work to gain some legitimate ends.

If this were happening in an entirely secular society, there would be no question of religious persecution. However, what I have briefly described is occurring in a nominally Roman Catholic society. It is also an area where revitalized Christian awareness is stimulating such activity within devout, renewed church communities. Here religious persecution is essentially the same as political repression since the victims are suffering at the hand of government authorities. The communities suffer because their religious beliefs encourage them to seek justice.

Thus the communities disrupt a system and bring punishment--or rather persecution--down on their own heads. They suffer, regrettably, for reasons similar to those for which political subversives suffer. However, with the number of Christians growing in Latin America, it appears that the ranks of the "subversives" are growing too. Although religious persecution for simply being a Protestant or a Roman Catholic has largely disappeared in Latin America, a new religious political persecution is taking its place. Today Christians are being persecuted not for cultic worship practices, but for attempting to be faithful Christians in every area of their lives.

The implication of such a religious walk is that it often threatens the status quo, including the system of land ownership, in many countries of Latin America. Christians, long a supposedly apolitical force, become involved in political issues once they are genuinely reborn in their faith.

IV. Suggested Solutions

Any attempt at suggesting solutions to the problem just described would be pretentious. Understanding the foregoing as genuine religious persecution is nevertheless a crucial first step. The religion that suffers persecution in Latin America

today--and I speak with most conviction and knowledge about Guatemala--bespeaks a spiritual strength that has come to be very threatening. What is lamentable about the situation is that many Christian brothers and sisters themselves disagree about what to do.

That is seen no more graphically than in Guatemala today where a self-professed Christian President is in power. President Efanin Rios Montt has recruited large sections of the Fundamentalistic community into his government's and his own congregation's campaign to stop communist subversion and help Guatemala's poor. Many of these Christians are getting on the government's bandwagon in what I consider a most dangerous and compromising adventure. Those Christians currently committed to the government's programs, were, until the coup of March 23, 1982, the most adamantly opposed to any kind of political involvement. Yet, with a Christian in the driver's seat--even though Rios Montt is there at the behest and tolerance of the army--suddenly large groups of Christians in Guatemala and in the U.S. see God's hand revealed in the political realm. The attitude of many such Christians bespeaks a profound political naiveté and an ignorance of the situation in Guatemala. They do not realize that a long history of human rights abuses carried on by the Guatemalan army against its own people has not stopped overnight. Regrettably they often do accept allegations levelled by the governmental authorities against Christian pastors that they are involved in guerilla warfare and organization. But saddest of all, they do not realize that in wishing to support the Guatemalan government's thinly disguised aid program, they are doing more than being loyal citizens. They are hopelessly mixing governmental policies with their own churches' practices. They are thus falling into a not so subtle trap of neoConstantinianism as bottomless as the one in which the Roman Catholic Church had wallowed during the years of the Spanish Conquest and before.

The proper role of a congressional subcommittee and U.S. citizens is not clear in such a complex process. Nevertheless, the extent to which U.S. Fundamentalists

are involved in supporting Guatemala's governmental policies shows the lack of understanding on their part of the crucial separation of church and state in a free society.

I do not advocate that Christians remove themselves from political issues, but parti

san politics is no place--in the U.S. or elsewhere--for denominations to sell their birthrights.

BOLDENOW AND DEKKER FORCED TO LEAVE GUATEMALA

1

Two Christian Reformed missionaries had to leave Guatemala last month to protect their lives. CRWRC's Central America Director Jim Boldenow and World Mission's Jim Dekker are no longer safe in that Central American country.

The American embassy instructed Boldenow and Dekker to leave after Boldenow was kidnaped by men whom he described as "professionally trained hit-men." His captors apparently mistook Boldenow for Dekker because he was driving Dekker's car. Boldenow insisted that he was not Dekker. A gun was held to his head.

Forced from the car, Boldenow was eventually driven to a field outside the city where his captors divided his money and took his watch and other valuables. He was then taken to a room where he was shown clubs tipped with lead and a rack on which victims are "stretched" if they don't comply with their abductors' instructions. He was blindfolded and questioned.

While Boldenow was undergoing his ordeal, a witness to the kidnaping had notified Dekker who immediately went to the US embassy to describe what had happened. The embassy questioned both Dekker and the eyewitness in detail; embassy personnel acted immediately to ensure Boldenow's safety. Intense pressure on the Guatemalan government by the US embassy and the State Department in Washington, D.C., resulted in Boldenow's release some six to eight hours after his abduction. Embassy personnel took Dekker, his wife, Rose, and their children to a friend's house to spend the night, strongly advised them to leave the country, and escorted them to the airport the following morning for a flight to Costa Rica.

Boldenow, under embassy protection after his release, also flew to Costa Rica the morning after the incident. Aside from a chipped tooth and a thumb numbed by bailing wire that had bound his wrists, Boldenow was unharmed. Neither Boldenow nor Dekker believes he can safely return to Guatemala. Church activity or action on behalf of the poor in that country is often considered reason for suspicion.

Boldenow, who is responsible for CRWRC activity throughout Central America, lives in Costa Rica. He was in Guatemala only for a brief visit. Dekker had been teaching church history and Old Testament at the Mariano Galvez University in Guatemala City.

The Dekkers' plans for the future are still uncertain, though they will continue with World Missions. The Boldenows will remain in Costa Rica to carry on their work there.

Reformed Bible College faculty and students are giving money for local poverty and hunger programs through Coit Community Outreach.

Trinity Christian College, which has its own Bread for the World chapter, regularly urges the US Congress not to forget the needy and hungry in its lawmaking. Christian Schools International has also published a study unit on world hunger for grades 4-6.

The denomination's World Hunger Sunday in November provides a focus for much of this activity.

EDITORIAL 2

PUBLISHER'S NOTE.-On September 9 CRWRC's Central American director was abducted in Guatemala (News & Features, 10/25/82). Although he was released eight hours later, Banner editor Andrew Kuyvenhoven, who had been watching events unfold in Guatemala for several years, decided that the Banner could no longer be silent. He drafted an open letter to Guatemala's president, General Efrain Ríos Montt.

Those intimately connected with CRC efforts in Guatemala received Kuyvenhoven's draft and praised its call for justice. But several people made an urgent plea that names be removed, identifiable sources of facts be hidden, and incidents not previously reported be deleted. In a round of hurried and sometimes tense meetings the question became, Which will cost more lives: continued silence or a prophetic word? Grisly accounts of torture and massacre are routine in Guatemala. Though North American CRC workers are out of Guatemala, no one wants to further jeopardize their associates still working in that nation. Therefore, respecting such fears of retaliation, certain names and accounts have been removed from the following "open letter."

1 Copyright 1982, Board of Publications Christian Reformed Church in North America. Reprinted from the Banner, (Oct. 25, 1982) with permission.

2 Copyright 1982, Board of Publications, Christian Reformed Church in North America. Reprinted from the Banner (Nov. 15, 1982) with permission.

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