Mr. GEJDENSON. We will withhold questioning until everybody has had a chance to testify. We will follow with Reverend Dekker.

STATEMENT OF REV. JAMES C. DEKKER

Reverend DEKKER. Thank you for the opportunity to be here as a 12 witness this afternoon. I make it clear at the outset I speak on my own behalf and do not represent a larger body. Because of that I especially would like to thank the subcommittee for extending the invitation to be a witness this afternoon.

I would like to make a brief analysis of the historical situation in Latin America bringing into play here now both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant religious expressions. That is a key part in the argument in order to show how often political repression and religious persecution coincide.

Religious persecution is no modern phenomenon in Central America. It can be said in many cases to have begun already during colonization. The Indians were forced to become Christian; that is, they were Christianized. That is a curious term because they were made to be Christian although Christianity is supposed to be a voluntaristic religion.

Nevertheless the tribes often adopted Christian symbols and managed to survive in that way. Roman Catholicism institutionalizes as Reverend Hehir indicated in his paper-Constantinianism in Latin America. Constantinianism had begun with Emperor Constantine in the fourth century and it managed to co-opt the religion of Christianity, turn it into the legitimizing force of the Empire and thereby sap its strength. That later occurred in Latin America as the cross and the sword walked together hand in hand during the Spanish colonization.

There was an intertwinement of the Roman Catholic Church and the political order in the colonies. Declericalization occurred in many countries of Latin America during the various revolutions near the turn of the past century. Nevertheless, with official disestablishment, one doesn't lose the strong expressions of Roman Catholic piety that are ingrained into the system, into the life of any given country.

Protestantism began there in Latin America, also, near the end of the last century, not without some motivation. In Guatemala, freedom of religious practice began in the 1870's with a constitution declaration there, although it took some time for Protestantism to become a part of the society. Nevertheless Protestantism represented first by the Presbyterians was from its beginnings favorably disposed to the government. Guatemalan President Justo Rufini Barrios invited the Presbyterians to become part of Guatemalan society late in the 19th century.

Protestantism never has developed any kind of a monolithic character. It has never been able to develop the outward unity that the Roman Catholic Church has long been able to maintain. For example, today, 18 percent of the Guatemalan population are Protestants, but they break up into more than 165 different groups.

In Latin America currently persecution merely for being a Protestant is no longer a crucial issue. One can be a Protestant without suffering for that. Nevertheless, the society clearly divides

itself into two parts: the Roman Catholics and those who are not Roman Catholics, that is, the Protestants. For example, what we call sects in the United States are popularly-however erroneous ly-considered Protestants in Latin America.

The persecution, however, comes into focus currently, when we think of what the Roman Catholic Church has begun in terms of social activism. Father Hehir talked about social activism as being a part of religious expression. I would like to second that. The Prot estant activism, however, has been personalistic and has not beer so much a part of a social expression.

Protestants never drink, never smoke, never play cards, dance or use drugs. That has become axiomatic in Latin American Protes tantism. It is also almost axiomatic that when a person becomes a Protestant he generally becomes a more responsible member of so ciety beginning with his immediate family. Protestants quit drink-{ ing, smoking and philandering or they suffer church discipline and some kind of ostracism.

But politically speaking, Protestants have tried assiduously to remain apolitical because they believe that "politics is of the devil." Activism is part of both the Protestant and the Romant Catholic confessions. Protestantism has been seen historically as a: stabilizing force where as Roman Catholic activism is suspected to have become disruptive and subversive. It has become suspect by the authorities but it is important to emphasize here that Roma Catholics-and Protestants, who are part of the, "comunidades de base" movement-are carrying on their activism based on Biblical reflection. That is, it is a legitimate practicing of their religion. They are not merely going to church and making the formal signs but they are practicing their religion among the poorest of the poor in such things as land rights and human rights and civil rights.

That quality of being poor is that precisely which is beginning to unite more and more Christians throughout Latin America. I speak most specifically of Guatemala because I have greater knowledge there.

A watershed date can be seen, especially in the Protestant consciousness, of 1972 in Nicaragua or 1976 in Guatemala, with the earthquakes in both of those countries. The discontent that had long simmered in those societies grew and boiled out of control when there were great abuses in the international aid that came Second, and most importantly, there was also a heightening of political and religious consciousness on the part of the poor who were Christians in both of those countries.

In the communities where aid was distributed, oppression and repression often followed. And here it is crucial to point out that in the case of the aid distributed in the name of Christ we must define the subsequent repression that followed as religious and not simply political persecution.

There are countless instances of organizations and communities that have begun to take part in the land rights committees, for example. Suddenly that committee or the community it is representing becomes a target of surveillance. Often leaders will disappear, or their work is made impossible.

Father Hehir also mentioned the several priests who were killed. There were not only U.S. priests and religious workers but there

H

have been, I believe, 14 priests killed in Guatemala within the past 3 years. Catechists who were killed or who have disappeared are almost too numerous to number. Protestant pastors, also, among the poor have become part of this phenomenon, also.

That this is happening within a Catholic or a nominally Christian society, whatever one wants to call it, is crucial. Here we see that political repression and religious persecution are virtually the same thing.

The communities and the people who suffer are suffering because they are considered to be subversives. I recall my own situation. Very recently I was forced to leave Guatemala after having been called a subversive and after having been nearly the victim of a secret police operation in which a friend of mine was picked up after having borrowed my car. It is the last time he will want to use my car.

He was detained for some time, and we both were eventually gotten out of the country the following day. Those are some details I believe that are known to some members of this committee. But I would hasten to point out that this is precisely the kind of thing that is going on where political persecution and political repression go hand in hand.

What is crucial here, especially in Guatemala, now to understand, that religious persecution must be more broadly defined. One can no longer merely consider religious persecution something that one suffers for cultic religious practices, but rather for something that one is practicing as a lifestyle.

I find it extremely regrettable that many fundamentalistic Christian organizations in the United States are being solicited by the Church of the World in Eureka, Calif. and other organizations from Guatemala and in the United States. Their goal is to have U.S. Fundamentalists, U.S. Christians heartily back the Guatemalan Government with material aid and financial aid. That seems to me to be what would be considered here a strong violation in their own consciences, of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. What people would never think of doing in the pluralistic United States-trying to mix partisan politics with their own religious expression-is something they are doing without thinking because of a great deal of naivete. They see the President of Guatemala as a convinced Christian; hence, they immediately think that the long history of the abuses of the Government, of the army against large sectors of the population, as can be pointed out in instance upon instance, are things that immediately disappear.

That is not the case. I am a living witness to the fact that is not the case, and it seems to me that is no place for Christians and churches, organizations, to be selling their birthrights.

Thank you very much.

[Reverend Dekker's prepared statement and attachment follow:]

PREPARED STatement of REV. JAMES C. DEKKER

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Sub-committee:

I wish to thank you for the invitation to be a witness to your sub-committee's hearings on religious persecution in Latin America. It is necessary to limit the area of my testimony and to define religious persecution. I will do this after historically analyzing the religious situation in Latin America, distinguishing all the time between Roman Catholic and Protestant religious expressions. In this way it will be possible

to define religious persecution and see how it often coincides with political repression of Christians who are honestly seeking ways to improve their lives and serve their God. Throughout I will mention my own experiences in Guatemala and occasionally refer to similar events in other Central American countries. I will include as appendices two articles from my denominational church paper that describe my own familiarity with religious persecution. At the outset I must emphasize that I am speaking on my own ac

count.

I. Historial Analysis

Religious persecution is no modern phenomenon in Latin America. It is an old menn ster putting on new costumes with each change of the historical scene. During the christianization and colonization by the Spanish and Portuguese many Christian mission. aries carried on religious persecution against the Indians. To become a Christian was not a matter of choice. If an Indian community did not accept the rudiments of the Christian religion, "Christianity" was forced on it. The people had to give up their indigenous religions. However, as anthropologists and missiologists have pointed out, the indigenous religions never died out. They survived underground, often incorporating Christian symbolism in order to guarantee their survival.

Roman Catholicism became institutionalized as part of the colonization process and continued in Latin America what church historians have referred to as Constantinianism.

Constantinianism developed in the fourth century A.D. when the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire. From being a persecuted minority religion, Christianity was turned into the official religion of the Empire. No longer feared as subversive it became the cement of the empire it had once threatened. In that "Constantinian change" historians judge that the emperor and his successors sapped Christianity's strength by co-opting it into the legitimizing religious force of the empire. For the many years of Spanish colonization there was an intertwinement of the Roman Catholic Church and the political order in the colonies. The Constantinian struc ture continued into the colonial era: the sword and cross, state and church, walked hand in hand. Declericalization occurred in several nations during the various revolutions near the turn of our century. Thus Mexico and Guatemala, among other countries. officially declericalized their societies. Disestablishment, however, has never removed religious and spiritual influence from any country. Thus in such countries we still find strong expressions of Roman Catholic piety.

Protestantism entered Latin America close to the time of the official disestablishment. In Guatemala a freedom of religious practice declaration was made in 1873. Protestantism did not set official foot into Guatemala until nearly ten years later and it has had an uphill struggle ever since.

The official entrance of Protestantism into Guatemala occurred in 1882 when thenPresident Justo Rufino Barrios asked the Presbyterian Church to send a missionary. Though nominally a Roman Catholic, Barrios was aware that the presence of Protestantism could help loosen the still strong Roman Catholic grip on the country. Thus Protestantism, represented by the Presbyterians in its early years, was from the outset favor ably disposed to the government; any kind of critical mentality would henceforth be hard to develop.

Protestantism never was to develop a monolithic denominational character in Guate mala or anywhere else in Latin America. Rather it developed in a religious free