“Can I bring my gun into the worship service?”
The query presented Venezuelan pastor Fernanda Eglé with a dilemma. Agreeing may need endangered parishioners at her evangelical church in Caracas. But what if dismissing the gang member pulled him farther from God?
“It was dangerous, but this was God’s plan,” Eglé said. “He knew these people’s hearts, their need for change. So I created a ‘service for criminals,’ intending they’d come.”
Many pastors like Eglé provide spiritual guidance in Venezuelan slums affected by crime, drug addiction and gangs. Their task has proven difficult amid the 12-year crisis that stemmed from a drop in oil prices, corruption and government mismanagement.
The economic collapse has forced tens of millions to emigrate since Nicolás Maduro took power in 2013. And despite official claims of decreasing inflation levels in 2024, he declared an “economic emergency” in April, granting himself powers to implement extraordinary measures.
“Working in these communities has been difficult,” Eglé said. “But we’d like to maintain up our work.”
How big is the evangelical community in Venezuela?
Reliable statistics are hard to return by since official figures haven’t been issued in greater than a decade, but academic experts and community members contend the variety of evangelicals in Venezuela has grown in recent a long time, just because it has in other Latin American countries.
The region’s string of social, political and economic crises is a key driver of that growth, said David Smilde, professor of sociology at Tulane University in New Orleans.
The second issue driving communities to evangelical churches may be the Catholic Church’s priest shortage, which implies fewer faith leaders at the moment are serving larger groups of individuals, said Smilde. With less stringent rules for clergy, evangelical churches can more quickly step into that void.
As for Venezuelans, many find themselves on the margins of survival. “This is a context wherein participation in evangelical churches can provide strength, focus and a social network for mutual support,” Smilde said.
Despite the statistical void, the U.S. State Department’s 2023 report on religious freedom estimated that 96% of the Venezuelan population is Catholic — though that will not reflect the rise in evangelicals.
Sociologist Enrique Alí González estimates that the present religious affiliation can be 82%-84% Catholic and 10%-12% evangelical with other faiths accounting for the remainder. He based those numbers on his own field work and data from one of the crucial recent demographic assessments, which was led by the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas in 2016.
A pastor’s role among the many people
Like Eglé, pastor José Luis Villamizar encourages Venezuelans to embrace the Gospel as a path to alter course.
“We have managed to get individuals who was once hitmen away from that lifestyle,” Villamizar said.
Also based in Caracas, Villamizar founded his evangelical church at his house in the course of the pandemic. At first he ministered from a window. As lockdown receded, he took his work to the streets.
Both he and Eglé visit elderly people and Venezuelans lacking basic care frequently.
Mostly depending on donations or their savings, they deliver food, medicines and clothing. Prayers and spiritual lectures are followed by recreational activities, financial workshops and barbershop days.
“We joke around, we paint the ladies’s nails, we try all the things to make life somewhat easier,” Eglé said. “To lift a few of the burden of loneliness and depression.”
A welcoming church
At Eglé’s sanctuary, gang members eventually agreed to depart their weapons at the doorway.
“I spoke to a lot of them and asked: What led you to this life?” Eglé said. “And after they told me their stories, I wept with them.”
Villamizar’s congregation finds temporary homes for those willing to begin over and embrace the Gospel. His team monitors their behavior. And like Eglé, he offers support until they discover a job and regain self-reliance.
“If we don’t help them get out of their situation, they’ll find yourself in the identical circumstances,” he said.
Maduro has openly related to evangelicals
In 2023, the president launched a program called “My well-equipped church” to enhance evangelical churches with government funding. Some pastors accept the assistance. Others prefer to seek out their very own means.
Eglé recalled a contribution that helped her acquire chairs and a house that she later become a sanctuary. Villamizar opted to stay fully independent.
“They have offered us help, but when the church of God gets tangled in politics, one results in debt,” he said. “I prefer Him to supply and, to this present day, He has fulfilled.”
Maduro’s outreach to evangelical groups has had little effect on gaining the president more supporters, said Smilde. Politicians are mistaken in the event that they think the structure of independent evangelical churches mirror the hierarchical nature of the Catholic Church, he added.
“The possibilities for politically mobilizing evangelicals is widely misunderstood in Venezuela and consistently overestimated,” Smilde said.
“A yr ago there was a variety of concern in Venezuela about Maduro’s outreach to evangelicals being a consider the election, nevertheless it was not, despite considerable effort on his part.”
What Venezuelans find of their evangelical church
Israel Guerra was raised Catholic, but a spiritual crisis led him to turn into evangelical.
“I made the transition because in Catholicism I never felt supported nor that God loved me,” said Guerra, who attends a Caracas megachurch.
He, too, has noticed the expansion of evangelical churches in Venezuela and says people find them approachable.
“More than being places listing rules to enter heaven, they’re a spot of refuge,” he said. “They are secure places for the poor and the wealthy alike, for former gang members and entrepreneurs.”
Not all congregations are as open or welcoming, said Génesis Díaz, born to evangelical pastors in a church requiring its members to follow strict rules. But their proliferation is nonetheless evident to her.
As a missionary and Christian content creator visiting Caracas congregations frequently, Díaz said she has seen as much as 20 evangelical churches in neighborhoods where a single Catholic church stands.
“Venezuela is a Christian, religious country,” she said. “While there are things we’ve got forgotten and bad individuals are around, there’s a really strong awakening towards God.”
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María Teresa Hernández reported from Mexico City.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely accountable for this content.
