Latino Protestants and Their Congregations: Establishing an Agenda for Sociological Research

Abstract

Due to immigration and high birth rates, Latinos (or “Hispanics”) are rapidly growing as a proportion of American society—faster than any other racial-ethnic group—and are widely dispersed throughout the United States. Moreover, a growing number of U.S. Latinos are not Catholic but Protestant. Beyond their individual religious devotion, Latino Protestant churches (LPCs) capture and channel Latino Protestant religiosity to a greater extent than Roman Catholic churches. While the study of LPCs should be methodologically open and theoretically diffuse, it is likely that researchers will recognize each other only by coalescing around a common set of questions, specifically around worship and liturgy, ethnicity and identity, and civic and community engagement. These three focal points are described as a starting point to foster cooperative dialogue and stimulate further scholarship as LPCs grow in numbers and significance in America.

Due to immigration and high birth rates, Latinos (or “Hispanics”) are rapidly growing as a proportion of American society—faster than any other racial-ethnic group—and are widely dispersed throughout the United States (Perez and Hirschman 2009; Tienda and Fuentes 2014; U.S. Census 2011). Moreover, a growing number of U.S. Latinos are not Catholic but Protestant (Pew Hispanic Center 2007). Recently, Pew Research (2014b) reported a 12 percent drop of Latino adults identifying as Catholic from 67 to 55 percent between 2010 and 2013, and an even greater drop—19 percent—among those foreign-born. Moreover, patterns of religious “switching” reveal that the majority of these former-Catholic Latinos are now Protestant (Espinosa 2004:267; Greeley 1991; Hunt 1998; Pew Research 2014a).

Not only are the numbers of U.S. Latinos growing, they are becoming more “Protestant.” The growth in Protestantism matters because religious devotion and practice have deep salience for Latino Protestants (see Newport 2013). For example, Latino Protestants tend to emphasize their religious identity over their ethnic identity in comparison with Latino Catholics (Menjívar 2003). Latinos have much higher church attendance compared with whites, and Latino Protestants (whether coming from evangelical, pentecostal, or mainline orientations) are significantly higher in their church attendance compared with Latino Catholics (Newport 2013; Pew Hispanic Center 2007; Pew Research Center 2014b). In addition, Robert Putnam and David Campbell (2010) reported that 85 percent of Latino Evangelicals indicate religion is very important in daily life, significantly higher compared with 75 percent of white evangelicals and 72 percent of Latino Catholics. Other data from both Pew and Gallup indicate that Latino Protestants (again, whether evangelical, pentecostal, or mainline) are simply more religiously active than their Catholic counterpoints—as well as white Protestants and Black Protestants (Newport 2014; Pew Hispanic Center 2007).

In short, compared with Latino Catholics, white Protestants, and black Protestants, Latino Protestants are more actively committed to their congregations, their churches are more central and more integral to their religiosity, and their churches are more central to their lives (Martí, Mulder, and Ramos forthcoming). Latino Protestant churches (LPCs) capture and channel Latino Protestant religiosity. LPCs are therefore strategic arenas for grasping a growing but neglected religious group that will become a more visible and prevalent force in American life.

FOCUSING ON LATINO PROTESTANTS AND THEIR CHURCHES

I have been orienting myself to the study of Latino Protestants and their churches since 2013, and based on reading available literature, attending conferences by and for congregational leaders, and having sustained conversations with church leaders and seminary faculty, I reluctantly conclude that utter speculation on Latino Protestants and their churches is rampant. Even more, I found that many Latino church leaders are claiming generalizable knowledge based on personal experience or anecdotal data. While they may certainly be familiar with individual churches or even multiple congregations over a long period of time, their knowledge has yet to be studied in a methodic, empirical manner. Aside from sparse social scientific scholarship on Latino Protestants and their churches (e.g., Calvillo and Bailey 2015; Cavalcanti and Schleef 2005; Flores 2009; Hernandez et al. 2006; Juffer 2008; Léon 1998; Lopez-Sanders 2012; Martí 2012a; Menjívar 2003; Vasquez 1999), what is claimed as “fact” are empirical patterns that require substantiation and sociological dynamics that need to be analytically unpacked.

By far, the greatest challenge in establishing an agenda for sociological research on Latino Protestants and their churches is the pervasiveness of ethnoracial essentialization.¹ For example, I am surprised in reading recent books by Latino Protestant “experts” (e.g., Martinez 2011; Rodriguez 2011) who emphasize the variety of the Latino/Hispanic experience in one part of their publications (e.g., “we see ourselves as a ‘heterogeneous and complex’ minority”²), while other parts of the same publication will emphasize deep commonalities (e.g., Hispanics are “passionate”³ people, who nearly always “lived in the same types of neighborhoods and communities,”⁴ and desire to attend churches with mostly Latinos⁵). After stating that Latinos are highly diverse in the first part of their books, these authors end up in the latter parts insisting that “most of us share a common religious worldview and spirituality”⁶ and that Latinos are “characterized by a distinctive Hispanic orientation.”⁷

I am also genuinely surprised when reading their writings—among the only sources on Latino Protestantism available today—by the number of vague assessments that confidently assert Latino Protestants have “worship services with a Latino flavor.”⁸ Such tautological statements have no analytic value. For example, these authors claim that Latino churches have “worship services that look like a fiesta” and are characterized by “the spirit of fiesta.”⁹ Such categorizations of worship as fiesta play on racialized stereotypes of Hispanics that fail to describe—less explain—any concrete dynamics or mechanisms operating in these churches (see Marti 2012b).

Any future agenda for sociological research should avoid such front-loaded, racialized assumptions and use careful sampling, listening, and observation to pursue dynamics and nuance among Latino Protestants and their churches. Rather than reduce complex dynamics to vague generalities, researchers must preserve variety and texture in observing and describing LPCs to then follow up on substantive structures that both define and affect Latino Protestants and their congregations. In fostering an agenda for sociological research on LPCs, it is not just the growth and attention of Latino Protestants and their churches that will make them significant for scholarship but the sophisticated lenses that we apply to our understanding of them.

In confronting the dangers of essentialization, a priority must be made by careful researchers to clarify what constitutes for them a Latino church. The ambiguous nature of the term invites both researchers and readers to infuse their own assumptions. How will we consciously give attention to differences in nation of origin? What distinctions even matter? Also, it is not immediately clear whether this term signals a church of immigrants or whether they are some type of acculturated Americans (maybe neither? both?). Moreover, an important question to answer is whether there is anything truly “indigenous” to LPCs in the United States. Despite claims of “Latino culture” attached to various aspects of LPCs, I know of LPCs that originate from “seeker church” models, orient around the prosperity gospel, or infuse themselves with other distinctly American religious developments. Even more: It is tempting to simplify the selection of cases (as argued by Martinez 2011) by defining “truly Latino” congregations as (1) majority Latino, (2) with Latino faith leaders, and (3) using Spanish as the primary language in services. However, the Pew (2007) data reveal that such selective categorization would capture only 62 percent of Latino Evangelical churchgoers and only 48 percent of Mainline Protestants. Such an operationalization therefore ignores the breadth of difference that exists among Latino Protestants—the type of nuances I believe an agenda for sociological research would want to explore.

THREE FOCAL POINTS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ON LATINO PROTESTANTS AND THEIR CHURCHES

Crafting provocative theses regarding the complex and heterogeneous universe of Latino Protestants and their churches should be a critical focus in the coming years (see Martí, Mulder, and Ramos forthcoming). While the study of LPCs should be methodologically open and theoretically diffuse, it is likely that researchers will recognize each other only by coalescing around a common set of interests. Such commonalities are not meant to be tightly framed or narrowly defined but generally agreed arenas of focus for the sake of building a body of shared scholarship. To that end, I suggest the following.

Focal Point 1: On Worship and Liturgy

A future agenda for sociological research on LPCs would seek to capture the variety and complexity of liturgical patterns (order of worship, style, artifacts) and religious practices (singing, preaching, bible readings, and evangelizing) in relation to dynamics of leadership, power, and decision-making at the local and denominational level (e.g., Martí 2012b). Systematic, empirical exploration would consider individual and corporate worship practices in light of theological and liturgical traditions as well as national background and regional location of the LPCs (e.g., Espinosa 2014; Hinojosa 2014; Sandoval 2006). Investigations would also include the individual religious experiences of participants (both adults and children) as framed within the life of the congregation as a whole.

One avenue of research would likely orient around musical worship. For example, some Latino Protestant leaders confidently say that Salsa is acceptable as worship music, but others react to Salsa by pronouncing that such music comes “from the devil.” An important question emerges: What is the scope of agreement on the sanctity of different forms of music? Also, what styles of music are actually present in Latino Protestant congregations? Is the music of Marcos Witt the standard music of the Latin Protestant churches (as some claim)? Or is some form of indigenous music the norm? We know there are churches that feature distinctive rhythms of Mariachi, Cumbia, and Merengue, as well as Spanish-translated contemporary Christian music. But we do not know which are prominent or what accounts for the variation in choices of sacred music. Beyond style of music, how are praises and adoration actually practiced? Is a full-body, sensually pronounced involvement characteristic of all Latino Protestant services?

Also, the issue of gender is surely significant. How do the practices and experiences of women vary among LPCs? What are the leadership roles of women who participate in LPCs? Are there limitations, and if so, what are they? What is the role of power in gender relationships among Latino Protestants? Even with formally defined sanctions prohibiting women's religious actions, we may find that women among LPCs have considerably more power than men. Also, is machismo (another word that essentializes Latinos) a key dynamic of importance? Even more, how are specific types of masculinities and femininities shaped, leveraged, or reinforced at different LPCs?

More generally, what are the meaningful structural differences among evangelical, pentecostal, and mainline LPCs? How are symbolic boundaries marked as individual LPCs relate to one other and “compete” for religious legitimacy? Looking beyond what happens in their churches, how do LPCs affect Latino Protestants' practice of religious devotion in their homes, schools, and workplaces?

Focal Point 2: On Ethnicity and Identity

The Latino community in the United States is astonishingly diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, age dynamics, social class, level of acculturation, citizenship or legal status, and country of origin. For this reason, any study aiming to shed light on the multifaceted nature of LPCs will pay attention to the intersection of individual religious practice, involvements in religious spaces, and ethnoracial identity. How do LPCs sustain ethnic identity (e.g., Recinos 1999; Sauceda 1999; Sullivan 2000)? Will we find that LPCs “de-ethnicize” as found among other groups (Fishman 1972:57; Kurien 2012)? How should we analytically consider Spanish-language use (e.g., Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000; Stevens-Arroyo 1994)?

Ethnicity and identity can be productively examined through the category of “age” (e.g., Martí 2005). Looking at age dynamics, what of the place of children as well as the elderly? There is a label applied to young adults among Latinos: jóvenes. At what age are young adults still jóvenes (loosely translated “young people”)? In my observation, people can be quite “mature” and yet be labeled joven, which suggests that being label joven has less to do with age and more to do with power, specifically, the ability of people to express opinions and exercise binding decision-making at both the interpersonal level (conversations) and the organizational level (organizational policies). Jóvenes may have less power because they have not yet “proven” themselves in handling mature responsibilities attributed to marriage, stable jobs, and children. Given that joven also signifies unmarried, how are LPCs promoting expectations about marriage and the reproduction of particular family structures? How are various age groups organized and formed in their faith, for example, in regulating sexuality (birth control, family planning, same-sex relationships, cohabitation) or maintaining ethnic identity markers (music, food, types of occupations, and leisure activities)?

Scholarship on race and ethnicity (often buttressed by U.S. Census data) also indicate meaningful differences between “race” and “ethnicity” in the designation of a person who is Latino. Therefore, when a person in the United States says she is Latino, she could be white, she could be black, or she could even have her ancestral origin in Asia. What difference do the sociological dynamics of race and ethnicity make for LPCs? How does the observation that Latinos—regardless of being first, second, or third generation—are perceived as perpetual foreigners (see Devos and Banaji 2005; Huynh et al. 2011; Jimenez 2008; Rocco 2006) affect their experience and practice of worship? Do LPC's worshiping practices have a bearing on the development of transnational cultural networks between LPCs and Latin-American countries? Furthermore, given the observed frequency of religious switching from Catholicism to Protestantism, how does conversion to an LPC from Catholicism affect ethnic identity in relation to families and other groups that would otherwise form solidarities?

Focal Point 3: On Community and Civic Engagement

LPCs are embedded within their surrounding communities—although the depth of their “embeddedness” may be uneven (Wilson 2008). For example, Rubén Armedariz (1999:240) asserts that LPCs “do not deal efficiently with the communities in which they are located. One particular survey … indicated, overwhelmingly, that its own members recognized their lack of involvement in the issues affecting the community. Part of the reason is that most members of these congregations do not actually live in the community [but are] commuters to church activities.” Yet I know that some LPCs consider engagement with and advocacy on behalf of socioeconomic disadvantaged Latinos a vital part of their mission. Consequently, an agenda for sociological research will contribute to understanding LPCs that confront the challenges of wage inequality, undocumented immigration, criminalization/incarceration, and the general lack of health services and educational opportunities among Latinos (Espinosa and Elizando 2005).

What is the role of geography and the built environment (whether rural, suburban, or urban)? Are there regional distinctives among LPCs? It is likely that where LPCs are located is significant, both in terms of the background and circumstances of the Latinos found there and their tenure in the region. This connects with the more general question of the relationship between social class and citizenship on LPCs. Acknowledging the importance of undocumented Latinos, what are the individual practices, corporate theologies, and shared rites that characterize unauthorized/undocumented Latinos (Guzman 2014)? In what ways, do LPCs channel resources (e.g., time, money, people) and practices (e.g., prayer, rallying, voting) at the local, regional, national, and global level in order to advance the social conditions of their local communities?

Finally, how do LPCs perpetuate and challenge broader issues of gender inequality, class inequality, and racism among Latinos? We know that Latino Protestants are more conservative than their Catholic counterparts on issues related to abortion (Bartkowski et al. 2012), same-sex marriage (Ellison et al. 2011), and attitudes toward marriage in general (Ellison et al. 2013), but we are not clear on the role of LPCs in relation to these issues. Do LCPs consider civic engagement to be a worship practice? What is the impact of broader political discourse on the ways LPCs engage with society? What about LPCs that are a-political and not otherwise civically engaged? Generally speaking, how do leaders and members of LPCs define and engage “the world?”

AN EMERGING RESEARCH AGENDA ON LATINO PROTESTANTS AND THEIR CHURCHES

The three focal points for future research suggested above for Latino Protestants and their churches are quite general, and the questions proposed are far from exhaustive. As we expand our scholarship in this area, it behooves graduate-level faculty, book and journal editors, grant-givers and grant-seekers, and actively publishing academics to encourage the development of distinctive expertise in developing lines of research based on a scholars' interest. In other words: rather than seek to discover what the current “research on Latino Protestants and their churches” is and try to fit new analysis within that, it is more important at this point to stimulate multiple lines of research with intersecting questions and issues from various subareas with an active integration of heuristic conceptual tools to search out potentially fruitful avenues of investigation (for a notable example, see Calvillo and Bailey 2015).

By suggesting that we give attention to congregations I do not mean a narrow focus on membership or attendance, nor do I mean to imply that Latino Protestant religiosity is solely “explained” by a focus on congregational structures. Rather, my suggestions here urge researchers to move beyond individual-based survey responses and examine congregations as strategic sites for beginning to build a more complex understanding of Latino Protestants. Productive LPC research would focus not only on what happens “inside” churches, but also on what happens outside and around churches, what affects members of LPCs, how LPC structures are shaped and affected, and the manner in which LPCs have an effect (if any) not only on their Latino members but also the community, the market, and the state—even on broader Christian developments in America.

The goal of this essay is not to be comprehensive as much as to stimulate scholarship foci on this vital arena of study (Martí 2014). Certainly, scholars who join this effort now can be confident many others will soon follow.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to my colleagues Deborah L. Berhó, Jonathan Eli Calvillo, Ricardo L. Franco, Melissa Guzman, Mark Mulder, and Aida I. Ramos for their input on an initial draft of this essay.

REFERENCES