May 2009

ARTICLE TOOLS

Find similar articles Print this article E-mail this page Bookmark this article

Were El Salvador's evangelicals responsible for putting into power a party once considered a terrorist organization? News reports said evangelical Protestants, who compose one-third of the country's population of seven million, were behind the March 15 presidential election of Mauricio Funes. His FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) was the leftist guerrilla movement of the country's 1980s civil war and has been reborn as a peaceful Social Democratic party.

But reports of evangelicals' support were overblown, said Javier Osorio, a Baptist pastor and El Salvador director of Christ for the City International. Osorio said his congregants divided their votes between left- and right-wing parties, as did other church bodies in the nation's evangelical alliance. Endorsing candidates from the pulpit would not violate Salvadoran laws, but most local churches stay out of politics. "Within the church, we're to glorify the Lord," said Osorio.

Funes's platform—that churches' moral strength was the key to solving El Salvador's rampant problems with gangs, violence, and unemployment—may have been compelling, but observers stressed that evangelicals did not vote as a bloc.

"It's a lot more complicated than that," said Danny Carroll, a Denver Seminary professor and adjunct professor at the Central American Theological Seminary in Guatemala City. Corruption in the current right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance is believed to have moved many to support the FMLN. "I don't think evangelicals anywhere have a consistent political theology," said Carroll. "They're just looking for a change."

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

The Christian Science Monitor also wrote about the elections in El Salvador.

Christianity Today has more articles on South America.

				Try 3 Issues of Christianity Today RISK-FREE! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. Click here for International orders. If you decide you want to keep Christianity Today coming, honor your invoice for just $19.95 and receive nine more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless. Buy 1 gift subscription, get 1 FREE!

Subscribe to the FREE CT Newsletters Get CT headlines direct to your mailbox! CTDirect (daily) CTWeekly    RSS Feed   RSS Help