Honduras

In the Central American country of Honduras, the population was predominantly Roman Catholic until the 20th century. In the 19th century, several Anglican, Methodist, Adventist, and Baptist missionary centers were established in the country, but their number and impact remained marginal. It was only in the 1980s, with the growth of the Protestant denominations, that the Honduran religious landscape began to change. According to local polls, in the 1970s, 96.3% of the population declared that they were Catholic, but by 2007, around 36% had embraced Protestantism. These numbers should, however, be used with caution as lack of research and accuracy makes quantification difficult.

Several analysts highlight the role played by the U.S. government in the initial expansion of Pentecostalism in Honduras, supposedly to support Nicaraguan contra revolutionaries and to undermine the influence of Liberation Theology among the rural poor. Others explain the high conversion rates as an effect of an aggressive proselytism involving the mass media, and some others stress Protestantism as an identity phenomenon allowing urban and rural poor to rebuild solidarity networks.

Nowadays, most Honduran Protestant churches are Pentecostal. The theological frontier between Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism is not easy to define. Both embrace Spirit-filled worship and organize around principles such as direct personal experience of God and separation from community life. Neo-Pentecostals, however, are more inclined to embrace the “prosperity doctrine” and to develop specific practices such as “money contracts.”

Differences across social lines appear to be more significant. Pentecostals are mostly poor and uneducated preachers who minister among poor brethren. Their networks provide help with health and family problems and support young people seeking to avoid or escape gangs. Neo-Pentecostal churches, on the other hand, try to extend their influence to the economic elite and the middle class and to increase their influence through hundreds of primary schools, Bible schools, universities, clinics, and service centers throughout the country.

Since 1880, the year of effective religious disestablishment, the Honduran state defines itself as secular, and laws regulating the Church are no longer central to the political debate. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church has historically exerted a significant influence in the political process.

In recent years, evangelical leadership has become more involved in the political arena. In 2005, several Protestant preachers ran unsuccessfully for election as deputies to the National Congress. More recently, the evangelical Christian sector has expanded its traditional lobbying activities, against same-sex marriages and abortion, to join civil society in the fight against corruption.

However, the question remains whether the evangelical Christian sector will be able to exert its influence on the Honduran state as the Catholic Church had done in the past—for example, during the 1960s, when Catholic religious activity started to support radical reform in the Honduran countryside, well before its counterparts in Latin America.