Rendering unto Caesar: The Catholic Church and the State in Latin America
For most of its history, the Latin American Catholic Church has been considered a pillar of conservatism. This image changed dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s, when bishops in countries such as Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador publicly denounced repressive dictatorial regimes in their respective countries. Observers rushed to understand both the causes and consequences of this phenomenon, while unfortunately ignoring the persistence of Catholic support for authoritarianism in Argentina,...
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Nowhere has the relationship between state and church been more volatile in recent decades than in Latin America. Anthony Gill's controversial book not only explains why Catholic leaders in some countries came to oppose dictatorial rule but, equally important, why many did not. Using historical and statistical evidence from twelve countries, Gill for the first time uncovers the causal connection between religious competition and the rise of progressive Catholicism. In places where evangelical Protestantism and "spiritist" sects made inroads among poor Catholics, Church leaders championed the rights of the poor and turned against authoritarian regimes to retain parishioners. Where competition was minimal, bishops maintained good relations with military rulers. Applying economic reasoning to an entirely new setting, Rendering unto Caesar offers a new theory of religious competition that dramatically revises our understanding of church-state relations. Books & Culture: A Christian Review - David Martin ...[L]ively and innovative...a cross-national study of the distribution of Catholic political rdiclism based on "rational choice" theory.
Acknowledgments1Introduction: Caesar and the Church12A Brief History of Church-State Relations in Latin America173An Economic Model of Church-State Relations474Luther's Shadow: Protestant Competition and the Catholic Response795Chile: A Preferential Option for the Poor1216Argentina: Complicity with the Devil1497The Institutional Limits of Catholic Progressivism172Postscript187App.: Rationality and Religion193Notes203References229Index259
\ David Martin...[L]ively and innovative...a cross-national study of the distribution of Catholic political rdiclism based on "rational choice" theory. \ —Books & Culture: A Christian Review\ \ \ \ \ BooknewsWhy did some national Catholic episcopacies in Latin America oppose dictatorial rule in the 1960s and 70s, while others did not? Gill (political science, U. of Washington) uses cross-national comparisons, data analysis, and case studies of Argentina and Chile to investigate the Church's official political strategy, and its relations to the government and the poor, from 1930-79. He concludes that Church opposition to authoritarianism was largely a function of competition from religious and political organizations.\ \ \ David Martin...[L]ively and innovative...a cross-national study of the distribution of Catholic political rdiclism based on "rational choice" theory. -- Books & Culture: A Christian Review\ \
