For a long time, evangelical numbers in Latin America have been growing.  As this article points out, "the share of the population in Bolivia who are Protestant has increased from 7.6% in 1985 to an estimated 17% today."  

Bolivia is not an outlier in Latin America.  Especially in Central America, Protestantism is growing, so much so that Peter Berger used to say, "Max Weber is alive and well and living in Guatemala City."  This piece centers its story in Brazil, but points out the larger patterns.  Fifty years ago, there was a negligible Protestant presence in Latin America.  Now it's a third of the population.  In coming decades, it is possible that the Protestants would achieve parity, or near-parity, with numbers of Roman Catholics.

Two things are worth keeping in mind here.

First, the growth has happened, and is accelerating, I think, in no small part due to changes in the kind of evangelical mission work being done, I think; the last few decades have seen the very rapid expansion of Pentecostal (formally or informally pentecostal, in fact) forms of Christianity.  What we are seeing is the Pentecostalization of Gobal Christianity.  Or maybe, "Global Christianity" as a force is more properly called Pentecostal Christianity.  Much more to think about here.

Secondly, and the point of this post, is that these numbers point to a very interesting kind of culture war coming in Latin America.  For a long time it was a matter of how everyone was positioned vis-a-vis the (Roman Catholic) Church; the Church was able to serve a distinct, sui generis role, in a sense at times "above" politics, or choosing to involve itself on the right or the left as it felt appropriate.  All the different segments of society related to this one spiritual reality.  But now?  A polyarchy of religious authorities.  This will churn religious life in the region a great deal.  It will also, I think, churn civic and political life--and not necessarily in good ways.  Will this Latin American Protestantism, much of which was initially seeded by American evangelicals who are quite politically conservative, be a conservative, or reactionary force in the region?  Will this in turn make the Roman Catholic church much more politically predictable?  And what will happen to cultural life when you have such turbulence?  There are only a few countries where Protestants and Catholics coexist in large numbers at all successfully; and even in those settings, historically there has been a great deal of violence in getting there.  

Alternatively will the churches coordinate, as we have seen white Evangelical and Roman Catholic elites in the US coordinate?  This piece in the NYTimes is a bit predictable, but it has this: "Politically, we may be witnessing a historic truce between Protestants and Catholics in the region: Evangelicals agree to embrace the Catholic Church’s strong condemnation of abortion, the Catholic Church embraces evangelicals’ strong condemnation of sexual diversity, and together, they can confront rising secularism." That's an interesting possibility.

In short, there's an interesting moment coming where the "politics of recognition" will begin to play out for Protestants and Catholics in Latin America.  Who gets recognized as politically (or more broadly publicly) significant, how, and on what terms?  Who gets ignored or diminished or dismissed?

It will be interesting to see what the decades to come bring to Latin America as these changes run out.

PS By the way, I'm not ignoring "secularization" or other movements of religious disaffiliation in Latin America; I simply don't know how or whether they will play out.  All I know is that, even absent a "crisis of religious belief" in the region, things will be interesting.  At some point I'll have to unpack my understanding of religious and non-religious demographics to get at why I feel ok about leaving this to the side for the moment.