Colonialism, Catholicism, and the Maya

Chronologically, both modern religious pluralism and the current ethnic divide started with the arrival of Columbus in Latin America, since it was Catholicism that was riding the coattails of Iberian colonialism. The conquest planted the seed for the identity construction of both the indigenous and the non-indigenous population. Yet, whereas the race divide persisted, the same cannot be said about the impact of Catholicism on the Mayan population. Already at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the influence of Catholicism, especially among the rural indigenous population, waned considerably, a situation that prevailed more or less until the 1950s. The Catholic influence diminished particularly in the nineteenth century, when anticlerical Guatemalan governments were determined to maintain a reduced Church influence by inviting Protestant missionaries, expropriating Church lands, and issuing anti-Catholic laws. Thus, although for centuries the Catholic Church, in doctrine if not always in practice, had advocated the abolition of pre-Christian or syncretic beliefs and rituals, this did not mean that the Catholic Church was successful in its attempt to maintain control of the religious sphere. Large areas of what is today Guatemala remained priestless or for centuries had very few resident clergy, especially in those areas where the Mayan population lived. Typically, the few priests that visited indigenous villages came only for the annual celebrations of local fiestas. It is one of the ironies of history that in the absence of Catholic priests the original Iberian religious system of the cofradías developed into an indigenous stronghold, emerging over time under a completely indigenous religious leadership. As Edward Cleary tellingly puts it, under the poor presence of Western Catholicism a native religious system could slowly rebuild itself ⁹⁷⁵ and a Maya Catholicism was born.

The local cofradías, a religious cargo system or civil-religious hierarchy as described by some anthropologists, became a cornerstone institution in Maya Catholicism, organizing not just Mayan religiosity but community life as a whole. Under the supervision of this religious body, members of the local communities routinely assumed cargos (offices) in order to organize the annual fiestas and secure sponsorship. For those who occupied higher ranks in the cofradías, the responsibilities that came with these tasks implied great economic hardship, meaning they had to exhaust slim economic surpluses to maintain a traditional religious system. Yet the all-encompassing role of cofradías kept an economic micro-system in place and had political, judiciary, and ethnic functions. ⁹⁷⁶ In sum, for centuries they helped to foster a specific Mayan identity.

Guatemalan Twentieth-Century Catholicism and the Maya

The Catholic status quo described above changed drastically with the implementation of Acción Católica Rural in 1948. Catholic Action achieved nothing less than turning the existing traditional power and identity constructions that had centered around cofradías and Mayan priests⁹⁷⁷ upside down. What happened? And, more importantly, how could it happen? To understand this dynamic it is imperative to realize that Catholic Action was not simply a missionary campaign. It was the first concerted effort launched by the Catholic hierarchy since the conquest to establish orthodox Catholic hegemony in indigenous communities. Yet Catholic Action was also a cadre-organization, combining the task of fighting communism with evangelization – at least in the early years – and the implementation of modernization goals such as education and development projects in its later years. In short, the movement trained and organized a new, young, indigenous elite.

Additionally, Catholic Action broadened the spectrum of religious opportunities and divided indigenous communities into religious – and later political –camps that had not existed until the 1950s. Or, to put it differently, with Catholic Action the hierarchy brought religious pluralism into the midst of its own Catholic realm. Crucial with regard to ethnic identity and the emergence of the new Mayan elite were indigenous catechists. They helped to establish orthodox Catholicism in the Mayan villages, although this did not mean that these Mayan catechists traversed an ethnic assimilation process in conjunction with a religious conversion. To the contrary, training courses and religious conversion led to a new indigenous pride, one that was not built upon or bound to the traditional village elites and religious system but also not entirely attached to a Western and European Catholicism. In a way, the role of catechists became that of translators in a cultural and linguistic sense. They started to mediate between two worlds, that of Western Catholicism and that of the local indigenous Mayan population. Moreover, as mediators and cultural translators they preserved much of their cultural independence, mostly acting on their own premises.

Before the current link between Mayan catechists and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is discussed, the special relationship between the Church, catechists, and the insurgency has to be dealt with. First, formerly active Mayan catechists were a critically important group in the insurgency and also pioneered the establishment of the Maya movement in the 1990s. Second, it was the Church that largely contributed to the new position of Mayans in civil society. The changes that were introduced by the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965), the Episcopal Conference of Medellín (1968), liberation theology, and the above-mentioned Acción Católica Rural were all pivotal in this respect. They provided and constructed, in the form of education (biblical and otherwise), development aid, community organizing, cooperatives, and leadership training, the channels through which a new indigenous consciousness developed. In this sense, the Catholic Church gave power to a group of Mayans who were not part of the traditional community elites, such as the cofradías or Mayan priests. Nevertheless, the decisive aspect was probably that the Church had increasingly secularized its own religious activities and established networks that were no longer purely religious. When at the end of the 1970s, the existing networks and organizations – such as the sizable Comité de Unidad Campesina – became absorbed by the insurgency and above all by the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), Mayans were equipped with social capital and had gained experiences that laid the foundation for the prospective Maya movement.

As became evident, the establishment of the Maya movement in the 1990s was, to a significant extent, the outcome of racist race relationships. Certainly the hierarchy had paved the road with its infrastructure. Yet the desire to form exclusively Mayan organizations also had a lot to do with Mayan experiences in the racially mixed Catholic Church, the insurgency, and later the popular front that emerged in the mid-1980s when the worst repression abated and state violence became more selective. That the state had used racial structures to install and carry out its counterinsurgency measures came as no surprise. By the mid-1980s, however, some Mayans also started to question the role of the Catholic Church and the leftist insurgency. Feelings of being used, betrayed, and deceived began to rise, largely based on accusations that guerrilla leaders and the Catholic Church had abused Mayan communities, establishing bases for a Marxist revolution but then retreating in the face of the army’s counteroffensive, leaving supportive indigenous communities exposed and without armed protection. Racism was further stimulated by the functional and ideological logic of the insurgency within the context of a civil war. A hierarchical military body with highly anti-democratic decision-making processes resulted in an almost complete absence of Mayans in the higher ranks of the insurgency, giving little or no room to Mayans in assuming responsibility and leadership positions. Ideological components have to be factored in as well. Liberation theology, for example, perfectly matched Marxist ideas of the strategy of the masses but collided with ethnic demands. Thus when Mayans tried to incorporate their ethnic claims into Catholicism and/or the insurgency, they were branded as divisive. In this respect, the surfacing of the Maya movement is to a large degree the product of these experiences.

The Catholic Hierarchy and the Ethnic Agenda at the End of the TwentiethCentury

Was there ever an official ethnic agenda of the Catholic hierarchy in the twentieth century? Retrospectively, only in recent Guatemalan history did the Church officially incorporate ethnic issues. Not until 1992, with the commemoration of the 500 years of Catholic presence on the Latin American continent, did ethnic issues start to dominate the Church’s discourse. Before this date, that is from 1984 on, the Church had prioritized human rights abuses and social injustice, most likely as a response to the institutional and individual losses the Church had suffered during the armed confrontation and also as a continuation of the earlier liberation theology agenda. Its own institutional interests might have played a role as well, since the commitment to human rights provided the Church with an officially recognized status in the democratization process, a status that was markedly different from the persecuted position it had occupied during the civil war. Through this lens, starting in the mid-1980s the Catholic Church again became an important part of civil society, not least due to its prominent role in mediating the country’s peace process.

Pastoral Indígena, Popul Vuh, and Training of the Laity

The pastoral indígena is an institutional Catholic body designed exclusively to take into account matters concerning the Mayan population. As such, it should foster the famous inculturación, or inculturation, that is the way the Christian message is presented to non-Christian cultures.⁹⁷⁸ Clearly, both the pastoral indígena and the concept of inculturation have their roots in Vatican II. They only gained real force, however, in 1992, when the Church celebrated five centuries of missionary activities in Latin America. For instance, the pastoral indígena was given a special role in the pastoral letter ‘500 Years of Sowing the Gospel,’ drafted for that occasion. In this document, the Guatemalan bishops entrust the pastoral indígena with the promotion and even the development of an authentic indigenous Church. This makes the institution a good starting point to see how serious the hierarchy is about integrating Mayans and their culture.

The pastoral indígena was first established in 1966 as a by-product of the National Catholic Office, a body installed to implement the goals of Vatican II. Thus, from a certain angle, the efforts of the Church to recycle the pastoral indígena can be seen as a confession that not much happened until the early 1990s in terms of greater recognition of and respect for Mayan culture within Catholicism. Church historian Silvia Brennwald concludes that, at least in the early years, structures such as the National Catholic Office produced only an inflated administrative machinery with ambitious programs but little tangible effect.⁹⁷⁹ Even the Church itself recognizes that there was very little participation of the indigenous laity in those years.⁹⁸⁰

Several other factors underline that there is still a huge gap in integrating Mayan culture and people more fully into Catholicism. The pastoral indígena is poorly staffed in comparison to other Catholic bodies, and there is scant financial support. Moreover, the pastoral indígena has more the character of a working group and is not a grassroots movement such as the Catholic Charismatic Renewal or its forerunner, Catholic Action. The body also reflects the sad reality that there is no systematic implementation of cultural aspects on a practical level, e. g., in the dioceses or parishes. The work is mostly done by individuals – priests, nuns, or catechists – who have taken up the torch of ethnicity but, again, not in form of a combined effort or strategy that has support from the clergy. Quite the opposite; advocates who support or even integrate Mayan spiritual practices into pastoral work are sometimes confronted with open resistance from bishops and priests.

Overall, the main reassessments with regard to Mayan culture have been changes in the Church’s discourse, for instance in pamphlets, pastoral letters, and other publications. Now they incorporate quotations from the Popul Vuh, the myth of the K’iche’ Maya that has survived from pre-colonial times. One of the transitions on the practical level has been the inclusion of Mayan ceremonies in the training courses for lay people, first and foremost those for catechists. Nonetheless, a top-to-bottom approach prevails, one that does not necessarily depart from the lived reality of Mayan participants. Two things stand out in this respect. First, there is a sharp contrast between theory and practice. That is, the ethnic discourse of the Church does not match the practical agenda. This is particularly evident when comments from active Catholic-indigenous laypeople and priests are taken into account. The latter clearly opine that much still needs to be done in order to draw Mayan Catholics back to the pews of the Church. Second, despite the shortcomings – one wonders if such a top-to-bottom approach that excludes the ethnic reality on the ground is able to rally support among the indigenous population – the hierarchy’s procedure does entail several advantages for the institution itself. The Church is able to signal proximity, whether real or not, to Mayan culture. At the same time, the interpretive authority stays in the hands of the clergy. Furthermore, there is a unifying potential attached to the use of the Popul Vuh and the way training courses are carried out. Given the heterogeneous character of Guatemalan indigenous culture, with twenty-two different ethnic groups and a huge variety of cultural expressions, myths and other written accounts can be used as a meta-reference, one that is not disputed or contested. Thus clear requirements avoid battles over cultural interpretation in an otherwise extremely plural environment. In this sense, the Church, along with the Maya movement and other agents, contributes to a process in which ethnicity and identity are reconfigured and equipped with new and more unifying notions.⁹⁸¹ Whether the larger Mayan population supports such shifts towards an ethnic agenda remains questionable. Interestingly, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, a movement that is explicitly opposed to an ethnic agenda and to any expressions of faith that contradict their Catholic values, has no such problems of legitimacy and attraction among the Mayan populace.

The Catholic Charismatic Renewal

When talking about religious pluralism in Guatemala, mentioning the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is imperative. These days, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is among the largest Catholic movements not just in Guatemala⁹⁸² but globally.⁹⁸³ However, whereas numerous books and articles have been published on the ‘invasion of Protestant sects,’⁹⁸⁴ on liberation theology and its practical manifestation in the form of Christian Base Communities (often called CEBs after their Spanish acronym, Comunidades Eclesiales de Base), there is mostly radio silence when it comes to a movement that represents the Catholic counterpart to Protestant Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism.⁹⁸⁵

No doubt, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is the outcome of contemporary religious pluralism in Guatemala and is linked to the internal diversification of Catholicism. Nevertheless, connecting the movement to ethnicity and the ethnic diversity of Guatemalan society seems a rather strange pursuit. The spiritual and Christ-centered emphasis of the movement appears antithetical to Mayan culture, the social impetus, and the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and other major dynamics in Latin American Catholicism. Yet bringing both Mayan culture and the Catholic Renewal together proves productive because an analysis shows that the latter is not simply connected to – one might actually say entrenched in – Mayan culture. Hence, the movement has not only contributed to the internal religious diversification of Catholicism but is closely attached to Mayan culture and its carriers.

Mayan Catechists and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR)

The important role of Mayan catechists in the history of Guatemalan twentieth-century Catholicism, the guerrilla insurgency, and the Maya movement has been already stressed. Mayan catechists, however, were central in the establishment of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, too. For several reasons, they became the ‘turbo-charger’⁹⁸⁶ of the relatively new movement. One reason for their protagonism was that Catholic Charismatics were largely recruited from Catholic Action and the Cursillo movement, two movements in which catechists figured prominently. ⁹⁸⁷ Furthermore, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal started to operate in the same rural areas in which Catholic Action was by that time deeply rooted. Consequently, they began to coincide geographically, making it easy for the Renewal to draw members away from Catholic Action. They also shared the same ambitions: providing room for lay participation, reinvigorating the Church, and overlapping to a certain extent in terms of doctrine. For instance, members of Catholic Action were biblically trained, accustomed to sacramental participation and to a degree of lay leadership and initiative within the Church. The vocational aspect and, ironically, the negative attitude indigenous catechists already displayed with regard to Mayan traditional practices or so-called costumbres was an advantageous factor, too. Becoming a catechist included a calling and a conversion process similar to that of becoming a Charismatic. The latter meant not only a voluntary decision to dedicate one’s own life fully to God; the process often involved a rejection of traditional religious practices, exemplified in some instances by burning traditional religious cult objects. Thus, when Catholic Action and the Cursillo movement lost strength,⁹⁸⁸ the Catholic Charismatic Renewal appeared to many vigorously active lay Catholics as the natural next step in their spiritual development, providing a continuity of belief with its clear defence of orthodox Catholicism and Christian values.

There is much more to add, particularly when the strong hostility of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal towards traditional Mayan religious practices and beliefs and Mayan culture in general is considered. These movements look like successor organizations for all who do not want to follow the path of inculturation, since the denial of Mayan spirituality is what corresponds with the socialization of many Catholics. In other words, the officially credited and endorsed policy of inculturation contains many elements that the orthodox Catholic constituency totally denounces. This leads to the question: Is the Catholic Church, with its ethnic agenda and its efforts at inculturación, jeopardizing its presence among those Mayans (catechists and others) who have been brought up in a tradition that condemns all expressions of Mayan spirituality and identifies fully with Westernized Latin American Catholicism?

Despite the hostility of the CCR towards Mayan spirituality, I argue that among the reasons for its success is precisely its implicit closeness to indigenous culture and spirituality. Surely, and not entirely without reason, many critics have accused the CCR and Pentecostalism of alienating indigenous people from their culture. What seems to lend evidence to this assessment is the openly anti-indigenous stance of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal against anything that is viewed as not being one hundred percent in line with Catholicism, particularly the religious practices and traditions of Mayan people. Yet, in order to understand the appeal and apparent contradiction, it is imperative to take a look at the organizational profile and the type of faith and religiosity that characterize the contemporary Mayan Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

Both Catholic Charismatic and Pentecostal groups, built upon existing social structures and entities, center on strong leaders that often happen to be family heads and/or former catechists. This characteristic might be related to prominent social phenomena such as caudillismo and caciquismo,⁹⁸⁹ terms that refer to the concentration of power and authority exercised by a single male leader. Be that as it may, what is important here is that the groups are ethnically homogeneous and are the result of a Mayan initiative. In other words, they are comprised exclusively of Mayans and have a life of their own. This implies that the leadership is completely indigenous and that ethnic discrimination, at least within these groups, is non-existent. Furthermore, due to the ethnically homogeneous group structure, the social and cultural capital stays to a large extent in indigenous hands. Thus, although ethnicity in the form of cultural, political, and economic demands for greater self-determination is not an issue in these groups, the existing organizational structures suggest that it plays out indirectly. In short, Mayan Charismatic congregations flourish, similarly to Mayan Pentecostal congregations, precisely where cultural norms are respected and where there is ethnic control.

How does this ethnically homogeneous group structure fit the fact that Catholic Charismatic groups are part of the Catholic Church? Isn’t the Church afraid of groups that are under a sole indigenous leadership and part of a larger movement that has been already branded by Church officials as being divisive and having poor theological training and pastoral preparation? Undoubtedly conflicts with the hierarchy and the clergy do exist, and they should not be ignored. Often Catholic Charismatics have to enforce their own ideas on religious practices and beliefs in opposition to Catholic dignitaries and members of other movements, particularly Catholic Action and priests who reject a spiritually oriented movement without a social agenda. Hence, based on divergent practices of faith and doctrinal approaches, Charismatic congregations at the margins of Catholicism – and this applies to many of the indigenous Charismatic groups – frequently have to confront resistance. Indeed, this is the major difference between the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the Pentecostal movement: If they don’t want to endanger their status within the Church and risk disciplinary measures, Catholic Charismatic groups potentially possess much less latitude to create their own organizational structure than Protestant Pentecostal congregations.

This raises the question of why the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is still attractive for indigenous people. Here the interviews indicated that Catholic Charismatics strongly identify with Catholicism and that their Catholic Church affiliation is an important component of their Mayan identity.⁹⁹⁰ At the same time, the interviews demonstrated that the size of their constituency now enables Mayan Charismatics to pressure the Church, meaning they are in a position to maintain the autonomous spaces they have carved out for themselves and even to expand them.⁹⁹¹ The above-mentioned theological and sacramental knowledge of Charismatic Mayans should also not be forgotten, although the official clergy does not recognize it. In fact, their closeness to the Catholic Church and their knowledge based on biblical literalism equip Catholic Charismatic Mayans with excellent tools to defend their doctrinal and liturgical deviations from mainstream Catholicism. In sum, Mayan Charismatics established religious groups separately from the dominant non-indigenous Catholic leadership, providing ethnically homogeneous niches in a racially divided society.

Catholic Charismatic Renewal Doctrine and Mayan Culture

Many conflicts between the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the Church hierarchy can be traced back to the theological profile of the movement. At the same time, Charismatic doctrine provides Mayans with tools to achieve greater empowerment in the institutional Catholic environment. How are the theological profile and this religious empowerment connected?

Central in the relationship between Mayan culture and Catholicism is the role of the Holy Spirit in Charismatic doctrine. In particular, the character of a lay movement that claims immediate and individual access to the divine through the Holy Spirit has great potential for previously marginalized sectors of society. Now the power of the Holy Spirit enables the believer to directly communicate with God in a much more personal relationship, a situation that considerably diminishes the role of the sacraments but also that of priests and other religious dignitaries who are prime mediators and experts in divine relationships. In the past, these religious dignitaries were overtly non-indigenous. Hence, the Renewal dissolves the established asymmetry in religious relationships, returning the religious expertise to an indigenous laity and entrusting them with the opportunity to organize in a much more autonomous fashion. It remains to be seen whether the greater restrictions placed on the groups will considerably thwart the success of the movement in the future.

Culturally, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal does not differ much from Mayan traditional spiritual practices, a proximity that further explains why the movement, despite its foreign origin, was able to become so successful. For instance, one of the central features of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is healing. In its goal to achieve healing, and in its underlying understanding of what causes sickness, the Renewal is strikingly similar to popular religion. Both locate diseases in the spiritual world, as a result of malevolent interventions. Again, this opens a breech, which potentially endangers ecclesial authority but also gives greater religious latitude to Mayans. A case in point is when affliction is interpreted as a consequence of satanic possession and an exorcism is executed by a layperson despite the prohibition of this practice in canonical law. Thus the expertise of the designated priests and bishops becomes highly dispensable.

The organizational autonomy and ethnically-homogeneous structures in combination with doctrinal traits also means that members of the CCR can bring in their cultural and ethnic background. As lay people, they can gather a powerful cultural, social, and religious capital that not only endangers the dominant role of priests and bishops but also equips the lay people with greater religious power. It is these contextualized versions of faith, in which ethnic cultural norms are factored in, that largely explain the success of the CCR and also that of Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal movements. In this sense, indigenous Charismatic groups are not only the response of the Catholic Mayan flock to a racially divided society and ethnically mixed Catholic Church but also a Mayan contribution to the new religious contours of Guatemalan society.

On the Reconfiguration of Ethnic and Religious Identities and the Social Effectsof Essentialism

The entanglement of politics, ethnicity, and religion has led, as previously indicated, to a politicization, ethnicization, and polarization of the religious sphere. Particularly evident with regard to the latter are conflicts and tensions between the Maya movement and all forms of Christianity. Less visible are the transitions in the Mayan religious realm. They encompass traditional religious practices, such as Mayan ceremonies, as well as traditional religious experts, such as Mayan priests, midwives, and healers. In the reconfiguration of the meaning of religion, these practices and authorities became more and more relevant and, as the following paragraphs illustrate, increasingly contentious.

The number of Mayan ceremonies performed in a political and public context started to grow significantly at the beginning of the 1990s. An event that epitomized this shift was the ‘Second Continental Encounter of 500 Years of Indigenous and Popular Resistance,’ which took place in Quetzaltenango in 1991. Previously mostly executed in private and within rural Mayan communities, today it is common to see Mayan ceremonies at a whole range of occasions. Examples include the inauguration of new power plants, offices of non-governmental organizations, and newly constructed roads. Social protest and unrest, such as the demonstrations and street blockades of recent years, organized by the popular front, were also frequently accompanied by Mayan ceremonies, something that was unusual before the 1990s.

Other transitions concerning Mayan ceremonies have also occurred. For instance, a pronounced individualization of ceremonies as well as of the daily life of participants has taken place. This is particularly the case among the young urban Mayan elite. Whereas traditional Mayan ceremonies were carried out within the rural community, often within a specific group, and aimed at securing the interests of this collective, e. g., seeking a good climate and a good harvest, today many ceremonies are performed rather spontaneously and target the interests of individuals, e. g., to invoke the destiny of certain days,¹⁰⁰⁴ to bring sacrificial offerings, or to consult a particular Mayan priest or priestess in order to solve a concrete problem. For young indigenous urbanites with a higher education, a Mayan religious identity is not necessarily connected to service in the traditionally Catholic religious brotherhoods (cofradías) but is, for instance, determined by learning the 260-day calendar, by participation in specific festivities, and by pilgrimages to mountain altars or sacred lakes. This implies that everybody, independently of his or her age, is emancipated and has equal access to the transcendental world and its powers, and is potentially able to become a Mayan priest or priestess. It also signals that a communal framework does not bind participants to each other anymore. These new forms of living Mayan spirituality are structured less hierarchically and do not demand a high sacrifice in time and money, as is common in the traditional religious brotherhoods.¹⁰⁰⁵ In fact, traditional cofradías are viewed by some as colonial, conservative Catholic relics and as folkloric attractions serving the tourist industry. Hence, in some cases the alleged return to a pre-colonial past turns out to be a construct, not built upon a practiced popular and traditional religiosity but on the desire to live and to convey to the exterior world what is thought to be an authentic, autochthonous spirituality. In short, these religious practices of the Maya movement are at times an expression of an invented tradition.

The Mayan calendar constitutes another example of how an originally spiritual device is now used in realms other than the religious. The 260-day-calendar has a pre-colonial origin, connecting astronomical information with spiritual functions, such as fortune telling and the organization of agriculture (time of sowing, harvest, etc.). Today the calendar has lost its significance to a large extent; it is not part of everyday life for the majority of rural Mayans anymore. In recent years the calendar has experienced a revival in other spheres, however. Esoteric and political circles, literature, and even the film industry¹⁰⁰⁶ have discovered the calendar to serve their interests, such as generating personality profiles and horoscopes. The reference to the year 2012, the Baktun, was used by political parties to legitimize ethnic goals, arguing that the new count in Mayan astrology would bring an end to discrimination and the start of greater participation of Mayan people in society at large. ¹⁰⁰⁷

A fundamental change has also happened with regard to the role of Mayan priests. The Maya movement took them out of their local environment and turned them into national spiritual and political leaders. Nowadays, these new spiritual protagonists are connected to national and international networks, travel within and outside the country, are active in politics, approach academic circles and development agencies, and live in urban centers and abroad rather than in indigenous communities. Some Mayan priests are internationally known and part of the New Age scene.¹⁰⁰⁸ The associations of Mayan priests that emerged during the last three decades, mostly in Chimaltenango, Quetzaltenango, and the capital, document this transition away from a rural to an urban, national, international, and institutionalized network structure. These changes also indicate that activism in the spiritual field took on a civic and thus more secular form. Evidently, with the help of these spiritual leaders, the Maya movement has created a distinct ethnic identity, one that is not defined by local origin or local social status anymore.

Apparently, the increasing attacks on and killings of Mayan priests are also a consequence of the politicization of the traditional role of spiritual authorities, converting them into a target of state and military repression. Longstanding impunity and a weak judicial system add to the existing forms of political violence and prevent most cases from being solved. The political violence perpetrated against Mayan priests and others who work in the cultural realm is a new phenomenon, however.¹⁰⁰⁹ Previously, the pursuit of cultural and ethnic issues was considered a rather safe field for civil activism. Victims of political persecution and violence were mostly activists who covered labor and land conflicts. Now, politicized spiritual leaders are among the victims.

As indicated earlier, the varying notions of Mayan spirituality in combination with the revitalization efforts have some problematic side effects within the Mayan community as well. Some of them are tied to workshops organized by the Maya movement, leading to a marginalization and delegitimization of the role of local Mayan priests. Eventually they lose their former leadership position and expertise, ironically signalling a contradiction with the original aims of the movement. This dynamic is in part caused by features of local Mayan spirituality that do not correspond with those promoted by the Maya movement. Christian elements, in particular those that have been part of the ritual repertoire of local Mayan priests for centuries, are now rejected. For the Maya movement, they represent the colonial past and religious characteristics of the ethnic ‘Other,’ the Ladino, thus counteracting both the image of an ethnic identity that is decidedly not ‘Western’ and the creation of a Maya-only discourse. Yet it is not only the historic pluralism and syncretism, born out of centuries of blending pre-colonial rites with Catholicism and today visible in the permeation of traditional Mayan spiritualities, that gets in the way of the Maya movement; the social reality of religious pluralism in the present is also problematic, namely that the target audience (midwives, healers, the Mayan rural population in general) have converted in large numbers to orthodox Catholicism, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, or different types of Protestantism. It is this past and present rejection of religious pluralism which constitutes a downside in the relationship between the new agents of the Maya movement and the local population, ignoring the existing cultural expertise of traditional Mayan priests as well as their social reality.

One case in point demonstrating the decline of religious pluralism on the local level is the participation of Christian converts and community members who rather coincidentally become workshop participants. Obviously participation is problematic for them because it contradicts Christian tenets of faith, particularly those of orthodox Catholicism, Protestant Pentecostalism, and neo-Pentecostalism, which view Mayan spirituality as something pagan and sinful. Yet even for the ordinary Mayan community member, traditional religious practices can potentially provoke malicious powers (either as a punishment from God or because the performer provoked malicious spirits), because the performance always implies the invocation of supernatural powers, good or bad. In sum, traditional Mayan ceremonies are not by definition a demonstration of ethnic empowerment and distinctiveness; they are a religious performance, executed in order to communicate with the spirits of ancestors or other powers for a specific end. As became evident, when this local knowledge is overlooked, Mayan ceremonies, particularly among Christian converts, are perceived as a threat, creating confusion or even fear among participants.

What I deem important here are the different notions that are attached to these rituals. The rural Mayan village population interprets what happens during Mayan ceremonies in light of their cultural knowledge. This knowledge is ambivalent and contains references to witchcraft, magic, maledictions, and spells. On the other hand, the Maya movement highlights that traditional Mayan religious practices are only interested in the well-being of the person, and therefore do not have any negative connotation. This last aspect, the obscuring of negative experiences in traditional religious practices, constitutes a redefinition. Ultimately, two ideas remain as to why these rituals are performed. First, there is the traditional Mayan belief that sees the function of rituals, which should be performed to connect with the supernatural in order to achieve solutions for daily life. Second, there is the concept of the Maya movement, which performs religious rituals in order to prove the existence of Mayan culture and ethnic difference.

In the end, the romantization and idealization of Mayan spirituality leads to a decontextualization and dehistorization of contemporary religious practices, disregarding the daily knowledge and experience of local actors. Indeed, a closer look into Mayan village life shows that some aspects of Mayan spirituality have provoked many conflicts, even up to the present day. The combination of poverty and the belief in supernatural powers has the potential to destabilize the superficially maintained equilibrium of the social structure. Economic and social gains are often viewed with envy, since the gain of one person is interpreted as the loss of another.¹⁰¹⁰ In such a tension-filled environment, aggravated not only by poverty but also by armed confrontation, beliefs in miracles and spells find fertile ground, as do jealousy, anxiety, mistrust, and violence. In this context, Mayan priests, or rather the faith in their abilities, provide only perfunctory solutions, although they do offer convenient explanations for disease, death, crop damage, and other misfortunes. Finally, witchcraft leads to more social tensions and crises, since mutual suspicion increases the potential for conflict and causes any solidarity between the villagers to collapse. Thus the Mayan community is by no means an ideal microcosm, held together by Mayan spirituality.

Taken together, differences between local and national indigenous actors can be summed up with the following questions: How is knowledge transmitted? What knowledge is considered important? And who acts as spiritual broker? With regard to the second question, several aspects have been mentioned already, e. g., the use of meta-references, academic sources, the neglect of Christian elements, and sometimes local cultural expressions. An aspect that has not received attention is the ways in which this dynamic is delegitimizing local knowledge and reinforcing asymmetries between local and national actors. The argument here is that academic texts and their use by the Maya movement represent neither the type nor the transmission of knowledge found in local, rural Mayan communities. There, high illiteracy rates prevail, which means oral history is the avenue by which to pass on knowledge, and knowledge constitutes what is remembered and by whom. Furthermore, spiritual knowledge serves the interests of local Mayas in coping with daily life and is not concerned with constructing authenticity and ethnic distinctiveness. Particularly problematic in this context is that already existing asymmetries are reinforced, e. g., between oral history and written knowledge, and between urban and local actors, indirectly perpetuating previous discriminatory social realities. Rural Mayan carriers of traditional knowledge such as Mayan priests are often taught otherwise by the use of books in workshops, a process that sets in motion the devaluation of contextualized local knowledge. Therefore, it is debatable whether the Maya movement with its workshops and seminaries contributes to an ethnic empowerment of the rural local population, a revitalization of their local knowledge, and a strengthening of ethnic assertiveness.

Another tendency in the religious realm refers to the previously mentioned transfer of knowledge. Oral history is increasingly turning into a secondary way of learning how to become a Mayan priest. In the age of the Internet, young Mayans get instructions from virtual mentors, use books, and attend university seminars and workshops.¹⁰¹¹ Young Mayan professionals, who live in the city to get an education or work for international institutions such as the United Nations, as well as Ladinos and Ladinas interested in Mayan culture choose modern, nontraditional avenues to become a Mayan priest or priestess. This development is occurring in rural areas, too. Interestingly, the Mayan community members I met did distinguish between these two types of Mayan priests, characterizing those who learned their knowledge from books as aprendistas, meaning in English ‘those who learned their knowledge,’ in contrast with those who learned the spiritual ropes in the traditional way. It is unclear to me, though, whether the rural population preferred one type over the other. Certainly a clear rejection or ignorance of these new modern religious experts would indicate problems of acceptance of the Maya movement in rural areas.

At the beginning of this section it was stressed that the maya Movement is modern and urban in its appearance. Now, in bringing together the characteristics of its practices, e. g., the processes of rationalization, categorization, exegesis, and classification of Mayan spirituality into explanatory scientific schemes as well as the use of books and media, other modern tenets become apparent.¹⁰¹² The attitude with which urban Mayan agents treat their ethnicity, not rooting it in the context of traditional, everyday life but acting upon it instrumentally, inspired by particular goals and motivations, can be called genuinely modern as well. Because of a whole range of antagonistic aspects, it is argued here that a discourse that tries to create a pan-Mayan religious identity can hardly be combined with rural, local Mayan identities. However, the majority of the Mayan population still lives in a rural environment. On a more general level, the dynamic of different agendas and knowledge frames also explains why, up to the present time, the Maya movement is highly heterogeneous and lacks cohesion. Comparing the local with the national level, we can see that the process of ethnic empowerment is largely taking place among the educated Mayan urban elite and is not linked to identity constructions that are important for the rural Mayan population at the margins of society.

Overall, the chapter that dealt with the Maya movement has shown that the role of religion, in particular its discourse and religious practices, is shaped by the various political, economic, and social contexts in which the interactions take place. Religion is, in other words, always a contextualized, dependent variable. History will show to what extent the shifts in Mayan activism on a discursive and ritual level will contribute to the emergence of a homogenous social protest and resistance.

Mayan Pentecostalism and Ethnicity

The social effect of Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism on the ethnic status quo of Guatemalan society is basically the same; both perpetuate the existing divide and, culturally speaking, both strongly reject in their institutional discourse any religious beliefs and practices that are not considered Christian. Yet there are some crucial differences when it comes to how Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism operate within marginalized sectors of society, in particular among the Mayan population. In fact, a look inside Mayan Pentecostal congregations indicates that they foster an empowerment and emancipation of the Mayan population; they are even an option to pass on traditional religious and cultural aspects of Mayan culture. How is this possible?

It is largely the above-mentioned demographic and geographic features of Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism that contribute to a continuation of the ethnic divide. For instance, ethnically homogeneous group structures at the grassroots level, combined with the predominantly urban, non-indigenous presence of neo-Pentecostalism and the rural characteristics of Pentecostalism, reinforce existing race patterns. Also, the elite character of upper-class neo-Pentecostal churches, operating schools and universities and defending a non-indigenous lifestyle and the interests of non-indigenous sectors of Guatemalan society, has a strong impact on solidifying the ethnic divide. In short, Ladinos and Mayas pray in different languages,¹⁰²⁰ worship in separate settings, sing different hymns, and operate their own radio and TV stations.

Ironically, the very same features of Pentecostalism, e. g., congregations being mostly rural rather than urban, poor rather than middle class or affluent, small rather than gigantic, and often indigenous rather than non-indigenous, provide the source for ethnic empowerment and emancipation. They also make clear that the initially described hypotheses that Pentecostalism fosters a process of individualization and an associated process of assimilation into national Ladino culture cannot be validated when the social reality is taken into account. The majority of rural, indigenous Pentecostals are not ‘individualized’ persons lifted out of their community but rather continue to be embedded in their traditional, local community.

Certainly, ethnicity as a process of consciously defending collective ethnic identifications in order to achieve common interests is not a component of the Pentecostal discourse. On the contrary, at first glance it seems that the Christian discourse of equality paired with the emphasis on spirituality over political action is actually disguising the existing ethnic divide. The empirical data of this study indicates, however, that social characteristics, in particular the ethnic composition of Pentecostal congregations and Pentecostal doctrine, indirectly foster an indigenous empowerment.

Several factors are important in this regard. Mayan Pentecostal congregations are ethnically homogeneous; that is, groups are comprised of Mayans only. Several experiences are attached to this group structure and to Mayan empowerment. First, there are no racially discriminatory factors within the religious communities.¹⁰²¹ Consequently, these congregations provide an autonomous space at the grassroots level for a discriminated and marginalized population. Second, Mayans are enabled to exercise ethnic control and leadership and to bring in their cultural capital, a dynamic similar to Mayan Catholic Charismatic groups, which keeps the cultural traits of the Mayan population, such as language, customs, and even popular religious faith tenets, alive. From this perspective, ethnic homogeneity means that Pentecostal churches provide the flock with non-discriminatory spaces in which members can build their own organizational structures and are able to link biblical self-interpretations with their cultural background. Evidently, this explains in part the attraction Pentecostal churches have for Guatemalan Mayans.

The flexibility and autonomy of Pentecostal churches, in part a result of the predominantly small sizes of congregations, also accommodates religious demand in rural areas where Pentecostal churches, similar to Catholic Charismatic congregations, are often the only religious supplier. Although the number of Catholic priests, including Catholic Mayan priests, has risen considerably in recent decades, the Church is still not able to cover vast areas, particularly those that are difficult to access due to lack of infrastructure. In this sense, the continuous lack of Catholic priests proves to be largely beneficial to Protestant Pentecostal communities and to Catholic Charismatic congregations. Compared to Catholic churches, including Catholic Charismatic congregations, Pentecostal churches have a much more advantageous position, however. They have much greater latitude in organizing their faith communities, since Catholic Charismatics are often confronted by religious brethren or a Catholic hierarchy that possess a different understanding of doctrine and liturgy.

The religious trajectories of the founders of Catholic Charismatic and Protestant Pentecostal congregations presented in this study suggest that discriminatory factors are influential in the establishment of Mayan Pentecostal congregations as well. Many were active Catholics before and had leading missionary positions and were thus well acquainted with the situation in the parishes and the Catholic Church. Narrative evidence indicates that the desire to form Pentecostal congregations was in some cases a protest against the established Catholic Church and a search for more recognition and less discriminatory conditions, free from the authoritarian attitudes of non-indigenous Catholic priests leading predominantly Mayan parishes. Yet despite the interest in avoiding discrimination and racism, a certain personal protagonism should not be ruled out as a motive. In this sense, the strong and somewhat aggressive boundary discourse of Pentecostal congregations can be seen as a tool by which one can distance oneself from the Catholic Church.

Next to the structural autonomy and homogeneous ethnic structure, there is the cultural autonomy with which Mayan Pentecostals are able to organize. This autonomy is greatly supported by Pentecostal doctrine, in particular the personal relationship with God and the emphasis on the Holy Spirit.¹⁰²² This doctrine enables every convert, at least theoretically and regardless of ethnic identity, to have equal access to the spiritual world. Religious experiences and gifts, such as speaking in tongues, faith healing, and exorcisms, can be exercised by anybody who feels capable of using these gifts.¹⁰²³ Pentecostal doctrine also translates into highly participatory forms of worship; singing, clapping, and individual prayer are common. Furthermore, no intellectual barriers exist in the form of theological requirements, and there is no superior, hierarchically organized institution with interpretative guidelines. Members are frequently illiterate, with only pastors or congregation leaders having rudimentary reading and writing skills, enabling them to preach messages based on biblical texts.¹⁰²⁴ In the absence of literacy, there is also an absence of the biblical literalism prevalent in the neo-Pentecostal churches and Catholic Charismatic congregations of the middle and upper classes. Where there is a literal interpretation of the Bible, it serves the goal of distancing Pentecostals from Catholics, particularly from their veneration of saints.¹⁰²⁵ Thus, not only is the ethnically homogenous group structure related to an ethnic empowerment, but Pentecostal doctrine also has great potential for religious and spiritual empowerment. Again, all of these features document that there is plenty of latitude for Mayan Pentecostals to accommodate their ethnic background.

What distinguishes the Pentecostal movement from the neo-Pentecostal and Maya movements is that there is no religious element that translates into political action and a nationalistic assessment of politics. Furthermore, whereas the Mayan Pentecostal churches are characterized by traditional rural features, form face-to-face communities built on existing network structures, and practice religion along ethnic-cultural lines, neo-Pentecostalism and the Maya movement are relatively new urban phenomena trying to create a universal ethno-religious (pan-American) identity with an ethnic or religious essentialism. Thus Mayan Pentecostalism focuses on the maintenance of a local identity linked to the rural context. Nevertheless, this should not be understood as an intentional or conscious process but is rather the result of the organizational structures that build on traditional features and of lived reality.

That error in the hypothesis of ladinization or assimilation is also underlined by the organizational structure of Mayan Pentecostalism. Similar to rural Mayan Catholic Charismatic groups, Pentecostal congregations are mostly built on existing family structures or center on former catechists, without being mutually exclusive. Thus the main social entity of indigenous culture is becoming a religious entity, with the habitus embodying perceptual and motivating schemes that produce and reproduce the social structures in which individuals are located,¹⁰²⁶ thus keeping those structures intact. In fact, the habitus as a system of internalized social structures that is inherently connected to people’s identity experiences continuity or is even strengthened by the Pentecostal congregational structure.

The rural appearance and embeddedness of Pentecostalism in indigenous rural culture conflicts with some of the oldest and most prominent theories on Pentecostalism. They argue that modernization, in particular urbanization, individualization, and secularization, together with anomie¹⁰²⁷ is a trigger for the dramatic increase in Pentecostal congregations. According to these theories, urban Pentecostal communities are places where migrant peasants could find a new community that offered a better adaptation to urban life.¹⁰²⁸ Displaced from their rural context, these individuals would find in Pentecostal congregations a new solidarity, social security, and a substitute for their traditional community. ¹⁰²⁹ In this sense, Pentecostalism was seen as an answer to the spiritual needs of individuals who formerly lived in a traditional context and had been catapulted through labor migration into an industrialized, urban environment. ¹⁰³⁰ While these theories are not completely discarded here and might be valid in describing Mayan Pentecostals who live in the Guatemalan capital, it is important to note that the majority of indigenous Pentecostals are not living in an urban environment, and therefore these theories do not apply to a substantial part of the Pentecostal Mayan population.

Neo-Pentecostalism and Ethnicity

Some of the salient characteristics of neo-Pentecostalism have already been named. For instance, neo-Pentecostalism is mostly an urban movement and a phenomenon of the masses and the media. As the name indicates, it is a successor of Pentecostalism, a movement that is relatively young. Being a successor of Pentecostalism, neo-Pentecostalism shares with it several doctrinal traits, e. g., an emphasis on conversion and the Holy Spirit. At this point, the similarities almost come to an end; in fact, I argue that neo-Pentecostalism has much more in common with the Maya movement than with its predecessor, Pentecostalism. The following sections will present further evidence to corroborate this hypothesis while centering on the analytical aspects of religious community, including organizational features, religious discourse, and religious practices, which are congruent with Pentecostalism.

Most neo-Pentecostal churches are artificially created, bound together in their reference to a universal identity of all born-again (converted) Christians. In other words, they are not built upon an already existing face-to-face community. Worship takes place in recently constructed huge auditoriums, converted theaters, cinemas, and warehouses. Mostly on Sundays, thousands of people gather for these events, symbolizing the high degree of anonymity and again underlining the strong contrast with small Mayan Pentecostal groups. The influence of mega-church models and the orientation towards the United States is clearly visible, a characteristic that strongly reflects the type of constituency prevalent in these congregations. Although a few neo-Pentecostal Mayan churches exist, the vast majority are composed of non-indigenous, middle- and upper-class Ladinos, giving clear evidence that the Guatemalan religious landscape is divided ethnically.¹⁰³¹

In terms of the religious discourse of the neo-Pentecostal movement, it has been stressed that among the reasons why Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism should and indeed must be distinguished are four discursive elements, which are prevalent in neo-Pentecostalism but not in rural Pentecostal Mayan communities. These elements are post-millennialism, the prosperity gospel, biblical literalism, and a strong emphasis on demonology, in particular spiritual warfare and generational bondage. Apparently, all of these discursive elements have a strong effect on race relationships in Guatemala and reflect the role of religion in an ethnically divided society.

First, and with regard to post-millennialism, it became evident that this doctrine fosters and legitimizes a Christian claim to leadership that demands power in all social domains in the name of a universal Christian doctrine in the here and now.¹⁰³² In other words, post-millennialism doctrinally legitimizes the construction of a Christian world in which a specific Christian identity trumps or even eradicates all other religious and ethnic identities. This does not mean that neo-Pentecostal activists are mostly politicians – in fact, very few neo-Pentecostals are active in Guatemalan politics¹⁰³³ – but the platform to engage actively in social affairs (for instance, in combining proselytizing with charity) is often the Guatemalan nation-state. At other times neo-Pentecostalism acts as a transnational religious network, leap-frogging the established boundaries of the nation-state. Considering that neo-Pentecostalism is mostly a phenomenon of the urban, non-indigenous population, it becomes apparent that the claim to leadership and the establishment of a Christian world overlaps with the interests of the non-indigenous population. Mayans are only of interest as missionary objects, meaning as long as they subordinate themselves to the specific conception of a Christian doctrine, whose representatives are mostly non-indigenous. ¹⁰³⁴ Seen from this perspective, the project of evangelization is a project of assimilating the indigenous population into something that is understood as a superior form of collective identity.

Second, the prosperity gospel should also be considered from the perspective of the class and ethnic composition of neo-Pentecostalism. The prosperity gospel in Guatemala, according to my data, is a religious doctrine from and for the haves rather than the have-nots. It legitimizes the wealth of those who are already rich and prosperous and condemns those who are poor, explaining poverty as the result of a lack of faith.¹⁰³⁵

Lastly, the neo-Pentecostal elements of demonology, in particular spiritual warfare, generational bondage, and generational curses, merit attention with regard to their effect on ethnic relationships in Guatemala. This is because Catholicism and Mayan spirituality became a prime target in neo-Pentecostal discourse. In what ways do these doctrinal elements create a total opposition to Mayan spirituality and certain norms and values embedded not only in Mayan but also in Latin American culture in general? First and most importantly, the demonology of neo-Pentecostalism equates Mayan spirituality with a cult of the devil. This equation works perfectly in the Guatemalan context, because biblical references to Satan can be applied on a one-to-one basis to Mayan culture. For example, biblical elements that characterize the devil were important deities in the Mayan pre-colonial culture and gained new importance within the revitalization of the Maya movement. The most vivid illustration of this equation is the serpent as a symbol of the devil in the Bible and the feathered serpent representing the famous deity Quetzalcoatl in the Mayan pantheon.

Generational bondage and generational curses are doctrinal elements that also directly target Mayan culture and history. They imply that sins are perpetuated in families and passed on from generation to generation, unless the bond or curse is lifted. Ironically, former generations of non-indigenous Catholics that are connected to hideous crimes and atrocities are not the ones who are put at the center of attention, but rather attention is focused on Mayan pre-colonial culture, in particular the practice of human sacrifice. One wonders why the slaughtering of the indigenous population by Catholic Spaniards during the conquest is not placed squarely into this doctrinal framework. It seems these atrocities are not considered a sin that is passed on from generation to generation. Moreover, the number of people that died through the practice of human sacrifice is minimal compared to the bloodshed of the Spanish conquerors. Most astonishing is that the recent crimes in Guatemalan history do not appear on the radar of neo-Pentecostal doctrine. Why is the genocide of Mayan people, during which, according to the two truth commissions,¹⁰³⁶ approximately 200,000 people were killed, not regarded a sin? Before I try to answer this question, let me summarize: Generational bondage draws a direct line from pre-colonial Mayan culture to contemporary Mayan culture, stating that the sins of the ancestors, including human sacrifice and other practices, are still operating in current Mayan generations. With regard to ethnicity and the current efforts of Mayans to revitalize their own culture, the standpoint of neo-Pentecostalism is clear: In the doctrine of generational bondage, Mayans and other indigenous peoples in Latin America are not the descendents of great civilizations, but are heirs of a terrible, sinful, and savage legacy. In sum, both the cultural imagery of biblical evil and generational bondage work hand in hand to create a radical anti-indigenous discourse. Traditional indigenous cultural elements are reinterpreted as satanic influences.

Overall, it is the religious discourse of neo-Pentecostalism, its organizational structures, and its understanding of social order which contribute to ethnic antagonisms and the ethnic status quo. From the doctrinal perspective, neo-Pentecostalism is an essentialized version of a faith that makes absolute and exclusive claims about its religious belief system. This, combined with the fact that neo-Pentecostal congregations are almost entirely comprised of the non-indigenous population and function largely in urban enclaves among the middle and upper classes, lead me to conclude that it is a strong religious network that supports, consolidates, and legitimizes the interests of a non-indigenous elite. Ethnically, the demand for the restoration of a biblical order, which is embodied in the neo-Pentecostal community, can be seen as an implicit attempt to justify ethnic superiority and a higher social status religiously. This discourse, together with the class and ethnic composition, in particular the ethnically homogeneous congregation structures, contributes to a spatial and ethnic segregation of Guatemalan society, which has ultimately preserved ethnic antagonism and the ethnic status quo.

In light of the civil war and the Mayan emancipation that took place in the course and the wake of the Guatemalan peace negotiations, this interpretation of neo-Pentecostalism gains even more weight. The time when the neo-Pentecostal doctrines of apostleship, spiritual warfare, and generational bondage became popular was around the middle of the 1980s. This was a time of profound economic crisis and a time when the popular movement and Mayan intellectuals slowly started to build momentum for a more favorable public acceptance of the indigenous populace. Thus the non-indigenous sectors were not only threatened by economic hardship but also by an indigenous population that, for the first time in history, appeared in the political and religious arena as an autonomous actor demanding particular rights. This problematic inter-ethnic relationship is, in my view, reflected in the discourse of neo-Pentecostalism, even though it is ensconced in a religious vocabulary. The re-evaluation of indigenous culture through organized indigenous activists and the peace negotiations experienced a vociferous devaluation in the discourse of neo-Pentecostal churches. The Mayan culture constituted the negative point of reference onto which a Christian counter-identity was grafted.

Finally, the issue of ethnic and class composition brings me back to the initially posed question: Does ethnic self-neglect parallel the religious rhetoric of conversion? Given the fact that the neo-Pentecostal movement is predominantly non-indigenous, it is obvious that it has no real impact on the Mayan population, because there is hardly any neo-Pentecostal Mayan audience. Yet those neo-Pentecostal congregations that are comprised of a Mayan audience are telling in this respect, because they assemble under an exclusively Mayan leadership. ¹⁰³⁷

In sum, with regard to the ethnic status quo in Guatemala, it should be noted that church-communities form ethnically homogeneous enclaves that represent the interests of those who form their audience. Neo-Pentecostalism, just like Pentecostalism, flourishes precisely where there is ethnic control – be it Mayan or Ladino – and where the ethnic cultural norms of the audience are taken into consideration in the liturgy, religious practices, doctrine, and organizational structure. This also means that both Ladino and Mayan congregations have a life of their own, even when the denominational framework is ethnically mixed. Unfortunately, the cultural preferences of different ethnic groups have consolidated and intensified ethnic antagonisms because they have reproduced already existing ethnically defined and homogeneous social spheres. Moreover, the tendency to create ethnically homogeneous religious groups is likely to be even greater in a pluralist society where people are free to choose their own religious affiliation and congregation. Ultimately, we can see that religion in a pluralist society actually does more to perpetuate the ethnic divide than it does to tear it down.