Conference Papers & Current Trends
Discussion of Rational Choice Theory
Round 4: Book review
Kenneth Serbin
Assistant Professor of History and Director, Transborder Institute, University of San Diego
Anthony Gill has written one of the first studies that effectively links the question of Protestant growth with the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to Latin America's recent authoritarian regimes. His thesis is simple: the Church attacked authoritarianism mainly in those countries where it felt threatened by religious competition.
By adopting a more progressive stance and distancing itself from the state, the Church increased its appeal among the poor, where Protestants were making their greatest gains. Protestantism, he concludes, provided Catholicism with a "wake-up call" for realizing the seriousness of poverty and repression (p.120). Indeed, poverty, repression, and also internal church reform--the factors most often cited in the literature--are less important than religious competition for explaining the appearance of Catholic progressivism in Latin America. This thesis will cause a stir in the academy, especially because Gill unabashedly applies rational choice theory to the study of religion. Yet he skillfully employs this theory and is careful not to overstate his case.
The strength of the book lies in Gill's thorough statistical analysis of twelve countries. This analysis makes clear that the presence of strong religious competition coincided more than other factors with the decision by each nation's group of bishops to support or oppose authoritarian rule. Where little or no competition existed, the Catholic bishops could do as they pleased, going against the interests of their followers and even ignoring them by shunning pastoral activity and engaging exclusively in high-level politics (pp. 53, 67, 156-70). Gill fleshes out the statistical data with chapter-length case studies of two extreme reactions to authoritarianism. In Chile, Protestant growth and political influence were on the rise long before General Augusto Pinochet took power in 1973. Protestant strength eventually led the Catholic hierarchy to oppose the dictatorship. In Argentina, where the bishops notoriously collaborated with the military repression, Protestant missionary efforts were practically nil throughout the twentieth century. Significantly, Gill deepens our understanding of the Argentine case and other conservative churches generally ignored in the wave of literature about post-World War II Catholic reform.
The value of this book goes far beyond its main argument. Gill provides us with important data on the little-studied Catholic reaction to Protestantism before the authoritarian era. This historical approach to political science is refreshing. Gill's good comparative eye extends beyond Latin America. Another important contribution is the book's focus on church-state cooperation, which is often ignored in a field where scholars usually search for conflict.
Gill may define too narrowly the concept of Church by referring only to the actions of the bishops. He includes very little on the role of the clergy and on popular reaction to church-state issues. Gill makes the highly significant observation that the famed Comunidades Eclesiales de Base (CEBs, or Grassroots Christian Communities) became most numerous precisely where the Protestant challenge was greatest (p.102), but he has little discussion of these groups. Gill also takes the military (among other groups) as a monolithic block without considering the possibility of fissures within authoritarian regimes over church-state issues. He assumes that no "conciliatory gestures" came from the military (p. 183), and he does not comment upon the fact that the Catholic Church still has remained largely a semi-official religion in much of Latin America. Gill examines public statements but tells little about what occurred behind the scenes in church-state relations.
The most egregious example of viewing groups as homogeneous blocks is Gill's portrayal of the poor. In explaining the rise of progressivism, he assumes--as the progressives themselves did--that the poor would automatically be attracted to this new form of Catholicism. Yet the poor in Latin America often vote for conservative, authoritarian politicians. This is why much of the new Protestant movement avoids and even criticizes progressive political ideas. Therefore, instead of explaining why the Catholic Church opposed authoritarianism, a more interesting focus might be on why the new wave of Protestant churches did not do likewise. After all, Gill points out that the Protestants did develop an "option for the poor" (p. 88). Moreover, diversity among the poor is revealed by their varying preferences for a cornucopia of Protestant churches.
One of the book's most perceptive conclusions deals with the conservative retrenchment that occurred in the Latin American Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II in the 1980s and early 1990s. Gill avers that this movement was not only about ideology, but also papal concern over religious competition (p. 16). It is wrong to interpret the new Catholic conservatism as unconcerned with social issues, because it is partly the Church's option for the poor that has strengthened its competitive base (pp. 172-73). Gill thus helps us understand the Church's continued focus on social justice in the late 1990s even after two decades of strict control by John Paul II. Analysts should not divide the Church into conservative and progressive camps, but instead should view its actions primarily as an attempt to address the new religious pluralism sweeping across much of Latin America (p. 175).
Gill is also quite perceptive in questioning the unchallenged assertion of practically all of the literature that the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and the famous meeting at Medelln (1968) were the primary factors in raising the consciousness of Latin America's bishops about poverty (p. 46). As Gill states, these meetings were catalysts--not determining factors. A deeper analysis of their impact on the clergy has yet to be undertaken.
Gill is to be most commended for considering economic factors in church-state relations. He presents this perspective as a natural component of his rational choice approach, although one does not have to accept this approach in order to employ an economic analysis of churches. (See p. 227 for Gill's comments on this reviewer.s own work on the economics of the Catholic Church). One of the book's most elegant and powerful phrases appears on page 11: "No matter how divinely inspired the clergy may be, a church exists in a world of scarcity and can thrive only to the extent that its leaders use resources efficiently." Along these lines, Gill points out the importance of foreign resources for the political autonomy of the Latin American Church (pp. 70-71).
However, despite the emphasis on economics, the book contains disappointingly little hard data on Church finances, and no estimates of the actual economic impact of state subsidization and other financial resources on the Church's life. Gill focuses too much on rational choice theory and not enough on the actual economic reality of religious denominations. This emphasis at times lead to an exaggeration in which rational choice seems to be the only factor governing church-state relations (for example, p. 72), though to his great credit Gill includes a fine appendix in which he discusses both the applications and limits of his chosen theory.
The major weakness of the book is frequent lack of convincing evidence to support the main argument. The cross-country comparison is solid, but Gill admits in other sections that his evidence his merely anecdotal (pp. 48, 104). The same goes for his interview data. Use of evidence also appears to be selective. This problem is particularly evident in Gill's attempts to illustrate that the Catholic bishops had a deep concern about Protestant growth and actively combated it long before the contemporary surge in religious competition. It is true that the Latin American Church has made official statements against Protestantism throughout much of this century; but little proof appears in this book or elsewhere that most of the Church was really concerned about Protestant competition to the point that it took an active and profound interest in learning about the phenomenon and formulating effective ways to counter it. Gill tries to assert the opposite. In doing so he presents much circumstantial and anecdotal evidence, but he fails to establish causal links. He states, for instance, that "many of the techniques employed by the Brazilian Church mirrored the efforts being made by the Protestants" (p. 111), but he demonstrates no actual proof. (Gill himself recognizes that correlation is not causation; p. 224.) Gill falls into the same trap as other scholars of Latin American Protestantism by asserting that Protestants innovated in pastoral practice, only to be "mimicked" later by Catholics (p. 134).
This kind of assertion reveals a gross misreading of the history of the Catholic Church, in particular the complex internal dynamics that led to pastoral innovation. For instance, in his discussion of one influential Chilean priest's perception of Protestant innovation's potential example for Catholic Action and CEBs, but he fails to mention the profound impact of Belgian Father Joseph Cardijn (p. 134). Other factors, such as the crisis of the clergy and the impact of the Cold War, receive little consideration. As Gill readily maintains, concrete historical events explain the exact reason for church-state hostility (p. 70). Thus the use of poverty, repression, reform, and religious competition as the main variables results in a limited analysis.
Contrary to Gill's assertions, many Catholic clergy and bishops to this day lack much knowledge about their Protestant competitors. This is especially true among progressive Catholics. Although in Gill's view they represent the vanguard against the new religious competition, these Catholics have been extremely reluctant to accept Protestant growth as a legitimate social phenomenon and have not used their considerable intellectual power (that is, the liberation theologians) to learn more about it. Similarly, if progressivism is primarily a response to religious competition, Gill needs to explain why conservatives often attacked rather than praised progressives' attempts to attract the poor to the Church!
Ultimately, Gill's use of evidence is not the test of fire necessary for supporting the powerful kind of theory that he purports rational choice to be, nor is it sufficient for demonstrating the Catholic Church's copycat role. By the same token, Gill does not ask to what degree Protestant innovation might be a reflection of what the Catholic Church has done in both the distant and more recent past. This is a common problem in much of the literature that emphasizes the new over continuity in Latin American religion.
Part of the evidentiary problem lies in the great breadth of the work, which at times subtracts from its historical depth. Occasionally it leads to inaccuracies and oversights that further undermine the main argument. For example, contrary to Gill's assertion (p. 31), at least some Latin American leaders in the nineteenth century did indeed understand that the Catholic Church had a tenuous hold on the people because of the powerful attraction of popular religion. The cause of this situation was the region's chronic shortage of priests, which Gill analyzes. However, he incorrectly states that there was a lack of seminary construction to remedy the problem (p. 99). In the discussion of Catholic human resources (pp. 88, 179-80), furthermore, Gill completely overlooks the vast contingent of religious women who provided the Church with cheap but highly educated labor in the past and more recently with cadres for the CEBs and other organizations of the progressive movement. But then practically every book on the Latin American Church has ignored the nuns.and only rarely has gender entered as a category of analysis.
On balance, this book is an extremely important contribution. Despite its flaws, it forces us to think about the Latin American Catholic Church, authoritarianism, and the rise of Protestantism in different ways, and it suggests many paths for future inquiry. It is, in short, a "wake-up call" to the community of scholars that studies Latin American religion.