Denomination and Church Leadership Statistics
The Revolution produced a country under the rise of Communist Marxist-Leninist ideologies that directly impacted the leaders within the various Christian denominations. The church suffered a tremendous loss in the houses of worship that were taken or shut down and the leaders of those ministries. The proposed list of the denominations was partly due to the lack of research on the Evangelical and protestant churches. Included are churches that are works-oriented salvation versus other denominations that are firm in salvation.
Certified Church data show that Cuba’s Catholic population stood at roughly 75% before the Revolution. The government’s control of airwaves and its decision to remove religious holidays from the national calendar limited church influence. According to The Library of Congress, Cuba, A Country Study Series, “September 1961, the government deported 130 priests, bringing the total number left in the country to about 200, from about 800 three years earlier.”[1] An estimated 300 Catholic priests are practicing in the country, representing a slight increase from the numbers in 1961.
The historical tensions between the Roman Catholic Church and Communism were significant. Although many Roman Catholics sympathized with the goals of the revolution, support for the church eroded due to the increasing emigration of the upper and middle classes, as well as the departure of many priests and nuns. Hudson notes that “many of the more than 2,000 nuns in the country in 1960 also departed. Cuba officially became an atheistic state in 1962.”[2] Tensions between the government and the Roman Catholic Church gradually eased in the following decades, and several factors contributed to their reconciliation.
Broken Ties with the United States Weakened the Church
Before the Communist Revolution, Cuba witnessed the emergence of a small yet growing community of Protestants. Goldenziel notes that “in 1958, Protestants claimed 150,000 to 250,000 adherents or about 6% of the population.”[3] These Cuban Protestant groups had established strong ties with their counterparts in the United States and depended on them for vital financial support. The revolutionary government was wary of the escalating influence of Protestantism in Latin America and its reliance on the U.S., perceiving it as a potential source of opposition that necessitated either assimilation or dismantling. Although there is an increase among the protestant churches of about 50,000, this is hardly growth when placed over 63 years.
Before 1959, the Christian church in Cuba was closely linked to the United States. However, Fidel Castro and his Revolution significantly impacted the church in Cuba. The new Communist Government worked tirelessly to cut off all connections between the Christian church and the Government of the United States. According to Theron, “The new regime rejected the Protestant vision of modernization, and the increasingly radical nationalist program of the Revolution would leave Cuban Protestants isolated and vulnerable.”[4] Theron’s statement supports the activities in figures one through eight in church membership, the presence of pastors in the church, and the number of pastors forced to leave the country.
Forced Labor, Relocation, and Employment
The Cuban government’s enforcement of volunteer work, relocation to urban areas for employment, and government scholarship programs contributed to the decline of church membership. Moreover, church members feared persecution and peer pressure as the new Communist Government took root. J. Mario Casanella, the executive secretary of the Eastern Baptists, noted a significant “Drop in peripheral membership within the Eastern Convention in 1963.”[5] Eyewitness accounts illustrate the church’s decline and stagnation after the Revolution’s initial years.
The denominations that underwent significant change were the Episcopalian Church, Methodist Church, and Baptist Church. 1958 Episcopal Churches started with 9,475 members, but by 1963, the number had decreased to 3,712 and remained stagnant. The Methodist denomination also experienced a decline, beginning with 9,949 members in 1958 and dropping to 2,629 in 1972, with no change up to 1989. Finally, the Western Baptist denomination lost approximately 3,000 members, beginning with 8,738 in 1958 and declining to 6,650. The church was gradually weakened within the Communist regime.
Church Leadership Suffered Loss
The pastorate within denominations suffered loss, stagnation, or slight increase over two decades. The Christian Reformed Church, since 1957, started with almost a handful of six pastors and ended with seven. One would hardly call any real presence by the Reformed church in Cuba that barely rose above a trend line. The Eastern Baptists were second in line with the best start in 1958 with 53, only to end with a meager increase in the denomination after losing six in 1962. The Lutherans, Quakers, and Reformed church virtually had no presence in Cuba, with single-digit pastors in the entirety of Cuba.
Between 1956 and 1967, the number of pastors in the Western Baptist denomination decreased by half and remained unchanged. Similarly, the Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches experienced a 50% decrease in pastors by 1970. Specifically, the Episcopalians started with twenty-eight pastors in 1956 but ended with fifteen, while the Presbyterians started with forty-six in 1959 and ended with twenty-two by 1967. However, after the Seventh Day Adventist churches merged, they were the only denomination that experienced an increase, gaining twenty-five pastors by 1970. Research into the pastors within the Seventh Day Adventist church is noteworthy.
The Communist Revolution led by Fidel Castro in Cuba successfully diminished the influence of the Christian church, particularly the Catholic Church. According to Theron, “The Catholic Church, with by far the largest pastorate of any denomination in Cuba, lost six hundred of its eight hundred priests in the first three years of the Revolution.”[6] At the time, the Catholic Church had a significant influence on many church facilities and private schools, and approximately 73% of the Cuban population identified as Catholics, whether they practiced their faith or not. “While 72.5 percent of Cubans identified themselves as Catholic and 91 percent of Cuban children were baptized as Catholics, only 24 percent of the population reported attending mass regularly.”[7] Following the Bay of Pigs, Fidel Castro took swift action to expel, imprison, and revoke the licenses of Christian church leaders. While the expulsions did not affect Protestant denominations as heavily, many pastors ultimately left Cuba due to their opposition to the Revolution. Theron notes that “similar to Catholic priests, several Protestant pastors departed from Cuba due to their objections to the Castro regime.”[8] The Cuban Government squeezed out church leaders and replaced them with like-minded individuals who sympathized with the Revolution.
The Impact of the Revolution on the Christian Church
The impact of Fidel Castro’s Revolution led to a substantial weakening of the Christian church in Cuba. The Communist Marxist-Leninist ideologies intentionally reeducated the population, resulting in a decrease in church members and replacing leaders with individuals who aligned with the new government’s ideology. Many Protestant church leaders were either imprisoned, coerced to conform, or forced to leave the country. This enabled the Cuban Government to fill leadership positions with those who conformed and sympathized with the Revolution. The same tactics are being utilized today in America.
Leaders like Arce introduced a conformed theology that aligned with the Communist government, and it was influenced by philosophers who challenged the inerrancy of the Bible. The new ideologies that have crept into the church at large have caused deep divisions in America. To discover the damage to the Christian Church, a thorough examination of how Marxist-Leninist ideology has permeated their teachings. Doing so would unveil the extent of Fidel and his Communist Government’s success in implementing a mandated education system and laws that reshaped the trajectory of the Christian church. Unfortunately, finding such resources will be monumental since the only way to retrieve such sermons is through video or audio recordings. If caught, the consequences are severe.
[1] Rex A. Hudson, Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cuba: a country study / Federal Research Division, Library of Congress; edited by Rex A Hudson – 4th ed, 133.
[2] Rex A. Hudson, Library of Congress, 133.
[3] Jill I. Goldenziel, Sanctioning Faith: Religion, State, and U.S.-Cuban Relations (2009). Journal of Law and Politics, Vol. 25, p. 179, 2009, 184.
[4] Theron Corse, “Presbyterians in the Revolution: An American Missionary Church and the Challenge of Castro’s Cuba, 1959–1970.” Cuban Studies 31 (2000), 70.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Theron Corse, Protestants, Revolution, and the Cuba-U.S. Bond, 96.
[7] Ibid., 3.
[8] Ibid., 99.