중남미

ies and partnership between the American Religious Right and the Guatemalan Pentecostalism in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. First of all, it is crucial to inquire closely into the respective socio-political backgrounds in which each religious tendency had expanded. During the period, evangelical Protestants and the politically conservative in the United States had merged to form a political sect called Religious Right, and there had been the rapid growth of Pentecostalism, especially in war-ridden rural areas of Guatemala, not to speak of urban upper and middle strata. This unusual phenomenon in Guatemala would probably not have been possible without lengthy civil war and collective conversion of indigenous communities in the western highlands. This article traces what mainly caused their mass conversion to Pentecostalism as well. According to David Stoll, an American anthropologist, one of the main reasons has to be sought in the failure of revolutionary strategy by guerrilla groups rather than in the sponsorship of the American Religious Right. Nonetheless, there is also a need for attention to the close relationship between American evangelical organizations and influential Pentecostal churches in Guatemala; in particular, those represented by the Church of the Word (Iglesia Cristiana Verbo) generated support for José Efraín Ríos Montt, the Guatemalan born-again dictator, while also being influenced by the support of American evangelical missions. Ríos Montt’s ascension to presidency through a military coup in 1982 was emblematic of how Pentecostalism penetrated deep into the country’s dominant bloc. He left a notable mark on Guatemalan politics by allowing religion to play an overt political role. This article finally argues that Ríos Montt’s presidential term turned out to be a transition period during which American evangelical influence overlapped with that of his counterinsurgency strategy, as Guatemalan Pentecostal growth and Pentecostalism in Guatemala began to disclose their distinctive regional aspects.