This is a reflection of religion and their ability to spread as an ideology and its potential lessons to spread the sustainability mindset

1. ETHICS AND THE EVANGELICALS
By Anamaria Aristizabal (July 2005)
As Sitanon put it a while back, there is no possible vision of sustainability without
integrating the soul and spirituality. I have had a long time interest in this domain. I was
raised Catholic but many tenants of this religion were at odds with my progressive ideals.
As a result, I have journeyed on an eclectic search and discovery of an exciting wealth of
traditions. Recently, I asked a friend “what is the most booming religion right now?” To
this she replied ‘the evangelical Christians’. In part motivated by this answer, I set to
explore this religious phenomenon, with its ideology, morality, and community life, with
the hopes of understanding what millions of people are seeking and finding in this faith. I
also strive to find out what we, as GTI, can learn from this group as we envision a Great
Transition for Sustainability that will be appealing to the masses.
I had been searching for my spiritual grounding for years. I had set this search to rest for
a while but the results from the USA 2004 election brought it back. At my school, the
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, people hypothesized that the results
were due in part to the strength of evangelicals who with few exceptions support the
conservative party, who often neglects the environment. Also, people discussed that the
lack of interest in environmental issues and their absence in politics was most likely a
moral and ethical issue.
My grandmother, Pepita, who had converted to a charismatic evangelical Christian, was
the emblem I had for what people underwent by joining this religion: total indoctrination,
allocation of most financial resources, and a constant desire to shove the religion into
people’s throat. Her son (my dad) and I would give signals each other when she started
giving la cantaleta (the annoying schpiel) that in essence says “if you don’t convert and
follow Jesus, you will go to hell”.
At the same time, I realize that my grandmother is extraordinarily generous, clear in her
life purpose, and surrounded by devoted and faithful friends. It is embarrassing and sad
that the person who most takes care of her is not anyone from the family but actually “a

2. sister from the church”, as she likes to call her friends. Esperanza has taken care of Pepita
for the last ten years or so that she has been physically and now mentally impaired.
I have noticed that the sense of community generated among members of these groups is
exceptional. An American Mormon friend, Maria, helped me see that, when she
expressed how grateful she was to move to a new place (Boston) and have instant friends
from her church that helped her find a place to live, move her stuff, kept her company,
and showed her all the nice places in the city. I secretly envied that, since I have always
felt a paradoxical sense of isolation and individualism in cities, in spite of how densely
populated they are. There is just not much to bind people together. Everyone is in their
own little world.
Thus my initial impressions on the subject matter were two sided. On the one hand, I
experienced some admiration for the sense of community and generosity present among
evangelicals. On the other hand, I exhibited an apprehension and aversion for what I
perceived as a constant indoctrination. As Paul Raskin said, “[the] two big culprits in
building an adequate global movement are apathy and dogmatism.” What is attracting so
many people towards dogmatism?
Ideology
As part of my exploration of the
evangelical faith, a friend and I took
Transmilenio (the new and impressive
mass transit system in Bogotá) to the
coliseum, where a branch of the
evangelicals, the International Charismatic
Mission or G12, meets. The coliseum, the
largest gathering place in Bogotá, fits
around 70,000 people. The gathering’s
location is telling of the magnitude of the
evangelical phenomenon in Colombia.
They rent this space every weekend for
service after service, which according to a member, costs around $70,000 a month, which
is a lot of money in Colombia.
My friend, Ana Maria (who has the same name as me – in Spanish we say that we are
tocayas) was interested in going because she had had a boyfriend who she loved very
much that left her because she was not an evangelical Christian. She wanted to find out
what was going on with this religion that was strong enough to break the best relationship
that she has ever had.
When we got there around ten thirty in the morning, the whole area of the coliseum was
packed. People of all kinds filled the grass and streets surrounding the area, as well as
street vendors offering fruits, corn on the cob, pork chops, and souvenirs. Most people
there were from the lower middle class, and were walking towards the highway to take
public transportation to their home in the south (the poorer side of the city). Loud music

3. with drums and electric guitars resounded from the coliseum. The purpose of this music
was, we later found out, to prepare and set the mood “to receive the Word”.
Amidst the confusion, my tocaya and I approached a group of well dressed church
members to ask a few questions. Immediately we were surrounded by a numerous group
of evangelicals who wanted our contact information and our schedules, to attend various
events and prayer groups. When we could interject that we lived in the States (Ana Maria
also pretended to live in the US), they said, “No problem! We have many brothers and
sisters up north you can join, and you can probably hear our radio show there”.
The pastor from the nine o’clock service, a woman in her late forties named Angelica,
took out her agenda, branded with the G12 name and scriptures from the Bible on every
page, to write our information. “We can chat on MSN, and I can tell you more about our
faith,” she said. Her email address is multiplicada2004@yahoo.com. Her efforts to
multiply her kinship are clear. She explained that G12 came from the 12 apostles, and
that the number was an important symbol in their organization. Every member is
organized in groups (or cells) of 12 devotees, and each one, in turn has the responsibility
of consolidating 12 new cells as part of their evangelical calling.
Angelica and the others had to go, but left us in the hands of a couple, to guide us through
the service, and to help us fill out some forms to join. Ana Maria and I were a bit
perplexed by the situation so we just went along with whatever they said. The couple,
Maria del Pilar and Jose Ignacio stayed every minute with us until we left. They gave us a
good overview of the basic tenants of their faith. The roots of this movement go back to
Luther, who advocates for the free interpretation of the scriptures, the participation of the
non-ordained in the services, the obligation of the tithe, and the rejection of the Virgin
and of images as subjects for adoration.
“There are over ten million Evangelicals in Colombia”, said Jose Ignacio, although other
sources talk about five million (Colombia’s population is a little over forty million). Of
this particular current, in Colombia there are around twenty five thousand cells of twelve
people each, plus their families (totaling an estimate of one million people). There are
chapters in every major city in the country, many smaller towns, and in an expanding
number of foreign countries, including the USA, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, and Chile. They
are growing so fast, that there is a new enormous gathering site in Peru, which has not
been included on their website. They have only started to form cells in Peru since 2001,
and they already have around 45,000 members.
Our friends told us about the difference in vocabulary among Evangelicals and Catholics.
Evangelicals use ‘orar’ instead of ‘rezar’, which are two subtly different ways to say ‘to
pray’ in Spanish. “They are quite different,” said Jose Ignacio. “The Catholics repeat
prayers by memory while we really talk to God”. They told us of the retreats they
organize among them. They said they don’t let “people of the world” (meaning non
evangelicals) to these retreats, as they corrupt their nature. “These people are just
thinking of parties and alcohol. We are different, we don’t drink, but don’t think we are
boring because of that!” added Jose Ignacio, and his wife seemed to agree.

4. During the Pastor’s sermon (a woman in her fifties), I
wanted to count how many times she said “the Word
of God”. At every single sentence she mentioned or
referred to the bible and how there was no other way
to understand the universe, to achieve authority as a
human being over evil, and to obtain wisdom and
salvation. Her sermon was filled with a war
vocabulary, to refer to the fight of good over evil.
“The struggle is not against flesh and blood,” she said,
“but against principles and powers. The spirit of evil
is everywhere, my friends, you must beware. You
have the authority to fight demons. You must use it!”
At one point of the sermon the Pastor said that God
was her husband. “Husband really means protector
and provider,” she explained. “Through him, I have
received the Word that has redeemed my life”. This reminded me of the letters a saint
once wrote to God that were full of lust and desire. She left the sermon asking every one
to reflect on the Word, and clinging to it to fight the devil.
As I was getting dizzy from this discourse, Jose Ignacio pointed to an attractive young
man in a suit. “He is the son of Claudia Rodriguez de Castellanos, our senator.” It turns
out that the evangelicals have their own political party (the National Christian Party) with
several of their members holding office. Claudia’s husband, Carlos, also a pastor, was the
founder of the G12, having received a revelation from God to create a system based on
the ancient group of twelve apostles. Claudia and Carlos’ sermons apparently fill the
coliseum with followers every time and attract thousands in other countries.
As one would expect, their religious affairs intermesh with politics. In the last elections,
they actively supported Alvaro Uribe, the current Colombian president. To get their
support, Uribe had to present his government plan to fifty Pastors, who meditated on it
and consulted with their million or so followers. Upon deciding to adhere to the
candidate’s campaign, Uribe was invited to the coliseum on January 2002. He was
received by a raging crowd surpassing 70,000. The entire coliseum was silenced in prayer
for over fifteen minutes asking God to make Uribe president. Many say the adherence of
the Evangelical movement was instrumental to his success.
The Consolidators: these people who
look like Red Cross rescuers, are
responsible for making sure new
attendants are “rescued” and don’t leave
without providing their contact info.

5. Morality
Although most adherents to the evangelical faith seemed lower middle class in the
coliseum, this is not the case with many other evangelical churches. The Church on the
Rock, located in the posh Chico sector of Bogotá, assembles around 10,000 people,
catering to the mid to high class, including the popular model and teen icon Natalia Paris.
This phenomenon defies the commonly held perception that followers of evangelical
churches are disadvantaged and less educated people. My distant cousin Ana Isabel, 36,
who I met at a recent family reunion in Santa Marta, Colombia is a good example.
Having an advanced degree in business from an American college, Ana Isabel works for
a multinational organization in Houston, Texas. When prompted by the topic of her faith,
her face lighted up, her attention focused, and she ready as they come to give her
“schpiel”. Although this time, it was more refined than my grandmother’s.
“When I was an adolescent in Bogotá, I though I was happy,” she began, “until they
invited me to an evangelical prayer group.” In that group she discovered what according
to her is real joy. “Those youths had something I did not have.” She realized that they had
a clear life purpose, a sense of transcendence, and a real reason to exist. The first time she
heard a sermon in the Church on the Rock, she cried the whole time, feeling like the
Pastor was speaking directly to her. Since then, she has become an increasingly engaged
member of the evangelical movement.
In Texas, she had no problem finding a good church for her. She teaches lessons every
Sunday on Loving God and Loving One Another (which mostly talks about service to
others and evangelizing). She explained to me that in her church every new member
undergoes an assessment test to identify the areas where the individual is the weakest
morally, and is assigned a rigorous program to surpass these vulnerabilities and
strengthen their faith.
When asked about her political party she replied “we are conservatives, because we think
that there are values important to conserve, like family, the sanctity of life, and
community, many of which have been lost in liberalism because of individualism.
Liberals think ‘if it’s ok for me, it’s ok’. I do think that there is an absolute moral truth.
The bible IS black or white. There are no alternative interpretations”.
For her, liberals teach people a philosophy of not assuming responsibilities, like in the
case of abortion. I could not resist to ask her the typical question: “what about the cases
when the woman is raped?” She had a shrewd answer: “a study found that girls who did
have the children (and gave them up for adoption) recuperated faster from the trauma
than the ones who aborted, who had the double ordeal of rape wounds plus the guilt of
abortion.”
Community
Coming back from the family reunion, the person sitting next to me on the plane
happened to be a British Evangelical Pastor. David Rev. Taylor, 56, belongs to the
Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal Church, of similar denomination as both Church on the

6. Rock and G12. He agreed with my cousin to say that with liberals anything goes. “I am
not a liberal because they are wishy-washy. They don’t stand up against evil.” I asked
David whatever happened with turning the other cheek, which Jesus professed. He
replied, “You have to read the Old Testament. It is full of war language. It says that if
somebody violates your peace, you must fight back. Evil is everywhere, the Islamists,
here in Colombia… The fight is not against the flesh, but against the spiritual forces of
evil.” I though I was hearing a character from Star Wars talking about the force of the
dark side.
“But before we fight evil, we have to demonstrate the good through humanitarian deeds.”
Rev. Taylor declared. He has indeed done just that, by founding a non profit called
“Oasis de Esperanza” (Oasis of Hope) in Santa Marta, with a vision which he recited by
heart: “To alleviate the social and spiritual deprivation of the poorest of poor children of
Colombia by linking God’s mercy with human need”. He has raised money and built a
school, sports and music academies, a medical center, and other facilities to cater to
hundreds of children. His NGO also provides basic amenities for communities such as
solar energy, wells, and water purification systems. He has a number of social services as
part of his church, to improve people’s quality of life.
“Everything is underpinned with my need to evangelize,” said Rev. Taylor, “by providing
the basic necessities, I am earning the right to be heard.” Throughout history, churches
have provided a myriad of social services, always with the interest of gaining more
adherents. In Colonial times, entire cultures were lost at this expense, in the name of God,
and with the carrot of development. Cities were always founded by creating a main
square with the town hall and a church, which was the center of the social and
humanitarian life.
In times when church and politics were intertwined, this was understandable. Dogma and
non-democratic values were prevalent, so no wonder a single line of thought commanded
all social affairs. However, it is more difficult to believe that nowadays, in some cities
and suburbs in the US, most social life and humanitarian affairs are also guided by a
single source: an evangelical church. These churches have authority over thousands of
people. In my view, this is due to the deterioration of community life in cities, and
people’s thirst for it, a niche that has been aggressively filled by the evangelicals.
I had a taste of this during my studies. As part of a class project at the Yale School of
Forestry, I had to find the main actors in the dissemination of health information in the
New Haven area. Curiously, we were sent to the New Haven Church on the Rock on a
Sunday, as they were holding an important health event. Their facilities looked more like
a mall than a Church. They had books stores, food amenities, and everything one could
want. In their premises they were hosting an enormous fair, which had representatives
from government, non profits, and healthcare providers that were handing out their
information. At the same time that the fair was going on, there was a space for
evangelical praise and song in the central stage. The event had attracted a significant
number of people, initially interested in what was going on in the stage, and then curious
about the health hype.

7. There seems to be a correlation between the layout of cities and the growth of evangelical
movements. The newer cities, such as the ones in Texas and other southern states are
often characterized by endless suburb type developments. This organization of cities is ill
suited for biking, walking, chance encounters, and spontaneous conversations. These
cities are then less conducive for generating a sense of community among people. As a
result, residents lead more isolated lives, and they have an enormous need to belong to a
community. Evangelical churches seem to have identified and fulfilled this need
effectively.
There is another trend of interest in this discussion especially relevant for GTI. Secular
non governmental organizations have been consistently losing credibility and reputation,
to the point that the sector is considered in crisis. A study by Bill Bradley et al published
in the Harvard Business Review (May 2003), says that the non profit sector could gain
100 billion in funds per year if it were more efficient. Around 18% of their resources are
used up in fundraising, too much is spent on administrative costs (most of it justifying to
the donors what was done), and program effectiveness was even questioned.
By contrast, church organizations do not have to deal with fundraising, paperwork for
donors to that extent. Their programs are significantly aided by their impressive power to
convene diverse groups of people. Most evangelical churches employ the tithe policy, so
they have a steady income for their religious and social programs. It is no wonder that
around fifty percent of philanthropic donations are given to churches, as they are often
perceived as more effective to carry out social programs.
Given this panorama, what would the world be like if churches overtook the role of
secular non profit organizations? How would that impact the transition towards
sustainability? This would be the topic of a whole other article. For now, I will say that to
achieve a strong civil society conducive for a great transition, there should be room for
diverse ideologies to flower, as opposed to a unidimensional, dogmatic view of most
evangelical churches.

8. Conclusions
What do the evangelicals have that progressives don’t? From these experiences I have
narrated, I have found a few things to learn from. The first one is the sense of solidarity
present in evangelical members. I would like to know if there is any non dogmatic group
I can belong to, where people who don’t know me will be willing to help me settle in a
new city, moving my stuff, introducing me to the best places, and keeping me company.
Also, the sense of service to other people, not only in the evangelicals but in many
churches, strikes me as a basic value if we are to build a strong civil society. This is seen
in their generous giving, but also in their impressive will to set aside their time and
energy to help others. The Mormons, for instance, require their members to give two
years of their lives for social service and evangelism in a developing country. The Peace
Corps and other volunteers are good examples in the US for doing this. This is admirable,
but there is nothing like it in Colombia and in most countries. I would have loved to do
this type of service or volunteering, but there is no such program in Colombia, and to do
so with a secular private organization in the USA, would have cost too much for my
budget.
The Evangelicals’ sense of community is admirable. There is much to learn about this for
GTI and progressive movements. Many people strive to belong to a group that is as tight
and committed as them. However, the price in terms of autonomy and freedom of thought
is high. A GTI person commented in her essay that “communities that have died cannot
be revived. Like old growth forest, or animal and plant species, community is invaluable
and irreplaceable.” Taking this metaphor one step further, I visualize organized religion
of this kind like a non native (exotic) planted forest that replaces the diverse local flora:
being authentic human interactions, open to differences, outside of a one dimensional
ideology.
To finish, I think that what we most need to learn from the evangelicals is the faith and
determination in what we do. When I asked Rev. Taylor what sparked him to move to
Colombia, start his NGO and his efforts to reduce poverty in such a challenged and
violent area of the country, his gaze deepened. He told me the story of how he was in jail
in the UK for dealing drugs, and suddenly, after meditations and reflections, he received
“the Word of God” to convert to Christianity. When he got out of jail, he studied to
become a Pastor, and started his practice near his home, where he was leading a
comfortable and meaningful life. However, this was disrupted by what he referred to as a
“revelation”. He had a dream, where he saw the north west of the South American
continent, and felt the divine imperative to go there, preach and alleviate some of the
poverty. The next day, he started making plans to pack up his life and move down south,
where all his friends said he would get kidnapped on his first day.
How many of us have received guidance to help others and followed it at once? I
certainly haven’t. On top of that, I wish I had some of the charisma, determination, and
stamina of some of these evangelical leaders, who convince thousands of their cause.
However, the challenge would be to do so with no indoctrination, but in a way that

9. everyone can exercise their free will and freedom of thought, and creativity to bring
about the transition to a more sustainable and generous world.