Celebrating New Religious Freedom Law, Bolivian Evangelicals Push for More

(RNS) — After 183 years as a Roman Catholic nation, Bolivia officially became a secular country in 2009, when a new constitution, promulgated by the administration of its first indigenous leader, President Evo Morales, dropped any mention of the historic faith of its Spanish colonial rulers, bolstering the position of its pre-colonial religions.

But the surprising winners in the transition to the new constitution have been the country’s long-ignored evangelical Christians.

Angered when the 2009 charter failed to recognize them, Protestant denominations have spent the past decade mobilizing their growing numbers of followers, finally forcing a religious freedom law that codifies their tax status and, perhaps more importantly, giving them standing in Bolivian society.

“For the first time, the religious entities have a legal identity, with the rights to self-determination and independence from the State,” said Munir Chiquie, president of the National Association of Evangelicals of Bolivia, also referred to as ANDEB.

The turning point for the evangelicals’ long campaign for recognition came in December of 2017, when Morales’ administration replaced the penal code written under Bolivia’s dictatorial president, the former Gen. Hugo Banzer, who is also credited with shepherding the country toward democracy in the 1980s.

Evangelical Christians, led by…