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Protestant analysts affirm that although they brought with them ideological and cultural baggage in no period were they a launching-pad for North American imperialism (Emilio N\u00FA\u00F1ez 1978: 35; David Suazo 1988: 7-8). At the beginning of the twentieth century several historical denominations arrived and took root in Guatemalan soil and modified the religious panorama such as the Presbyterian Church, the Central American Mission, the Friends, the Church of the Nazarene, the Methodist Church, and the Quakers. Later other denominations arrived in Guatemala such as Pentecostal churches including the Church of God, the Quadrangular church, Calvario church, and other churches linked to Faith Missions, the Baptists as well as independent churches. Later the Pentecostal national churches and the Neo-Pentecostal churches would arrive. All these compose today the Evangelical community in Guatemala as well as rest of Latin America.\u000AProtestantism in Guatemala established their pioneer stage between 1872 and 1925. In the fifth population census of 1950 there were 78,208 Evangelicals. This number represents 2.8 per cent of the population (Suazo 1999: 92). In 1960 Protestantism represented 4 per cent of the population, in the 1970s they represented 8 per cent and after the earthquake of 1976 the rate grew from 14 per cent to 20 per cent (Lujan 1998: 381-82). The protestant historian Virgilio Zapata states that Protestant explosion happened in three periods, the first between 1923 and 1937, the second period was between 1940 and 1956, and the third between 1957 and 1980 during which the first Neo-Pentecostal churches emerged (1982: 115-159). The great evangelistic campaigns of the 1950s in Guatemala with T.L. Osborn in 1953, the Billy Graham Crusade in 1958 and Evangelism in Depth in 1962, resulted in great numerical growth. Zapata registers that the Evangelism in Depth campaign which lasted a year, resulted in 20,000 new proselytes in all of the country (1982:174-175).\u000AOther evangelists such as Luis Palau (Argentinean) and Yiyi \u00C1vila (Puerto Rican) contributed to Evangelical expansion through evangelistic campaigns up till the mid 1980s. However, the biggest growth happened after the 1960s. All of the churches and especially\u000A45\u000A


































































































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