Page 64 - tesis

cent (2001: 97-99). It is therefore true to say that it is not possible to speak about a Catholic church with a universal ideological posture.\u000A(2) The Evangelical church\u000AAlonso affirms that Protestantism assumed a double posture. One part harmonized with the reformist projects of the October revolution and continued to be in favour of democracy and social justice. The other part which was new on the scene and represented the majority, had become more conservative in terms of making new members, identification with the right-wing ideology and as a vehicle to guard \u2018Christian values\u2019 identifying themselves with the North American ideologies (1998: 155-157, 162). Most Evangelicals took a conservative attitude during the armed conflict. Some analysts characterize conservatism in the following manner. The Argentinean theologian Miguez Bonino affirms that the presence of theological fundamentalism, rejection of liberal culture, a radical dualism in the following areas: church/world, body/soul, private conduct/public conduct, and faith/politics, was a negative influence which diminished the importance of all human action to transform society (1995b: 29-38).\u000AThe Salvadorian Emilio N\u00FA\u00F1ez affirms that many of the North American missionaries who came to Latin America between 1900 and 1940 were pre-millennialists in their eschatological perspectives, pietists in their Christian perspectives and separatists with regard to church bodies and towards society in general (1996: 263). The historian Jurgen Prien in his analyses of historic churches in Brazil and in other countries points out two interesting data, the gradual loss of social practice of these Protestant churches after the Second World War, and the accommodation of these churches to middle class conservative characteristics (1985: 885-6).\u000AAlonso shows that while the Catholic Church since Vatican II looks for connexions and dialogue with society and its problems, Protestantism did the opposite. They closed in on themselves and progressively took less account of social interests from the outset\u000A51\u000A