Evangelicals in the political scenery of contemporary Uruguay

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze the progress of evangelicals in the Uruguayan political arena of the 21st century, focusing on understanding what agenda they promote, what are their political projects and their reactions, as well as the effects and transformations that both in the political sphere, as in the religious sphere, in the contemporary Uruguay. The situation of Uruguay is contrasted with that of its neighboring countries: Argentina and Brazil. Mixed research methods are used: taking data from the Latinobarómetro, the demographic weight of evangelicals in Uruguay and Latin America is illustrated; from a qualitative approach, 21 interviews with relevant evangelical political figures in Uruguay are analyzed. It is concluded that in Uruguay the political evangelicals coming from the biblical conservative pole (Pentecostals and Neopentecostals) are the ones who have the greatest role in the political arena, with pro-life and pro-family positions and against “gender ideology”. However, there are evangelical politicians from the historical pole with positions that are far from those assumed by biblical conservatives. The Evangelicals have not formed a political party or an Evangelical bench, since the Evangelical figures –although they are mostly in the National Party– are scattered in different parties and there is no organic coordination.