Was the Pentecostal Boom in Latin America a CIA Psyop?

Capitalism, Protestant Missions, and the War on Liberation Theology

The surge of Protestant missionaries and charismatic revivals across South America didn’t happen in a vacuum; it unfolded within a Cold War landscape where the United States actively sought religious movements that could blunt the rise of Catholic liberation theology.

If you look closely at the historical record, declassified CIA cables, State Department memos, USAID contracts, congressional hearings, and the work of historians like Greg Grandin, Stephen Rabe, David Stoll, Martin-Baró, and Linda Rabben, the answer is no longer a dramatic conspiracy theory. It’s simply what happened. Not in the sense that every missionary was a covert agent. But because U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials, from the 1950s through the 1980s, intentionally used Protestant missions as one tool in a broad counterinsurgency strategy designed to weaken liberation theology and preserve U.S.-aligned capitalist order in Latin America.

Before I expound I should let the reader know that I am no stranger to th…