Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Jeremy B. Jones
just politics. It’s also religion. Some of my students are evangélicos
while others are Catholic. They argue about the role of the Virgin
Mary, about the saints. Today, though, is Saturday. I don’t have to be
the objective teacher. I’m not even a resident today—I’m an observer,
and I woke up tired of all the noise.
Advertising in Honduras equates to shouting. The louder the
better. As I walk out my door to investigate the happenings in the park, I
am hit full force by the noise that had been somewhat dampened by my
walls. The man in the park shouts about Miguel, the evangelical church
builds to a chorus, the fruit truck says there are also strawberries, and a
woman further up the street yells that she has empanadas. I don’t know
why I would want to leave my apartment when I clearly have all I could
need: politics, religion, and food.
On my way to the park I have a hard time finding the exact building
that houses the evangelical singing. Most evangelical churches here
don’t have signs or church-like buildings. They aren’t concerned with
aesthetics, only with worship. I am on my way to the main park, where
a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old Catholic church stands sturdily. It
is white with an intricately designed arch preceding the door. This is
the “youngest” Catholic church in town. The church beside the school
where I teach is dated mid-17 th century. Catholicism had a rocky
beginning in this region of Honduras. The majority of people in the
state of Lempira, where I live, were Lenca, and they fled or fought or
superficially accepted the religion. Now, though, this is a Catholic
world, and all that’s left of the Lenca are festivals and people deep in
the mountains. Here people will crawl on their knees up the aisle in the
Catholic church; children are named Jesús and María.
In the midst of the profoundly Catholic place, a new religion has
come. Evangelical churches are growing at rates that are unimaginable.
This new religion hasn’t come with a sword as Catholicism came, but
it often does come with a sharp tongue. Of the Protestant growth
in the country, most is Pentecostal, and their services tend to be
emotional and fiery. People may speak in tongues or fall on the floor.
It certainly allows the same vigor that would cause someone to crawl
up the aisle of a Catholic church. The friction between this up-andcoming
religion and Catholicism is more drastic than the arguments
I get in my class. Much of the time, this new evangelical growth will
tell people of the “faults” of Catholicism. They call it idolatry. They
smirk at the “un-biblical” way Mary is portrayed and worshipped.
Crab Orchard Review ◆ 201