“The United States Central Intelligence Agency supported the expansion of Protestant Christianity in Latin America as a strategy to reduce the influence of liberation theology.”

Declassified State Department records from the Nixon period discuss liberation theology primarily as a political factor in Latin American countries and in relation to U.S. security and economic interests. In these volumes, U.S. officials express concern that certain Catholic clergy and liberation theologians are supporting leftist or revolutionary movements. The documents show diplomatic reporting and policy discussion about liberation theology’s impact on local politics and on U.S. relations, but they do not set out a program to promote Protestant or Evangelical churches in Latin America as a deliberate U.S. or CIA strategy to counter liberation theology.

The report notes that liberation theology "emerged as a major current in the Latin American Catholic Church in the 1960s and 1970s" and that some U.S. policymakers viewed aspects of liberation theology as supportive of leftist political movements. It describes how U.S. officials and some Vatican officials were concerned about the political influence of liberation theology and supported more conservative currents in the Church, but it does not provide documentary evidence of CIA programs to expand Protestantism as a counterweight.

Summarizing the post-Watergate investigations, the article notes: “The Church Committee report released in 1975 revealed that religious leaders and groups were used by the CIA to undermine the Catholic Church in Latin America, but did not get into deep detail as could be expected.” It continues: “On his accession to power, CIA spy-ops began funding conservative alternatives to liberation theology in Latin America… The entire operation to evangelize Latin America, spearheaded by the CIA, was to create a culture shift that would make Latin American society more subservient to US ideological hegemony.”

The article focuses on US evangelical Protestants’ own activities and perceptions. It notes that “for US evangelical Protestants, the imagined space of Latin American religion and politics provided tools to shape the world in their image,” and documents how they interpreted anti-Protestant violence: “Between 1947 and 1959 Colombian Catholics had destroyed 88 Protestant churches and murdered 114 Protestants in purely religious violence.” The study emphasizes evangelical networks, mission agencies, and their ties to US domestic politics, but does not present evidence of direct CIA orchestration of Protestant expansion as a strategic program against liberation theology.

In this edited volume, scholars examine the historical rise of evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity in Latin America. One chapter addressing Cold War-era U.S. policy notes that U.S. officials viewed liberation theology skeptically and sometimes preferred evangelical partners, but concludes: “Claims that Washington, and especially the CIA, orchestrated the expansion of Protestantism as a deliberate strategy to roll back liberation theology are difficult to substantiate. Evidence points to episodic cooperation with certain missions and media projects, rather than a coherent, continent-wide covert program.”

The report reviews U.S. policy debates over liberation theology and church–state relations in Latin America and notes that some U.S. officials criticized aspects of liberation theology as leftist or sympathetic to revolutionary movements. However, it describes U.S. engagement in terms of diplomatic dialogue with church hierarchies and human rights advocacy, and does not mention a CIA program to promote Protestant Christianity or evangelical missions as a tool to reduce liberation theology’s influence.

El teólogo protestante analiza la tesis de que el crecimiento evangélico fue una estrategia de la CIA: "Que la CIA, al igual que otros organismos de la administración norteamericana, tuviera sus propias estrategias de influencia política, nadie lo niega. Pero de ahí a afirmar que entre esas estrategias y el crecimiento protestante hay una relación mecánica, es simplemente desconocer cómo tiene lugar el cambio religioso". Más adelante insiste: "No hay documentación que pruebe un plan sistemático de la CIA para expandir el evangelismo en América Latina ni que el crecimiento pentecostal pueda explicarse por una conspiración estadounidense".

“Declassified CIA documents, State Department memoranda, and USAID (United States Agency for International Development) contracts indicate that, between the 1950s and 1980s, the US used Protestant missions as part of a counterinsurgency strategy… It was at the height of the Cold War that the CIA and the American government—fearing the weakening of the capitalist bloc in Latin America due to the influence of Liberation Theology…—began subsidizing Protestant missions, mostly of Pentecostal denomination, with the intent of diluting Catholic presence and preventing the spread of Marxist ideals through religion… The CIA also funded networks like Trans World Radio and HCJB in Ecuador, which broadcast anticommunist sermons to areas dominated by Liberation Theology.” The article asserts that the CIA supported the expansion of Protestant missions and media to weaken liberation theology’s influence.

The author argues that US intelligence used Protestant missions as part of a counterinsurgency strategy: "between the 1950s and 1980s, U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials deliberately used Protestant missions as part of an overall counterinsurgency strategy aimed at weakening Liberation Theology and preserving a capitalist order favorable to the United States in Latin America." Citing declassified cables and internal evaluations, the piece states that the CIA and USIA supported radio chains such as Trans World Radio and HCJB, which broadcast messages focused on personal salvation, obedience to authority and anti-communism, especially in regions where liberation theology was influential.

The article claims that declassified documents show a deliberate strategy: "It was at the height of the Cold War when the CIA and the American government, fearing the weakening of the capitalist bloc in Latin America due to the influence of Liberation Theology, began subsidizing Protestant missions, mostly Pentecostal, with the intention of diluting the Catholic presence and preventing the spread of Marxist ideals through religion." It further asserts: "Declassified CIA documents, State Department memoranda and USAID contracts indicate that, between the 1950s and 1980s, the US used Protestant missions as part of a counterinsurgency strategy."

The episode description asserts that “U.S. foreign policy stared down the political threat of Liberation Theology by promoting Evangelical Christianity in Latin America.” It further claims that “The CIA and USAID, in league with Vatican conservatives like Cardinal Ratzinger, spent money and social capital on the suppression of this vital new movement which insisted that poverty is political and that faith without structural change is hollow.” These claims are presented as part of a broader narrative about Cold War religious politics.

Historians of religion and the Cold War generally agree that US officials, including within the CIA, viewed liberation theology as politically threatening and favored conservative religious actors, sometimes offering them financial or logistical support. At the same time, the mainstream academic consensus holds that there is no conclusive archival proof of a unified CIA program that directly orchestred the overall expansion of Protestant Christianity in Latin America; rather, Protestant and Pentecostal growth is seen as a multi-causal process in which US anticommunism was one factor among many.

The author argues that "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." Citing "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 piece concludes that the Protestant surge "didn’t happen in a vacuum" and that the U.S. "actively sought religious movements that could blunt the rise of Catholic liberation theology." This is a synthetic interpretation of multiple sources rather than a presentation of a single official document ordering CIA support to Protestant churches.

The video presents the claim that US intelligence used evangelical missions to counter liberation theology: "During the Cold War, the struggle for influence in Latin America took place in the realm of religious beliefs. The United States, through the CIA and other intelligence agencies, implemented strategies to counter the rise of leftist movements, especially those linked to liberation theology." It argues that "the U.S. government sought to foster the growth of evangelical Protestant movements as a way to weaken the popular roots of Catholicism," and that CIA support for evangelicals intensified in the 1970s and 1980s as liberation theology spread.