Communists and Protestants: Neither lambs nor wolves

By Luis Sexto  

The existence in bookstores of the memoirs of Baptist pastor Raúl Suárez Ramos seems to confirm the political vision that tends to dominate Cuba today on religion, churches and believers. And although “When You Pass Through the Waters,” (Caminos, 2007) does not censor itself when it relates the conflict between the state and the Baptist Church and other denominations, a kind of growing pluralism in Cuban society can be seen in its writing, editing and circulation. 

In the past 50 years, evangelical churches went through difficult times, including fear for their faith. The most rugged times came in the 1960s. Today, those days are seen as surrounded by a chaotic atmosphere of change, of debate about ideas of revolutionary transformation, conservative attitudes, incomprehension, doubts, misunderstandings, in sum, the typical picture of a society moving toward an uprooting of the structures of its republican past. 

The action and reaction from both sides served to radicalize the revolution, perhaps faster than was good for its own existence, and for the individuals of both sides to enjoy as much space to convert the action and individual ideas into action or collective ideology.

While the eastern Baptist pastor Adela Mourlot published in The Messenger her article “Let me keep dreaming” in which she asked, in a positive spirit, “Was not the eradication of the contaminated National Lottery a disturbing dream? […] Have not we always dreamed of a country ruled by honest, well-meaning, selfless, virtuous men? […] Have not we always dreamed of protecting the helpless child and the abused and helpless peasant?” the Methodist Justo González Carrasco, in his book “The Revolution That’s Needed” assessed in 1959 the beginnings of the revolutionary movement, warning that “we cannot expect that a strong and victorious movement that originated in acts of violence, after its triumph turns into a cross of love the sharp sword that gave it victory.” 

Recalling those days of almost apocalyptic confusion, the Rev. Suárez Ramos confessed in his memoirs that “the new situation arising from Jan. 1, 1959, profoundly challenged our understanding and practice of the Christian faith. Our religious identity was extremely shaken. A strong challenge to the pastoral vocation, a renewal performed at the pace of the changing times. This was the choice: either the religious ghetto or emigration. Each measure in favor of our humble people deepened the contradiction between the perception of what was done and the traditional reservations about who did it.” 

On the side of the revolutionaries, a mindset spread that began to see, in a global perspective, believers and pastors as enemies. Suárez Ramos himself received recruitment orders from Camagüey to join one of the new military units engaged in agricultural work. At the UMAP, that eventually rectified experiment to transform into “new men” those who were classified as “social burdens,” far from his church and his family in Colón, he was asked by someone impressed by the conduct of the pastor-turned-chef: “What is your problem with the revolution?” And the Baptist undergoing forced regeneration said. “None. Apparently it’s the revolution that has problems with me.” 

Those quotes approximately reflect the ups and downs of the process of change that tried to build socialism amid ideological battles and client wars and cold wars that the Cuban chronology of 1959 cannot today brush away, even though it paints them with colors from the left and the right, i.e., for or against the core of our recent history: the Cuban Revolution. 

But the passing of time, rather than demarcate the space between religion and state, has slowly cleared both institutions of doubt, injustices and misunderstandings, although researchers and journalists cannot say categorically that among the followers and believers of all Christian denominations and all the members and leaders of the Communist Party of Cuba there are no personal opinions and attitudes that shade the relations between these institutions. 

Mostly, there have been gains in mutual understanding. According to the evidence, the Communist Party modified its perception that professing a religion does not mean that the believer automatically adopts a militancy that’s contrary to socialism. And so, since 1991, citizens with a religious faith can aspire to membership in the single ruling party. Otherwise, there would be no reconciliation between the aspirations of equality held by the Communist Party’s program and a discriminatory practice toward the Cuban believers. 

But, if the willingness of the institution to integrate is clearly shown in individual terms, as we have said, there is still in the Cuban reality a concept that minimizes the religious beliefs. Or we see among believers a refusal to apply for membership in the Communist Party. 

In terms of space, however, evangelical denominations now enjoy a legal and constitutional standing that makes them equal, even to the Catholic Church. Because the Cuban state is a secular state, it does not adopt an official religion and therefore treats them all without privileges. No regime before the revolution recognized that right of equality. 

The Rev. Raúl Suárez Ramos, a deputy to the National Assembly, admitted in a  conversation with this writer that “a growing process of improvement in relations between the state and the churches began in 1984 and has lasted until today.” 

“All churches, as believers, have the same material limitations as all institutions and all Cubans,” he said. “But from the pastoral standpoint, we enjoy full freedom. It was precisely in 1984 when several events contributed to initiate the process of overcoming old and sometimes conflicting relations.” 

In June 1984, the American Rev. Jesse Jackson visited Cuba, and his presence, particularly his closeness to Fidel Castro, served as a kind of message of a possible reconciliation between ideological concepts that seemed to thrive in distrust. That same year, in November, the Cuban president met with members of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Cuba and 10 leaders of the ecumenical movement. 

Later, the Office of Attention to Religious Affairs, attached to the central committee of the Communist Party, was established. And 1985 saw the publication, in massive numbers, of “Fidel and Religion,” a book that reported the meeting between Fidel Castro and Frei Betto, a Brazilian Dominican. In its pages, the leader of the revolution made explicit and clarified his ideas and positions on the religious phenomenon, as if imparting a catechesis of understanding between seemingly irreconcilable worldviews. 

In April 1990, the policy of improved relations received a defining boost when Fidel Castro met with 74 ecumenical leaders from different evangelical denominations. From that day on, says Suárez Ramos, “a more fluid relationship was established in the relations between the state and the churches, but those who have benefited most are the believers who live their faith embedded in everyday existence. 

“I am not wrong in saying that since 1984 the faithful have been experiencing much more freedom to visit the temples. This is reflected in their growing numbers. I speak of the Christian community. Evangelical churches are organized and structured, but the biggest experiences occur in local communities.” 

It is too early to assess, however, how communities react to the current phase of actualization and renewal of Cuban society. In the experience of the Rev. Suárez Ramos in the Ebenezer community of Marianao, site of the Martin Luther King Center, “there is no doubt that having more information and seeing the honesty with which President Raúl Castro has spoken to the people, there is more clarity, more confidence, more hope and more faith in this process […] You notice that the people have more enthusiasm, which does not mean that there are no worries and fears. The people are one, but one in their diversity.” 

We could ask ourselves, as a provisional conclusion, if “the people of God” have changed part of the tradition against communist ideas they inherited from the period before 1959. In the opinion of the Rev. Rafael Cepeda, a known Protestant historian, stated in his book “Living the Gospel: Reflections and Experiences” (Havana, Caminos Publishers, 2003): “anticommunism had been an ongoing topic of study in the curriculum of Christian education in the churches. 

“For many, the challenge became terror, and an exodus of pastors and parishioners began. Even the strongest, those who decided to stay and face the challenge, harbored deep doubts, and wavered in thoughts and attitudes. What to say? What to do? How to say it and do it responsibly, faced with a people who were excited and hopeful? 

And we should also ask whether, on the side of the revolutionaries, there is a decrease, at the level of individual behavior, of the atheism practiced as an act of fanaticism, that is, as a principle solidified by dogma. 

For now, the answer to these questions must be that the evangelical churches (as elements of community integration in one faith and one morality) and socialism (what so far can be called “socialism” in the wake of so many socialist failures) as a factor of unity, justice and freedom and national independence, must become aware of the need to coexist in the same country and as integral parts of the same people. 

Because human spirituality, according to generally accepted criteria, is not limited to religion. It is also fortified with secular, political and aesthetic values. And therefore the political unity of a people lies not in a worldview or philosophy, but in a political agenda that can unite what is both one and diverse.