The role of left-wing evangelical Christians in building Peruvian democracy: the case of the Ecumenical Collective for Peru

Abstract

Current common sense in Peru tends to identify evangelicals with the extreme right, especially after the growing prominence that neoconservative and fundamentalist evangelical groups have gained in the public arena. However, such an elective affinity between religious identity and political identity is far from being the only possible historical outcome; moreover, religious ideologies are not invariably aimed at confirming the established order, but are also capable of challenging it. Our study seeks to examine the case of the Ecumenical Collective for Peru: a group of evangelical Christians with ecumenical openness who publicly supported left-wing political parties during the last general elections in Peru (2021). Our sources are the testimonies of nine (09) of its members, gathered through the application of semi-structured interviews in depth around the significance of their experiences as members of the Collective and as evangelical Christians.