His congregation — like most Presbyterian congregations — is mostly Anglo. But South Carolina has experienced a burst of Latino immigration in recent years, with people coming from Mexico and all over Central and South America to work in construction, agriculture, and other fields.
“You see them working on grounds crews, in the hospitality industry, you see them in stores, walking down the streets, more and more,” Coleman said.
In response, the South Carolina legislature last spring passed what’s considered to be one of the strictest state immigration laws in the country. The new law, which Gov. Mark Sanford signed in June, prohibits undocumented immigrants from attending public colleges or universities in the state and could temporarily shut down or fine businesses that hire illegal immigrants, among other provisions.
South Carolina has seen “a backlash against the immigrants,” Coleman said. “There’s been a lot of confusion, a lot of fear among the Hispanic community about what this means.”
That leaves churches, including Coleman’s congregation, St. Andrew’s Church, trying to figure out how best to respond. Last January, St. Andrew’s started building a Hispanic fellowship, which meets on Saturday nights. Other congregations are reaching out too.
And Charleston Atlantic Presbytery has hired Eriberto Soto (“but everybody calls me Eddie, even my family,” Soto says) as its associate for Latin American Ministries.
Why? Here’s part of the picture.
If current trends continue, nearly one in five Americans (19 percent) will be immigrants by 2050, according to demographic projections from the Pew Hispanic Center. In 2005, just one in 8 Americans (12 percent) were immigrants, born in another country.
The Latino population will account for most of that increase, tripling in size, and making up 29 percent of the U.S. population in 2050, compared with 14 percent in 2005.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is seeing growth too in its ministry with Latin Americans, which now has 340 Hispanic congregations and missions, up from 265 seven years ago.
In some cases, that growth is the result of intentional steps that presbyteries or particular congregations have taken to reach out to immigrants moving into their communities.
Soto, a former missionary and pastor of Puerto Rican descent, who was born in New York City but has lived throughout Latin America, has worked in Charleston Atlantic Presbytery for just over a year now. He’s fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.
“I’ve been in other presbyteries that talked a lot but never did anything,” Soto said. “A lot of blah, blah, blah.”
But Charleston Atlantic wanted someone to educate congregations, to tell them “who these Latin Americans are and why they’re here,” Soto said. “My main ministry is education. In some cases it’s been good and in some cases it’s been an uphill battle. There are a number of people who are prejudiced, even in our churches. … We have people saying we should not reach out to these people because that is breaking the law,” if the Latinos are in the country illegally. “We’re not hiring people. We’re just reaching to them, to serve them.”
Roughly 15 presbyteries have people working as Soto is — trying to coordinate outreach among Latino immigrants in the area, said Hector Rod-riguez, the PC(USA)’s associate for Hispanic Congregational Enhancement. Others are working to start or support new church developments, some of which have been successful, some of which struggle.
“Don’t forget that in some places in the United States, the Hispanic communities are very poor people,” Rod-riguez said. Some fellowships have trouble becoming self-sustaining in the required time; some Hispanic pastors are good preachers, but don’t have the skills to get a fledgling congregation off the ground.
Often the immigrants want what Soto describes as “holistic” ministry including such things as English as a Second Language programs, tutoring for their children, food and clothing programs, and legal assistance with immigration issues.
The PC(USA) also has an Office of Immigration Issues, led by lawyer Julia Thorne, who provides information to presbyteries and pastors dealing with immigration issues, and works with Presbyterians interested in advocacy regarding immigration policy.
When Rodriguez speaks to presbyteries, he urges them to have a long-range commitment to nurturing any new fellowships, to go beyond just saying, “We like diversity.”
Rodriguez also encourages Anglo Presbyterians to try to understand that Hispanic immigrants may have the Spanish language in common, but come from many different countries and backgrounds. One community about a half-hour from Charleston, for example, has become home to roughly 5,000 Brazilians, many of them from Presbyterian backgrounds.
But many of those who worship at a congregation in Charleston — a Spanish-speaking congregation “nesting” at an older Anglo church — are from Guatemala and Mexico, different populations altogether.
Among Hispanic immigrants, “even though we speak the same language, our cultures are totally different,” Soto said. “A Cuban is different from a Puerto Rican, a Guatemalan is different from a Salvadoran, an Argentinean is different from a Chilean. Sometimes those cultural differences cause strife. … You have to send someone who has cultural understanding and cultural sensitivity … to bring those differences together.”
Congregations that want to welcome Latinos also need to consider how these Christians are accustomed to worshipping.
“If you want to start a healthy, growing Hispanic congregation, forget about the pipe organ,” Rodriguez said.
Soto said that in Brazil, where his wife is from and where he visits annually, “the Brazilian church is solidly Reformed in its theology. But in its liturgy, it has become more open, so it can be more expressive, according to the culture of the people. The church back in the 70s had to rethink this liturgical stuff. Many of the young people and even some of the older people were leaving for some other churches, where the services were more expressive.”
Now, in those Brazilian Presbyterian churches, “people can sing with joy, they can raise their hands if they want to, sometimes they clap,” Soto said. Many are very committed to evangelism and to holistic ministry, inviting people to come forward after each service, where elders and other church leaders stand ready to pray with them about their difficulties and needs.
“In the midst of our pain, in the midst of our poverty, church becomes a place where we are … freed up to express how we feel, and our joy in Christ,” Soto said. “It’s a festive mood. Church is not something you go to just to fulfill a duty, it’s part of life.”
Of course, Presbyterian Hispanics are just one part of a much bigger picture. A 2007 report from the Pew Hispanic Center found that about a third of all Catholics in the United States are now Hispanic, and projected that number will continue to rise for decades. And “religious expressions associated with the Pentecostal and charismatic movements are a key attribute of worship for Hispanics in all the major religious traditions — far more than among non-Latinos,” the report found.
The Pew report is based on a series of public opinion surveys that involved more than 4,600 interviews.
The report also found that more than half of Hispanic Catholics identify themselves as charismatics (compared with only one-eighth of non-Hispanic Catholics).
“While remaining committed to the (Catholic) church and its traditional teachings, many of these Latino Catholics have witnessed or experienced occurrences typical of spirit-filled or renewalist movements, including divine healing and direct revelations from God,” the report states. “Even many Latino Catholics who do not identify themselves as renewalists appear deeply influenced by spirit-filled forms of Christianity.”
This is not just a Catholic phenomenon. Among Latino Protestants, more than half said they identify with spirit-filled religion, compared to just a fifth of Protestants who are not Hispanic.
And many Latinos attend churches that are distinctively ethnic. According to the report, two-thirds of Latinos attending worship go to churches with Latino clergy, services in Spanish, and in which the congregations were predominantly Latino.
In the Charleston area, Soto has seen some of these trends first-hand. For example, he and his wife visited an independent charismatic church that meets in an elementary school in Hanahan, S.C. Although the couple leading the worship don’t speak Spanish, more than half of those attending were Hispanic, Soto said, and leaders chosen from the congregation served as interpreters — translating all that is said into Spanish.
Hispanics have been invited into leadership there, Soto said. The worship is energetic and spirit-filled.
Week after week, the auditorium is full.
