Rodrigo is a Christian fisherman who lives with his wife in the department of Chocó, a jungle region near Colombia’s border with Panama and one of the wettest places on Earth.
Due to its remoteness, the town does not have paved streets and the presence of police and other Colombian authorities is rare. Residents primarily travel the mighty Atrato, Baudó, and San Juan rivers by motorboat, and Rodrigo supports his family by selling gasoline, as reported by Open Doors, which was the first to tell his story.
Despite the apparent necessity of his business, Rodrigo and his family are isolated. The majority indigenous community in the area where the family lives has rejected them because of their faith and excluded them socially and economically because of their refusal to participate in animist rituals common among the indigenous people. This isolation has also made Rodrigo vulnerable to the region’s dominant guerrilla and paramilitary groups, who periodically threaten to close his business if he does not pay extortion fees – a crime that affects the entire country. but it’s even worse for Christians.
at Rodrigo’s history summarizes two of the main reasons why Colombia has been the most dangerous country in South America to be Christian in the last five years, according to Open doors‘ World Watch List (WWL). On this year’s list Among the hardest places to be a Christian, the country ranks 34th in the world. So how did a nation with a long democratic tradition and a Catholic majority become one of the most precarious places for believers in the Western Hemisphere?
Much of Colombia’s notorious violence dates back to 1948, when liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated, sparking a national tragedy known as “El Bogotazo” and a surge in political violence. In the aftermath of Eliécer Gaitán’s death, liberal guerrilla groups emerged, fueled by the communist ideology of the Cuban Revolution and spreading terror in rural areas.
In the 1980s, with the rise of drug trafficking, guerrilla groups became allies of drug traffickers. But after the fall of drug lords like Pablo Escobar in the 1990s, these groups and their opponents, the paramilitary groups, both resumed drug trafficking. As Christianity today reported in 1998It is not uncommon for Christian leaders to be victims of kidnappings, killings and displacement.
“Colombia is a country where there are two realities. On the one hand, there is a lot of freedom in the big cities, and Christians are not even aware of the persecution that is happening in rural areas of the country,” said Ted Blake, director of Open Doors in Spain . “(But) in these rural areas there are armed groups – guerrillas or paramilitaries – who do not allow anything to be done without their agreement, which is obtained by paying them (extortion money).”
According to Open Doors, the second form of persecution in rural Colombia is carried out by indigenous groups who have the autonomy to establish their own rules in their assigned territories. Often, these norms prohibit conversion to the Christian faith, which is punishable by expulsion from the community, expropriation of land or economic exclusion.
The persecution of Christians in indigenous communities is most evident in the department of Cauca, in the south of the country, near the Equator. The majority indigenous population of this region exceeds 200,000 people. Those who dare to embrace the Christian faith, approximately 14,000, have faced dismissal from their jobs, displacement and other types of social exclusion. “Since we do not chew the coca leaf, we do not participate in roadblocks organized to protest against the Colombian government and we do not cast spells with herbs, they displace us,” explained Rogelio Yonda Trochez, pastor evangelical, BBC in 2012.
But violence by drug trafficking groups and oppression of indigenous communities are not the only reasons for the toxic environment Colombian Christians experience. According to Open Doorssecular intolerance increased and prevented some Christians from sharing their beliefs on abortion, marriage, and religious freedom.
In 2021, thousands of Colombians across the country took to the streets to protest tax hikes and the delay in COVID-19 vaccine distribution. When Christian leaders refused to protest or spoke out against them, some demonstrators vandalized churches, including the Bogota megachurch. The place of his presence.
“Inconsistencies in the methodology”?
Colombia was One of the most advanced countries in the region since 1991, when the Constitution first recognized freedoms of religion, conscience and worship as fundamental rights in this historically Catholic country.
Therefore, Colombian authorities viewed Open Doors’ most recent reports with skepticism.
“The violence in Colombia has affected several churches and believers. » Lorena Rios, the former director of the Interior Ministry’s Office of Religious Affairs (and now a senator for the Christian party Colombia Justa Libres) told CT. “However, the cause of violence has not always been due to questions of faith but rather to surrounding situations, whether political (participation or support for a candidate), social leadership (pastors who denounce corruption or group threats) or personal questions. (business and debts). But this is not exclusively due to a matter of persecution because we are Christians.
Indeed, in 2021, under Ríos, the Office of Religious Affairs issued a formal rebuttal claims by Open Doors, expressing concerns over what it described as Open Doors’ “inconsistencies in methodology” in assessing levels of religious persecution in Colombia. In that report, the Colombian government disputed why the country moved from No. 41 to No. 30 on the 2021 WWL.
“This sudden variation made no sense, because 2020, due to the pandemic, was a year in which there were fewer attacks against Christians in the country,” explains Ríos, adding that “even (Open Doors ) admitted that due to COVID-19 restrictions, 2020 was not a typical year for data collection.
Open doors’ method has evolved since 1993, when the investigation began. It is currently based on a series of questionnaires applied to Christian and non-Christian populations in each country, then the information is scored on a 100-point scale based on levels of persecution and is independently audited by the International Institute. for Religious Freedom (IIRF).
“We measure the levels of oppression of Christians in five areas: private life, the family sphere, the social sphere, the national sphere and the ecclesiastical sphere. We also take into account physical or material violence suffered by Christians,” Blake said.
Colombia is not on the list due to its laws. It’s on the list because Christians have been murdered because their faith and their churches were attacked, he said.
Persecution in Latin America
After entering the top 50 in 2019 (at 47th), Colombia ranked 22nd in the 2023 WWL, a distinction that made it the most dangerous nation for Christians in all of Latin America l ‘last year. Although the country is in 34th place this year, its score only fell from 71 in 2023 to 68 in 2024.
The best Latin American country in WWL 2024 is Cuba (No. 22, score of 73), followed by Nicaragua (No. 30, score of 70) due to the dictator. That of Daniel Ortega obsession with the Catholic Church, whose leaders he describes as opponents of his regime. After Colombia, comes Mexico (n°37, score of 68).
“The forms of persecution in Colombia and Mexico are very similar,” Blake said. “Drug trafficking groups extort, kidnap and assassinate Christian leaders in both countries, while indigenous groups exert pressure by excluding Christians economically and socially. »
Venezuela (No. 67, score of 53) is no longer in the top 50, despite assumptions outsiders might have about its authoritarian, socialist government, which makes it more difficult to freely profess the Christian faith.
As persecution thrives, even in historically Christian countries, what can the global Church do?
Speak, said Blake.
“Jesus taught us that whoever follows him will be persecuted. This is something we should expect,” he said. “Rather, lift up your voice in two ways: Ask God to strengthen Christians so that they will stand firm in the midst of adversity. Also, raise your voice before leaders, so that they intervene to defend the rights of Christians who suffer so much injustice.
