God Broke Through: The Story of Chile's Methodist Pentecostals

Church.

PART I

Chapter 1

GROUNDBREAKING IN CHILE DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

If you, dear reader, enjoy adventure stories (and who does not?), by picking up this book, you are about to embark on one of the most exciting adventure stories since the Book of Acts. It tells the story of how God broke through the darkness of the Middle Ages and brought a spiritual awakening to South America, and to Chile in particular.

Our Odyssey Begins Early In The 19th Century

It was the policy of the Spanish Crown to prohibit contact with foreigners and foreign ideas by her American colonies. This was modified somewhat through treaties forced upon her by England, but the image of the Northern European continues to be that of smuggler, pirate and heretic.

James Thomson, Protestant Educator

Fortunately for Chile, Bernardo O’Higgins, the Chilean hero of the revolution against Spain and Chile’s first president from 1817 to 1823, had received part of his education in England, where he had a more positive exposure to the Northern European. As president of Chile, he invited James Thomson of the British and Foreign Bible Society to come to Chile from Argentina for a year at the expense of the Chilean government to teach literacy using the Lancaster Method, where the more advanced students taught the less advanced. He established three schools in Santiago, one equipped to train teachers to begin new schools. He also opened a school in Valparaíso.

As part of his program, he asked the sponsoring government to print selected passages from the Bible in large type for use as reading material in his schools. Unfortunately, the Bible was then almost unknown in Chile. The vast majority of the people were illiterate, and those in the upper class who could read were specifically forbidden to read the Bible.

Ever since Martin Luther had translated the Bible into the language of the people in Germany, it had been used by Protestants as a primary weapon against the Catholic Church; therefore, the Catholic Church was determined to keep the Bible and Protestant ideas out of its Latin American colonies. Consequently, when Thomson brought 60 Bibles for his school, he was allowed to bring them into Chile only because President O’Higgins had personally contracted him for his services. During the year and a half that he was in Chile, he brought in several thousand more copies.

When Thomson was satisfied that his work had a good foundation and the literacy work could continue on without him, he went on to Peru and Bolivia where he continued founding literacy schools for those countries as well. [1]

However, in 1825, just four years later, John C. Brigham of the American Bible Society visited Chile and could find no trace of Thomson’s work. He reported to his superiors that the time had not yet come when the Gospel could be preached openly in Chile, and that Bible distribution would be the master key to open the door there to the Gospel. [2]

Ecclesiastical Pressures

Bernardo O’Higgins insisted that Chile have veto power over ecclesiastical appointments and religious activities. Over the protest of the Catholic hierarchy, he granted the Protestants in Valparaíso an area to be used as a cemetery. He also attempted to decrease the many privileges of the nation’s wealthy landowners. These measures, among others, caused opposition that forced his resignation in 1823. He was too far ahead of the times.

An incident in 1824 helps illustrate the prevailing situation. During early efforts to forge a workable constitution for the new republic, Heman Allen, a United States diplomat, suggested that a state church would be inappropriate for a republic. Resistance by the clergy to this suggestion was so intense that not a single legislator dared vote in favor of this change for fear of assassination. [3]

As further evidence of this tight control by the clergy, Article V of the Organic Constitution of 1833 stated that The Roman Apostolic and Catholic religion is and always will be the religion of the State, to the exclusion of the public worship of all others. [4] Under this provision, the state church was almost exclusively in control of the Civil Register of Vital Statistics, the use of cemeteries, the authorization of mixed marriages between Catholics and Protestants and religious instruction in public schools. Also, the clergy was granted the right to be tried in ecclesiastical courts for civil crimes. This situation did not change until the latter half of the century. [5]

William Wheelwright, Protestant Industrialist

William Wheelwright, another American, came to Valparaíso in 1829. He was a remarkable man who played a major role in the industrialization of Chile as well as the spread of the Gospel. Valparaíso is the principle port of Chile and serves as gateway to the capital city of Santiago. Founded in 1554, by this time it had blossomed into a city of 30,000, of whom some 6,000 were English-speaking settlers.

Wheelwright opened a retail establishment that served the entire west coast of South America. He established a trade route between Valparaíso and Panamá that later was organized as the Pacific Steam and Navigation Company. He improved harbors and shipping lanes. He helped discover coal deposits in southern Chile.

He surveyed the railroad route from Valparaíso to Santiago at his own expense, and built the first railroad on the west coast of South America in 1850, a 50-mile track from the mines of Copiapó to the port of Calera.

He built a truck line from Rosario to Córdoba with the intention of uniting Argentina and Chile. He set up the telegraph system between Valparaíso and Santiago. In Valparaíso he built the first gas works and water system and served as U.S. Consul. His accomplishments were legion!

A dedicated member of the Reformed Church, he personally procured materials for the building of a Protestant church in Callao, Perú, having them shipped around Cape Horn. He also gave money for the translation of the Scriptures into the Turkish language and supported missions in the Far East. [6]

When his brother, Isaac Wheelwright, was appointed agent of the American Bible Society in 1833 for the distribution of Bibles throughout Latin America, his home became the depository for thousands of Bibles. Isaac opened up an office as headquarters of the Bible Society in Valparaíso in 1833, but was forced to close it in 1837 as a result of opposition by the Catholic clergy. [7]

David Trumbull, Pastor and Educator

Both John C. Brigham and William Wheelwright were instrumental in recruiting David Trumbull as a missionary to Chile. [8] Trumbull was the son of the governor of Connecticut in the United States and a graduate of Yale College and Princeton Theological Seminary. He was also a Free Mason. He came to Chile in 1845, sponsored by five different missionary societies. [9]

He began his ministry by holding private meetings in the homes of English-speaking residents and aboard the ships that visited the port from English-speaking countries. In 1847, he launched Union Church, but not until 1855 was he allowed to build a chapel. And that had to be built behind a high wooden fence and not feature a bell or steeple. [10]

Following the Reformed tradition of education for the masses as opposed to the Roman Catholic tradition of reserving education for the elite, David and his wife, Jane, also entered the arena of education. Between 1851 and 1856, they organized and supervised a private school for girls. This school was soon attacked by the Catholic clergy with such ferocity that the government investigated it thoroughly. Instead of condemning it, however, investigators gave such a positive report that it opened the way for the government to start sponsoring a school system for girls. The first such school opened in Valparaíso in 1891, and since then, high schools for girls have spread throughout the country. Other schools the Trumbulls helped establish and supervise were the Blas Cuevas School of the Freemasons, the English-language Artisan School of Valparaíso and the Popular Grade School. [11]

Thousands of children passed through these schools. Educated in concepts of liberty and democracy, they later entered the leadership ranks in Chilean society. The church and schools were not Trumbull’s only means of influencing life in Chile. From 1871 to 1889, he published a widely distributed English-language newspaper twice weekly, The Record. It generally contained sermons which were then translated and published in the Chilean newspaper, El Predicador (The Preacher). [12]

Also, Trumbull wrote editorials urging the valiant Chileans to emancipate themselves from the domination of the Roman Catholic Church, just as they had shaken off the chains of Spain. This especially resonated with the progressive elements of society, for a continuous conflict was simmering between the Chilean government and the Roman Catholic Church.

An example of this conflict occurred during a drought in Chile in 1863. An image of Isadora, the saint responsible for rainfall, was handcuffed, chained and beaten by the Catholics for his failure to provide rain. Trumbull took advantage of this situation to write an article for the Santiago newspaper in which he repudiated the practice of devotion to the saints. Catholic Bishop Mariano Casanova defended the practice in an answering article; and for some time, a literary duel existed between the two in the press. Casanova withdrew from the verbal warfare when Trumbull proved too skillful for him, and Trumbull came to be regarded as the prime defender against the bullying of the Catholic Church. [13]

The Relationship Between the Chilean Government and the Roman Catholic Church

Another example of this Catholic opposition, to the chagrin of the Chilean government, was an incident that took place in the 1840’s and, for nearly a year, caused a rupture of diplomatic relations between the United States and Chile.

Seth Barton, United States Ambassador to Chile, fell in love with a young lady of an aristocratic family. He made the traditional commitment to rear their children within the Catholic Church; but Archbishop Rafael Valentín Valdivieso of Santiago did not consider this pledge sincere and attempted to prevent the marriage. He declared the proposed marriage an act of sacrilege, and urged the prospective bride to repent and return to the bosom of the Catholic Church. The couple finally was married at sea by a chaplain of the United States Navy, but only after the rupture of relations. [14]

Under the pressure of continuous counsel from David Trumbull and the efforts of the Chilean government to resolve some of the embarrassing situations created by the excessive power of the Catholic Church, changes in laws were finally effected that served to curb these excesses and eventually laid the foundation for the rise of the great Pentecostal movement there.

Under the Interpretation Act of 1865, dissidents were granted the right to teach their own faith and were exempted from doctrinal examinations upon entering the university. In 1878, the Catholic Church lost the authority to control books and literature entering the country. In 1883, the secularization of cemeteries became law. Before then, Protestants could not be buried in the cemeteries. In 1884, the Catholic Church lost the civil authority to seal marriages. In each of these cases, the archbishop excommunicated the current president of Chile, his cabinet members, and all the legislators who had supported the measures. [15] Four years later, in 1888, La Unión Evangélica (The Evangelical Union) was legally incorporated, placing all evangelical work in Chile on a legal basis and essentially granting religious freedom.

Another of David Trumbull’s achievements was his ordination in 1871 of Juan Manuel Ibáñez Guzmán, pastor of the first Protestant church in Santiago and the first ordained Protestant minister born in South America.

Entrance to the Dissident Cemetery in Valparaíso, Chile

David Trumbull’s tombstone

Not only had Trumbull worked unceasingly for the passing of these laws, but he had also vowed that if they should be passed, he would become a naturalized Chilean citizen. He kept his promise, and was widely acclaimed as an outstanding addition to the country. He died on February 1, 1889. Valparaíso newspapers eulogized him, and the citizens of the community engraved a special memorial on his tombstone in both Spanish and English which reads:

Memorial Sacrum:

The Reverent David Trumbull, D.D., Founder and Minister of the Union Church of Valparaíso. Born in Elisabeth, New Jersey, the 1st of November, 1819. For forty-three years he gave himself to unwearied and successful effort in the cause of evangelical truth and religious liberty in this country. As a gifted and faithful minister, and as a friend, he was honored and loved by foreign residents of this coast.

In his public life he was the counselor of statesmen, the supporter of every good enterprise, the helper of the poor and the consoler of the afflicted.

In memory of his eminent services, charity and sympathy, this monument has been raise by his friends in this community and by the citizens of his adopted country.

Kenelm Vaughan’s Experience

The Jesuit Priest Kenelm Vaughan of England visited South America in 1872 and was shocked by the relaxed moral conditions of the Catholic Church and consequently of Latin American society. He recommended the distribution of the Scriptures as a remedy. Returning to England, he printed 140,000 Spanish New Testaments in 1874, bearing a decree of the approval of the archbishop of Santiago for his explanatory notes in these New Testaments and a letter from Pope Pius VI recommending the volume to Catholic readers.

Some 14,000 volumes were intended for Chile. The shipment was lost en route and was not located until 1876. In March of 1880, it was reported that thousands of the New Testaments were in a storehouse, but none in circulation. Mariano Casanova, successor to Rafael Valdivieso as archbishop of the Catholic Church in Santiago, opposed their distribution. Finally, in 1900, twenty-six years after the volume was printed, Father Vaughan returned to Chile, located the New Testaments in a storehouse in Valparaíso, and personally undertook their distribution.

The Bible Society of Valparaíso, in spite of Bible-burning incidents as late as 1877, reported the distribution of 123,670 Bibles by the year 1910.

If David Trumbull had made his impression on Chile through the intellectual path of education, attracting the sympathy of many for his fight for liberty of thought and the separation of Church and State, it was left to Juan Canut to start a movement of Chileans from the Catholic to the Protestant faith.

Juan Canut de Bon, Evangelist

Juan Canut was a Jesuit priest-turned-Protestant who captured the imagination of the Chileans. Born in Spain and arriving in Chile in 1871, five years later, in Quillota, he found a New Testament in a trash container at its railway station. He read it through and eventually became a friend and helper of Robert McLean, a Presbyterian missionary in San Felipe. Canut left the Jesuit order to continue his studies, but ended up returning to his trade as tailor to earn a living, and married, fathering three children.

In 1884 he returned to the Catholic Church, but this did not last. By 1890, he had met William Taylor, who was visiting the Methodist work in Chile. Taylor had also pioneered the Methodist work in India and Africa. He apparently settled Canut’s doubts and misgivings, for he began to preach vigorously under the direction of the Methodist missionaries. For two years he worked in Coquimbo and the surrounding area, distributing Bibles and religious literature. One of his converts in La Serena was Cecilio Venegas, who later became a Methodist pastor in Santiago. [16]

Because of his facility with the Spanish language and his background as a priest, his preaching attracted large crowds and infuriated the Catholic clergy. On more than one occasion he and his family were in physical danger from attacks by angry mobs.

Because of his desire to extend the Methodist Church into the south, and also to go where there was not such a high concentration of priests and nuns, Canut was sent to Concepción to help start the work in that area. He traveled regularly to Chillán, Los Ángeles, Traiguén, Angol, Victoria and Temuco, meeting with great success. After two more years in Temuco, ill health forced his return to Santiago, where he died at fifty years of age on November 3, 1896. He had spent twenty-five years in Chile and became so well known that all Protestants have been known as canutos since then.

The Yearning of the Missionaries

Each of the men whose ministry has been described in this chapter was born in a foreign land and believed God to raise up a national Chilean Church. To this end, each of them went with the seed of the Word, concerned that Chile should have the Bible available in Spanish. In the chapters that follow, we shall see how that seed, planted by these men of God, was to sprout and flower to the glory of God.

1 A Yankee Reformer in Chile. The Life and Works of David Trumbull. Irven Paul, William Carey Library, Pasadena, CA, 1973, p. 52-54. (Used by permission)

2 Paul, p. 54-57, 80.

3 Paul, p. 100.

4 Paul, p. 63.

5 Paul, p. 101.

6 Paul, p. 57-60.

7 Paul, p. 76.

8 Paul, p. 56-70.

9 Paul, p. 4, 7, 10.

10 Paul p. 62-63.

11 Paul P. 72-73.

12 Paul, p. 84-85.

13 Paul, p. 95-96.

14 Paul, p. 102.

15 A Study of the Older Protestant Missions and Churches in Peru and Chile. J.B.A. Kessler, Jr., Oosterbaan & le Cointre N.V., Goes, The Netherlands, 1967, p. 15.

16 Kessler, p. 103.

Chapter 2

THE FIRST CHILEAN PENTECOSTAL LEADERS

The leadership of the Chilean Awakening early began transitioning from foreign missionaries to the national leaders that God was raising up. First among these new leaders were Manuel Jesús Umaña, his wife, Mercedes, and Víctor Pavez Toro.

Manuel Jesús Umaña

The parents of Manuel Jesús Umaña were Nicolas and Carolina Umaña. He had two older brothers, Ismael and Alfredo, and a younger sister, Rosa. While Manuel was still quite young, his father was killed by falling off a horse and hitting his head on a rock. After that, Ismael, the eldest brother, worked as overseer of the large farm, Hacienda Melón, which was beyond La Calera from Santiago, near Nogales. The owner of the farm was Mr. Edwards, a very rich man.

Manuel’s mother was a very devout Catholic. Manuel attended the Catholic elementary school in San Francisco de Limache for about three years. As a young man, he enjoyed parties and drinking the good local wine. He was notorious for getting drunk on holidays, riding his horse into the local pub, totally wrecking its interior, and returning the next day to pay for damages. He worked as a carpenter’s helper.

The Umañas were fairly well-to-do, owning some properties in the area. For this reason, they could afford to receive visits from time to time from a family of clothiers who regularly came to the area. It was on one of these visits that Manuel met his future wife, Mercedes.

Mercedes Gutiérrez Morales

Mercedes, Manuel’s wife, was born in Chillán on September 8, 1862. She never attended school. She learned to read the Bible after becoming an adult. She signed with her fingerprint. In spite of this, she gave the impression of being an educated woman.

At age 22, she moved to Talca to live with relatives. There she went to work in a bakery named La casa francesa (The French House). Proving to be loyal and responsible, she was requested by the owners to move to Santiago where they resided. She stayed with this family, caring for the children and working in a business the family owned there.

A customer invited her to visit the Methodist Episcopal Church one day, and she accepted. She liked it and began to attend when she could. That was about 1900. José Torregrosa was the pastor at that time.

The owners of the business where she worked became extremely irritated by her new-found interest in the canutos. They feared she would influence their children. At last, they told her that she would have to choose between them and her church. Stung by their reaction, she left their house and went to live with Sister Lastenia, the lady who first invited her to church. This young lady’s family took her in to live with them.

The family made it’s living by making a circuit to their customers’ homes. There Mercedes learned the tailoring trade. She learned rapidly and was soon traveling with them. That was how she first visited the Umaña home in Limache and met Manuel. The moment she laid eyes on him, she knew that one day he would be her husband.

At the turn of the century, Manuel was drafted into the Army. He served his time in Santiago and made regular visits to see Mercedes. They were married in 1904 and returned to San Francisco de Limache to live with his family for a time. There, Mercedes began attending a local outreach of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Its senior pastor was Mr. Hoover, a North American missionary who lived in Valparaíso. It was in this humble outstation that Mercedes was truly converted to the Lord. [1]

This did not go over