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Introduction
Mormonism, Adventism, and Jehovah's Witnesses are the three great American religions of the nineteenth century.1 Although they started out as radical groups led by charismatic prophets, each ultimately followed a different trajectory of opposition and accommodation to U.S. mainstream society.2 One thing they had in common was their missionary zeal, which was strengthened by the fact that each was certain that it was the only true Christian church on Earth. This missionary zeal led to extensive proselytizing efforts, first in the United States and soon abroad. Adventist and Witness missionaries arrived in Latin American countries in the late 1890s, but Mormonism first had to redefine its core doctrine (the gathering of Zion), before President McKay defined international expansion as a key goal.3 Consequently, Adventists and Witnesses currently have a far greater proportion of their total worldmembership living outside the United States thanMormonism. 4 All three churches have experienced, and to some extent are still experiencing, significant membership growth in Latin America. So far, however, no literature explicitly compares the three religions and their growth patterns in Latin America.5
This article summarizes the patterns of growth, first of all, for the Latter-day Saints (LDS) and then for the Seventh-day Adventists (SDA). For each denomination, the discussion begins with an overview of growth in Latin America generally, followed by a focus on growth in Chile specifically. Historical developments in religion across Latin America generally provide an important context for understanding the religious scene in any specific location, but every country also has its own unique constellation of internal and external factors inf luencing the growth of new religions there. Possibly the greatest LDS success story in Latin America, Chile has had a long history of a Roman Catholic religious monopoly, a unique early Pentecostal boom (1930-60), the brutal Pinochet military dictatorship (1973-89), a fragile new democracy since 1990, and a booming macro-economy since 2000. This article offers the case study of Chile to demonstrate the usefulness of country-by-country analyses, especially when employing comparisons of two or more religious denominations.
As indicators of growth, whether in Latin America generally or in Chile particularly, I use year of arrival, the official absolute membership numbers, membership as a percentage of the country's population, and average annual growth rates...