Abstract
During the early years of Guatemala’s civil war (1960-1996), which pitted the right-wing military regime against leftist revolutionaries, liberation theology became popular among some in the Latin American clergy. Fearing that this new ideology would inspire indigenous populations to join the rebels, the dictatorship looked to suppress the movement inside Guatemala. This research looks at liberation theology, its prominence in the context of the Guatemalan civil war, and the military dictatorship’s use of the opposing tenants of Fundamentalist Protestantism to counter liberation theology’s mass appeal, particularly the ideas of institutionalized sin and the necessity of popular action to exact change.
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