THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF CHRISTIAN WITNESS IN CUBA

by

Carl Walters

CBM January 17, 2013

After fifty-five years of communism, isolation and repression, Cuba is finally beginning to implement some slow changes that are allowing greater impact and influence from other countries in Cuba than ever before. The opportunities of Christian witness in Cuba have increased since president Fidel Castro has stepped aside and his brother Raul took over leadership of this country because Raul has relaxed some policies regarding religious tolerance and entrepreneurship1, but despite these opportunities there are still challenges that come from years of religious and economic repression. The fall of the Soviet Union a former major supporter of goods from Cuba has forced Cuba in more recent years to look for other ways to remain economically viable leading this country to turn to tourism to bring in much needed funds. This openness to foreign influence has created an opportunity to encourage more people to come to Cuba which has reduced the isolationism of this country and to begin to establish relationships with the Cuban people. These relationships have fostered a greater openness to the influence and involvement of foreign countries. Despite this openness, Cuba remains a Communist country and Raul Castro is a dictator who still retains a tight control over the changes that have come about and has threatened action against anyone who opposes him. These changes that have been implemented mean that there is a greater opportunity that ever before for foreign Christians to come to Cuba and assist through providing training, Bibles and study materials that Cubans could not otherwise afford. The openness to entrepreneurship also provides a potential for Christians to demonstrate their love for Christ through micro-credit loans so that Cubans can have start-up capital to begin their own businesses and begin to break the cycle of poverty. Christian witness is not just found in sharing
1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/21/cuba-raul-castro-entrepreneurs_n_4486902.html

the gospel, but in living it out, which is evidenced in the Scripture that Jesus chose to inaugurate his ministry: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lords favor. (Luke 4:18-19, NIV) When Cuba first declared independence in 1959, the official state religion was atheism but modern Cuba has adopted a more moderate stance to religion in the past few years. One of the opportunities for Christian witness in Cuba is due to the change in the attitude of the government towards Christianity. In contrast to its atheistic beginnings, Raul Castro is more of a moderate and has been known to attend church, even expressing a desire for the prayers of the church. 2 This has meant that there is a greater tolerance toward the involvement of foreign Christians in Cuba which has led to opportunities for Christian witness in Cuba through partnerships such as the one that has come about between Canadian Baptist Ministries and the Fraternity of Baptist Churches of Cuba3. This partnership has created a greater awareness of the needs of the local Cuban churches and has facilitated foreigners coming to Cuba to help in sharing the gospel through meeting the needs of churches in that country. One of the other challenges of Christian witness in Cuba is the strong presence of quasiChristianity in faiths such as Santeria a syncretic mix of Catholicism and Yoruba, which is a pagan worship that came from African slaves when they came to Cuba between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.4 Cuba is purported to be sixty to seventy per cent Catholic but only one
2 3

http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-06/cubas-churches-grapple-changing-society-says-council-leader http://www.cbmin.org/cbm/Cuba 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Cuba

and a half to five per cent of those people regularly attend mass. Between the pagan influences and lack of regular teaching of Christian faith, unlike some cultures that may be unaware of any tenets of Christianity, a challenge to Christian witness in Cuba is not ignorance of Christianity, but rather misguided ideas of Christianity. This positive in this situation is that many Cubans will have heard of Jesus which therefore provides a foundation to point them to the Scriptures to help them understand who Jesus is. This creates an opportunity to witness to Cubans and to redirect them away from pagan beliefs by pointing them directly to the Bible thereby helping them to understand who Jesus is, what he taught, and what Christianity is truly about. Another challenge for Christian witness in Cuba is the poor economic conditions for most Cubans. Under the socialist political model all business dealings have been tightly controlled by the government which meant that most Cubans were kept in a level of poverty or near poverty because wage earning was set by the government: today the average monthly income is still only twenty dollars a month.5 This poverty greatly restricts the ability for Cubans to have disposable income to spend on religious materials such as Bibles or study materials. This challenge creates a great need for Cubans but it also presents a great opportunity for Christian witness of believers outside of Cuba to donate Bibles and study materials so that the local Cuban churches could distribute these items free of cost to anyone who is interested in growing in their faith. Cuba continues to be a Communist country but Raul recognizes a need for change, even if he will only permit moderate change. One of the challenges to Christian witness in Cuba is that the state still exhibits tight control over the activities of the country and could change their openness to religion at any moment which creates a continuous risk for the safety of any Christian missionaries there. The relatively recent change in openness towards foreign influence
5

http://www.cbmin.org/cbm/Cuba

and presence in Cuba has created some great opportunities for believers to live out the gospel by training Cuban nationals to share the gospel message in a way that speaks to their own culture, to call them to pure faith by helping directing them back to the Scriptures and away from pagan practices. Hopefully this could openness could also lead to show the love of Jesus by providing free Bibles, study materials and micro-credit loans to help end the cycle of poverty. Satan will oppose the removal of pagan practices and the word of God spreading, but the power of Jesus Christ is stronger than evil. If Christians seek to obediently follow Jesus then the church will be built and: the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:17-19, ESV)