- Home
- Resources
- Resource Library
- Another World Is Possible: Witness in Argentina
Another World Is Possible: Witness in Argentina
Economic meltdown. Tumbling home values. Multiple bailouts. Job loss up. Public aid down. Big bonuses for a few. Formerly middle-class people eating at soup kitchens.
Times like these tempt churches to turn inward and focus on survival. Yet a tiny denomination in Argentina has chosen another path.
“Argentina is a country of immense natural riches and beauty, where a few live opulently and the great majority live below the poverty line. It is a country that declares itself to be deeply Christian, but corruption, swindling, cynical manipulation, violence, indifference toward others, and a lack of solidarity are on the increase,” says Gerardo Carlos Cristian Oberman, a Reformed Churches in Argentina pastor, musician, and songwriter.
His openness to worship renewal and God’s creativity may give your congregation ideas on how to live out the gospel more gladly. Songs and celebrative worship rooted in real life can build hope that, in the words of one of Oberman’s songs, “another world is possible.” (See theProtestants in Argentina story for more context.)
Singing faith
Begun in 1890 by Dutch immigrants, The Reformed Churches in Argentina (IRA in Spanish) is a denomination of only 16 congregations. For nearly a century, several congregations offered worship in Dutch as well as Spanish. The last "official" hymnal came out in 1962, though many IRA churches use other hymnals, such as the Cancionero Abierto(Open Songbook).
“People wonder whether changing worship means betraying our history. But a church that remains the same for centuries loses its meaning and its members. It fossilizes,” Oberman explained at a recent Calvin Symposium on Worship.
A decade ago, he and his congregation in Mar del Plata decided to “think of liturgy not as inherited rites and formulas but as expressions of ourselves, created as a service of love to the Lord of life and in response to everyday questions.” They also committed to be a faith community of openness, hospitality, and solidarity with their neighbors.
They began to “create and sing new songs that build a bridge between pain and hope, between the sorrow of reality and the joy of faith,” Oberman says.
These new lyrics are simple and direct, such as “Let no one miss out on the blessing of God, and no one be excluded from the grace of God.” Worshipers see themselves as a community, so sing more about we andus than I and me. Songs in first person are often the voice of God speaking to worshipers, as in “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give. I don’t give to you as the world gives to you.” Many songs are set to merengue, salsa, and other Latin rhythms.
Celebrating the God of life
“If worship is an encounter between a community and God, then it must also reflect a clear commitment to the gospel of life and desire to transform life,” Oberman says.
Worshipers in Mar del Plata bring their struggles—lost jobs, being robbed, mounting debt, dead fish in dirty rivers—to God in prayer, songs, and sermons. Oberman wrote a creed of hope that proclaims, “I believe in God who sees all this…and laughs, because, in spite of it all, there is hope.”
Many justice seekers use the phrase “another world is possible.” Other activists urge “dar vuelta la historia,” which means, roughly, “turn this story inside out.” Oberman finds the source of hope for change in God’s Word. “We believe another world is possible, because Christ has come to the world to make it new.
“I dream of church as a colorful place where the monotony of centuries of routine is shaken by the sound of a stone rolled away to announce that Jesus is free—and his Spirit cannot be held back by any kind of formality,” he explains.
Worship at Mar del Plata often sounds, tastes, smells, looks, and feels like a fiesta. “We bring in the language of the people, with symbolism, strong gestures, warmth, and sensitivity to the needs of each person, male and female,” Oberman says. Worship does what the world does not do—enfold, accept, value, and bond with people, “seeking a harmonious balance among the potential of all its members.”
Whole body worship
In Argentina, as in many countries, not all voices count in public policy. Physical needs for food, shelter, clean water, and basic healthcare go unmet.
In Christ’s new community, worship makes room for everybody and every body. “Worship that celebrates life must celebrate it intimately, with all our being. By his incarnation, God shows he cares about all that happens in our body. Our strength comes from a God who became human, who knows the harsh reality of life, and who calls us to join our wills in search of another possible world,” Oberman says.
For generations, the IRA kept to its reverent repertoire of stand, sing, sit, listen. “But the ordo (basic structure of worship) is just that. It allows for a lot of freedom and movement,” Oberman says.
Sometimes he asked worshipers to leave their seats and walk around while singing. Youth, not just deacons, now take collection. People come forward into circles for prayers of intercession. They’ve begun interacting with the preacher during sermons.
“We use our bodies in liturgical dance and mime. Sometimes we use drama for the call to confession or for a Bible text. We incorporate actions from biblical tradition, such as laying on hands, anointing of oil, or washing each other’s hands,” Oberman says.
He recalls visiting a church in Cuba, where the pastor “had positioned people around the sanctuary. They demonstrated different violent situations, like kicking someone in the back. The pastor asked, ‘What can we do to change this?’ People came out of their seats and repositioned the others to have a real encounter. That was the moment of real compassion breaking into the service.”
Building hope
It’s one thing to talk about confronting the world’s story of scarcity and control with God’s story of abundance enough for everyone. It’s another to live that out as a faith community.
But the people in Mar del Plata sing, “The gifts that God receives from us are signs that we are truly free.” The congregation, which grew from 50 to 70 people in eight years, supplies volunteers and raises the funds for a neighborhood soup kitchen that feeds 500 (yes, 500) people a day.
The church lobby doubles as a clothing bank. The congregation runs akindergarten, boys and girls club, and Bible studies. It provides space for Alcoholics Anonymous and a municipal youth orchestra.
As often happens when urban churches share their building with the community, they got robbed. Thieves broke in and stole computers, printers, violins, violas, and cellos.
The congregation didn’t have money to replace all that. They asked their denomination for prayers and asked a small group from Calvin College to come do a fundraiser. Thanks to the robbery, they received new instruments, drew hundreds to classical music and Christmas concerts where Oberman shared the gospel, and built relationships across socioeconomic and national borders.
Protestants in Argentina
Full, active, conscious participation in worship looks different from church to church, depending on its context. As the Reformed Churches in Argentina (a.k.a. Iglesias Reformadas en Argentina or IRA) work toward renewing worship, they do so within specific demographic and socioeconomic realities.
Ethnic and religious demographics
Many Latin American countries, such as Bolivia and Peru, have large indigenous populations. Argentina has few indigenous people left. The vast majority of people in Argentina trace their family ancestry to Europe, especially Spain and Italy.
Since Spain was the main colonizer in Latin America and the Caribbean, Spanish is the most widely spoken language and Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion. The national government pays salaries and subsidies for the Catholic Church but not for other religious groups.
In a presentation at the 2008 Calvin Symposium on Worship, IRA pastor Gerardo Oberman said that 90 percent of Argentina is nominally Roman Catholic but few Catholics regularly attend worship.
Most Protestant churches in Argentina developed from historic European traditions. The IRA was formed by Dutch immigrants.Oberman and historian Robert Swierenga have both written about this history.
Evangelical Protestantism is growing much faster in Central Americathan in Argentina. Pentecostalism took hold in the 1970s and is the fastest growing segment of Protestants in Argentina.
“The Protestant minority to which the rest of us belong, we’re the ones with problems. We’ve lost a lot of members,” Oberman said. He recently accepted a call to an IRA congregation in Buenos Aires that has 250 families on the membership rolls but averages only 40 people at Sunday worship.
Political and economic influences
In his 2008 presentation, Oberman explained that for decades, small Protestant denominations helped people preserve their ethnic heritage, whether Dutch and Reformed, German and Lutheran, or Scottish and Presbyterian. They combined forces in an interdenominational Protestant seminary, Evangelical Institute for Higher Theological Studies (ISEDET). In general, though, the “churches in the beginning did not work for enculturation,” Oberman said.
Since 1930, Argentina has roller-coasted through popularly-elected governments and military dictatorships. During the “dirty war” (1976-1983), thousands of people were disappeared for speaking out against injustice or working with the poor. Catholic and Protestant churches hesitated whether to speak out, remain silent, or support the government. Many people lost faith.
“Military dictatorship was a very strong shock for the church. We were inundated with stories of people going missing, being tortured, and killed. Churches formed an ecumenical movement and called people to work with mothers of desaparicidos,” Oberman said.
Several churches began adapting an activist phrase, poner el cuerpo, in their approach to Christian outreach and worship. Roughly translated, it means to put your whole body into action or put your life on the line.
“After the 1980s, churches started becoming more involved with social issues and having a dialogue with people. We’re more vocal in political life,” Oberman said.
Seeing Jesus in others and serving their neighbors led churches to discuss worship changes. “We saw that worship could not use language only for those who started the church. We changed our Scripture version to one everyone could understand,” he said.
Meanwhile the percent of people in poverty rose from only 5 percent in 1970 to 50 percent in 2003. Banks failed and many middle-class people lost their life savings. The country restructured debts, increased gross domestic production, and reduced unemployment. Still, deep class divides persist. A quarter or more of Argentines are now homeless or live in shacks and do not earn enough to meet basic needs.
Where faith meets life
As the Reformed Churches in Argentina began asking what God’s good news is in their situation, they could have tried one-size-fits-all solutions that help other churches grow quickly. But Oberman said at the 2009 Calvin worship symposium that importing mass culture forms, whether the Purpose Driven model or music of Latin American superstar Marcos Witt, is like planting artificial flowers in your garden.
The IRA learns from other Christian movements. “The slogan of Universal Church of the Kingdom of God is ‘stop suffering.’ They have prosperity celebrations that incorporate oil of olives from Israel or put salt on the floor and have you walk on it with bare feet,” Oberman said.
The takeaway for him is that tactile worship is important but must also be biblical. That’s why his church in Mar del Plata incorporated biblical traditions in prayer, such as anointing with oil or laying on of hands.
“Before we import someone else’s music or worship practices, we need to ask what ideology it clothes in spiritual garments. We seek success in the Word of God and theological reflection. Our music, our songs, our lyrics, and our worship point toward a completely different model. We seek to create communities committed to life, justice, and the transformation of the world,” he explained.
Hope amid pain
Oberman’s song “Con Gratitud” ends “With gratitude we come to you, Lord, singing, dancing, serving in love. For what you have done and will do and because your grace never fails” (rough translation).
He helped produce an Advent liturgy series on imagining peace. One liturgy (see pp. 61-66) begins with worshipers waiting outside a closed door. After a brief epistle reading, they are invited to greet each other with “Through Christ we have access, because he is our peace.”
Then they enter the worship space singing “El es nuestra paz” (He is our peace) and carrying items to decorate the communion table. As they stand around the table, someone reads, “In Christ, our peace, we gather as a community…that acknowledges we depend on the generous hand of God….”
This constant focus on God’s abundance, Christ’s provision, and the Spirit’s creative work leads Oberman to say, “What lies ahead is marvelous. God has given us the privilege to live in a time of dizzying change. What our generation is experiencing is unique.
“And in the midst of these changes, as people who have received a special calling from God, we cannot hang back watching history pass by. Our vocation is to become part of history, to seek meaning to guide the lives of those of us who believe in the permanent values of a kingdom that transcends little earthly kingdoms.
“Together with those whose hearts have been broken, their pockets emptied, their dreams undone, their horizon clouded…we can go on building hope, singing and celebrating faith in a God who owns no shares on Wall Street but rather in humanity.”
Argentina Through U.S. Eyes
Mar del Plata is a beach resort town on the Atlantic Ocean and is also in Argentina’s poorest province. Gerardo Oberman was, until recently, pastor of a Reformed Churches in Argentina congregation in a poor neighborhood of Mar del Plata.
The church provided space for a municipal youth orchestra to rehearse. As often happens when urban churches share their building with the community, the tiny Mar del Plata church got robbed. Thieves broke in and stole computers, printers, violins, violas, and cellos.
The congregation didn’t have money to replace all that. They asked their denomination for prayers and asked a small group from Calvin College to come do a fundraiser. Thanks to the robbery, they received new instruments, drew hundreds to classical music and Christmas concerts where Oberman shared the gospel, and built relationships across socioeconomic and national borders.
Poverty and hospitality
Calvin College orchestra conductor Robert Nordling and five students visited Argentina for five days in December 2008. In Buenos Aires and in Mar del Plata, they played concerts with youth orchestras.
“In Buenos Aires, we spent time with people who were not wealthy by American standards but were very affluent compared to those on the outskirts of the city. Miles and miles of dilapidated shacks—made of cardboard, metal, and scraps—extended as far as I could see,” Sarah Wittingen said.
Nordling described the poverty in Argentina as “enormous. We played with a youth orchestra in Buenos Aires. Its director runs music lessons for 200 students, ages 8 to 18, with 14 music teachers, all out of his tiny house. Our Calvin music department has 14 faculty members.”
The Calvin group commented on the hospitality they experienced and saw between Christians and non-Christians. Nordling said, “It was obvious to us that for Gerardo and the Mar del Plata church, if you don’t act for justice then you don’t really believe it.”
The youth orchestras the Calvin group played with include both affluent and poor students. “Making music together is a way to find solidarity with other cultures,” Nordling said.
“Argentineans greet and say goodbye to one another, us included, with a kiss on the cheek. A simple kiss breaks down so many boundaries that we’ve unconsciously put in place in our culture.
“I know that many of the students in the Amadeus Youth Orchestra did [JOAN: didn’t?] believe in God or did not attend church regularly if they did, but it was obvious that they felt very comfortable interacting with Gerardo and going to church to hear us play a Christmas concert in conjunction with a short sermon,” Wittingen said.
Mutual respect
The Calvin students enjoyed being invited to tango clubs. “One of the friends I made in Mar del Plata asked me whether I believed in God. I said yes and asked her in return. Her response sounded as though she believed there was a God, but did not really believe that you could have a relationship with him,” Paul Nienhuis said.
“Although our lifestyles did not align perfectly with those of some of the non-believing Argentineans we met, I felt no tension between us. Christianity did not seem to make them completely uncomfortable.
“We had a concert in Gerardo's church, and many of the friends we made from the orchestra, who did not attend church normally, showed up. All the songs we played were Christmas songs and the explanations that Professor Nordling gave greatly reflected our belief and response to Jesus Christ. It was amazing to see how intently and respectfully our new friends listened to everything said and played,” he said.
Fundraiser exceeded expectations
Nordling said it can be hard to get a good turnout for classical music but a media blitz of radio ads, posters, and flyers did the job. Mar del Plata residents filled all seats for the free concert led by youth orchestra conductor Guillermo “Willy” Sotelo, Nordling, students from both orchestras, and orchestra teachers.
“We played in a 1150-seat gorgeous theater. The city’s minister of culture made a presentation and thanked Calvin for the instrument donations,” Nordling said.
They played music from Elgar, Mozart, Dvorak, contemporary American composer Elliot Carter, and Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla.
“The audience was very enthusiastic. At intermission, Gerardo thanked them for coming and asked if anyone would like to make a donation. What came in wasn’t all from one or two big donors. They collected bags and bags stuffed with small bills.
“Gerardo was hoping for 550 pesos, but they got 2500 pesos. That’s more than $700 and will make a major impact on the youth orchestra,” Nordling said. He also brought along classical music that the orchestra may legally duplicate.
Learn More
Listen to Gerardo Oberman’s 2009 Calvin worship symposium address on liturgical renewal in Argentina. He spoke about how a sense of community memory and of journeying together keeps churches from remaining stuck in the past or “fixing their gaze on a too distant horizon.”
Understand Spanish? Want to buy the new worship song CD Dar Vuelta La Historia, produced by Gerardo Oberman and Horacio Ruben Vivares? Thenemail Oberman. Vivares is a guitar professor at the National Conservatory of Music (Argentina) and orchestra director at another conservatory. He composes, arranges, produces, and promotes indigenous Latin church music.
Caitlyn Kelly’s perceptive photographer’s blog puts a face on poverty in Argentina.
Brush up on copyright issues in using global music. Take advantage of excellent global worship resources, including many you can use for free.
- Coventry Liturgy of Reconciliation
- Feautor (which, in Spanish, means faith author) is a free, multilingual and open space to share religious resources.
- Gerardo Oberman founded and coordinates Red Crearte, a global network of Christian musicians (Spanish language website).
- This Advent series on imagining peace includes 21 simple songs in English and Spanish. World Council of Churches, Red Crearte, and Feautor partnered to produce it with a Creative Commons license that lets you remix and tweak it for non-commercial use.
- Open Sourcebook is a free online collection of prayers, liturgies, and more.
- Reformation Sunday resources from World Alliance of Reformed Churches
Explore how Christians across the world thoughtfully call each other to confess and witness to the full gospel:
- Letter to the Church in the U.S. from Christian leaders in the Global South
- U.S. church leader’s letter to the U.S. government on hurricane recovery
- Buenos Aires 2003 (World Alliance of Reformed Churches) report “Faith stance on the global crisis in life”
- Latin American reconciliation perspective on justice and forgiveness when people have been unfairly arrested, tortured, imprisoned, or killed
- Reformed Churches in Argentina declaration against economic injustice and the destruction of the earth
- How economic globalization impacts those who are not “the slickest and fittest” (pp. 32-35)
- What happens among youth in Australia when “Jesus and justice kiss”
As your church ponders how to be (or afford to be) a light in darkness, take heart from Walter Brueggemann’s thought-provoking essay “The Liturgy of Abundance, the Myth of Scarcity.”
Want to include more Spanish-language songs in worship? Consult Cancionero Abierto (Open Songbook; to purchase, visit Instituto Universitario ISEDET or email rector's office at rectorado@isedet.edu.ar). This impressive collection reflects the renaissance of church music composition in the Southern Cone. It includes Latin American folk and popular music genres and translated pieces from other parts of the world. These songs helped Latin American worshipers, especially South Americans, keep and share their faith during the political turbulence of the 70s, 80s, and early 90s.
Browse related stories on ethnodoxology, letting story form your worship, Pablo Sosa and congregational singing, and Reformed churches worldwide.
Start a Discussion
These questions will get people talking:- If yours is a denominational church, how much do you know about your sister denominations in other countries or in other ethnic groups in your country? Where do you get your information about their context?
- What does your church’s worship—including language, space arrangement, atmosphere, or ways people use their bodies—communicate to visitors about the relationship between God and people?
- Describe a time when you felt a conflict between the desire to measure ministry or worship success by numbers rather than by some other measure. What’s the same and different in how your culture and the Bible describe success?
Share Your Wisdom
What is the best way you’ve found to talk about what gospel (good news) means for us now, before Christ returns to create a new heaven and new earth?- Not every church has composers or money to license contemporary song use. What are the best sources you have found for songs and worship materials that you can freely use or adapt? We’re especially interested in hearing about resources in languages other than English.
- Did you come up with an easy way to help your members remember to “pray the headlines” or “be Christ’s peace” in daily life? What results and new ministry did these new prayer practices lead to?
Comments
- Let's Connect
