Explain the title of this work. Does Like Leaven in the Dough refer to the Biblical parable mentioned in Matthew 13:33 and Luke 13:20?

Yes, the metaphor is one that Latin Protestants liked because it explained how they could have a significant impact on society even though they were a small minority.

Professor Mondragon first published this book in Spanish in Buenos Aires in 2005. What convinced you that it needed to be translated into English to reach a wider audience?

I heard Professor Mondragon presenting this (then newly published) work in Mexico City in 2006. He made references to all sorts of people, in fact an entire community of Protestant scholars, who were vocal critics of Latin American society in the first half of the 20th century. I was then studying Protestant involvement in the Mexican Revolution (I published an article on the topic with the title: “Protestantism and Radicalism in Mexico from the 1860s to the 1930s” in Fides et Historia 40:1 (Winter/Spring 2010): 43-66) but much of what I heard from Professor Mondragon and in the discussion that followed was new to me. It occurred to me that this was a pan Latin American movement that had never been dealt with in a regionally comprehensive way. I was also impressed with the fact that Professor Mondragon was dealing with these figures as the purveyors of important ideas about politics and society, rather than as primarily theologians. I thought then (and still do) that this approach is a needed corrective to the religious frame in which these figures are usually placed.

How has Professor Mondragon responded to this new addition of his work? What has been the public response to the work so far?

Professor Mondragon is of course pleased to have his work translated into English. He and I were part of an international symposium that met in Mexico City this past October with the intention of promoting on-going connections between North American and Latin American scholars who are studying the history of Protestantism in the Americas. I am aware of one review of the translation that will be coming out soon but I haven’t seen it yet. However the topic of religion’s impact on political ideas and behavior is one that is going to receive even more attention in the near future and I see this volume as fitting into that broader discussion.

Can you describe the political impact of the Protestant movement in Latin America? What is its legacy today?

To be perfectly honest, I think that the legacy of the Protestant movement that Professor Mondragon described was somewhat eclipsed in the intervening decades. As I noted in the Translator’s Preface, conservative Evangelicals and Pentecostals came to the force during the Cold War when secular Marxists and their sympathizers in Catholic Liberation Theology movement were challenging right-wing military dictatorships. Most of the newly arrived Protestants remained apolitical or sided with the right during the brutal internal conflicts of the 1970s and 80s. I think however, that the older, and I would argue, more mature, ideas about the implications of Protestantism for economic, political, and social issues are being re-examined by a new generation of Protestants (eg The Latin American Theological Fraternity) who are living in a more democratic post-Cold War context where the older generation’s ideas seem newly relevant.

–Kathleen Shultz