Christians in Post-Castro Cuba

IN MARCH, I visited Cuba on a 10-day tour with alumni from Eastern Mennonite University. I’ve studied the socialist structure of the early Jerusalem church (as recounted in Acts 2-6), and I wanted to experience Cuban socialism directly and see how it compares. How, for example, have Christian churches fared under a one-party socialist government?

On our visit, we heard about Cuba’s successes in the areas of health care and education. We heard a lecture on the massive effort to bring Cuba’s average level of education from third grade in 1959 to the current 11th grade. We learned about Cuba’s universal free health care, and that local clinics throughout the island provide basic care accessible to every citizen. As a result, infant mortality is lower than in the U.S. and overall life expectancy is about the same, according to The Atlantic—even though the U.S. spends more than 10 times as much per person per year on health care.

Such basic needs have been met not by Christian churches but by a government that initially robbed the wealthy and shared it with the poor. What were Christians in Cuba—Catholics, Protestants, Anabaptists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses—to make of this enormous shift toward economic equality? After the revolution, most missionaries returned to their home countries, and thousands of Cubans, Christians and otherwise, fled to the United States. Christians who remained had to rethink their mission in a society where the poor were educated and healed through structural change rather than individual charity.

In the decades since, some churches have embraced Cuba’s revolutionary socialism more than others. The growth of Latin American liberation theology in the 1980s helped some Catholic and Protestant churches bridge the divide, and the Cuban government also took steps toward more harmonious relationships. In 1992, the constitution was changed to permit, on paper, complete religious freedom. Atheism was no longer required for membership in the Cuban Communist Party. Popes John Paul II, Benedict, and Francis were warmly received when they visited the island.

Some of us accidentally met a Presbyterian pastor when we walked through the open door of his church on Maundy Thursday while he discussed with a large group of members how to better serve their community. On the other hand, conservative Anabaptist groups maintain a traditional separation between church and state. According to César Garcia, president of Mennonite World Conference, the Brethren in Christ are one of the few legally recognized churches among Anabaptist groups in Cuba. With nearly 200 congregations and growing, Brethren in Christ remain intentionally autonomous from the government and value both socialism and some earlier Cuban traditions.

Havana’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, with its Martin Luther King Center next door, has embraced socialism and gender equality more than most churches. Longtime pastor Raúl Suárez is an Anabaptist and served in Cuba’s parliament for many years. Viewing socialism through Martin Luther King’s theology, he says, leads him to see it as far more compatible with the coming reign of God than is capitalism.

What’s next for Christians in Cuba? In April, Miguel Díaz-Canel became president, ending nearly 60 years of Castro family rule and shifting leadership to a younger generation born after the revolution. Díaz-Canel has pledged to continue a socialist agenda, but observers, Christians and otherwise, expect him to build on the reforms started by Raúl Castro after he became acting president in 2006. However, the warming Cuba-U.S. relations that began in 2014 under President Obama have become frosty again under Trump, with possible negative effects domestically, and the ongoing U.S. embargo against Cuba contributes to its poverty.

Despite these struggles, many Cubans embrace the concept of “me for the community” rather than “the community for me”—a model, similar to that of the early Jerusalem church, from which Christians elsewhere in the world have much to learn.