Latin America

Abstract This chapter gives an overview of the reception of Jonathan Edwards in Latin America, particularly Brazil. In Brazil, Evangelicals and Pentecostals have especially appropriated Edwards. At first, Edwards was received as a revivalist. Protestant Christians in Brazil in the mid-twentieth century were enamoured with church growth, pietistic spirituality, and revivalism. Biographies of Edwards and his writings on these subjects (especially as they related to the First Great Awakening) were translated into Portuguese and Spanish, serving to introduce Christians to Edwards’s life and thought. More recently, Protestant Christians have begun to appreciate Edwards’s Reformed theology. A growing interest in theological education, evangelical history, and the Reformed faith has led many to Edwards. While these two movements do not account for all of the reception history of Jonathan Edwards in Latin America, they do reveal broad trends about both Latin American Protestantism and the appropriation of Edwards in Latin American contexts.