Sandinistas vs. Christians, again

It feels just like the 1980s, at least in Nicaragua. The Sandinista National Liberation Front shot its way to power in 1979 and then erected a Soviet-backed Marxist dictatorship under Daniel Ortega, which persecuted many churches. Today, the Sandinista regime—still under Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo—continues to persecute churches. The regime already torments the Roman Catholic Church, and in August it closed 1,500 non-governmental organizations, including scores of Protestant groups, and in many cases, seized property.

As of 2020, nearly 40 percent of Nicaraguans are evangelical, while 45 percent are Catholic.

Since the 2018 anti-regime protests, 250 Catholic clergy and other leaders, including three bishops, were expelled or pressured to flee. The Catholic Church, as in the 1980s, has been outspoken against the Sandinista’s human rights abuses, while evangelicals have been more muted. Perhaps that will now change.

The latest persecutions feel like déjà vu. Many progressive Christians rejoiced in 1979 when the Sandinistas overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza. The Sandinistas ostensibly were the vanguard of socialist liberation in Central America under the teaching of liberation theology, which attempts to combine Marxism with Christianity. Many American Catholics and Protestants flocked to Nicaragua in the 1980s expecting to see God’s kingdom unfold before them. Some fellow believers in Nicaragua agreed. Four Catholic priests served prominently in the Sandinista regime, including Minister of Culture Ernesto Cardenal.

In 1983, Pope John Paul II famously admonished Cardenal at an airport welcome ceremony in Managua. Cardenal knelt before the pope, who shook his finger at him as the world watched. The pope demanded that the four priests resign from their government roles, but they refused, which resulted in their effective defrocking. Cardenal was restored to priestly duties by Pope Francis not long before his death at age 95 in 2020. Those four priests, along with many others, thought the Sandinistas were incarnating the gospel in society despite their persecution of regime opponents.

My organization, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, arose in 1981, created by Christian thinkers in the United States such as theologian Carl Henry in response to Christian support for Marxist regimes and movements like the Sandinistas. My activism to reform the United Methodist Church began in the late 1980s when I was horrified by the denomination’s support for the Sandinistas. During the 1980s, the Reagan administration controversially backed the Contras, a military insurgency group that opposed the Sandinistas.

International pressure eventually forced the Sandinistas to submit to fair elections in 1990, and they lost. But Ortega and his cohorts persisted. In 2006, he returned to power as president with 38 percent of the vote. Authoritarians, once elected, will not abandon power voluntarily. The Sandinistas have been dismantling Nicaragua’s democracy, and its economy, for 18 years, with no signs of relenting. At first, they made peace with Christians, adopting social conservatism and enacting perhaps the world’s strictest pro-life law. But the Catholic Church and many others were not willing to remain silent amid worsening oppression.

In 2023, Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison and stripped of his citizenship for criticizing the regime’s actions, including its closure of Catholic radio stations. Not long after this, a journalist was jailed for broadcasting an Easter procession (outdoor religious services are banned). Another bishop and priests who publicly prayed for Bishop Álvarez were also jailed. In October 2023, Nicaragua expelled 10 Catholic priests to the Vatican. The Sandinistas in 2023 also closed Catholic charities, such as Caritas, and schools like the Catholic University of John Paul II and the Catholic Autonomous Christian University of Nicaragua. The regime also seized assets. In January, Bishop Álvarez and 18 other priests were released and expelled to the Vatican.

Eleven Protestant pastors were arrested in December 2023 and freed earlier this month through a deal with the United States. This preceded harassment of the Indigenous Moravian Church and the closure of numerous evangelical ministries last year, including the Verbo Christian Missionary Association, a relief group, and the Evangelical Nicaraguan University Martin Luther King Jr. Since the closure in August of 1,500 church and civil society groups, the Sandinistas have suspended the legal status of 169 more, including 86 Christian groups such as the Nicaraguan Evangelical Alliance, the Episcopal Church, and First Baptist Church of Managua.

Some Nicaraguan Protestant groups, including the Baptist Convention and the Pentecostal Conference of the Assemblies of God, publicly defend the Sandinistas, saying evangelism is not prohibited. Other Nicaraguan evangelicals have criticized the regime. Americans should sympathize with these critics and their precarious situation.

Tyrants always fear churches as sources of transcendent authority beyond their reach. Nicaragua’s churches will endure and outlive the corrupt elderly dictatorial couple who despotically rule the country through their misnamed Sandinista National Liberation Front.