Pastor Arturo Laguna leads a church in Phoenix of about 100 followers, mostly immigrants. He says his job as a pastor gets complicated come election season.

Laguna’s church, Casa de Adoracion, is located in Arizona; It is one of seven closely watched states that could decide the next president. It is also a small sample of the larger Latino Evangelical Christian community in the United States.

The soft-spoken Laguna says voting is “not an intellectual issue” for members of his congregation.

“It’s a matter of faith and spirituality,” he said. “We are going through a complicated time because on the one hand we are against abortion, and on the other hand we are concerned about the strident rhetoric around immigration and immigration reform. This is a difficult choice.”

This is not a new dilemma for Latino evangelicals, whose numbers are growing even as mainstream white Protestant denominations dwindle. Latino Evangelicals are an influential voting bloc. Both parties have tried to appeal to them in the past two election cycles — neither with significant success, according to faith and community leaders.

A. 2022 Pew Research Center survey It showed that 15% of Latinos in the U.S. identify as Evangelical Protestants. They are the fastest growing group of all American Evangelicals. About half of Latino evangelicals identify as Republicans or right-leaning independents, while 44% identify as Democrats or left-leaning independents.

While U.S. Latinos generally prefer Democratic candidates, the majority of Latino Evangelicals supported Donald Trump in 2020. Nearly six in 10 Latino evangelical voters supported Trump in 2020, while four in 10 evangelical voters supported Biden, according to AP Votecast.

A Row questionnaire The report, released last month, showed that nearly two-thirds of Latino Protestants plan to support Trump this year, while nearly two-thirds of Hispanic Catholics and religiously unaffiliated Hispanics said they support Vice President Kamala Harris.

Agustin Quiles, president and founder of Mission Talk, a Florida-based Latino Christian social justice organization, says conflicting priorities have left some Latino evangelicals feeling politically homeless. Some are torn between their conservative views on social issues like abortion and their desire to see. migration and criminal justice reform, he said.

Quiles added that although many people are disturbed by Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, Democrats still haven’t figured out how to engage in dialogue with society on issues like abortion.

“So there’s a lot of silence among Latino evangelicals right now,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they won’t vote. There’s just a lot of discontent.”

Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, a scholar at the Hispanic Theological Association, said that to understand Latino Evangelicals, it is important to understand their origins. He said the word “Evangelico” belongs to Protestants or non-Catholics and covers a wide range of churches, cultures and traditions.

“When immigrants come here and have to rebuild themselves, Protestant, Pentecostal and mainline churches become spaces where people create a new sense of community and family,” Conde-Frazier said. “People are trying to understand what life should be like in this country.”

With white Protestantism in decline and because of different mainline denominations vying for the loyalty of those communities, second-generation Latino Christians have become more part of the dominant culture, often embracing the enthusiasm of the white evangelical church, he said.

“Latino churches began to align with (white conservative) evangelical churches in the United States and move away from their ‘evangelico’ roots to gain a sense of power and acceptance,” Conde-Frazier said. Now, he added, some Latino evangelicals are increasingly at odds with their white counterparts for being pro-immigration.

Quiles says that in white evangelical churches, where the number of Latinos, including undocumented immigrants, is growing, there is a noticeable disparity between what is said in the pulpit and how those in the pews perceive it.

“Just because a pastor pushes the anti-immigrant agenda doesn’t mean members accept it,” he said. “They selectively get what they want from the teacher.”

The Rev. Juan Garcia, who leads the 100-person Hispanic pastorate at First Baptist Church in Newport News, Virginia, said the word “evangelico” represents the Bible to him. He says he feels tainted by the “Evangelical” label because of his allegiance to a single political party.

“Jesus is not a Democrat or a Republican,” he said. “Some think Christian values ​​are represented by the Republican party, others think some values ​​are represented by the Democrats. But neither party is essentially Christian.”

Garcia, too, feels this sense of political homelessness.

“I have a candidate I can vote for, but there is no political party I want to be a member of,” he said. “The most important value we must live by as Christians is love; love our neighbors, the poor, those fleeing persecution.”

Garcia said he has his own “opinions and tendencies” but does not view the candidate he supports as flawless. He warns his flock: “If one is anti-Christ, the other is not Christ.”

The Rev. Jacqueline Tavarez, pastor of the Pentecostal Church of God in Raleigh, North Carolina, says her diverse congregation pays more attention to the values ​​a political party represents rather than the face or voice of the party.

“Our community doesn’t care about politics,” he said. “They care about laws that impact our communities in terms of jobs, opportunity and education. They also see abortion and transgender laws as an attack on family values. They don’t see Trump or (Harris) on the ballot, they don’t see what the party supports and how the community will fare under a candidate .”

Politics are not typically integrated into the life of the Latino evangelical church, said the Rev. Lori Tapia, an Arizona-based national pastor and president of Obra Hispana, Disciples of Jesus. Unlike white evangelical congregations, political participation occurs more organically, he said.

“The compassion piece here is always stronger, and there is a desire to see leaders who will prioritize compassionate politics,” Tapia said. “There is also frustration about how slow progress has been on critical issues. Anyone can tell a story or a political campaign. So where does this show up in the lives of people who are struggling?”

Bishop Angel Marcial, who leads the Church of God, which oversees more than 15,000 churches, says some of his congregations’ main issues include health education, public safety and housing.

“Voting gets you respect in this country and brings opportunities for marginalized communities,” he said. “As pastors, we don’t tell people who to vote for, but we tell them which platforms best align with the values ​​of the church and the needs of our communities.”

John P. Tuman, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, observes that Latino evangelicals who attend larger evangelical churches in Las Vegas that hold services in English and Spanish tend to gravitate towards conservatism. However, there will likely be more diverse political views in communities that form their own congregations and conduct services in Spanish and Otomi, an indigenous language in Mexico.

“Historically, they tend to favor immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship, among other elements of the social justice message that resonates more with Democratic candidates,” he said.

Nevada is also a major change state.

Pastor Willie Pagan, who leads the 700-seat Iglesia de Dios of the Church of God in North Las Vegas, said the economy is the most important issue for his congregation.

“Yes, people are worried about immigration, but those who are already here want the economy to be stable,” he said. “They see homelessness and crime increasing in Las Vegas. “Our church was in a tough neighborhood that had gotten tougher lately.”

Pagan said some in his congregation believe they are better off financially and more secure during the Trump administration and want to vote Republican to preserve their conservative religious values. But there are also those who fear that they or their loved ones will be deported, he said.

“The struggle is real.”

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