Argentina: Everyone has a place at the Lord’s table

Rev. Mariela Pereyra, President of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Uruguay and Argentina 

(LWI) - Rev. Mariela Pereyra was elected in April 2024 as president of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church, which includes congregations and communities across Uruguay and Argentina. The church was established through the work of American missionaries in the early 20^th century, seeking to share the gospel and promote bible study among the Spanish-speaking people of that region.  

In recent decades, the severe economic and social problems facing Argentinians have significantly shaped the church, which started reaching out to serve the poorest and most destitute members of society. Missions among the country’s indigenous communities, education, women’s empowerment, inclusion and a strong public voice characterize the work of the church today. 

Ordained in 2002, Pereyra spent many years serving two parishes in Misiones province, located in the far north of Argentina, bordering on Brazil and Paraguay. In 2018, she returned to the capital, Buenos Aires and was elected as vice president of the church four years later. She also serves on the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches. 

Tell us about your family background? 

I grew up in Mar del Plata, a port and popular beach resort in southern Argentina. My mother was a Lutheran and my father was Catholic. Traditionally, my mother did not go to church every Sunday, but my father did. Then, when I was a teenager, he had some issues with his church and started attending my mother’s Lutheran church every week instead, so I grew up with a mixed church background. 

When did you first feel called to serve as a pastor? 

After my confirmation, I became more involved in the church, attending some youth camps and retreats, but it wasn’t until after my graduation from high school that I first experienced the call to ordained ministry. I went to the Instituto Superior Evangélico de Estudios Teológicos (ISEDET) in Buenos Aires, which was the only place to study theology in those days. Sadly, that institute closed in 2016 because of a lack of vocations, so nowadays there is no officially accredited Lutheran seminary in either Argentina or Uruguay and people have to study online. 

When you were a young girl, Argentina was in the grips of a military dictatorship – do you have memories of that era? 

I was very young then, but I grew up in a neighborhood of my city where many of the union leaders lived. There was a large Italian community which had established itself there, working especially in the fishing industry. One day, when I was about 7 or 8, I was taking out the trash with my mum and we saw soldiers taking one of those leaders away. I asked her what was happening and I remember she replied that it was a very sad time for our country.  

During that era, the seminary in Buenos Aires offered support for people being persecuted by the military, providing a place to hide and helping them to escape from the country. The Protestant churches in Argentina are small, but they responded to the call to unify their voices in the ecumenical movement for the defense of human rights, demanding to know what happened to the people who had disappeared. 

That call, that way of holding the various governments accountable, is still present and strong in our church. Today, more than forty percent of people in Argentina are living below the poverty line and the church is calling for a just distribution of national income, pointing to the right of all people to have bread to eat. 

Tell us a bit about your church? 

We are a strongly missionary church, born out of the work of missionaries from the United States. Today we number 29 congregations and 5 mission stations. Our main body of clergy includes 18 pastors, 2 deacons and 5 special ministries, both women and men, plus some retired pastors who help in caring for members of their communities. Among our characteristics is a strong commitment to human rights, to diaconal service and to being an inclusive church. This means that everyone has a place at the table of the Lord in my church. 

What do you see as your priorities in leading this church? 

I have a four-year term as president, so it is a temporary role, but I think it is important to maintain this dialogue between the plurality and unity of the various Christian churches in our countries. There are different tasks for those in leadership: sometimes we have to take the first step and speak out, making a public statement on gender justice or environmental justice for example.  

At the same time, it is important for us to be close to people who are suffering because of hate speech and really polarized opinions, even within the church. We need to go back and build respect, trust and empathy, to put ourselves in others’ shoes. People say that the church must not get involved in politics, and I agree if we are talking about political parties, but we must be present in public life, helping to promote healing and dialogue between people.  

How strong are your relations with other churches in your countries today? 

We have a really good dialogue, especially in Argentina and Uruguay, with the Catholics and with other historical Pentecostal churches. We share concern about urgent topics like climate change and we continue to ask about the people who were ‘disappeared’ by the military regime. 

In Argentina we also have many displaced people who have been thrown off their land in the north where there are important lithium reserves. These are indigenous people who have no land title, so the government says they don’t own the land or its resources, but it is the government who needs to give them the documents. They are taken away by violence, so our ecumenical movement works to accompany them to stop these displacements. 

You are also concerned about a regression in women’s rights, aren’t you? 

Yes, because we are going backwards and the number of violent incidents against women and girls has been growing since the pandemic. The church’s role in accompanying these survivors is a crucial task for us and for other churches too. We have been working on a protocol for protection against violence, with the aim of implementing it in all churches. Most people agree that this is necessary, but some find excuses to avoid implementation. 

For women pastors, there has also been a sense of regression in our churches, even though women’s ministry is a reality here in our region. The context of growing fundamentalism in society is having an impact and it is important to share, support and sustain each other through the ongoing challenges. 

What does it mean for you and your church to be a part of the global communion of churches? 

It is very important for us. Together with the rest of the communion, we are looking ahead and preparing for the 500^th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession in 2030. We have a Latin American women’s network of theologians, pastors and lay people, who have begun to discuss the Confession through a Latin American hermeneutic, including gender and community perspectives. We have planned five meetings on five different topics, building up strong theological and contextual tools to explore what this document means for us today. 

Here in Latin America, the majority of academic church bodies are led by men with very traditional views and values. Our network is here to insist that we also have a place at the table to discuss and share our perspectives. We want to say that this anniversary is not just for the academics, but it is really for all of the people in our churches.