Revival and Suffering: Life Among the Cuban Methodists
A water tank on top of a church just outside of Havana, Cuba. The statement translates, “Jesus Christ is the answer.”
Empty shelves at a Cuban grocery store.
As I walk down the staircase from my rented room in central Havana, I hear the sound of shattering glass. Through concrete latticework I can see boys throwing bottles against the wall for the sheer joy of watching them smash. Of course, they’d be better off with a soccer ball or baseball, but in Havana everything is in short supply. That is the nature of life here. Even if you have the money to buy what you need, the stores may or may not have it in stock. Cuba’s economy is built on material scarcity. As we saw repeatedly in the twentieth century, communism has not delivered upon its promises. In Cuba, however, the U.S. embargo has made a bad situation much worse.
Bricks without Straw
What is not in short supply in Cuba is the power of God. Over the past few years I’ve spent considerable time with the Methodists of Cuba, either visiting their churches or hosting them when they visit ours. I take seminary students to Havana once a year for a ten-day immersion trip. Most often the students come back transformed. They have encountered God in a new way. They have worshipped with people for whom the power and presence of God are simply expectations. God is not just a concept, but a living reality who moves with power among his people. While United Methodists in the U.S. are deciding how to divide their assets in the midst of a messy fight over human sexuality, the Methodists of Cuba are making disciples of Jesus Christ. And they are doing so in conditions of scarcity that most of us in the United States have never known.
Our most recent trip included a visit to a church plant, which they call a “mission.” It is located in a small house well outside of Havana. The house is more like an apartment, part of a larger concrete building with iron bars over the windows. It is tidy and sparsely furnished. They have no chairs, benches, or musical instruments. Nevertheless each week fifty people meet here to worship in the small living room. A quiet woman in her 60’s tells us about the community and their needs. The church has assembled two soccer teams for kids and offers programs to teach English to children and adults. She and her husband split preaching duties. Their dream for the church is to buy a larger house nearby. Without financial assistance from Americans or other foreigners, however, it will be impossible for them to gather enough money.
A few nights later as we travel to a church for evening worship, our bus begins to overheat. The driver and our pastor go to work trying to fix it, but they don’t have the part they need. We thus continue through the dark streets of Havana. The driver intermittently kills the engine and we coast for a time. He then restarts it long enough for us to gain momentum, and then we return to coasting. He repeats this tedious process for a half an hour or so until we arrive at the church. It is not his first time making bricks without straw.
Like so many churches in Cuba, this one has no air conditioning. It is a warm evening, but the Cubans seem not to mind. This is their normal. My blood, however, has been thickened by too many midwestern winters, and the sanctuary feels like an oven. The worship is loud, exuberant, boisterous…. The Cubans are dancing, shouting, and jumping. Some cry tears of gratitude for the Savior who gave his life for theirs. Others seem overcome by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Their God is alive. They are acutely aware of their dependence on him. They have renounced all other spiritual practices in allegiance to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
A Spiritual Battle
Despite the decades of communist rule in Cuba, the people of this island are intensely religious. This doesn't mean that they’re Christians, though. The most common religion is Santeria, which is rather like a Cuban form of Voodoo. Initiates into Santeria wear white clothing from head to toe and beads around their neck. They are ubiquitous. You see them in every walk of life, on virtually every block of the city. They are in farmhouses, schools, government buildings, and restaurants. Remember, these are just the initiates. Those who have come through the initiation are far more numerous.
One day we drive to an abandoned military base just outside of Havana. The buildings there have since become habitations. They are concrete or steel with open windows and tall weeds growing between them. A small dog naps peacefully in a garden. Nearby a boy is trying to fly a kite while standing on the metallic roof of what looks like a former barracks. A pastoral family lives in one of these buildings. For them it is a mission. Our group of twelve or so cannot fit comfortably inside the house, so we sit on low wooden benches in a small fenced-in area outside the front door. They serve us bananas and coconut water. A herd of goats wanders by, followed eventually by their owner. As sparse as these living conditions are, they are an upgrade from where this pastoral family formerly lived.
Berroa Mission, where Alexiubis and his family serve.
The pastor, Alexiubis, is a convert out of Palo Mayombe, a spiritualist religion akin to Santeria. It is more popular in rural areas, while Santeria dominates in the cities. People from the U.S., formed in the worldview of liberal pluralism, tend to view these religions as syncretistic expressions of indigenous religions, combining elements of Roman Catholicism with elements of African spiritualism that came to the Americas with the trans-Atlantic slave trade. These Methodist missionaries, however, simply view them as demonic. Religions like Santeria and Palo, they argue, involve pacts with spirits, but not the Holy Spirit. Cubans never truly adopted Western secularism. Even many “atheists'' engage in Santeria or other forms of spiritualism. Cubans of many stripes--not just Christians--understand their lives in terms of spiritual warfare. The question is not whether such powers exist. The question is whose side you’re on. Many in the U.S. would call them superstitious. They would call us naive.
Alexiubis gives us the testimony of his conversion. In his former life in Palo, the devil told him that he would make him powerful, but the price would be the life of his son. He happened to live across the street from the Methodist church. Terrified, he told the pastor there what had happened. The pastor told him the only person who could free him was Jesus Christ. That day Alexiubis gave his life to Jesus and has never looked back.
Later in his Christian life, at one point his two young sons had both somehow ingested harmful chemicals at their former home. The doctors said that nothing could be done, but Jesus healed both boys. “Jesus is the only one who saves us,” he says.
One of his primary tasks today is to combat Santeria in his neighborhood. He tells us that the area around the old base is rife with demonic activity. Nearby there is a cemetery for dogs in which ceremonies of various kinds of brujeria—witchcraft—take place. There is also a place nearby called the “square of demons.” Life each day is a spiritual battle, and at stake are the souls of the unconverted.
Life and Death Policies
As you drive into Havana from the airport, there is a sign that reads, “BLOQUE: EL GENOCIDIO MÁS LARGO DE LA HISTORIA.” In English it means, “The Embargo: the longest genocide in history.” Even many Cubans likely consider that message propaganda. The U.S. embargo is not a genocide. It is not an attempt to eliminate a people group. Yet the embargo does carry life-or-death consequences for many Cubans. The scarcity of resources some Americans experienced at the height of the COVID-19 stockpiling (think toilet paper) was just a hint of what Cubans experience every day. In the U.S., this was a temporary inconvenience. In Cuba, it is a way of life. Material resources are scarce, and when they are available, they are often quite expensive.
On one of my visits, a good friend of mine who is a pastor was diagnosed with a kidney infection. He was told he needed antibiotics, but there were none to give. The hospitals in Havana had simply run out of them. One of the members of our team had brought antibiotics with him. As he handed over the packet, my friend looked at him, sweat beading on his feverish forehead, and muttered wearily, “America.”
I was once able to send money through Western Union to help support these churches in Cuba. Now I cannot. The embargo has always made life difficult for the Cuban people, but recently the situation has grown worse. The “maximum pressure” campaign by the U.S. against the Cuban government results in large part from that government’s support of the Maduro regime in Venezuela and human rights violations. No doubt these are serious matters. Here is the problem: the U.S. has imposed an embargo on Cuba in one form or another since 1958. The communist government it was meant to undermine has remained in power. The Castros remained in leadership as long as they were physically able to do so. In fact, the economic pressure we in the U.S. have placed on Cuba has encouraged them to form ongoing relationships with trade partners like Venezuela. Put simply, the embargo has not worked.
I think about my friends in Cuba every day. They have become like family to me. I think about the way they struggle, the spiritual battles they fight, the cultural opposition they endure, and the love and optimism their lives nonetheless exude. Pray for them. If you are able, give money to help them. Pray that the governments of both Cuba and the U.S. will adopt wise and humane policies. Regardless of what governments may do, however, God is on the move in Cuba. He hears the prayers of the faithful, and there are many faithful on this beautiful, troubled, remarkable island. As one of my friends there likes to say, “The best is yet to come.” I believe it, in large part because he believes it, too.
David F. Watson is Lead Editor of Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.
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