Urban Church, Global City 1: Stopover in Santiago

9/30

Pastor Fred at the Community Church

Arriving in Santiago, it’s so cold and wet it could be Copenhagen. And it’s over a week into spring already….I’m greeted by an old urban ministry colleague, Fred Milligan, a longtime Presbyterian Health Education and Welfare member and one of the founders of the  Urban Presbyterian Pastors Association.  The random circumstances of a layover day on the way to Buenos Aires led to my discovery that Fred is now the pastor of the English language community church in the Providencia District of Santiago.

Even on a rainy Saturday the traffic is heavy on the way into the city. With its highways and high rise buildings, Santiago has the look and feel of a modern global city. 

The church itself has interesting roots. Although Great Britain had limited success in taking South America into its Empire, it did its best to involve itself where it could.  Both independent immigrants and business interests grew rapidly in the 19th century and British interests were responsible for much of Chile’s infrastructure. Today as many as 700000 Chileans may be of British descent.

And so the walls of the once Anglican church are filled with memorials to those who gave their lives in service to the crown in various wars.

Enemies embrace as Christ rises above the battle

Today, the church serves not only native English speakers but those from Santiago’s global community like Japan and India and other places where Spanish is not spoken and English is the lingua franca. 

Sanctuary cross of raw native olive wood

We share pizza, more Italian than American, and a glass of Chilean wine and talk about current Chile reality. With its nearing 6 million residents, Santiago is closing in on Rio, currently  the 4th largest city on the continent. Despite a season of economic setbacks, Providencia's neighboring community of Las Condes  still shows the shimmering glass and steel skyscrapers that led to its nickname of Sanhattan. 

Like other cities, refugees and migrants contribute to the reality, but come mainly from other South American countries, increasingly, for example from troubled Venezuela. There has been the beginning of the presence of refugees from Africa and the Middle East. And a fast growing presence of Haitians. 

Even with the return of democracy, as in other global cities, the income disparity between rich and poor continues to grow exponentially. Like Argentina, Chile all but eliminated its indigenous population. But Fred talks about the continued resistance of the Mapuche people of the south. They have never stopped resisting  and have shown undaunted resilience  over centuries. (I will learn more about this in Argentina…)…

We finish the day with jazz at the Thelonius Club. 

At Thelonius

And a  Pisco sour. Chileans and Peruvians argue about Pisco like Israelis and Palestinians over hummus. My entry into the world of the church in the city in the global south has begun. Tomorrow to Buenos Aires….