The Latin American Bullring: US Evangelicals and the Reception of Anti-Protestant Violence from Cold War Colombia

In the shadow of Cuban Revolution, American Baptist preacher Billy Graham and US President John F. Kennedy barnstormed South America through overlapping tours in 1961 1962. Kennedy's presidency has often been presented as an intermission drama evangelical political power, but grassroots activism provides new angles for analysis at intersection Latin America. While claiming apolitical stance, worked alongside State Department, planting spiritual seeds on tilled ground foreign policy. – Protestant leaders orbiting him curated acts violence, painting a picture persecution watching public. This narrative employed violence to draw lines worldwide affiliation obligation. evangelicals placed themselves custodians America's most sacred values home abroad, responsible upholding democratic values, including religious tolerance, rule law, anticommunism. Graham's tactics created entangled relationship with Kennedy, where arose metaphorical matador, fighting persecuted Christians. Here, could flex their growing muscle, while operating imagined minority community. Narratives, discourses, representations circulated transnationally acquired differing meanings depending interests those mobilizing them.