Protestantism in Cuba - Protestant Schools

Protestant Schools

In the early 20th century, the American Protestants who came to Cuba began to spread their religious and economic ideas through a vast education system that included elementary and secondary schools, Sunday Schools, Bible camps, and seminaries. Besides their desire to evangelize the local Cubans, their goal was to shape Cuban society after the American values that they brought to the schools. In these schools, upper and middle class Cubans were prepared for leadership positions, while lower class citizens were educated to become workers in occupations such as secretaries and housekeepers. Before the Cuban Revolution, these Protestant schools succeeded in training thousands of students with their American ideals. Several Cuban graduates of this school system eventually became leaders in government posts at the time of the revolution.

Despite the political and economic uncertainty the Revolution brought to Cuba, the Cuban Protestant Schools remained stable for a time due to their outside support from U.S. mission agencies. However, as time went on, relationships between Cuba and the U.S.A. became increasingly unstable and Protestant schools and churches depended heavily on the U.S. churches for money, workers, and theological training. As a result of the growing U.S.-Cuban conflict, the Cuban Protestant’s association with the U.S. became a burden to these churches and schools and many of them were forced to close down. At this time, a primary reform of the Revolutionary government was free education for people of any race and age. So, at the same time these once thriving Protestant schools were closed down, education in Cuba was offered freely to the masses for the first time. In contrast to the education provided at the Protestant schools, the Revolutionary schools taught their students with an atheistic ideology.