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In 1992, the ruling Communist Party changed the state constitution to refer to Cuba no longer as "atheist" but only "secularist." In 1998, the late Pope John Paul II visited Cuba, raising expectations of new religious tolerance.

Cuban evangelicals told CT that the economic depression and concurrent revival has fed the spiritual hunger of many Cubans, largely nominally Roman Catholic. Dramatically higher attendance at established worship services and explosive growth of new casas cultos ("house churches") are two impossible-to-ignore signs of the vibrancy of Cuban Christianity today. The Assemblies of God, Cuba's largest Protestant group at 3,000 churches (up from 90 in the previous decade), for years tracked new congregations on a large wall map at their headquarters. But when growth exploded, they stopped adding red dots because it became impossible to display all the new churches on a single map.

The Eastern Baptists, Cuba's second-largest Protestant denomination and historically linked to the American Baptists, have grown from 6,000 adult members in 120 congregations in the 1990s to 27,800 adult members in 1,200 congregations. Its 3,100 baptisms in 2008 were the highest number in the denomination's 100-year history. Methodists, Western Baptists, and Los Pinos Nuevos, a leading indigenous denomination, have also enjoyed significant growth.

Cuban Protestants represent 4 to 6 percent of the island's population (between 450,000 and 700,000 people). Growth has been most robust in urban areas among denominations actively planting casas cultos, legalized in the 1990s in response to a surge in attendance at established houses of worship.

For Palm Sunday, CT traveled to a Havana suburb for worship at a casa culto. The new believers, mostly elderly women, squeezed themselves into the living room of a narrow cement house. This suburb has many followers of Santeria, a syncretistic Afro-Caribbean religion that at one time included this home's owner, who was a priest-in-training. In the entryway of the home is a stripped altar, now adorned with a simple pot of purple flowers. (Home altars are central to Santeria practice.) The owner came to Christian faith after witnessing his wife's baptism.

The group is only 13 strong, but its members' voices resound off the pale blue walls as they sing "Somos el Pueblo de Dios" ("We are the people of God") from manila folders. They close in prayer, mostly for estranged family members. Ending the service, they read aloud promises of God, many from the Book of Isaiah, out of a small wooden box of cards.

The mid-30s pastor emphasizes empowerment. "This is your job, to go and talk to your neighbors and bring them to church until all Cuba is for Christ," he says. "Remember: The vision of our group is to multiply and divide. Right now we are small, but we will multiply."

Later on Palm Sunday and across town, the afternoon service of Alcance Victoria offers an arresting example of this kind of believer multiplication. In the hours before and after the service, a multiracial mix of youth arrives in waves as public buses pass by, and eventually 250 pack out the pink sanctuary. The towering charismatic pastor frequently towels off his head as he preaches on the "si se puede" ("yes, it can be done") power of the gospel to change lives.

The crowd bursts into enthusiastic handclapping for the salsa-flavored worship song "Gozo en Tu Presencia" ("Joy in Your Presence"), and jumps in unison to a resounding Cuban rendition of "I'm Trading My Sorrows." Obeda and Manuelito, with fists pumping in the air and faces bursting in smiles, have clearly done just that.

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July 2009, Vol. 53, No. 7, Page 20