On December 13, 2017, a delegation from the Shanghai CCC&TSPM visited Sociedad Biblica Argentina (Argentine Bible Society; SBA) based in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina.
Some weeks ago, the Amity Printing Company, the world's biggest Bible factory in China, went to Argentina and talked about printing Spanish bibles for Latin America with the SBA, said Secretary Ruben Del Ré, SBA's general secretary.
The Argentinians told the delegation that about 76.5% of the population of the country is Catholic. In recent years, the Protestant church grew rapidly in Argentina, with one in nine of the total population being Protestant. The majority of the Christians were Pentecostals.
Protestant churches account for 9% of the 20,000 churches across the country. Christianity in Argentina faces challenges like poor education and few church leaders being theologically trained.
To solve these problems, the ministry engaged in the translation of the Bible into indigenous languages, printing, distributing, and promoting bibles.
The local church paid special attention to the evangelization among Indian tribes. Ruben shared that it would be good to translate the Bible into the Indian language to help the groups regain confidence. The measure was welcomed by many native tribes.
Moreover, SBA also focused on providing Bible-related training. In cooperation with global theological seminaries, it launched "Teleios", a high level of theological training for church leaders and pastors.
Rev. Shen Xuebin, chairman of the TSPM of Shanghai, hoped for more exchanges between the churches and ministries of the two countries and made an invitation to SBA.
- Translated by Karen Luo
