Linda de Márquez, president of the Initiative for the Venezuelan Family since 2020, has walked a razor’s edge for years. Representing a religious minority — Venezuelan evangelicals — she has defended pre-state institutions and stood against the cultural shift entailed by the advancement of gender ideology. She did so in the face of left-wing officials in power, left-wing activists claiming to be independent, and opponents of Chavismo alike.

A native of Maracaibo, she was born into a pastoral family. However, she places her personal encounter with God at age 28, amidst a deeply intense personal experience. Already married, she and her husband endured the pain of being medically declared infertile; yet, at age 41, her first child was born, followed by her second daughter at 45. “My two miracles,” she calls them.

As her family grew, so too did her social impact. In 2023, a left-wing activist complained to El País about the influence that figures like De Márquez wielded within civil society, calling upon the Chavista regime to establish “more inclusive schools” — as she put it — ”so that young people are not limited to following the worldviews of their parents and grandparents.” For the Left, the influence of the family constituted an obstacle to the advancement of gender ideology.

By that time, Nicolás Maduro had already adopted “inclusive language” in his speeches; moreover, since October 2020, he had urged Chavista candidates for the National Assembly to debate the redefinition of marriage. “I will leave that task to them,” he said. Now, Delcy Rodríguez has once again made the same promise, in early May 2026.

Here is Part 1 of my interview with Linda.

I understand that you have worked in the field of foreign relations and public service since before the Chavista era.

I joined the Foreign Service in 1993, at the Consulate of Venezuela in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and I dedicated 12 years to undertaking various responsibilities within the consular sphere. I served as a Commercial Attaché, promoting Venezuela’s exportable goods and services through business roundtables and trade missions.

In 2000, I coordinated the large-scale operation to ship the humanitarian aid that the people of Puerto Rico sent to the state of Vargas, Venezuela, following the events of December 1999.

In 2005, I returned to the Internal Service of Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was initially assigned to the Diplomatic Academy to pursue a Master’s degree in Foreign Policy. I then moved to the Vice-Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the African Continent, where I traveled on multiple occasions to prepare for the Second South America-Africa Summit.

Subsequently, I applied for retirement; however, to this day, it has not been granted. They refuse to recognize my 12 years of service at the Consulate of Venezuela in Puerto Rico.

I sought to retire because I could no longer bear the things that were taking place; furthermore — as this coincided with the time God blessed me with my children — I wanted to dedicate myself full-time to my family and to my ministry within the church.

Currently, I do not hold any official position. My last role was as an Advisor to the Director of Religious Affairs, serving on a special assignment commission within the Ministry of Interior and Justice.

In your experience, how did the evangelical church navigate the political and social landscape during the decades preceding the rise of the dictator Hugo Chávez, and how has it done so in more recent times?

Prior to the 2000s, the Catholic Church played the leading role in religious matters. Given the signing of the two Concordats with the Holy See — and the fact that all of Venezuela’s presidents had been Catholic (including members of Opus Dei, such as Rafael Caldera) — the Venezuelan State’s relationship was almost exclusively with that institution.

The evangelical church experienced a certain degree of discrimination. It was subjected to stricter requirements than other denominations when registering churches. Furthermore, it was not permitted to operate tertiary-level educational institutions accredited and recognized by the competent Higher Education authorities; instead, these institutions had to be registered with the Directorate of Religious Affairs within the Ministry of the Interior and Justice — an agency that holds no jurisdiction over educational matters. Likewise, the question regarding religious affiliation was removed from the National Population and Housing Census to prevent the decline in the number of Catholics — and the rapid growth of evangelicals — from becoming evident.

The variable concerning religious affiliation had been systematically included in every population census from the very first one in 1873 up until the 1961 census. Following that year, it began to be gradually omitted until it disappeared completely — a process that coincided with the signing of the final Concordat with the Vatican in 1964. During this period, the Venezuelan State regarded religion as an indispensable demographic and civil identity marker for characterizing the population. The omission of this variable began in 1971, and it was never subsequently reinstated in the censuses conducted in 1981, 1990, 2001, 2011, or 2021.

Subsequently, Chávez followed the Cuban model of engaging with certain churches, granting some existing organizations a prominent role — and even direct financial resources.

Within the Body of Christ, a division emerged along political lines, pitting “Chavista” churches against “opposition” churches.

What is the current outlook for the church following the operation to capture Maduro on January 3? Has there been any palpable shift in the State’s stance?

The division within the church persists. It was exacerbated by the engagement that certain organizations pursued with the regime — an engagement that conveyed a misleading message to Venezuelan society and the world: one suggesting that the Christian church as a whole supported the regime, when, in reality, it was merely a specific segment of the leadership — a group that, for the most part, was simply receiving perks and financial aid.

The church’s legal status remains unchanged. In this regard, the conditions have remained exactly as they were even before Chávez came to power; the only difference is that church registration is now handled online, yet they continue to be recognized as “Civil Associations” rather than as “churches.”

The close ties between a faction of the leadership and the government have yielded no benefits for the church as an institution, but rather for those individuals who have lent themselves to the government’s agenda.

The organization Medianálisis claims that during a demonstration involving hundreds of people — which you led in July 2023 to protest against the curriculum on Comprehensive Sexual Education outside the Chavista Ministry of Education — you were granted “a privilege typically reserved for demonstrations aligned with the ruling party.” Is this true?

The claim made by Medianálisis is completely false. However, I understand their perspective; by that time, people were generally afraid to demonstrate, but the Lord gave us the instruction to do so, and we obeyed. On that day, we gathered simultaneously — at the exact same time and on the same day — at the Ministry of Education here in Caracas, as well as at the Regional Education Offices across every state in Venezuela. We submitted the very same document — a document regarding which, to this day, we have yet to receive an official response.