Miguez reflects on Latin American Protestantism, considering the liberal, evangelical, and pentecosal facets, and then explores theologically the tasks of unity and mission still before Latin American Protestant churches.
Although church historians often call the 19th century the Great Century of Protestant mission, for Latin America it was the 20th century that was the great century of Protestant growth and expansion. The 20th century witnessed vast societal changes and the realization of systemic poverty and injustice as well as the exponential growth, pentecostalization, and diversification of Latin American Protestantism. Latin American Protestant Theology emerged during this century of change. This text provides an introduction to Latin American Protestant Theology by engaging its dominant theological streams (Liberal, Evangelical, and Pentecostal) and how they understand themselves through the lens of mission. The text offers both a critique of the Christendom cartography that is dominant in Latin American Protestant Theology as well as suggestions for how to move towards a transformative theology of mission. The primary intention of this text is to offer an informed outline and analysis of the theological landscape of Latin American Protestantism. The secondary intention of this book is to note the contributions as well as deficiencies of the streams of LAPT in the hope to signal a possible path towards the development of an integral, transformative, contextual, and decolonial theological voice.
Latino Protestantism is growing rapidly in the United States. Researchers estimate that by 2030 half of all Latinos in America will be Protestant. This remarkable growth is not just about numbers. The rise of Latino Protestants will impact the changing nature of American politics, economics, and religion. Latino Protestants in America takes readers inside the numbers to highlight the many reasons Latino Protestants are growing as well as the diversity of this group. The book brings together the best existing scholarship on this group with original research to offer a nuanced picture of Latino Protestants in America, from worship practices to political engagement. The narrative helps readers move beyond misconceptions about Latino religion and offers a window into the diverse ways that religion plays out in real life. Latino Protestants in America is an essential resource for anyone interested in the beliefs and practices of this group, as well as the implications for its growth and areas for further study.
Winner of the 2013 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award Christianity in Latin America provides a complete overview of more than 500 years of the history of Christianity in the ‘New World’. This book specifically focuses on conquest, exploitation of slave- and forced labor, mission, the formation of the Catholic Church after the council of Trent, Inquisition, popular religiosity, and postcolonial state formation. Attention is also given to the emergence of Protestant immigrant and mission churches, modern forms of exploitation of indigenous and Afro-American workers, Catholic-Protestant antagonisms from the beginning of ecumenism, liberation theology, the proliferation of Pentecostal churches, and the military dictatorships in the second half of the 20th Century. The inclusion of German research in this book is an important asset to the Anglo-American research area, in which information is disclosed that was previously unavailable in English. This book will present the reader with required handbook material on the history of Christianity on the South American continent, based on a tremendous breadth of literature. During his years as Technical Director in Central America, the author studied Mesoamerican Indian Cultures as well as the social conditions of the impoverished sectors of the population. This book is a compilation of the author’s extensive research while a lecturer of church history at the Theological Faculty of São Leopoldo (Brazil), as well as during visits to nearly all countries of Latin America, and as a visiting professor in Portugal, Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba, Argentine and Peru. Thorough research was also completed while lecturing at the University of Cologne (Germany) on Iberian and Latin American History, as well as during his term as professorial chair of Richard Konetzke and Günter Kahle. This publication is an amalgamation of the knowledge and expertise the author gained during research from his entire career.
Latin America has long been strongly identified with the Roman Catholic Church. Yet the face of religion is changing in the region, as is evidenced by new landmarks that now appear on the social and geographic landscape. To date, most books on major religions in Latin America are specific to one religion only, and do not offer a comparative analysis. On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Religion in Modern Latin America not only examines the region's religious mÈlange, but also gives equal coverage to other religious variations. The nine articles in this volume examine the variety of religious expression in Latin America, focusing upon Catholicism, popular Indian and African religious forms, and new elements such as Protestantism and Mormonism. Offering a comprehensive focus on one of the most prevalent social institutions in Latin American society, On Earth as It Is in Heaven is an excellent text for courses in Latin American history, religion, anthropology, sociology, and political science.
Combining historical and ethnographic research methods, along with a thorough review of existing literature on the study of Latin American Christianity, New Faces of God in Latin America addresses the important question of how global religion and local culture interact, situating the experience of Latin American Christianity in the broader conversations in the field of world Christianity, particularly with respect to the growing understanding of Christianity as a non-Western religion. Through case studies of different Pentecostal experiences in Latin America, Virginia Garrard explores cross-pollination and interaction with indigenous religions and cultures, finding widely varied responses to the material and spiritual needs of Latin Americans. The author locates Latin American religious experience within a field known as the "history of non-Western Christianity." This focuses on the experience, perceptions, and adaptations of those who adopt Christianity outside the context of Western missionary or other colonizing projects. The book engages with the intersection of culture and spirit-filled religion, with an eye to how those interactions help frame an alternative religious modernity. Throughout the book, the author uses culture as both a heuristic lens and as a variable within the equation. She argues that culture helps us understand how people engage with and reconfigure global religious flows within their own imaginations and for their own parochial uses.
The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America covers religious history in Latin America from pre-Conquest times until the present. This publication is important; first, because of the historical and contemporary centrality of religion in the life of Latin America; second, for the rapid process of religious change which the region is undergoing; and third, for the region's religious distinctiveness in global comparative terms, which contributes to its importance for debates over religion, globalization, and modernity. Reflecting recent currents of scholarship, this volume addresses the breadth of Latin American religion, including religions of the African diaspora, indigenous spiritual expressions, non-Christian traditions, new religious movements, alternative spiritualities, and secularizing tendencies.
Predominantly Catholic for centuries, Latin America is still largely Catholic today, but the religious continuity in the region masks great changes that have taken place in the past five decades. In fact, it would be fair to say that Latin American Christianity has been transformed definitively in the years since the Second Vatican Council. Religious change has not been obvious because its transformation has not been the sudden and massive growth of a new religion, as in Africa and Asia. It has been rather a simultaneous revitalization and fragmentation that threatened, awakened, and ultimately brought to a greater maturity a dormant and parochial Christianity. New challenges from modernity, especially in the form of Protestantism and Marxism, ultimately brought forth new life. In The Rebirth of Latin American Christianity, Todd Hartch examines the changes that have swept across Latin America in the last fifty years, and situates them in the context of the growth of Christianity in the global South.
This issue of the Journal of Latin American Theology addresses several themes: we continue our up-to-date analysis of Christianity in each country in Latin America; we examine how a Christian community in Central America is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic; and we celebrate the life and ministry of Juan Stam, a giant of a man and in uential member of the FTL who passed into the presence of the Lord on October 16, 2020. Leopoldo Cervantes-Ortiz reviews Juan Stam’s more than seven decades of teaching, writing, and mentorship while Stam’s daughter and editor Rebeca Stam offers a more intimate look at his later life. Luis Carlos Marrero Chasbar helps us understand the complex interplay of the varieties of Christianity in Cuba, then David López discusses how religious persecution has shaped Protestant involvement in the current political arena in Colombia. Tomás Gutiérrez describes the evangelical church in Peru with an eye toward the impact of the coronavirus in the country, and Heidi Michelson and the sisters and brothers of Casa Adobe in Costa Rica share how they walk with God and serve their neighbors in the midst of the pandemic. This volume closes with two samples of theopoetry that re ect on different aspects of the Christian faith in quarantine and a book review of David Kirkpatrick’s A Gospel for the Poor.
By 2025, Latin America's population of observant Christians will be the largest in the world. Nonetheless, studies examining the exponential growth of global Christianity tend to overlook this region, focusing instead on Africa and Asia. Research on Christianity in Latin America provides a core point of departure for understanding the growth and development of Christianity in the "Global South." In The Oxford Handbook of Latin American Christianity an interdisciplinary contingent of scholars examines Latin American Christianity in all of its manifestations from the colonial to the contemporary period. The essays here provide an accessible background to understanding Christianity in Latin America. Spanning the era from indigenous and African-descendant people's conversion to and transformation of Catholicism during the colonial period through the advent of Liberation Theology in the 1960s and conversion to Pentecostalism and Charismatic Catholicism, The Oxford Handbook of Latin American Christianity is the most complete introduction to the history and trajectory of this important area of modern Christianity.