Thomas Müntzer, in Latin America

Rural Revolt in Mexico: U.S. Intervention and the Domain of Subaltern PoliticsClose Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American RelationsThe Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1930-1945

Liberation Theology in Brazil: Some History, Names and Themes Cláudio Carvalhaes and Fábio Py Liberation Theology is not just one theology among many others. No! Liberation Theology, as we understand it, is a matter of survival, of life and death. It is a place where faith, discourse of God, and real life meet in order to protect and expand the possibilities of life, in the eco‐biodiversity of the planet and in the possibility of justice for the poor. We didn't choose Liberation Theology; we were chosen by it, and it is because of Liberation Theology that we are here today. To take away Liberation Theology is to mute our voices; we become tongue‐tied, inarticulate, dumb. We are among the third generation of liberation theologians in Latin America. We attended Protestant churches, had a more conservative upbringing, and through social resistance and seminary formation, we were introduced to Liberation Theology. Our beginning text was Gustavo Gutierrez, a Catholic theologian, and we struggled to understand the book. But it led to a time of discovery and excitement! Rubem Alves, Richard Shaul, Julio de Santana, Jaci Maraschin, Leonardo Boff, Milton Schwantes, among many others, influenced us during the height of Liberation Theology. Priests and pastors were giving rise to the movement through churches and Base Communities, gaining consciousness about their social situation and how God Was calling them to a new day! Many women engaged in theological work as well and were beginning to shift the map of the theological production. Great theological material was produced, Liberation Theology pulsed everywhere, and socio‐political transformations spread all across Latin America. It is not our task here to give a long historical account of the processes and movements of Liberation Theology in Latin America, but rather to highlight the work of a few Latin American liberation theologians, namely Rubem Alves, Ivone Gebara, Milton Schwantes and Nancy Cardoso. Liberation Theology concerned itself with the poor and in that way engaged the black people of Latin America. But we failed to include black theologians and Liberation Theology as a whole neglected race in their work. We will begin by highlighting the ways in which liberation theologies started in Latin America with a few notes about its major tenets. Then, we will present a small part of the work of these four theologians mentioned above. We will finish with some words about what is left undone. Liberation Theology was not the creation of one theologian. Gustavo Gutierrez did not begin the movement; it was the work of the people, through grassroots movements calling for justice, in collaboration with priests and theologians, that deeply shaped Liberation Theology in Latin America. Moreover, Liberation Theology is best understood not only by looking at published books, but also by looking at the movement of the church. In the 1950s and 1960s, Latin America experienced extensive influence and control by the United States. In the midst of McCarthyism, the United States was afraid that Russia would take over other countries besides Cuba. The CIA supported radical conservative groups seized power in many countries in Central and South America: Chile, Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and so on. The School of the Americas was an ongoing colonizing institution that supported the CIA's desire to take over the Latin American continent. SOA trained local people to kill their own people and promised money and protection for those who cooperated. The massacre in El Salvador, the killing of Oscar Romero and the priests of Universidad Catolica, the military coup in Brazil and Argentina can be explained by the deadly power and influence of the United States in Latin American countries. Liberation Theology came out of the struggle against external domination and socioeconomic oppression. To see the beginning of Liberation Theology in Latin America, we must go to the conferences of CELAM, the Latin America Episcopate Conference of Medellín in Colômbia, where in 1968 the cries of the people in Latin America began to be heard. This was the birth of a movement that, pushed by the Second Vatican Council, connected with the people through base communities. The church expanded into a new movement, with the help of the...

Global problems and the culture of capitalism

The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology

In 1971, Gustavo Gutierrez published his Teologia de la liberaci6n, which was translated into English two years later. The publication of this book marked the birth of the liberation theology movement (albeit one that had been gestating for a decade or more). While many of Gutierrez's ideas were formulated in his time abroad in Europe, and based on lessons from Vatican II, his tome spoke to the reality of Latin American life. His humble upbringing and steadfast commitment to minister to the poor gave him the basis to create Latin America's first indigenous theology. The book was grand in scope, tackling not only important theological issues, but incorporating modern social scientific theories and methodologies to produce a spiritual philosophy grounded in praxis (i.e., day-to-day practice). His words rang loudly throughout the Western hemisphere and created one of the most dynamic grassroots movements the Catholic Church had seen in quite some time. Throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, liberation theology promised to reinvigorate a Catholicism grown ritualistic and moribund over the centuries. While earlier movements had attempted to do the same (e.g., Catholic Action), these were usually controlled by the hierarchy. Liberation theology, and the associated Christian base community movement, offered a more democratic version of Catholic revivalism. Not surprisingly, scholars quickly ran to study this surprising new phenomenon. Prior to the 1 970s, the reigning notion of religion in academia was one of conservatism and declining influence, the fruits of the inevitable process of secularization. Now the role of religion in politics and society had to be rethought. Far from being inimical to progressive ideas, this new theology often showed itself in alliance with revolutionary movements throughout the region. Scholarship on revolutionary movements in Latin America could hardly be done without considering the role that liberation theology was playing-either by providing a new philosophical foundation from which to launch an assault on the ancien regime, or by filling the ranks of revolutionary groups with clergy and lay Catholics. Scholarship on Latin American religion witnessed a golden age during this period. But the liberation theology movement was not easily confined to Latin America. As the articles by Mitchell, Nadeau, and Poethig reveal, liberationist ideas quickly found homes in Asia and Africa. And while the ideas advanced by Gutierrez and his followers seemed best suited for the world, a receptive audience awaited them in the United States and Europe as well. Liberation theology quickly became cosmopolitan. It has now been more than a quarter century since a Teologia de la liberacion was published. Looking back, it is easy to conclude that the movement this book spawned has yet to live up to its great expectations. The mid-1980s witnessed a concerted attempt by the Vatican to reign in some of the more outspoken liberationists, especially those challenging authoritative relations within the Catholic hierarchy. John Paul II distanced himself from the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, which had claimed to be influenced strongly by liberation theology, and publicly chastised high-profile clergy participating in this government. It also became apparent by the late 1 980s that many of the grassroots organizations inspired by liberation theology the Christian base communities did not multiply at the expected rate (see Daudelin and Hewitt 1995).1 The decline of the Soviet model of development and an inability to clearly articulate a third way also slowed liberation theology's momentum. Finally, by 1990 it had become apparent to

This chapter explores the emergence of liberation theology in Latin America in the 1960s and assesses its successes and failures in the next four decades. It emerged from Christian communities, first in Brail and then spread throughout Latin America. This theology is a combination of action and reflection that argues that Christianity should free people rather than oppress them. This action and reflection is based on faith, scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Liberation theology emerged from communities trying to survive in economic, political, ecological, racial and other forms of poverty. I outline the political and economic situations in three Latin American countries where it emerged and coalesced: Brazil, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Brazil is both the richest country but also the one with the largest social gap. It was the locus from where liberation theology emerged and has remained strong. It emerged more slowly in El Salvador and Nicaragua, but played a large role in the political situations. Next, I explore the response of the Roman Catholic Church. By 1990 many in the global North assumed that liberation theology was dead. Socialism and communism were deemed to have failed after the fall of the Berlin Wall as liberationists had often supported socialist economic policies. Furthermore, the Catholic Church condemned liberation theology. However, it is vibrant again in parts of Latin America today. I explore its re-emergence this century. Liberation theology did not die; it moved from its intense focus on the political and economic repression to addressing the wider scope of oppression including issues of race, gender and sexuality among others.

CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY IN LATIN-AMERICA - A BROAD ORIENTATION. The article does not pretend to be a specialist review of liberation theology (LT) in Latin America, but rather to introduce the novice in this field to the most salient points of its manifestation in this region. The following aspects are treated: the social-political development in Latin-America, without which a correct perception of the origins of LT cannot be formed; the position and involvement of the church in the lives of the people in the past and present; a characterization, summary of the important points of critique, and evaluation of one important aspect of LT, viz its inclination towards being revelation and not mere theology. Apart from a select bibliography for the interested reader, divided in primary and secondary sources, a list of the most prominent LT theologians is provided.

This presentation starts from the premise that the destabilizing impact of the events in Chiapas was not confined to the 1994 peasant uprising. Rather, the latter served as a catalyst that helped to accelerate the institutional changes that subsequently took off in Mexico, and led to the electoral defeat of the PRI regime. The breadth of this transformation, and the extent of mass support for political democratization, helped ensure that the peasant rebellion itself was not subjected to direct repression. Instead, channels of dialogue were established between the government and the rebels which, it is argued here, constitutes an unprecedented departure in the history of post-1968 armed movements in Mexico.

Introduction:National Identities and Sociopolitical Changes in Latin America, Antonio Gomez-Moriana and Mercedes F. Duran-Cogan 1. The concept of identity, Jorge Larrain Ibanez 2. Towards the Sociogenic Principle:Fanon, identity, the puzzle of conscious experience, and what it is like to be black, Sylvia Wynter 3. Words and Images. Figurating and Dis-Figurating Identity, Mercedes F. Duran-Cogan 4. From the petit recit to the grand recit: Experiences of subjectivity in modern Spain and the contemporary world, Antonio Gomez-Moriana 5. Latin American silver and the early globalization of world trade, Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giraldez 6. Ethnic identity and the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Jose Alejos Garcia 7. The Indian identity, the existential anguish and the eternal return (El tiempo principia en Xibalba, by Luis de Lion), Tatiana Bubnova 8. Moors or Indians? Stereotype and the crisis of (national) identity in Ignacio Altamirano and Manuel de Jesus Galvan, Isabel de Sena 9. Engendering the Nation, Nationalizing the Sacred:Guadalupismo and the Cinematic (Re)Formation of Mexican Consciousness, Elena Feder 10. The Rhetoric of Pathology:political propaganda and national identity during the military process in Argentina, James R. Cisneros 11. National identity and state ideology in Argentina, Victor Armony 12. Caliban in Aztlan:From the Emergence of Chicano Discourse to the Plural Constitution of New Solidarities, Jose Antonio Gimenez Mico 13. Between Iconography and Demonology:The Faces at the Fiesta of the Senor del Gran Poder, Marcelo Nusenovich 14. Valparaiso School of Architecture Dossier, Various Authors

Drawing on deconstruction, postcolonial theory, cultural studies, and subaltern studies, The Other Side of Popular is as much a reflection on limitations and possibilities for thinking about politics of Latin American culture as it is a study of culture itself. Gareth Williams pays particular attention to close relationship between complex cultural shifts and development of neoliberal nation-state. The modern Latin American nation, he argues, was built upon idea of the people, a citizenry with common interests transcending demographic and cultural differences. As nations have weakened in relation to global economy, this moment—of as basis of nation-building—has passed, causing seismic shifts in relationships between governments and cultural formations. Williams asserts that these changed relationships necessitate rethinking of fundamental concepts such as the popular and the nation. He maintains that perspective of subalternity is vital to this theoretical project because it demands reimagining of connections between critical reason and its objects of analysis. Williams develops his argument through studies of events highlighting Latin America’s uneasy, and often violent, transition to late capitalism over past thirty years. He looks at Chiapas rebellion in Mexico, genocide in El Salvador, Sendero in Peru, Chile’s and Argentina’s transitions to democratic governments, and Latin Americans’ migration northward. Williams also reads film, photography, and literary works, including Ricardo Piglia’s The Absent City and statements of a young Salvadoran woman, daughter of ex- guerrilleros , living in South Central Los Angeles. The Other Side of Popular is an incisive interpretation of Latin American culture and politics over last few decades as well as a thoughtful meditation on state of Latin American cultural studies.

Liberation Theology’s seminal text, Teología de la liberación (1971- A Theology of Liberation), was written by Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian priest and renowned theologian. This article describes Gustavo Gutiérrez's theology of liberation with a Christian theological-humanist study approach. As one of the modern Christian thinkers, Gutiérrez's role in fighting against injustice, oppression, poverty, and the Western colonialist capitalist system in Latin America is enormous. Gutiérrez inspires the Third World Countries to struggle against the stubbornness and greed of arrogant people. He appeared as a propagandist who fueled the spirits of marginalized groups in Latin America in the early 1970s. This article uses a qualitative method with a literature review of the theology of liberation a la Gustavo Gutiérrez. This article shows that Gutiérrez succeeded in building a revolutionary Christian ideology with a foundation of liberation theology to elevate and sustain egalitarianism among human beings. But 'there is no ivory that isn’t cracked', Gutiérrez did hermeneutics that were out of context. The article will also consider and criticize liberation theology in terms of its hermeneutical approach. The author also makes a comparison between liberation theology and Western theology, the mainstream that preceded it.

This is an important book, despite the deceptive and somewhat disingenuous title. Not, as it might seem, a survey of the latest theologies of social change from Latin America, this collection represents rather an attack on such theologies by members of the religious right in the United States. Some of the authors stand close to the seats of power; like Ernest Lefever and his Ethics and Public Policy Center, or Jeane Kirkpatrick, former United States ambassador to the United Nations. Others the editor himself, or Michael Novak and Richard Neuhaus have made a name for themselves as religious apologists for United States business and foreign policy. So, for anyone who wants to study the ideology of the right-wing (Catholic) counterattack on Latin American liberation movements, this is the book to read. The text is divided into three parts. Part i, entitled 'Liberation Theology in America/ is an extended introduction by the editor, full of slanted statements and putdowns. Liberation theology is the result of a feeling of cultural inferiority on the part of Latin Americans (pp 18, 26, 63, etc) and attempts to change the classical orientation of Catholic theology by shifting the emphasis on salvation from the future life to this world. The liberationists are naive because they criticize the United States, but never Cuba, China, or the ussr (pp 41-2, 55, 70-8, etc). Schall argues that liberation theology is ... itself a cause of continued underdevelopment, that its eventual growth and success would institutionalize in Latin America a life of low-level so-

Liberation Theology and Liberation Christianity continue to inspire social movements across Latin America. Following Michel Lowy’s analytical and historical distinction between Liberation Christianity (emerging in the 1950s) and Liberation Theology (emerging in the 1970s), this paper seeks to problematize the historical projects of democracy and human rights, particularly in relation to the praxis of Liberation Christianity and the reflection of Liberation Theology. Liberation Theology emerged across Latin America during a period of dictatorship and called for liberation. It had neither democracy nor human rights as its central historical project, but rather liberation. Furthermore, Liberation Christianity, which includes the legacy of Camilo Torres, now seeks to ‘defend democracy’ and ‘uphold human rights’ in its ongoing struggles despite the fact that the democratic project has clearly failed the majority of Latin Americans. Both redemocratization and ‘pink tide’ governments were not driven by liberation. At the beginning of the first Workers’ Party government in Brazil, Frei Betto – a leading liberation theologian – famously quipped ‘we have won an election, not made a revolution’. In dialogue with Ivan Petrella, this article suggests that Liberation Theology needs to ‘go beyond’ broad narratives of democracy and human rights to re-establish a historical project of liberation linked to what the Brazilian philosopher, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, calls institutional imagination.

This conversation between Peter McLaren and Petar Jandrić brings about some of the most recent and deepest of McLaren’s insights into the relationship between revolutionary critical pedagogy and liberation theology, and outlines the main directions of development of McLaren’s thought during and after Pedagogy of Insurrection. In the conversation, McLaren reveals his personal and theoretical path to liberation theology. He argues for the relevance of liberation theology for contemporary social struggles, links it with social sciences, and addresses some recent critiques of Pedagogy of Insurrection. McLaren identifies the idolatry of money as the central point of convergence between liberation theology and Marxism. Developing this thought further, he asserts that Jesus was a communist. McLaren analyses the revolutionary praxis of liberation theology in Latin America, and concludes that the struggle needs to avoid violence and endure without losing tenderness. He analyzes the international politics of liberation theology and shows that liberation theology was demonized by the US administration because it works for the poor. McLaren then expands experiences from Latin America towards a global ethics of solidarity, criticizes Church positions on various matters, and insists on a critical approach to Church dogmas. He explores theoretical and practical dissonances between Marxism and Christianity, and expands them towards a more general dichotomy between the material and the spiritual. He explores the Christian eschaton – the arrival of the Kingdom of God – and links it to Marx’s prophecy of the future socialist society. Finally, he explores ecumenical opportunities of liberation theology and firmly links it with the arrival of the socialist society.

. This means, in effect, in the way of the Gospel, for it was there that , Gandhi found the ultimate source of his inspiration. Since then others have attempted to follow this way, such as Martin Luther King and Lech Wal'<rsa. On the basis of their experience and the freedom movements which they inspired, we can speak of a of liberation. This has nothing to do with a theology of liberation in the terms of the well-known developments in Latin America, where the attempt is made to justify the use of violence in the struggle for social and political freedom by appealing to the Gospel. It is rather the theology of liberation of which Pope John Paul 11 spoke during the general audience on 21 February 1979 after his return from Mexico: