When speaking about question of religious coexistence in five hundred years of Americas, perhaps it is best to start from my own religious identity: I am a Protestant from Methodist Church. But, if intention is to study Americas, then it is better to start from my own cultural identity and to propose a reflection starting from Latin America, Latin American protestantism. Another possibility would be to articulate an analysis that grows out of work and of an ecumenical spirituality that is deeply rooted in popular struggles in Latin American continent. However, what I need and want to do is to construct my remarks starting from my identity as a woman. Latin American. Protestant. A feminist position that cuts through and puts into perspective religious and cultural identity and fidelity, creating a theoretical and practical link with many women's movements in Americas, reinforcing their popular and ecumenical vocation. Perhaps it is not easiest or most objective perspective to take - there does not yet exist sufficient clarity to illuminate roots and trajectories of what we are, women in Americas. Damned, pleasure-loving and devout, it is only in recent times that we have been able to put together our historical and theological memories. I beg to borrow a little of that, which historians, theologians, poets and sorceresses, witches and militants have been weaving together in these five hundred years, to think about religious coexistence. Ecumenism in Latin America? Where? Ecumenism was impossible in Americas in these five hundred years of invasion, conquest and exploitation. It is not possible to be ecumenical when structuring movement in society is one of exclusion. Exclusion of cultures, silencing of sacredness of the others, massacre of peoples, gestures, rights, prayers, voices. In whole continent, African religions and religions of indigenous peoples survived massacre through strong resistance, so that, within limits set by parameters of Christianity, they continue to worship their gods and goddesses. Syncretism or ecumenism? An evaluation of five hundred years of conquest of Americas cannot reject or underrate weight that religious question has, in a unique way, in formation of Latin American identity. Iberian catholicism has molded continent ideologically and culturally. Without restricting its civilizing influence to faithful alone, in all truth catholicism provides regulating matrix of behaviour and attitudes, it is a creator of norms and parameters. If it is true that catholicism, which was identified with state, made arrival of Protestant missions in South American continent more difficult, it is also true that protestantism on its arrival here did not offer alternatives that made viable another model for society, coexistence of Christians and other religions. Distinguished by its origin or out of interest in expansion of North American missionary models, Latin American protestantism participated in establishment of a climate of proselytizing and intolerance that characterizes inter-confessional relationships on continent. Other religions established on continent were forced to act Within a space defined by influence of official Catholic hegemony. Also in these cases a class-conscious proselytizing or an ethnic link defined limits that each group could aim for, so that they became a type of folklore or a tolerable curiosity because they did not question structures imposed by society. A single winner, violent liturgy, Christianity in Americas is confused with civilizing model of white, western man. Father, boss, lord, husband. Intransigent and intolerant, Christianity fought and devoured even its own variations and alternatives making dialogue between Christians almost impossible. …
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