New Worlds
A Religious History of Latin America
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- $27.99
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- $27.99
Publisher Description
This extraordinary book encompasses the time period from the first Christian evangelists' arrival in Latin America to the dictators of the late twentieth century. With unsurpassed knowledge of Latin American history, John Lynch sets out to explore the reception of Christianity by native peoples and how it influenced their social and religious lives as the centuries passed. As attentive to modern times as to the colonial period, Lynch also explores the extent to which Indian religion and ancestral ways survived within the new Christian culture.
The book follows the development of religious culture over time by focusing on peak periods of change: the response of religion to the Enlightenment, the emergence of the Church from the wars of independence, the Romanization of Latin American religion as the papacy overtook the Spanish crown in effective control of the Church, the growing challenge of liberalism and the secular state, and in the twentieth century, military dictators' assaults on human rights. Throughout the narrative, Lynch develops a number of special themes and topics. Among these are the Spanish struggle for justice for Indians, the Church's position on slavery, the concept of popular religion as distinct from official religion, and the development of liberation theology.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It is an ongoing concern of organized religion that the intellectual and cultural advancement of societies has made the laity more difficult to control, more resistant to direction from formal religious authorities. History shows that where religion has found a foothold among indigenous societies, it often comes at the price of violating the cultural and societal mores of those societies. Lynch's trenchant and mature study of the development of the Christian religion in Latin America is a wonderfully realized account of the political and social forces that affected the spiritual formation of these diverse and creative cultures. Catholicism naturally plays a large role in the story; its uneasy alliances with the sometimes coercive governments of Latin America constitute a large part of the tension and drama of this history. Although evangelicalism and Pentecostalism have arisen as competitors to the Catholic Church, radical leftist liberation theologies have posed an even greater challenge to Rome's authority. The quest for religious clarity in Latin America is far from over. This is a superb retelling of a story that needs to be studied.
