Religion in Latin America

Religion in Latin America: A Documentary History
by Lee M. Penyak and Walter J. Petry
Orbis Books (2006)

Often the voices of marginalized people are cancelled out of historical accounts compiled by people in positions of power within a given society. Thankfully, this historical Latin American anthology provides a platform for many voices that have in the past been pushed aside in favor of content that more closely aligns with the historical accounts of mainstream powerful society. The anthology grapples “with the realities of imperialism, racism, poverty, and injustice.” (xix) Many original documents are given that force readers and students to reflect for themselves on the concepts outlined by the authors. As an example, a letter from Christopher Columbus lies right beside a letter from Bartoleme de las Casas who often prophetically spoke out against the tactics Columbus implemented in the New World.

The entries in this anthology are fascinating. Specifically, the voices speaking into issues that have shaped so much of modern culture are often prophetic, often off target, but almost always interesting. I am intrigued at the concept of bringing unheard voices “to the table,” although I am still uneasy about my role in the facets of contemporary society that continue to perpetuate differences between races and classes of people. To that end, I would turn to las Casas’ essay that presents a prophetic perspective on the nature of human relations. Most of his brief letter to the royalty in Spain focuses on negative oppressive behavior of the people sent to settle New Spain, but he does mention one hopeful comment. “One thing they did was brought knowledge: they asked permission to have the sons of some caciques (few of them to be sure), perhaps four, and taught them to read and write and I suppose their good example taught Christian doctrine, for they were good and lived virtuously.” (21) This concept jumped out at me because I lead many Christian adults to mentor young people in LAMP. I am hoping that the ministry makes a huge transformational impact. My fear is always that we will be ineffective and perpetuate a cycle of negative stereotypes between races, classes, and Christians and the unsaved.

There are so many themes from this book that I could apply to my ministry context in Homewood. Because I live and work in a predominantly African-American community, I was particularly drawn to an entry by Carolina Maria de Jesus, who was a poor great-grandchild of slaves in Brazil living in the early to mid-1900s. She taught herself how to read and write, and she wrote, “… in the United States they don’t want Negroes in the schools. I kept thinking: North Americans are considered the most civilized. And they have not yet realized that discriminating against the blacks is like trying to discriminate against the sun. Man cannot fight against the products of Nature. God made all the races at the same time. If he had created Negroes after the whites, the whites should have done nothing about it then.” (211) Her diary was published in the early 1960s, but her observations still hold true today. When I first started working in Homewood four years ago, I was astounded that in our culture there are still parts of town that are “white” and parts of town that are “black.” It was not until I began studying cities at Bakke Graduate University that I discovered that systematic racism and oppression at powerful levels led to much of the intentional divisiveness that exists in many American cities today.