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In the follow-up to his widely read The Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America, author Edward Cleary examines some of the robust human rights movements of the past two decades in Mobilizing for Human Rights in Latin America. Advocates of the rights of women, indigenous groups, the landless, and street children have achieved notable gains, so much so that in 1999 the New York Times claimed that women have achieved more rights in Latin America than in any other region. Cleary establishes a record of why, how, where, and when human rights reached this level. It is often assumed that the concept of human rights is something that must be imported by Western liberal democracies to developing countries. Cleary shows that human rights has a long history in Latin America distinctive from other traditions and that this tradition has expressed itself profoundly since the military period. He argues that the region’s unique history is not only creating solutions to issues such as corruption and minority rights, but also can offer a valuable balance to the larger international discourse on human rights.
"Latin America in the twenty-first century is no longer the way we have always imagined it, and nowhere are the region’s vast changes more evident than in the field of religion. Ed Cleary brings his readers into the churches and communities of Latin America to introduce them to the Catholic Charismatic Movement, the biggest and most important religious shift taking place in the region in recent decades."--Kenneth P. Serbin, University of San Diego Much has been made of the dramatic rise of Protestantism in Latin America. Many view this as a sign that Catholicism’s primacy in the region is at last beginning to wane. Overlooked by journalists and scholars has been the parallel growth of Ch...
Tells the remarkable story of the transformation of the Latin American church on every level, from professional theologians to the individual in the remotest Latin American village.
Today over forty million Latin Americans classify themselves as Protestant, of which the overwhelming majority belong to some form of Pentecostalism. The rapid dissemination of Pentecostal beliefs has produced vibrant alternatives to traditional dominant culture and changed relations within the family, locality, and workplace. This volume introduces broad issues in the Pentecostal movement, including gender relations, political power and organization, and inter-Pentecostal and ecumenical relations. These themes are then examined more specifically in the country case studies, which address the historical foundations of the Pentecostal movement, patterns of and explanation for its growth, and the consequences of its expanding presence, including increased political influence.
Annotation After more than 500 years of marginalisation, Latin America's forty million Indians have gained political recognition and civil rights. Here, social scientists explore the important role of religion in indigenous activism, showing the ways that religion has strengthened indigenous identity and contributed to the struggle for indigenous rights.
No branch of Christianity has grown more rapidly than Pentecostalism, especially in the southern hemisphere. There are over 100 million Pentecostals in Africa. In Latin America, Pentecostalism now vies with Catholicism for the soul of the continent, and some of the largest pentecostal congregations in the world are in South Korea. In To the Ends of the Earth, Allan Heaton Anderson explores the historical and theological factors behind the phenomenal growth of global Pentecostalism. Anderson argues that its spread is so dramatic because it is an "ends of the earth" movement--pentecostals believe that they are called to be witnesses for Jesus Christ to the furthest reaches of the globe. His wi...
A massive religious transformation has unfolded over the past forty years in Latin America and the Caribbean. In a region where the Catholic Church could once claim a near monopoly of adherents, religious pluralism has fundamentally altered the social and religious landscape. Conversion of a Continent brings together twelve original essays that document and explore competing explanations for how and why conversion has occurred. Contributors draw on various insights from social movement theory to religious studies to help outline its impact on national attitudes and activities, gender relations, identity politics, and reverse waves of missions from Latin America aimed at the American immigrant community. Unlike other studies on religious conversion, this volume pays close attention to who converts, under what circumstances, the meaning of conversion to the individual, and how the change affects converts’ beliefs and actions. The thematic focus makes this volume important to students and scholars in both religious studies and Latin American studies.
Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion explores the ways that Salvadoran Catholics sought to make sense of political violence in their country in the 1970s and 1980s by constructing a theological ethics that could both explain repression in religious terms and propose specific responses to violence. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the book highlights the ways that progressive Catholicism offered a justification and tools for political resistance in the face of extraordinary destruction. Using the case of Catholicism in El Salvador, the book explores the nature of religious responses to social crisis and the ways that ordinary believers construct and strive to live by ethical systems. By highlighting the importance of theological belief, of narrative, and of religious rationality in political mobilization, it touches questions of general interest to readers concerned with the social role of religion and ethics.
"An extensive and powerful literature on religion, society, and politics in Latin America in recent years has begun with the assumption that most of the movements that surged in the struggle against military rule are dead, that most of the activists are scattered and burned out, and that the promise of civil society as a source of new values and a new kind of citizenship and political life was illusory. Many have assumed that the religiously inspired activism of that period left little lasting impact, but hardly anyone has actually looked at the activists themselves to see what remains, how they cope in a different, more open environment, and how they see and act on the present and future. A...
In this groundbreaking collection, Edward L. Cleary and Allen D. Hertzke bring together nine new essays that provide the first systematic, comparative view of religion and politics at the state level. These essays take an in-depth look at the pressing issues facing states across the nation and how religious lobbies and organizations are addressing them. By examining the responses of different denominations and their rationales for involvement, the contributors explore the enormous diversity of interests being represented at the state level.