This format offers an opportunity for more substantive conversation about works in progress than the traditional panel presentation. This year, we will be discussing four exciting new projects exploring such things as decoloniality, race, the environment, and popular devotion. The four authors will share a brief overview of their work for the benefit of the audience; and two respondents, who will have read the longer versions of the papers will share comments and questions designed to stimulate discussion and move the conversation forward. Audience questions and suggestions will follow.
This paper seeks to engage with the literature of recent years of those theologians and theorists who are grappling with the manifold ways in which decolonial theory can be applied to the legacy of the Christian church, in its various expressions, across Latin America. The paper seeks to establish a historical tracing of the work of Enrique Dussel as a church historian and even “theologian”, in proposing new ways of situating the questions of decolonization to the complicated legacy of evangelization and missionization in the region. The paper then moves towards more contemporary iterations of decoloniality in working out this principle towards Christianity and theology broadly speaking.
Based on a case study of a ranchería belonging to the Wayúu Indigenous community, this presentation will critically analyze the Colombian State’s historical omission of basic public services provision in rural communities of energy poverty (specifically, electricity) and how religious leaders (in this case, Catholic priests) supply this function as part of their work in these areas. The analysis will raise possible cultural impacts derived from connecting the provision of these public services with beliefs traditionally unfamiliar to these communities, including both how priests’ views have shifted over time (including what is adaptable to Christianity and what remains of particular Wayúu culture), as well as how the community’s beliefs have shifted about energy and the environment.
The cult of Santa Muerte (Saint Death/Holy Death) has had a spectacular rise in popularity across borders over the past ten years. It has also risen in popularity among scholars, who have focused on using archival accounts to prove or disprove a connection between the modern Santa Muerte movement and Indigenous religions. These historical approaches have ignored and obstructed the voices of devotees. I instead center Santa Muerte devotees' devotional materials, bodily practices, and voices. I argue that by taking these materials into account Santa Muerte becomes a space not only for critique of historical scholarship but also a saint that represents the endless possibilities of a Latinx past and future.
This paper explores the promotion of the cult of La Virgen de la Puerta, in Otuzco, Peru through contemporary digital spaces. This cult, which has been variously celebrated in Peru for over 350 years, has a new medium for celebration, the virtual ‘space’ of FaceBook. Virtual media is controversial in the field of academic theology. I will explore various viewpoints surrounding this controversy. I will then examine two specific posts from FaceBook to see the ways in which this space promotes a particular kind of community. I argue that there is a kind of ‘space’ being engaged in this virtual format and that a form of embodiment is occurring for individuals engaging in devotional activities in this space. Both the features of the space and the ways in which individuals engage in embodiment are important for the Church to contemplate as virtual spaces become more ubiquitous across the world.