Abstract, "Political Conflict and Spiritual Battle: Intersections between Religion and Politics among Brazilian Pentecostals" by Carlos Gustavo Sarmet Moreira Smiderle and Wania Amelia Belchior Mesquita

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Political Conflict and Spiritual Battle: Intersections between Religion and Politics among Brazilian Pentecostals 
by Carlos Gustavo Sarmet Moreira Smiderle and Wania Amelia Belchior Mesquita

A new interpretation of Evangelical actors’ increasing participation in Brazilian political and electoral contests is that elements of Pentecostalism predispose a believer to see the world as the site of an eternal struggle between God and Satan. The belief in demons that have territorial jurisdictions, known as territorial spirits, is one aspect of this theology. The cognitive universe of this belief induces the Evangelical voter to make electoral decisions on the basis of religious premises. It teaches the voter to conceive, without much reflection, the spiritual battle and the electoral game as territorial disputes.

Abstract, "Religion and Politics in Argentina: Religious Influence on Legislative Decisions on Sexual and Reproductive Rights" by Juan Cruz Esquivel

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Religion and Politics in Argentina: Religious Influence on Legislative Decisions on Sexual and Reproductive Rights 
by Juan Cruz Esquivel

The interactions between the state and religious institutions in Argentina are expressed on the municipal, provincial, and national levels, in the sphere of legislation and public policy, and in a wide range of undefined informal relationships. Politics and religion have historically been intertwined, and their relationship can be described as subsidiary laicism, in which the recognition of civil rights coexists with significant intervention of the Church in the implementation of public policy and in which state support of religion at an intermediate level is considered legitimate. Religious institutions and convictions influence votes in the Congress on laws expanding sexual and reproductive rights, and under such influence provincial and municipal governments delay the implementation of those laws.

Abstract, "The Legacy of Liberation Theology in Colombia: The Defense of Life and Territory" by Leila Celis

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Legacy of Liberation Theology in Colombia: The Defense of Life and Territory 
by Leila Celis

Liberation theology was very important in Latin America between 1970 and 1980. While it is less significant today, it has not disappeared. If we look at Colombia, we can see the pastoral and political commitment of the religious and the laity in various regions as they accompany marginalized communities, victims of government and parastatal violence, in conformity with their preferential option for the poor. Motivated by the crucified Christ, the heirs of liberation theology have developed a theology of life or of human rights. As human rights advocates, they identify among the causes of violence the policies of capitalist development, denounced as imperialist and responsible for the poverty of the majority of the population. This development has its origin in the parallel dynamics of social and international relations and the associated adaptation of the social movement.

Abstract, "Political Participation of Pentecostal Minorities in Chile, 1937–1989" by Miguel Ángel Mansilla and Luis Alberto Orellana

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Political Participation of Pentecostal Minorities in Chile, 1937–1989 
by Miguel Ángel Mansilla and Luis Alberto Orellana

Chilean Pentecostals have been described as passive and politically conformist in their relations with the military government. Instead, there is historical evidence that they have been an active and interactive minority. Pentecostal denominations have participated in political projects associated with leftist political parties. Pentecostal leaders have associated themselves with various political parties as a form of political struggle for recognition, and active Pentecostal organizations resisted and protested during the military government.

Abstract, "New Forms of the Relationship between Politics and Religion: Ecclesiastical Base Community Activists in Mexico City" by Hugo José Suárez

:::::: Abstract ::::::

New Forms of the Relationship between Politics and Religion: Ecclesiastical Base Community Activists in Mexico City 
by Hugo José Suárez

Beginning in the 1960's, new forms of living the faith emerged in Latin America that linked it with a political dimension. The Catholic Church changed its pastoral orientation, and ecclesiastical base communities were established as part of an “option for the poor.” The reflection that accompanied this process was known as liberation theology. By the end of the 1970's these communities were organizing conferences, publications, and theological reflections with strong international links and included hundreds of believers both in the countryside and in the city. During the following two decades, they were active participants in the construction of leftist political alternatives. While a minority pastoral practice today, they continue to hold national gatherings and maintain their international contacts. In-depth interviews with three members of ecclesiastical base communities in a working-class neighborhood in Mexico City show how these individuals have built their socio-religious practice and their religious beliefs. Their experience is part of a global reconstitution of belief systems in Mexico that affects all of the salvation enterprises in their various expressions.

Abstract, "Religion, Autonomy, and the Priority of Place in Mexico’s Maya Highlands" by Ruth J. Chojnacki

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Religion, Autonomy, and the Priority of Place in Mexico’s Maya Highlands 
by Ruth J. Chojnacki

The irruption of Mexico’s highland Maya on the world stage with the 1994 New Year’s Day uprising by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation generated a torrent of publications. Relatively neglected in this literature is the deconstruction of costumbre (ancestral Maya tradition) by Maya youth dislocated by Mexico’s early-1980s economic collapse. In one exemplary Tzotzil Maya pueblo, the acquisition of biblical literacy and the cognitive skills it entails in Catholic Church–sponsored courses oriented to liberation theology propelled a generational religious revolt. The ensuing reclamation of ancestral territory from ladino ranchers upended colonial relations, enabling indigenous peasants in this and other highland Maya communities to institute autonomous modes of production. Driven by a dialectic of religious ritual and agricultural labor, this assertion of Maya agency attests to the salience of religion and the priority of place as indispensable resources for indigenous socioeconomic autonomy confronting neoliberal assault.

Abstract, "Minoritization and Pluralization: What Is the “People” That Pentecostal Politicization Is Building?" by Joanildo A. Burity

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Minoritization and Pluralization: What Is the “People” That Pentecostal Politicization Is Building? 
by Joanildo A. Burity

The emergence of Pentecostalism on the Brazilian scene has raised new questions about the way religion relates to the definition of a “people,” how religious minorities can be politically and legally integrated into the mainstream of national identity, and to what degree the state-religion relation is constitutive of society in a context of increasing sociocultural, religious, and political pluralization. The argument draws on the concept of minoritization proposed by William Connolly, against the background of Laclau’s problematic of the formation of a people as a hegemonic actor. An analysis of Pentecostal discourse on “the public” and “the people” reveals that Pentecostalism minoritized itself in response to perceived exclusion and this accentuated pluralization within it. An unintended effect of this logic was the fluidity of the boundary between sacred and profane, religious and secular. In a context of growing cultural, social, and political pluralization, these discursive practices have the potential to lead either to the aggiornamento of Pentecostalism or to the regressive closing of a populist right-wing discourse.

Abstract, "Spirits, Bodies, and Structures: Religion, Politics, and Social Inequality in Latin America" by Jennifer Scheper Hughes and Maria das Dores Campos Machado

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Spirits, Bodies, and Structures: Religion, Politics, and Social Inequality in Latin America 
by Jennifer Scheper Hughes and Maria das Dores Campos Machado

Religion has been married to the colonial and imperial project in Latin America since the Spanish conquistadors planted the first cross on American soil. Even as the new European religion took root across the continent it became incarnate precisely in the large, impoverished, racially complex, subject, and politically marginalized population that the Catholic Church itself helped to create through the long colonial period. Religious institutions were intimately involved in producing and then maintaining structures of social inequality from the very “invention” of Latin America: thus was the vein opened. At the same time, just as religion was essential to colonial processes, it has been, inevitably, part of anticolonial and decolonializing movements and struggles. This issue returns again to the theme of religion and social inequality and the social movements (religiously motivated and otherwise) that seek to address religions’ ambivalent legacy across the continent. The election of the Argentine Jesuit Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the first Latin American pope brings global attention to the complexity of the Latin American religious landscape as the religious context that shapes his agenda. Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) has made the problem of inequality central to his papacy, decrying the “unfettered market” and the resulting global “economy of exclusion.” Not only did he speak on the evils of capitalism before a joint session of the U.S. Congress but he garnered international media and public attention in April 2014 when he famously tweeted “Inequality is the root of social evil.” It would appear that Rome itself now calls for attention to the problem of inequality.

Abstract, "Public Policy and Religious Diversity: Interreligious Spaces in Two Hospitals in a Brazilian Capital City" by Emerson Giumbelli

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Public Policy and Religious Diversity: Interreligious Spaces in Two Hospitals in a Brazilian Capital City 
by Emerson Giumbelli

Recently in Brazil, diversity has become a guiding principle in formulating public policy, and “interreligious spaces” have been established in public hospitals for the use of religious groups of various kinds. An examination of the use of these spaces in two major public hospitals in Porto Alegre makes it clear that religious diversity has fundamental political dimensions involving the representation and recognition of social groups and that a commitment to religious pluralism does not rule out other hegemonies.

Abstract, "The Antidote to Wall Street?: Cultural and Economic Mobilizations of Afro-Cuban Religions" by Jalane D. Schmidt

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Antidote to Wall Street?: Cultural and Economic Mobilizations of Afro-Cuban Religions 
by Jalane D. Schmidt

When revolutionary Cuba’s governmental cultural policy apparatus cast Afro-Cuban religions as “folklore,” certain religious forms, especially Santería, gained visibility in scholarly investigations, publications, documentary films, and state-sponsored cultural programming. Since the 1990s these discursive treatments of Santería have been monetized by the Cuban tourism industry and state-owned manufacturers and repackaged as merchandise that garners the attention and revenues of Cuban consumers and international visitors. This “ethno-business” produces a paradox: Afro-Cuban popular religions—long admired by the nation’s intellectual and artistic avant-garde as subaltern cultural rebuttals of dominant Cuban bourgeois opinion and U.S. economic pressures alike—are now promoted and consumed in a manner that conforms to neoliberal logic. The Cuban state confronts the challenges of late socialism with the methods of late capitalism. To some extent, the commodification of Afro-Cuban religions acts to fortify and extend revolutionary cultural policy.

Abstract, "Religion and Politics in Argentina: Religious Influence on Legislative Decisions on Sexual and Reproductive Rights" by Juan Cruz Esquivel

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Religion and Politics in Argentina: Religious Influence on Legislative Decisions on Sexual and Reproductive Rights 
by Juan Cruz Esquivel

The interactions between the state and religious institutions in Argentina are expressed on the municipal, provincial, and national levels, in the sphere of legislation and public policy, and in a wide range of undefined informal relationships. Politics and religion have historically been intertwined, and their relationship can be described as subsidiary laicism, in which the recognition of civil rights coexists with significant intervention of the Church in the implementation of public policy and in which state support of religion at an intermediate level is considered legitimate. Religious institutions and convictions influence votes in the Congress on laws expanding sexual and reproductive rights, and under such influence provincial and municipal governments delay the implementation of those laws.

Abstract, "Minoritization and Pluralization: What Is the “People” That Pentecostal Politicization Is Building?" by Joanildo A. Burity

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Minoritization and Pluralization: What Is the “People” That Pentecostal Politicization Is Building? 
by Joanildo A. Burity

The emergence of Pentecostalism on the Brazilian scene has raised new questions about the way religion relates to the definition of a “people,” how religious minorities can be politically and legally integrated into the mainstream of national identity, and to what degree the state-religion relation is constitutive of society in a context of increasing sociocultural, religious, and political pluralization. The argument draws on the concept of minoritization proposed by William Connolly, against the background of Laclau’s problematic of the formation of a people as a hegemonic actor. An analysis of Pentecostal discourse on “the public” and “the people” reveals that Pentecostalism minoritized itself in response to perceived exclusion and this accentuated pluralization within it. An unintended effect of this logic was the fluidity of the boundary between sacred and profane, religious and secular. In a context of growing cultural, social, and political pluralization, these discursive practices have the potential to lead either to the aggiornamento of Pentecostalism or to the regressive closing of a populist right-wing discourse.

Abstract, "Political Participation of Pentecostal Minorities in Chile, 1937–1989" by Miguel Ángel Mansilla and Luis Alberto Orellana

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Political Participation of Pentecostal Minorities in Chile, 1937–1989 
by Miguel Ángel Mansilla and Luis Alberto Orellana

Chilean Pentecostals have been described as passive and politically conformist in their relations with the military government. Instead, there is historical evidence that they have been an active and interactive minority. Pentecostal denominations have participated in political projects associated with leftist political parties. Pentecostal leaders have associated themselves with various political parties as a form of political struggle for recognition, and active Pentecostal organizations resisted and protested during the military government.

Abstract, "Political Conflict and Spiritual Battle: Intersections between Religion and Politics among Brazilian Pentecostals" by Carlos Gustavo Sarmet Moreira Smiderle and Wania Amelia Belchior Mesquita

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Political Conflict and Spiritual Battle: Intersections between Religion and Politics among Brazilian Pentecostals 
by Carlos Gustavo Sarmet Moreira Smiderle and Wania Amelia Belchior Mesquita

A new interpretation of Evangelical actors’ increasing participation in Brazilian political and electoral contests is that elements of Pentecostalism predispose a believer to see the world as the site of an eternal struggle between God and Satan. The belief in demons that have territorial jurisdictions, known as territorial spirits, is one aspect of this theology. The cognitive universe of this belief induces the Evangelical voter to make electoral decisions on the basis of religious premises. It teaches the voter to conceive, without much reflection, the spiritual battle and the electoral game as territorial disputes.

Abstract, "The Legacy of Liberation Theology in Colombia: The Defense of Life and Territory" by Leila Celis

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Legacy of Liberation Theology in Colombia: The Defense of Life and Territory 
by Leila Celis

Liberation theology was very important in Latin America between 1970 and 1980. While it is less significant today, it has not disappeared. If we look at Colombia, we can see the pastoral and political commitment of the religious and the laity in various regions as they accompany marginalized communities, victims of government and parastatal violence, in conformity with their preferential option for the poor. Motivated by the crucified Christ, the heirs of liberation theology have developed a theology of life or of human rights. As human rights advocates, they identify among the causes of violence the policies of capitalist development, denounced as imperialist and responsible for the poverty of the majority of the population. This development has its origin in the parallel dynamics of social and international relations and the associated adaptation of the social movement.

Abstract, "New Forms of the Relationship between Politics and Religion: Ecclesiastical Base Community Activists in Mexico City" by Hugo José Suárez

:::::: Abstract ::::::

New Forms of the Relationship between Politics and Religion: Ecclesiastical Base Community Activists in Mexico City 
by Hugo José Suárez

Beginning in the 1960's, new forms of living the faith emerged in Latin America that linked it with a political dimension. The Catholic Church changed its pastoral orientation, and ecclesiastical base communities were established as part of an “option for the poor.” The reflection that accompanied this process was known as liberation theology. By the end of the 1970's these communities were organizing conferences, publications, and theological reflections with strong international links and included hundreds of believers both in the countryside and in the city. During the following two decades, they were active participants in the construction of leftist political alternatives. While a minority pastoral practice today, they continue to hold national gatherings and maintain their international contacts. In-depth interviews with three members of ecclesiastical base communities in a working-class neighborhood in Mexico City show how these individuals have built their socio-religious practice and their religious beliefs. Their experience is part of a global reconstitution of belief systems in Mexico that affects all of the salvation enterprises in their various expressions.

Abstract, "Religion, Autonomy, and the Priority of Place in Mexico’s Maya Highlands" by Ruth J. Chojnacki

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Religion, Autonomy, and the Priority of Place in Mexico’s Maya Highlands 
by Ruth J. Chojnacki

The irruption of Mexico’s highland Maya on the world stage with the 1994 New Year’s Day uprising by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation generated a torrent of publications. Relatively neglected in this literature is the deconstruction of costumbre (ancestral Maya tradition) by Maya youth dislocated by Mexico’s early-1980s economic collapse. In one exemplary Tzotzil Maya pueblo, the acquisition of biblical literacy and the cognitive skills it entails in Catholic Church–sponsored courses oriented to liberation theology propelled a generational religious revolt. The ensuing reclamation of ancestral territory from ladino ranchers upended colonial relations, enabling indigenous peasants in this and other highland Maya communities to institute autonomous modes of production. Driven by a dialectic of religious ritual and agricultural labor, this assertion of Maya agency attests to the salience of religion and the priority of place as indispensable resources for indigenous socioeconomic autonomy confronting neoliberal assault.

Abstract, "Spirits, Bodies, and Structures: Religion, Politics, and Social Inequality in Latin America" by Jennifer Scheper Hughes and Maria das Dores Campos Machado

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Spirits, Bodies, and Structures: Religion, Politics, and Social Inequality in Latin America 
by Jennifer Scheper Hughes and Maria das Dores Campos Machado

Religion has been married to the colonial and imperial project in Latin America since the Spanish conquistadors planted the first cross on American soil. Even as the new European religion took root across the continent it became incarnate precisely in the large, impoverished, racially complex, subject, and politically marginalized population that the Catholic Church itself helped to create through the long colonial period. Religious institutions were intimately involved in producing and then maintaining structures of social inequality from the very “invention” of Latin America: thus was the vein opened. At the same time, just as religion was essential to colonial processes, it has been, inevitably, part of anticolonial and decolonializing movements and struggles. This issue returns again to the theme of religion and social inequality and the social movements (religiously motivated and otherwise) that seek to address religions’ ambivalent legacy across the continent. The election of the Argentine Jesuit Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the first Latin American pope brings global attention to the complexity of the Latin American religious landscape as the religious context that shapes his agenda. Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) has made the problem of inequality central to his papacy, decrying the “unfettered market” and the resulting global “economy of exclusion.” Not only did he speak on the evils of capitalism before a joint session of the U.S. Congress but he garnered international media and public attention in April 2014 when he famously tweeted “Inequality is the root of social evil.” It would appear that Rome itself now calls for attention to the problem of inequality.

Abstract, "Public Policy and Religious Diversity: Interreligious Spaces in Two Hospitals in a Brazilian Capital City" by Emerson Giumbelli

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Public Policy and Religious Diversity: Interreligious Spaces in Two Hospitals in a Brazilian Capital City 
by Emerson Giumbelli

Recently in Brazil, diversity has become a guiding principle in formulating public policy, and “interreligious spaces” have been established in public hospitals for the use of religious groups of various kinds. An examination of the use of these spaces in two major public hospitals in Porto Alegre makes it clear that religious diversity has fundamental political dimensions involving the representation and recognition of social groups and that a commitment to religious pluralism does not rule out other hegemonies.

Abstract, "The Antidote to Wall Street?: Cultural and Economic Mobilizations of Afro-Cuban Religions" by Jalane D. Schmidt

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Antidote to Wall Street?: Cultural and Economic Mobilizations of Afro-Cuban Religions 
by Jalane D. Schmidt

When revolutionary Cuba’s governmental cultural policy apparatus cast Afro-Cuban religions as “folklore,” certain religious forms, especially Santería, gained visibility in scholarly investigations, publications, documentary films, and state-sponsored cultural programming. Since the 1990s these discursive treatments of Santería have been monetized by the Cuban tourism industry and state-owned manufacturers and repackaged as merchandise that garners the attention and revenues of Cuban consumers and international visitors. This “ethno-business” produces a paradox: Afro-Cuban popular religions—long admired by the nation’s intellectual and artistic avant-garde as subaltern cultural rebuttals of dominant Cuban bourgeois opinion and U.S. economic pressures alike—are now promoted and consumed in a manner that conforms to neoliberal logic. The Cuban state confronts the challenges of late socialism with the methods of late capitalism. To some extent, the commodification of Afro-Cuban religions acts to fortify and extend revolutionary cultural policy.