Christianity in Latin America / by Hans-Jurgen Prien; translation by Stephen Buckwalter; introduction, and chapters 1 and 2 translated by Brian McNeil.

• Author: Prien, Hans-Jürgen.
• TeilnehmendeR: Buckwalter, Stephen E.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Rev. and exp. ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Religion in the Americas 13.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (702 p.)
• Notes: Translated from German by Stephen Buckwalter.; Translation of: Das Christentum in Lateinamerika. Leipzig, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2007.

Winner of the 2013 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award Christianity in Latin America provides a complete overview of more than 500 years of the history of Christianity in the ‘New World’. This book specifically focuses on conquest, exploitation of slave- and forced labor, mission, the formation of the Catholic Church after the council of Trent, Inquisition, popular religiosity, and postcolonial state formation. Attention is also given to the emergence of Protestant immigrant and mission churches, modern forms of exploitation of indigenous and Afro-American workers, Catholic-Protestant antagonisms from the beginning of ecumenism, liberation theology, the proliferation of Pentecostal churches, and the military dictatorships in the second half of the 20th Century. The inclusion of German research in this book is an important asset to the Anglo-American research area, in which information is disclosed that was previously unavailable in English. This book will present the reader with required handbook material on the history of Christianity on the South American continent, based on a tremendous breadth of literature. During his years as Technical Director in Central America, the author studied Mesoamerican Indian Cultures as well as the social conditions of the impoverished sectors of the population. This book is a compilation of the author’s extensive research while a lecturer of church history at the Theological Faculty of São Leopoldo (Brazil), as well as during visits to nearly all countries of Latin America, and as a visiting professor in Portugal, Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba, Argentine and Peru. Thorough research was also completed while lecturing at the University of Cologne (Germany) on Iberian and Latin American History, as well as during his term as professorial chair of Richard Konetzke and Günter Kahle. This publication is an amalgamation of the knowledge and expertise the author gained during research from his entire career.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- The Colonial Period: The Situation at the Beginning -- Spanish Overseas Expansion: Discoveries, Conquests, and Colonization -- The Development of the Colonial and Missionary Church in Spanish America -- Colonial Ehtics -- Mission Work and the Development of Church Structures in Brazil from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries -- The Development of the Church after Trent -- The Inquisition and the “Extirpation of Idolatry”: Defending the Iberian Colonization and Commerce Monopoly and the Catholic Confessional Monopoly against the Protestant Seaborne Powers and the Persistence of Traditional Indigenous Religions -- Popular Religiosity, Popular Catholicism, and Popular Piety -- The Century of the Enlightenment -- The Christian Churches of Latin America in the Face of National Movements and the Struggle by Conservatives and Liberals for a New Political Order in the Nineteenth Century -- The Closing Phase of the Confessional Age: The Catholic Church’s Struggle to Renew Its Social Influence and Resist Protestantism (From the Last Third of the Nineteenth Century Until 1958) -- Christianity in the Age of Ecumenism and the Crisis in the Development of Nation-States -- Bibliography -- Index of Names -- Index of Subjects.