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Latin-American Emergence

Posted Apr 10, 09:38 AM | 4 comments | by Amy Moffitt | Link

How do we in Latin-America and the Caribbean want to shape the church emerging?

An interview with Anyul Rivas and Natanael Disla
by Gustavo Frederico

This interview was originally published at Renovatio Cafe (site in Portuguese) and the following English translation is also available here.

Gustavo Frederico: Natanael, how would you characterize the emerging movement in Latin America?

Natanael Disla: We can’t say that there is an “emerging movement” in Latin America, at least as people know it in the United States currently. Changes in theology have been proposed for decades in Latin America and the Caribbean, but these did not resonate deeply within the churches and faith communities.

Gustavo: What would be some of these changes and their causes?

Natanael: 1. The human being as subject of theology. Theology has been seen as “the study of God”, without taking into account human beings as the producers of this theology, much less the vital historical and cultural contexts that determined this theology. We can see a preoccupation in Latin America and the Caribbean with the subject of placing the human being as the subject of theology. The historical baggage of Latin America and the Caribbean also adds to the complexity of the issue.

2. Action and social justice as the cyclical climax of theology-making. The entrenchment of evangelical churches in the region and their dependency on the missionary societies that founded them to carry on the mission and provide pastoral care failed to take into account the true needs of the communities, which has led people to question structural sources of these needs.

3. The inclusion of excluded individualities. There are suggestions not only that the church must be “the voice of the voiceless”, but that these voices “come to the forefront” without distinctions of any kind.

I won’t try to be exhaustive, but I believe that these three points give us a general view of some of the theological changes that have been proposed.

Gustavo: I would like to come back to some aspects of these 3 points, but now I ask Anyul: what do you understand by “emerging movement” in general?

Anyul Rivas: In general, I would say that the emerging movement is a heterogeneous movement of Christians dialoguing with the world and postmodern society; it is the intent to see the gospel from postmodernity and not postmodernity from the closed and modern gospel.

Gustavo: What would be some of the characteristics of postmodernity in Latin America?

Anyul: I believe that first of all it would be characterized by criticism of the presuppositions of the Age of Enlightenment. In the Enlightenment view, science was a synonym of truth and “rationality” was imposed as a universal parameter. This stands in contrast to the postmodern emphasis on the values of the individual and his/her experience as [the] base of the interpretation of the real.

Gustavo: Yes. I also think that there is increasing skepticism of the meta-narratives/big utopian ideas like “capitalism” or “socialism”. An interesting part of your answer, Anyul, is the hermeneutical interpretation, “it is the intent to see the gospel from postmodernity and not postmodernity from the closed and modern gospel”. Do we read the gospel or does the gospel read us?

Anyul: Reading the Gospel is a bilateral experience, but for years we believed that it was a unilateral experience of God toward us.

Gustavo: The numbers of evangelical churches – especially the Pentecostals – keep rising in Latin America. Do we need an emerging movement, Natanael?

Natanael: More than needing an “emerging movement”, which would come as yet another imported ecclesiological model, we need to rethink from our own contexts about ways of being church that address the needs of our people.

Anyul: I agree with Natanael, if we are to take anything from the “emergent movement” from North America it is its disposition to dialogue and the conversation with its surroundings that develops. I welcome the initiative of the interdenominational/inter-religious dialogue and the non-adherence to confessional doctrines specific to the American emerging movement, but in Latin America that looks like a bitter pill to swallow…

Natanael: Yes, but the theologies present in Latin America and the Caribbean have been saying this for decades.

Gustavo: “Emerging movement” or “emerging church” seem like “temporal” terms to describe a natural and organic process of change in North America. That is why I ask if there are differences between the characteristics of postmodernity in Latin America, the Caribbean and North America.

Natanael: In my opinion postmodernity cannot be clearly defined in Latin America and the Caribbean. In this context, it is better to speak of post-colonialism, understood as the process that this region, Africa and certain zones of Asia are undergoing in order to “become independent for the second time”. We received a whole baggage of thought external to our reality, euro-centric, which saw reason as the most supreme entity of humanity, inherent to it, but external. Now the native, contextual and experiential identities of the peoples of our regions are being recovered.

I differ from Anyul’s analysis in this sense:

1. A criticism of the presuppositions of the Age of Enlightenment. Here we would have to speak about reunion with the forms of thought originating from seeing the individual as [a] being united with the Earth, as [a] living being.

2. Interpretation of the real. Here we would have to speak about the human being as integral part of the myth.

3. Unbelief in the meta-narratives. It doesn’t seem to me that this is happening with our people. These worldviews survive and are an inheritance of a late modernism that started to take root since the wars for independence of the 19th century.

Gustavo: Does it not seem to you that the fall of the Berlin wall, the crises of the left, the end of the cold war, and now the economic and environmental crises have contributed to a general ‘unbelief in meta-narratives’?

Natanael: Absolutely, yes, but it is an uphill struggle to overcome the dichotomies of faith/reason and faith/science [present] in our peoples, held hostage by the institutionalization still present in the socialism of the 21st century… and in the other political systems present.

Gustavo: Anyul, you mention a criticism of rationalism, and I can see that in emergents in North America. In Latin America we know some of the problems with the lack of reason in the churches and in theology (abuse of power, manipulation, faith with no comprehension, etc). Do you think that the “criticism of rationalism” of emergents applies to Latin America?

Anyul: Rationalism is one of the causes of denominationalism that is part of the church in Latin America, and so, yes, the criticism of this rationalism is a form of overcoming this segmentation, therefore I think that its application is valid.

Gustavo: To me it seems that the North American criticism of rationalism originates from the presupposition of the literal reading of the Bible. It still seems to me that they hold an unbelief in technology and in economic models.

Anyul: I agree. And in this presupposition of reading the Scriptures literally, each one interprets his/her vision of the Scriptures as the only true one and tries to impose it onto the other, whose rejection becomes the endless creation of denominations. I believe that it would be a great achievement to emphasise orthopraxis instead of adherence to closed doctrinal systems.

Gustavo: Natanael, one of the proposals of the emerging conversation is that they are against dualities such as “sacred and profane”. Can you see theological tendencies in Latin America that promote this concept?

Natanael: Yes, in the Liberation Theologies (TLs) they have been promoting these concepts, but in the original TL the theme of corporeity was not addressed, except when it started to dialogue with the feminist studies of the 80s, when feminist theology in Latin America timidly started to take form. I would like to highlight the concept of corporeity here, since it proposes the defragmentation of the dichotomy sacred/profane, in which the body has been understood as source of sin by religion. The body, therefore, needs a medium that links itself to divinity, and here is where religion comes in. The concept of body in Latin America and the Caribbean has not progressed much outside of academia because because of the enslaving paradigms still present in society.

Gustavo: What about Integral Mission? What does it say regarding the division between sacred and profane?

Natanael: Integral Mission has not addressed this subject because it came from a conservative desire in its theology… it has not been preoccupied with rethinking from within the theological postulations it inherited.

Gustavo: But TL speaks of “liberation from theology”. It seems to be an interesting distinction. As if in TL there were a form of deconstruction that does not exist in Integral Mission.

Natanael: TL differs substantially from Integral Mission (MI). MI is not the “protestant version” of TL.

Gustavo: Anyul, you spoke about the problems of denominationalism in Latin America. The emergent conversation in North America seems to have a notion (at least a discourse) of otherness similar to that present in Integral Mission and Liberation Theology. Maybe we could speak of people with interest in ecumenism in North America (Samir Selmanovic for example). Since the Protestant Reformation there have been lots of protestant denominations. What course could the denominations take in Latin America?

Anyul: Phylis Tickle has an interesting theory, she says that the denominations that do not engage with the emerging conversation are condemned to the decrease of its membership and later extinction, but I don’t believe this concept applies across the board… not even in North America. What I see is that there is a certain tendency in the denominations to strengthen their structures and to centralize even more. The “apostolic movements” are a recent example of that, which in my understanding are simply another effort to centralize the protestant church even more.

Gustavo: Natanael, I can see the 3 changes as subjects in the Christianity of Liberation (new expression in Brazil for Liberation Theology 2.0). Is it realistic to see the 3 characteristics – the human being as subject of theology, an emphasis on action and social justice and the inclusion of excluded – in Latin-American and Caribbean evangelicals in the future?

Natanael: At some time it should happen, but definitely the concept of church as we know it now has to be deconstructed. Church and temple are still synonyms, and it is sadly certain that the Word of God – which also sadly has been hijacked into a “Pope of paper” – is present in the homily in the temple. It is what follows from the setting of the prevailing thought.

Gustavo: Apparently, European and North-American emergents have recovered the omnipresence of God with their criticism of the division between sacred and profane, which is a pure exercise of deconstruction. How much rupture with current denominations would be necessary in order to have a praxis of the daily, of the people, of the Earth, of inclusion of the excluded and of social justice?

Natanael: I believe that denominationalism must go through another way of understanding and dialoguing with the many forms of thought, of being and of making church. It is not a matter of rupture with current denominations, it is not a matter of creating new institutions, not even of merging with others, it is a matter of letting ourselves be provoked by the Other; of embarking onto a new trip and of rediscovering [ourselves] as organic beings.

Anyul: I believe that a rupture is not necessary, although perhaps the transition for more conservative denominations will be more difficult. I heard of Methodist churches in Colombia with projects of Latin-Americanization of the church under the initiative of Elsa Tamez, and their ideas align with the three proposals mentioned above. As Natanael said, it is a matter of implementing an exercise of otherness.

Gustavo: When I think of a praxis of the daily, of the people, of the Earth, of inclusion of the excluded and of social justice, it seems that the church is automatically positioning itself “on the left” from a political perspective. This must sound a bit uncomfortable, for example, for some people from Venezuela or Paraguay or Bolivia who do not share a “socialist political position”. Is it possible to imagine an emerging Latin-American movement that includes tendencies that are not “of the left”? Or in other words, how to speak about a praxis of the daily, of the people, of the Earth, of inclusion, etc, and [still] hold a plurality of political positions?

Natanael: This is a difficult subject. First of all, even though there may not be a direct correlation of people with various political positions and conceptions of the importance of contextualization of faith, it is still certain that the prevailing systems of oppression are being backed by the same authorities and political institutions that benefit from those systems. This inevitably leads to those who benefit from the structural inequities and those who do not taking sides in political matters. When it comes to making radical changes in the communities of the same faith, we come to a crossroads at some point where these two sides are at odds. It seemed to be a “zugzwang” at times from which we cannot detach. Secondly, we would have to ask ourselves how to rethink politics from faith. The reflections on political participation of Protestants in Integral Mission only limited itself to endorsing the influential positions of the government of the day to rethink doing politics from a faith perspective… but “doing-politics” from the ground up wasn’t emphasized and here is where I would like to stop and emphasise that macro-politics must yield to micro-politics. This includes the deconstruction of the State as the governing and regulatory institution of the people, state institutions as fragmentary organizations of this superpower and churches as guardians of the “moral and good manners”.

Gustavo: I understand. Amen! Anyul, would you like to add anything?

Anyul: In Venezuela it is exactly this the problem that we have when opening up the discussion on TL or when promoting the communal reading of the Bible for example, because they always presuppose it to be associated with the Marxist discourse. It has been very difficult to overcome these barriers and until now there is no compelling and inclusive proposal.

Gustavo: One interesting characteristic of the emergent movement is the “leadership of the body” that flattens hierarchies. Perhaps that would be a tool for the deconstruction of social institutions. Flattening hierarchies a priori would not hold a political position.

In Brazil we see new “emerging” communities that follow a more alternative line, with tattoos, hard rock and a very informal language. This line would not be very different than the “neo-reformers’ such as Driscoll. One of the ideas would be that the application of the gospel changes and is contextualized with culture but the essence of the gospel doesn’t change. Is it true that the essence of the gospel doesn’t change, and only the form of transmission of the gospel changes?

Anyul: I believe that it is inevitable that the gospel changes, especially on the distinct contexts of life and meaning of the gospel. The ‘good news’ is changed by the culture that shares it and that which receives it. For example, the expressions “salvation” and “liberation” have assumed very distinct connotations over the years in distinct cultures, and if the gospel is to be relevant, it must tackle these concepts and take its meaning from there. The gospel preached today is not the same good news as was preached at the times of Jesus.

Natanael: The essence of the gospel, whatever that is or is understood by it, always comes back to how the human being is understood in a utopian [way]. This concept changes over epochs, vital contexts, cultures and groups of people. This utopia is summarized in the human being as love, “Deus caritas est”. The “way of transmission” of this gospel is understood as “method”, which is nothing but the construction of techniques from pre-drawn paradigms. These very “forms of transmission”, as conceptually understood, are disassociated from the word as primary organic being of the discourse. Language, in this sense, already has a determined construction and a whole set of forms that yield to the foundation of paradigms that rule societies, so that the forms of transmission of this gospel are nothing but the diverse aesthetic methods that are based on the theological paradigms of the meta-narratives.

Natanael Disla holds a Licenciate in Business Administration from the Pedro Henríquez Ureña National University and is studying for the Bachelor in Theological Sciences in the Baptist Seminary of Dominican Republic. He is a member of the Latin American Theological Fraternity (LATF) and Coordinator of the Dominican Republic LATF cohort. Natanael ives in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Gustavo Frederico is a Canadian-Brazilian currently living in Brasília, Brazil. He earned his Masters in Computer Science by the University of Ottawa, Canada. Liberation Theology and reading are some of his interests. He is the founder of Conversa Sem Nome | Conversación Sin Nombre. He is married to Louise and is the father of Christina and Lucas

Anyul Rivas holds a Licenciate in Computer Science from Universidad Nacional Experimental Simón Rodriguez and is a student of Theology in the Evangelical Seminary of Caracas, Venezuela. He is also the host of an small emergent community (house church). He lives in Los Teques, Venezuela.

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