Believers and Neighbors: “Huaycán Is One and No One Shall Divide It”
Believers and Neighbors: "Huaycdn Is One and No One Shall Divide It" Contrary to the argument that evangelical Christianity is inherently apolitical or conservative, evangelicals in a new pueblo on Lima's periphery extended political mobilization to negotiating with municipal authorities, Catholic neighbors, and even Sendero Luminoso to define political and ideological space in the new neighborhood. Yet differences within and among denominations kept them from permanently coordinating their political activism. This case highlights the nature of citizenship building and political participation for evangelicals in Peru.
Shining Path’s Urban Strategy: Ate Vitarte
In Abimael Guzman Reynoso’s interview in mid-1988, the head of Shining Path (SL or Sendero) said that the party that he calls the Communist Party of Peru had to prepare for an urban insurrection that would cap off his epoch-ending revolution. “Our process of the people’s war has led us to the apogee; consequently, we have to prepare the insurrection which becomes, in synthesis, the seizure of the cities,” he said.1
Theology and the dialectics of history
In this challenging work Robert M. Doran explores the basis of systematic theology in consciousness, and goes on to consider the practical role of such theology in establishing and fostering communities with an authentic way of life. This way of life would counteract the distortions and deformations of humanity that are exemplified by both late capitalism and Marxism. Theology positions and interpretations today, argues Doran, must be stated in the categories of a theory of history. The first part of the book outlines the horizon required for such categories. The second,, third, and fourth parts incrementally derive the categories expressing a theory of history in terms of the reciprocal relations among subjects, cultures, and social structures. The final part, on hermeneutics, oresents an argument for the pertinence of what has preceded for interpreting the words and deeds of others. Doran draws extensively on the thought of Bernard Lonergan, and the work develops Lonergan's methodological insights. It issues a call to persona; genuineness and authenticity, informed by religious, moral, intellectual, affective, and psychic 'conversions,' by 'interior' differentiation of one's consciousness, and by Christian faith, on the parts of theologians who aspire to arrest effectively the course of cultural decline.