Book Description

The articles in this issue of the Journal of Latin American Theology focus on history, mission, politics, migration, and worship. Luis Tapia Rubio discusses the colonial nature of Bartolomé de Las Casas’s sixteenth-century mission in Latin America and sits with the disturbing question of whether or not it is possible for Christian mission to be anything but colonial. Valdir Steuernagel summarizes key points from the Lausanne Congresses on World Evangelization and diagnoses current challenges leading up to Lausanne IV in September 2024. Darío López R. illustrates the antidemocratic nature of fundamentalist evangelicals active in Latin American politics through the case study of the 2021 presidential elections in Peru. Milton Mejía discusses the same political phenomenon but in the context of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict. His case study is the 2016 referendum on the peace agreement, which evangelical opposition helped tip the balance to reject. Mariani Xavier seeks to “humanize” immigrants by highlighting five biblical insights on immigration and then outlining action steps for Christians to put these biblical insights into practice. Fabio Salguero Fagoaga diagnoses one reason that Christians fail to offer robust hospitality to immigrants and refugees: aporophobia, or discrimination against the poor. The book reviews in this volume approach these same themes from different perspectives, as the film review and theopoetry do from the posture of worship.