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Catechizing Culture: Missionaries, Aymara, and the "New Evangelization"
Contributor(s): Orta, Andrew (Author)
ISBN: 0231130686     ISBN-13: 9780231130684
Publisher: Columbia University Press
OUR PRICE:   $118.80  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: December 2004
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Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Annotation: Nearly five centuries after the first wave of Catholic missionaries arrived in the New World to spread their Christian message, contemporary religious workers in the Bolivian highlands have begun to encourage Aymara Indians to return to traditional ritual practices. All but eradicated after hundreds of years of missionization, the "old ways" are now viewed as local cultural expressions of Christian values. In order to become more Christian, the Aymara must now become more Indian.

This groundbreaking study of the contemporary encounter between Catholic missionaries and Aymara Indians is the first ethnography to focus both on the evangelizers and the evangelized. Andrew Orta explores the pastoral shift away from liberation theology that dominated Latin American missionization up until the mid-1980s to the recent "theology of inculturation," which upholds the beliefs and practices of a supposedly pristine Aymara culture as indigenous expressions of a more universal Christianity. Addressing essential questions in cultural anthropology, religious studies, postcolonial studies, and globalization studies, "Catechizing Culture" is a sophisticated documentation of the widespread shift from the politics of class to the politics of ethnicity and multiculturalism.

Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Religion | Christian Ministry - Evangelism
- Religion | Christianity - History
- Religion | Christian Ministry - Missions
Dewey: 266.089
LCCN: 2004047844
Physical Information: 0.95" H x 5.96" W x 9.26" (1.33 lbs) 376 pages
Themes:
- Religious Orientation - Catholic
- Religious Orientation - Christian
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Nearly five centuries after the first wave of Catholic missionaries arrived in the New World to spread their Christian message, contemporary religious workers in the Bolivian highlands have begun to encourage Aymara Indians to return to traditional ritual practices. All but eradicated after hundreds of years of missionization, the "old ways" are now viewed as local cultural expressions of Christian values. In order to become more Christian, the Aymara must now become more Indian.

This groundbreaking study of the contemporary encounter between Catholic missionaries and Aymara Indians is the first ethnography to focus both on the evangelizers and the evangelized. Andrew Orta explores the pastoral shift away from liberation theology that dominated Latin American missionization up until the mid-1980s to the recent "theology of inculturation," which upholds the beliefs and practices of a supposedly pristine Aymara culture as indigenous expressions of a more universal Christianity. Addressing essential questions in cultural anthropology, religious studies, postcolonial studies, and globalization studies, Catechizing Culture is a sophisticated documentation of the widespread shift from the politics of class to the politics of ethnicity and multiculturalism.