Daniel H. Levine

Religion and political conflict in Latin America

The authors examine popular religion as a vital source of new values and experiences as well as a source of pressure for change in the church, political life, and the social order as a whole and deal with the issues of poverty and the role of the poor within the church and political structures. Exploring areas from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, and Chile, the authors analyze the transformation in popular religion and reevaluate the growth of grassroots organizations. |Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in History, this book recreates and analyzes the dramatic political and religious confrontations that transformed Virginia in the second half of the eighteenth-century. (Please see cloth edition published 5/82.)

Assessing the Impacts of Liberation Theology in Latin America

America and considers prospects for the future. Liberation theologys fundamental ideas are explored, and the reasons for its emergence and appeal are considered in detail. As a system of ideas, liberation theology first appears during a period of great social change, ecclesiological debate, and political upheaval. The convergence of these elements helps explain the theologys appeal within the churches, makes sense of its characteristically activist identification with the poor, and helps account for the popular appeal of the new organizational structures it has inspired. These convergences also suggest possible constraints and the long-term political impact of this theology. Throughout the article I argue that analysis of impacts must go beyond the ideas of liberation theology to ask how and why such ideas are received and acted upon in concrete settings.

Churches and politics in Latin America

The contributors to this volume -- scholars and clergy from both North and South America -- describe the complex relationship between religion and state in Latin America. They discuss the intense self-examination by Latin American Christians, the development of new theologies, new religions and social practices, and a heightened sensitivity to social problems.

Religion and politics in Latin America : the Catholic Church in Venezuela and Colombia

This book explores the transformations in religion in conjunction with political change. Professor Levine suggests, highlights the dynamic and dialectical interaction between religion and politics in general, and addresses the more universal problem of relating thought to actionOriginally published in 1981.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Future of Christianity in Latin America

The Christianity of the future in Latin America will remain dominant but now plural and competitive. The decline of Catholic monopoly and the surge of Protestant and Pentecostal churches, visible since the 1980s but with deeper roots, are explained in the context of social, cultural and political changes that have drawn churches into public space in new ways. The impact of democracy, violence, and a newly open civil society on churches and religious life is visible in new ideas about rights and associational life and in the withdrawal of the institutional churches from political confrontation, diversification of political positions and multiplication of voices in all churches.

The Decline and Fall of Democracy in Venezuela: Ten Theses

This paper presents an argument about the causes of the decline and fall of the 1958-1999 system of democratic politics, commonly known in Spanish as puntofijista, in Venezuela. Competing explanations of this process are evaluated, and an interim assessment of President Hugo Chavez and his political project is offered. This paper develops an argument about the decline and fall of democracy in Venezuela and an assessment of some of the most prominent explanations of what happened. Following a brief sketch of the old regime, I address central dimensions of its decay: elite and mass defections, leadership failure, organisational rigidities, institutional immobilism and inefficacy, declining legitimacy, and the limited capacity of new movements to consolidate into viable political alternatives. The discussion that follows the account of the old regime is organised around ten theses; each followed by a supporting statement.

Popular Groups, Popular Culture, and Popular Religion

This paper examines the emergence and character of popular religious groups and considers their implications for long-term cultural change in Latin America. Particular attention is given to the link between religious change and the creation of a popular subject , a set of confident, articulate and capable men and women, from hitherto silent, unorganized, and dispirited populations. I argue here that creation of such a popular subject is nurtured by transformations in key expressions of popular religion, by the way these take form in new patterns of community organization and group solidarity, and by efforts to rework the ties that bind popular groups to dominant institutions.

Civil Society and Political Decay in Venezuela

Civil society emerged as a self-conscious force in Venezuela in the context of extended political and institutional decay. The term itself was rarely heard in national life before the 1980s, as the country’s powerful political parties monopolized all kinds of organization, incorporating and subordinating them to party networks. As the political party system and the institutions built around it entered a terminal decline, great hopes were placed in civil society as a potential source for reconstructing politics on more open and democratic grounds—democratizing the country’s democracy that was widely perceived to be in crisis. These hopes have been frustrated and the energies that moved them have not found enduring form. The combination of high hopes for empowerment and a new kind of politics with frustration and disempowerment unites Venezuelan experience with much of the rest of Latin America in an unhappy pattern.

Authority in Church and Society: Latin American Models

This article examines the relationship between the Catholic Churchs self- image and the way its leaders and organizations perceive the world around them and act within it. By focusing on the development of central religious concepts, (most notably ‘authority’ and ‘the Church’) and their changing expression in organizational structures and patterns of behavior, a first step is taken toward a more complete and adequate analysis of the Churchs evolving role in Latin American society and politics.

The Catholic Church, “Politics,” and Violence: The Colombian Case

The issue of politics and the Catholic Church in Latin America, relegated until recently to nineteenth-century historians, is very much alive today. On the one hand, the church as an institution is enmeshed in public controversy over human rights with repressive regimes from Paraguay to Panama, from Brazil to Chile. When it serves as a shelter for political and social dissent, it is accused by secular authorities of engaging in a “new clericalism.” On the other hand, it has been assailed by critics within for being wed to existing political powers. These radical clergy and lay people believe that the churchs social presence is inevitably political, but want to change its alliances to benefit the poor and dispossessed. Furthermore, they believe that the existing order in given situations is aform of “institutionalized violence” against which the Christian response must be “counterviolence.” Such attacks from right and left occur, paradoxically, just at a time when the Latin American church has turned with unprecedented resolve to fundamental pastoral tasks. Politics has thus become a problem just as the hierarchy can claim, with considerable justification, to have eschewedthe practice of partisanship and the pursuit of power.