Lecture 2 Outline
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Outline of the 1st lecture in part one of the course. Part one of the course is entitled Latino Christianity in the United States.
Lecture #2--Enduring Communities of
Faith in the Southwest
1. Three ways that Hispanics became a part of the United States: incorporation through
conquest, immigration, exile.
2. Elements of Conquest:
3. Resistance to Conquest
4. Other Responses to Conquest
5. Enduring communities of faith: conquered and with little political, economic, or social
capital, Hispanics nonetheless endured as distinct ethnic religious communities. Women
often played a key role in leading and celebrating religious traditions. From a theological
standpoint, these faith expressions became a core way in which practitioners defended
their identity and their dignity as children of God. They were an “enacted theology.”
6. Theological Reflection
1. Three ways that Hispanics became a part of the United States: incorporation through
conquest, immigration, exile.
2. Elements of Conquest:
- military
- judicial
- political
- economic (e.g. confiscation of land)
- demographic
- cultural
- religious (Catholic and Protestant)
- linguistic (language)
3. Resistance to Conquest
- military
- armed resistance
- political
- founding community organizations
- language
- conflict with clergy (from both Hispanic laity and priests)
- writing memoirs and historical accounts
4. Other Responses to Conquest
- “peace structure” – usually involving elite families, e.g. through intermarriage of daughters with Anglo-American newcomers
- this option not usually available to the majority of working-class and/or poor Hispanics – but they too found it necessary to respond to the new social order, e.g. need for women and sometimes even children to work for wages shifted gender and generational relations – solidarity among extended family members
- isolation/barrio enclaves (in some ways a form of resistance, or at least mutual survival and protection)
5. Enduring communities of faith: conquered and with little political, economic, or social
capital, Hispanics nonetheless endured as distinct ethnic religious communities. Women
often played a key role in leading and celebrating religious traditions. From a theological
standpoint, these faith expressions became a core way in which practitioners defended
their identity and their dignity as children of God. They were an “enacted theology.”
6. Theological Reflection
- influence of rural/urban shift on meaning of ritual and devotion
- ritual and devotion as “enacted theology”
- faith and justice: symbolic language of resistance
- centrality of popular religion as expression of ultimate identity and belonging
- defense of dignity as children of God
- mestizaje: connections between Elizondo’s reflections and the history related in chapter two of ¡Presente!.
Copyright 2008,
by the Contributing Authors.
Cite/attribute Resource.
smata. (2006, June 22). Lecture 2 Outline. Retrieved August 20, 2008, from Notre Dame OpenCourseWare Web site: http://ocw.nd.edu/theology/latino-theology-and-christian-tradition/Lecture%202%20Outline.
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