Perspectivas

With the involvement of the wealthier nations and their investment in the ever more destructive military arsenal, we can see how political interests and global decisions are often tainted by military confrontation. In the case of the Israelite onslaught of Palestine, it is becoming increasingly clear that though it remains powerful, the colonial project has lost any moral standing. Not that it ever had it, but that now the degree to which the richer and powerful nations will side with other wealthier and powerful nations to guarantee control of the poor peoples and nations of the world is ever more evident.

Latin Americans and Latinas/os/xs are not strange to foreign military invasions, political interests, and economic maneuverings. We have a long-standing history of economic and political interventionism orchestrated by foreign interests. Latinas/os/xs have become accustomed to navigating violent social spaces where many of us are still seen as foreigners, immigrants, or unwanted second-class citizens. And yet, we are also heirs to centuries-long struggles to define and think for ourselves and to undo the legacy of colonization that sometimes feels ubiquitous.  

Along those lines, the first article of the 2024 issue of Perspectivas, by Michael Jiménez, revisits the historical figure of Che Guevara both for his capacity to rally people together and a complex history of violence and suppression of opposition. Drawing methodologically on biography as theology, Jiménez wrestles with Guevara’s historical legacy while examining some of the contested threads of that history that turned him into a powerful symbol for many. Focusing on the Christian tradition of non-violence, the author invites readers to rethink this legacy of violence while at the same time daring them to claim other key figures in our history of struggle who may better fit our changing societies.

Latinas/os/xs are no strangers to violence, especially historical texts and social policies and laws that have proven violent and exclusionary to our communities. Dealing with the issue of violent texts, Chauncey Handy discusses in our second article the complexities of reading potentially violent texts. Specifically focusing on the pericope of Judges 5, Handy complexifies the reading of this passage by drawing on Robert Warrior’s proposal of reading with “Canaanite eyes” and by engaging the Zapatista leader, Subcomandante Marcos, as his primary interlocutor. The author problematizes uncritical readings of violent texts, including the Judges 5 passage, and exposes critical inconsistencies in hermeneutical claims that promote the “plain reading” of the biblical text.

Part of the work among Latinas/os/xs has been to dismantle the colonial legacy, to counter dominant narratives and theologies, to work toward building our own theologies from the heart of our communities, and from our affirmations offer to other ethnocultural traditions theological insights. In our third article, Audrey Wong draws on the theological and theoretical work of Latinas/os/xs particularly the notions of mestizaje and borderlands. Wong meticulously examines these two key categories and elaborates critical insights that are useful for developing of a theology from Singapore. This theology, she asserts, would have to account for the history of colonization and its legacy, the internal reality of ethnic and biological intermixture, and think carefully about what it would mean to write such a theology considering Singapore’s present social climate and cultural reality of Singapore. Much like Latinas/os/xs started doing a few decades ago, Wong maps out ways in which a properly Christian and Singaporean theology can emerge in her context. 

The editorial team of Perspectivas is pleased to publish these articles complemented by a few book reviews. These together display the growing Latina/o/x theological production. We offer this 2024 issue as an expression of the vitality of Latina/o/x academic work and research, and our contribution and sometimes disruption to multiple fields of research. 

Néstor Medina
Senior Editor.