Journal of Latin American Theology: Volume 4, Number 2
Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamérica

Reviewed by Kevin Book-Satterlee

In missions it is easy to cling to one’s theological perspective coming from the home country. Too often outside theology has been supplanted in new cultures or communities leaving the people disconnected from a contextualized knowledge of who they are in the light of God. Colonialistic missions, for the most part, has been relatively eradicated, however as missions continues, colonialism of theology will continue without the encouragement of indigenous theological reflection. Where there is indigenous theological reflection, missionaries must come to at least understand and attempt to identify with the contextualized theology.

Of course contextualized theology can lead to the slippery-slope of syncretism and poor theology, however theology is always contextualized and the supplanting of outside theology is most likely syncretic and poor as it comes in. Western missionaries are often accused of their materialistic syncretism in the theology they bring and need the Spirit’s guidance to better contextualize the Gospel message they preach, teach and engage in the new context.

The Journal of Latin American Theology might be one of the most important evangelical tools for missionaries to Latin America today. Here Latin American theology is explored and communicated for Latin Americans and in English for a wider audience. The general aim is the “Christian Reflections from the Latino South.” It is a twice-a-year publication published by the Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamérica (FTL).

The most recent issue highlights five of the primary founders of the FTL: Emilio Antonio Núñez, José Míguez Bonino, René Padilla, Samuel Escobar and Orlando Costas. Included are expositions of their theological positions as well as their contributions to Latin American contextualized theology and the world. Primarily written by Daniel Salinas, admittedly biased, Salinas does an adequate job portraying each of these theologians.

After reading this journal I am incensed by the fact that I’d never actually read any of their works before. Education is what you make of it, so I’m disappointed in myself, however when studying Latin American theology in seminary I was never given a single work by these five theologians to read. Instead I read the theological positions of Boff and Gutierrez, important for theological education, yet with no mention of the evangelical theologians all the more important for my evangelical education.

Perhaps these theologians are not included as theologians simply because they were missionaries and ministers in their local communities “doing” theology in their spare time. Or perhaps each one of these evangelical theologians presented a theology that was in conflict with the dominant western evangelical theology of the day.

The journal is an excellent resource for missionaries headed to Latin America. More though, it is excellent for all missionaries. Each of the five theologians represent contexts from the global south, while contextually different in other global south countries, the example of contextualized theology is radically important.