Author:
Jamie Fleischfresser
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Date Posted: 07:43:21 05/20/02 Mon
In reply to:
Dylan
's message, "ID Stuff" on 08:09:51 05/11/02 Sat
Azuleika Sampaio: Azuleika is a Brazilian woman whose work shows how and why CEB's ( comunidades eclesiales de base - these press for greater equality and autonomy through challenging established norms of power and authority through the churches) have assumed political importance in Brazil. Her story is that of a very poor woman - who began to get involved with the local church. Born in 1933, ( Minas Gerias) , Azuleika was very poor and lived in favela. However the church that she was involved in encouraged the involvement in politics and awareness of your surroundings. She became involved in the neighborhood and woman's movements.
This example shows how people at the grass roots levels can influence the political arena. Azuleika's faith required demanded an effort to fight for social justice. This took considerable effort because she was active during the military regime of the 1970's. She became one of the outstanding political leaders in the 7th biggest Brazilian City.
Patricio Alvarez:- Similar to the previous example, Patricio also shows how these faith based groups can help influence a community. Patricio was also born in to a poor family in Colombia. He became very involved with the church through a three day cursillo de christianidad. All his education has come through teachings of the church. However unlike the case of Brazil, these grass roots organizations don't influence the political spectrum as much in Colombia. For Patricio, faith involves above all the search to better oneself and others - which in turn helps the local community. He finds this commitment to the community through his lay ministry. The churches in Colombia have remained conservative ( unlike in Brazil) however the way that the churches are helping the poor- through education and community awareness is huge.
Exorcism: - From the article - Rethinking the Study of Social Movements - This topic is showing how the introduction of CEB's are changing the makeup of church followers. Many of the CEB's are losing their followers because they are beginning to discriminate against them. While illiterates never had leadership roles in the church- they were never asked to read, however CEB's soon thought that reading was important- illiterates then couldn't get away with memorizing things. They soon felt stupid coming to church.
They also required a lot more participation. Instead of people only coming when they could- they were required to attend many meetings throughout the week- and if they didn't they were looked down apon. ( this makes it very hard for lower class families that are working 2 jobs to remain active in the church) People of darker skin were also discriminated against. Therefore the people that attended church were often of higher class, mostly women, self employed and white.
Afircan Spiritism: This concept is the idea that when slaves were brought to Brazil and Latin America ( Brazil had the most slaves) they managed to come up with ways to keep their own customs eventhough they were forced to pick up many European ideals. They continued to sing in the fields and they adopted their own meshed religion. Look at the examples ahead.
Orixas: These are African gods. When the slaves were brought to latin america, they were forced to pick up Christianity. It became somewhat an underground religion, people who practiced it were severely punished, however now it is protected by the brazilian government. Many of eh Orixa gods can be related to christian figures- ex: For example, Jesus Christ became identified with Oxala, the African god of creativity and the offspring of the supreme divinity, Olorum. Yemanja, the fertile and compassionate orixa of the salt waters and the link with Mother Africa, was associated with Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.
Candomble: In Brazil, Catholicism has historically been the major religion, Protestants and other faiths being a small minority. Within this second group are the so-called Afro-Brazilian cults,which, until the 1930's, could be included in the category of ethnic religions that preserved the traditions of the former African slaves and their descendants.
These religions existed in different areas of Brazil with different rites and local names derived from diverse African traditions: Candomblé in Bahia1, Xangô in Pernambuco and Alagoas2, Tambor de Mina in Maranhão and Pará3, Batuque in Rio Grande do Sul4, and Macumba in Rio de Janeiro. It seems that the resurgence of those black religions in Brazil occurred fairly recently. Since the African people brought to the New World during the final period of slavery (the last decades of the 19th. century) were located mostly in cities for urban jobs, they were able to live physically and socially in closer proximity than they had done before, and this fact provided the propitious social conditions for some African religions to survive.
These religions flourished, but Catholicism continued as the preference of more than 90% of the Brazilian population until the 1950's, although in the country's most industrialized region, the Southeast, there has always been a lower percentage of Catholics. Here was a more marked increase took place in the number of Protestants, Kardecist Spiritist and followers of Umbanda, an Afro-Brazilian religion that emerged in the 1930's in Brazil most developed urban areas and which, despite its origins in the black population, does not seek to preserve an African cultural patrimony in a "pure" form.
Santeria: Santeria is one of the many syncretic religions created in the New World. It is based on the West African religions brought to the new world by slaves imported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations. These slaves carried with them their own religious traditions, including a tradition of possession trance for communicating with the ancestors and deities, the use of animal sacrifice and the practice of sacred drumming and dance. Those slaves who landed in the Carribean, central and south America were nominally converted to Catholicism. However, they were able to preserve some of their traditions by fusing together various Dahomean, baKonga and Yoruban beliefs and rituals and by syncretizing these with elements from the surrounding Catholic culture. This new fused religion is called Santería, the Way of the Saints.
This is significant because it shows how many of the indigenous populations that were brought to Latin America delt with the way that they were converted to cathlocism. They found a way to mesh the two together.
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