This is an interview in Spanish that I did with Anyul Rivas and Natanael Disla about “the emerging movement in Latin America and the Caribbean”. Both Anyul and Natanael follow the discussions in North America and know Latin-American theologies and the realities of its churches in practice. How do we in Latin-America and the Caribbean want to shape the church emerging?

Gustavo Frederico: Natanael, what would be the emerging movement in Latin America?

Natanael Disla: We can’t say that there is an “emerging movement” in Latin America, at least as people know it in the United States currently. Changes have been proposed for decades in Latin America and the Caribbean, but these did not resonate deeply within the churches and faith communities.

Gustavo: What would be some of these changes and their causes?

Natanael:

1.       The human being as subject of theology. Theology was seen as “the study of God”, without taking into account the subject as producer of this theology, and not even the vital context that determined this theology. From this comes the preoccupation from Latin America and the Caribbean with placing the human being as subjects of theology... well, this has a whole historical baggage that blends with its theology.

2.       The action and social justice as the cyclical climax of the make-theology. The entrenchment of evangelical churches in the region and their dependency on the missionary societies at the time to carry on the mission and the pastoral went beyond the aesthetical fulfillment of the needs of the communities, leading to poking around the structural causes that caused these needs, and 3^rd...

3.       The inclusion of excluded individualities. There are suggestions not only that the church must be “the voice of the voiceless”, but that these voices “come to the forefront” without distinctions of any kind. I won’t try to be exhaustive, but I believe that these three points give us a general view of the changes that were proposed.

Gustavo: I would like to come back to some aspects of these 3 points, but now I ask Anyul: what do you understand by “emerging movement” in general?

Anyul Rivas: In general, I would say that the emerging movement is a heterogeneous movement of Christians dialoguing with the world and the postmodern society; it is the intent to see the gospel from postmodernity and not postmodernity from the closed and modern gospel.

Gustavo: What would be some of the characteristics of postmodernity in Latin America?

Anyul: I believe that first of all it would be the criticism of the presuppositions of the Age of Enlightenment. The overcoming of the view that science was a synonym of truth and the imposition of rationality as universal parameter, and on the other hand the emphasis on the values of the individual and his/her experience as [the] base of the interpretation of the real.

Gustavo: Yes. I also think that there is unbelief in the meta-narratives/big utopias like “capitalism” or “socialism”. An interesting part of your answer, Anyul, is the hermeneutical interpretation, “it is the intent to see the gospel from postmodernity and not postmodernity from the closed and modern gospel”. Do we read the gospel or does the gospel read us?

Anyul: Yes, it is a bilateral experience, but for years we believed that it was a unilateral experience of God toward us.

Gustavo: The numbers of evangelical churches – specially the Pentecostals – keep rising in Latin America. Do we need an emerging movement, Natanael?

Natanael: More than needing an “emerging movement”, which would come as yet another imported ecclesiological model, we need to rethink from our own contexts about the ways of being church that address the needs of our people.

Anyul: I agree with Natanael, if we are to take anything from the “emergent movement” from North America it is its disposition to dialogue and the conversation with its surroundings that develops. I welcome the initiative of the interdenominational/inter-religious dialog and the non-adherence to confessional doctrines specific to the American emerging movement, but in Latin America that looks like a bitter pill to swallow...

Natanael: Yes, but the theologies present in Latin America and the Caribbean have been saying this for decades.