228 - Cross and Sword: An Eyewitness History of Christianity in Latin America

Cross and Sword:
An Eyewitness History of Christianity in Latin America
By H. M. Goodpasture
Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 1989. 314 pp. $29.98 ($12.95 pb.).

As we approach 1992, we will begin to see a profusion of literature evaluating

230 - Cross and Sword: An Eyewitness History of Christianity in Latin America

the events surrounding 1492 from a variety of theological and ideological perspectives, as already exists in Spanish. This volume will be a particularly important contribution both because it is an anthology of texts linked together by history and commentary and because it comes from the minority perspectives of Protestant and liberation emphases.

The hermeneutical position taken is that of the Commission on the History of the Church in Latin America, an international group of scholars committed to unearthing new and marginal sources, giving a balance between the triumphalistic and the totally negative evaluations of the churches' roles, and testing a hypothesis about the periodization of history derived from certain philosophical convictions. The texts allow the experiences and persons, often absent from more traditional histories, to speak for themselves. The periodization-Christendom (1492-1830); neochristendom (1808-1962); liberation (1962-present)-is informed by a very specific theological conviction, which also guides the selection of texts presented here.

While the emphasis on Protestant, and even North American, texts is understandable and useful in the latter section, some lacunae in the earliest texts should be noted. There is little said about the debates over international law that contributed to the New Laws of the Indes (1543), which so influenced later developments in human rights thinking in the churches and society. Likewise, there is no treatment of the so called "Black Legend"-the use of Las Casas' Spanish self-criticism in the Reformation era rhetoric and subsequent use in Anglo-Saxon and Dutch imperialism, including United States foreign policy. Much prejudice of the North against the South is still attributed to the endurance of this rhetoric.

Other books will be forthcoming, undoubtedly, supplementing these texts with a wider range from the Catholic majority and representing Spanish and Latin American interests. It will also be important, in this commemorative moment, to provide parallel resources on the treatment of Indian and slave populations in North America and Catholic-Protestant relationships and persecutions in that colonial/early national context. While the church is much older, and in some ways maturer, in Latin America, Christianity in the Western hemisphere bears a common burden of reconciliation and liberation if the next five hundred years are to begin the process of healing necessitated by the last five hundred.

Jeffrey Gros, FSC
National Council of Churches of Christ
New York, N.Y.