Historian William De Arteaga invites Pneuma Review readers to journey with him into Latin American Christianity as presented in Issue 130 of Christian History magazine.

Christian History 130, “Latin American Christianity: Colorful, complex and conflicted”

Christian History magazine is a wonderful journal. I recommend a copy of it be at the coffee table of every Christina household so that friends and neighbors would be influenced by it.

Have you noticed how many books of the Bible are historical? No accident. This is different for the scriptures of other religions, which are mostly texts of moral do’s and don’t’s or meditation practices, such as in Buddhism. Without a sense of history, a Christian will have difficulty forming a mature biblical worldview. Without this grounding, Christians fall into errors like conspiracy theories—where one believes another group is especially evil—or so-called pedestal history—where one believes the present generation is the wisest and best. ().[1]

Many Christian writes still fall into modern forms of “hagiography.” That is, writing only the positive about Christians and their ministries, and skip any sinful or negative aspects. Note that the Biblical history books are not written in that way. We learn, for instance, of David’s murder-adultery, Paul had and ugly donnybrook with Barnabus, and the “heroes” of the book of Judges all had serious faults that were not over looked.[2]

In this issue, the editor and writers did a wonderful job of balancing the achievements of the Spanish and Brazilian evangelization of Latin America and some of the saints they produced as well as looking in on the dark sins of genocide of the indigenous people of the Caribbean, the mass importation of African slaves, and the imposition of serfdom on most of the indigenous peoples. The editor, Jennifer Woodruff Trait, an Evangelical Christian, could have accepted the Evangelical suspicion that Catholics are not really Christian, but she did not.[4]

The “Latin American Christianity” issue is divided into ten articles that cover wide panorama of issues about Christianity in Latin America plus its usual and useful sections, “Did You Know” factoids, and “Recommended Resources“ of books, web sites and videos.

Global Renewal Christianity: Latin America, provides a broad lens that not only captures the breath and the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit in the region, but also the historicity of Latino/a Pentecostalism being experienced for the last 100 years. The volume is skillfully edited and written with the goal of approaching the context and connecting the reader with specific regions such as; Cuba (99), San Pedro Sula, Honduras (44), the Andean Region (157-217) and the Southern Cone (239-295) in Latin America.

This remarkable volume also provides robust historical evidence of the Christian renewal movement in the region. The writers eloquently addressed Pentecostalism from their own context and traditions. The collection of essays utilizes various enquiry and academic styles to bring forth into the Guild of Pentecostal studies, what Bernardo Campos describes as; Pentecostalidad (Pentecostality) Latino-Americana (XXXii). For Campos, Pentecostalidad Latino-Americana is a new collective dynamic evangelical identity that is defined as the Spirit’s Empowerment upon a new generation of leaders. These new leaders from across the region are not only united through Pentecostalidad as new Latin American evangelical faces but are also a generation greatly concern with the pressing social issues of their countries. Hence, Pentecostalidad is redefining what it means to be part of a renewed Christian movement and is creating space for new actors that have begun to reshape the landscape of Latin American evangelicalism.

The volume also highlights the work of Pentecostal women like Elena Laidlaw in Chile. Numerous women in Latin America were key figures in the spreading of Pentecostalism at the beginning of 20^th century. However, many pioneer women were also persecuted, erased from history books, and silenced because of their gender (301). Yes!

What does Spirit-filled education look like around the world? The President of Facultad de Teología, Allen Martin, tells us how this seminary is training men and women across the Spanish-speaking world. Part of the Pentecostal Theological Education Around the World series from PneumaReview.com.

My name is Allen Martin and I have been a missionary with the Assemblies of God for the last 25 years. For over 20 of those years we worked with church planting and Bible School education among the Quichua Indians in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. At present I am the President of the Facultad de Teología de las Asambleas de Dios en America Latina (in English: the Latin America Theological Seminary/LATS). I am also currently working on a Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary.

Facultad de Teología was born of the desire of Latin Americans who had graduated from the Instituto de Superación Ministerial/ISUM (Latin America Advanced School of Theology/LAAST) to continue their ministerial training. LATS was designed to offer advanced training to recognized church leaders by delivering on- site, intensive month-long modules, in easily accessible regional locations at a reasonable cost, thereby minimizing the time students would be away from families and ministry. The uniqueness of the program provides for mutual learning, mentoring, counseling, encouragement, friendship, growth and prayer as professors and students live, study and eat together.

We are a Pentecostal seminary (Assemblies of God) whose aim is to train and equip Spanish speaking Pastors and leaders in all of Latin America. Because many Latin countries have a high percentage of native Indian groups we also a higher percentage of Indian students who study with us in those regions.

Bible school education in the Assemblies of God in Spanish speaking Latin America is set up in such a way that the first three years of Bible Institute studies are taught under the direction of the national church in each country. Each of those 3 year bible institutes uses what is known as the Basic Plan as their model. The Basic Plan was developed by and is regularly revised and updated by an international team of educators, many of whom are career missionaries. In order to graduate with a four year BA degree the 4^th year of theological studies are then studied in a series of four, one month-long, live-in modules taught by a roving faculty called ISUM. We at the Facultad de Teología then offer the next level of theological training, it is the Master’s degree level. Similar to ISUM, our program involves 5, three week long live-in modules and the writing of a thesis, project or a published book at the end of their studies with us. Also similar to ISUM we hold our modules in bible school facilities in countries that are strategically located allowing for students to come from surrounding countries to study. We currently hold modules in 11 countries, including: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, México, Dominican Republic and Cuba as well as having two centers here in the United States (Springfield, MO & La Puente, CA).