Abstract
This chapter briefly tells the story of the emergence of an iglesia autóctona, a local church with Indigenous face and heart in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, told from an historical perspective through an outsider’s eyes. It’s a story about how this local church has been facing its colonial reality and trying to transform itself over the past few decades in response to the resurgence of the Indigenous peoples. The chapter argues that the emergent iglesia autóctona and teología india are manifestations of resistance to colonization that open decolonial spaces in the same religious structures that have historically been used as the main instruments and force of colonization and where la colonialidad del poder is still pervasive today.
The English translation of iglesia autóctona is “autochthonous church.” But given the particular contextual meaning of the original concept of iglesia autóctona, which I will discuss below, I chose to use the term in Spanish all through this chapter. All translations from the Spanish are by the author, unless indicated otherwise.
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Notes
- 1.
For an explanation of “coloniality of power,” see the two introductory articles by the main theorist of the concept, Aníbal Quijano, “Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America,” International Sociology 15 (2000): 215–52, https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580900015002005; and “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality,” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2/3 (March 2007): 168–78, https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601164353.
Two chapters in this volume are particularly relevant to my discussion here. The chapter by Enrique Dussel on “Epistemological Decolonization of Theology” provides an excellent background for this discussion. In a way, this chapter is a case study in conversation with Dussel’s broader framework. See also the chapter by Sylvia Marcos on Indigenous women’s spirituality. Particularly relevant to my discussion in this chapter are the section on Indigenous peoples, Catholicism, and colonization, and the section on decolonizing epistemology.
For a general introduction to coloniality from a theological perspective, see the two articles by Lee Cormie, “Decoloniality: A Conceptual Introduction,” in Decoloniality and Justice: Theological Perspectives, ed. Jean-François Roussel, World Forum on Theology and Liberation (São Leopoldo, Brazil: Oikos, 2018), 19–21; and “Expanding Decolonial Horizons: Implications for the Renewal of Theology,” ibid, 51–64. See also in the same publication, Michel Andraos et al., “Glossary of Key Terms [Modernity, Coloniality, Decolonial Turn, Pensamiento Único],” 22–24.
- 2.
See, for example, the paper presented at the Medellín conference by Bishop Samuel Ruiz García, “Evangelization in Latin America,” in The Church in the Present-Day Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council, Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops, I, Position Papers (Bogotá: General Secretariat of CELAM, 1970), 155–77. Samuel Ruiz García was bishop of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas from 1960 to 2000. The movements discussed in this chapter, in which he played a leading role, took place in the diocese during his tenure.
- 3.
Nicanor Sarmiento documents these meetings that took place in Ambato (1967), Melgar (1968), Caracas (1969), Xicotepec (1970), Iquitos (1971), and Manaus (1977) and gives a summary of their outcome. See Nicanor Sarmiento Tupayupanqui, “La Evangelizacion de los Pueblos Indigenas en los Documentos del Episcopado Latinoamericano,” September 2007, accessible online at http://www.inculturacion.net/phocadownload/Autores_invitados/Sarmiento,_Evangelizacion_indigenas_en_documentos_episcopado_latinoamericano.pdf. (Accessed May 12, 2018). See also on the same topic the chapter by Stephen P. Judd, “The Indigenous Theology Movement in Latin America: Encounters of Memory, Resistance, and Hope at the Crossroads,” in Resurgent Voices in Latin America : Indigenous Peoples, Political Mobilization, and Religious Change, ed. Edward L. Cleary and Timothy J. Steigenga (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2004), 210–30.
- 4.
See Víctor Madrigal Sánchez, “Interpelaciones desde las Teologías Originarias a la Teología Cristiana,” in La Teología de La Liberación En Prospectiva. Congreso Continental de Teología, São Leopoldo, Brazil, October 7–11, 2012, vol. 2 (Montevideo, Uruguay: Fundación Amerindia, 2012), 131–42. The “Declaration of Darbados” is published in a document by the International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), Copenhagen, Denmark. According to the IWGIA document, the symposium of the anthropologists was sponsored jointly by the Program to Combat Racism and the Churches Commission on International Affairs of the World Council of Churches, together with the Ethnology Department of the University of Berne, Switzerland.
- 5.
Jorge Santiago Santiago, paper presented at the First International Colloquium in memory of anthropologist Andrés Aubry in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, December 2007, www.coloquiointernacionalandresaubry.org/aubry.html. (Accessed May 12, 2018).
- 6.
Madrigal Sánchez, “Interpelaciones desde las Teologías Originarias,” 132.
- 7.
Madrigal Sánchez, “Interpelaciones desde las Teologías Originarias,” 133.
- 8.
Michel Andraos, ed. and trans., Seeking Freedom: Bishop Samuel Ruiz in Conversation with Jorge S. Santiago on Time and History, Prophecy, Faith and Politics, and Peace (Toronto, Canada: Toronto Council, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, 1999), 20–21.
- 9.
Samuel Ruiz makes this point clearly on several occasions. See Jean Meyer, Samuel Ruiz En San Cristóbal (Mexico City: Tusquetes, 2000), 139–141.
- 10.
A recent version of this story is told in the two chapters by Tzeltal theologian Pedro Gutiérrez Jiménez, “Indigenous Theology: A Journey of Decolonizing the Heart,” and diocesan pastoral leader and theologian Jorge Santiago Santiago, “A Fifty-Years’ Perspective: The Experience of Accompaniment in the Process of Dialogue-Encounter with the Indigenous Peoples in Chiapas, Mexico,” in Michel Andraos, ed. The Church and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas: In-between Reconciliation and Decolonization. Studies in World Catholicism, Vol. 7. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2019). Both Gutiérrez Jiménez and Santiago Santiago have been part of these movements since their inception.
- 11.
On the struggle of the Zapatista communities for autonomy and good life with justice and dignity, see the excellent recent work by Mariana Mora, Kuxlejal Politics: Indigenous Autonomy, Race, and Decolonizing Research in Zapatista Communities (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017). The Tzeltal concept kuxlejal, which translates broadly to “full life in justice and dignity” and is often translated in Spanish as “buen vivir,” is a central theme in the teología india movement as well as for the political Indigenous resistance movements in Chiapas, as Mora’s publication very clearly demonstrates.
- 12.
See interview with Jan de Vos “Chiapas, El Camino de Un Pueblo.” Ixtus 26 (1999): 23. De Vos is a prominent historian of the missionary movements in Chiapas since the early colonial times. In the following quotation from the interview, I believe he summarizes well what he believes are two fundamentally different religious world views and ways of life. According to de Vos, Christianity brought and imposed a God who is a “Father in heaven,” while for the Mayan people, God is “Corazón del Cielo - Corazón de la Tierra,” heaven and earth together. “Nuestro Padre que está en el cielo y nuestra Madre que es la tierra,” … expresa de manera muy llamativa esta profunda diferencia entre dos maneras de ver la vida, de vivirla, de relacionarse con la naturaleza, con lo divino o con el más allá, de relacionarse también entre ellos. (“Our Father who are in heaven and our Mother who is the earth,” … express very strikingly a profound difference between two ways of looking at life, living, relating to nature, with the divine or the ultimate, and also relating among each other.)
- 13.
The movement of the Mayan teología india recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. See Coordinación Ecuménica de Teología India Mayense, El Aroma de Las Flores En La Milpa Mayense: Ofrenda de Nuestro Caminar Teológico. 25 Años de Los Encuentros Ecuménicos de Teologı-a India Mayense. (San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico: Coordinación Ecuménica de Teología India Mayense, 2016). On other experiences of iglesia autóctona in the continent, see Víctor Corral Mantilla, “Evangelización Inculturada e Iglesia Autóctona desde la Experiencia de la Iglesia Particular de Riobamba en Ecuador,” in 50 Jubileo Episcopal de Don Samuel Ruiz García. Congreso Teologico Pastoral. Ponencias, ed. Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas (San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas: Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, 2010), 79–92.
- 14.
Just to give an example of one theologian, see the following selected works by Eleazar López Hernández, a key theological voice in this movement, Teología India: Antología (Cochabamba, Bolivia: Verbo Divino, 2000). “Teologías Indígenas en las Iglesias Cristianas. ¿Podemos los Indígenas Ganar en Ellas el Lugar que Merecemos?,” in La Teología de la Liberación en Prospectiva. Congreso Continental de Teología, São Leopoldo, Brazil, October 7–11, 2012, vol. 2 (Montevideo, Uruguay: Fundación Amerindia, 2012), 293–306; “El Parto de una Iglesia Autóctona entre Indígenas de Chiapas,” in 50 Jubileo Episcopal de Don Samuel Ruiz García. Congreso Teologico Pastoral. Ponencias, ed. Diócese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas (San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas: Diócese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, 2010), 55–68; “Teología Desde los Nombres Indígenas de Dios,” in V Simposio de Theología India : Revelación de Dios y Pueblos Originarios, ed. Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano—CELAM, Departamento de Cultura y Educación (Bogotá, Colombia: CELAM, 2015), 43–66. Several regional and continental meetings of theologians of teología india have taken place since the early 1990s. The papers presented at these meetings are published in several volumes. See, for example, “Teología India: Primer Encuentro Taller Latinoamericano, Mexico (Mexico, September 16–23, 1990)” (CENAMI, 1991); and “Sabiduria Indígena, Fuente de Esperanza, Teología India, II Parte, III Encuentro-Taller Latinoamericano, Cochabamba, Bolivia, 24 Al 30 de Agosto de 1997” (Cusco, Peru: IPA, IDEA, and CTP, 1998).
- 15.
On the tension with the Vatican, see my articles “Indigenous Leadership in the Church,” 61–62; and “¿Por Qué Una Visita a Chiapas? El Papa Francisco y Los Pueblos Indígenas,” Spiritus 57/3, no. 224 (September 2016): 118–27.
- 16.
The relation between the Zapatista uprising and the pastoral process in the diocese of San Cristóbal has been discussed in numerous books and articles. The works of the historian Jan de Vos, cited above, are particularly helpful. Another good study on this topic is Meyer, Samuel Ruiz En San Cristóbal, cited earlier.
- 17.
Bishop Samuel Ruiz has discussed the topic iglesia autóctona in several writings and interviews. See, for example, Samuel Ruiz García, Mi Trabajo Pastoral En La Diócesis de San Cristóbal de Las Casas: Principios Teológicos (Mexico City: Ediciones Paulinas, 1999), 113–129; and Samuel Ruiz and Carles Torner, Cómo Me Convirtieron los Indígenas (Matiaño, Spain: SalTerrae, 2003), 91–107. See also Meyer, Samuel Ruiz En San Cristóbal, 131–153.
- 18.
Samuel Ruiz, “La Iglesia no es Católica si no es Tzeltal,” in Signos de Lucha y Esperenza: Testimonios de la Iglesia en América Latina 1973–1978, Lima: CEP, 1978, 316.
- 19.
For a more detailed discussion on the First Indigenous Congress, see Andraos, “Indigenous Leadership in the Church,” 58–59. For a historical documentary summary of the event, see Jesús Morales Bermúdez, “El Congreso Indígena de Chiapas,” in Anuario 1991 del Instituto Chiapaneco de Cultura (n.p.: Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas, Instituto Chiapaneco de Cultura, 1992), 242–370.
- 20.
Carlos Fazio, Samuel Ruiz, El Caminante, (Mexico City: Espasa Calpe, 1994), 103.
- 21.
See Second Vatican Council, Ad Gentes, 6. It would be important to comment though that based on the more recent experience of iglesia autóctona among the Indigenous communities, the theological reflections discussed in this chapter expand the meaning of the term beyond its use in Ad Gentes. The decolonial dimension in the use of the term, for example, is an added reflection that was not discussed in the original Vatican document. The diocesan documents, such as pastoral plans and the Third Diocesan Synod, would argue that the current use of the term is in the spirit of its original use in the Vatican document. The documents of the III Diocesan Synod (1995–1999) define in the first section Iglesia autóctona as “a church that is rooted in the place where it is located, that realizes itself and develops assuming the local culture, and not a church that comes from outside, that belongs to another culture, and that only makes external adaptations.” See Diócesis de San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Plan Diocesano de Pastoral (Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, 2004), 23–30; and the text of the III Sinodo Diocesano [1995–1999], (Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, 2000), 15–36.
- 22.
Andraos, Seeking Freedom, 18–19.
- 23.
Iribarren, Vino Nuevo, 12.
- 24.
Iribarren, Vino Nuevo, 14.
- 25.
Iribarren , “Document from the Diocese of San Cristóbal,” quoted in Marina Patricia Jiménez Ramírez, “La Interacción Entre la Iglesia de la Diócesis de San Cristóbal y Los Procesos Sociales de las Comunidades Indígenas del Municipio de Pantelho, Chiapas,” thesis, (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), 1994) 102–103.
- 26.
Pedro Gutiérrez Jiménez, “Flowers and Fruits of Our Maya-Christian Spirituality and Theology,” paper presented at the Latin American Congress on Religion and Ethnicity, Institute for Intercultural Studies and Research, San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, January 11, 2005. An English translation and a copy of the Spanish original were given to the author by Pedro Gutiérrez Jiménez.
- 27.
Ruiz and Torner, Cómo Me Convirtieron los Indígenas, 78.
- 28.
See the section on epistemic decolonial turn in Enrique Dussel, “Epistemological Decolonization of Theology,” Chap. 2 of this volume.
- 29.
Madrigal Sánchez, “Interpelaciones desde las Teologías Originarias,” 142.
- 30.
Roberto Tomichá Charupá, “Revelación y Pueblos Originarios: Algunas Consideraciones,” in V Simposio de Teología India: Revelación de Dios y Pueblos Originarios, ed. CELAM – Departamento de Cultura y Educación (Bogotá: CELAM, 2015), 135.
- 31.
Gutiérrez Jiménez, “Indigenous Theology: A Journey of Decolonizing the Heart.”
- 32.
For a broader discussion of theology and decoloniality, see Jean-François Roussel, ed., Decoloniality and Justice: Theological Perspectives, World Forum on Theology and Liberation (São Leopoldo, Brazil: Oikos, 2018). See also Michel Andraos, “Les Églises, la Théologie et les Autochtones : De la Réconciliation à la Décolonisation,” Théologuiques 23, no. 2 (2015): 59–73.
- 33.
Roberto Tomichá Charupá, “Towards a Church with an Amerindian Face: Some Premises and Urgent Challenges,” in Andraos, ed. The Church and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas, 13–29. On the point of Indigenous contribution to the renewal of theology, see Eleazar López Hernández, “Experiencia Teologal Indígena: Aporte a la Humanidad y las Iglesias,” in Decoloniality and Justice, 65–72.
- 34.
See Pope Francis’ letter to Cardinal Marc Ouellet, President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, Vatican, March 19, 2016, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2016/documents/papa-francesco_20160319_pont-comm-america-latina.html. See also the commentary article on this topic by the late Gregory Baum, “Pope Francis’s Polemic Against Clericalism,” The Ecumenist 53, no. 4 (Fall 2016): 6–9.
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Andraos, M. (2019). Iglesia Autóctona: An Indigenous Response to Colonial Christianity. In: Barreto, R., Sirvent, R. (eds) Decolonial Christianities. New Approaches to Religion and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24166-7_7
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