Academic literature on the topic 'Nicaragua, church history'

The course of the Church's history in Nicaragua had changedfrom an institution led by a martyred Bishop protecting Indianrights before Rome and the Spanish King to one largelyconcerned with protecting its own interests followingNicaragua’s independence to one that had come to terms with itsmission to save souls and to serve its people. However, many ofthose who took the initiative to bring the Church toward a morehumanitarian orientation in modern times had allowedthemselves to become the tool of a revolutionary politicalmovement whose aim was to perpetuate its own power.Ironically, those who truly wished to serve God and His peoplefound themselves oppressed by those who claimed that theywere doing the same. After a long struggle, a free election in1990 brought to power a series of democratic governmentsallowing freedom of the Church to fulfil its mission.

El Salvador, the smallest but most densely populated country of Central America, experienced one of Latin America's bloodiest civil wars, accompanied by widespread human rights violations. State repression was especially brutal against opposition groups such as peasant associations, unions, students, and religious people. Twenty-five church people were murdered and many religious workers were persecuted, expelled, or tortured. Several U.S. missionaries were among those murdered or expelled victims. Although the number of religious victims is relatively small in comparison to the tens of thousands of people who were killed in the three civil wars of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, the murders of religious personnel had a profound impact on the religious community in Central America, and particularly in El Salvador. This impact also reached religious groups in the United States. Given the traditional alliance between the Catholic Church and the political and economic elites throughout most of Salvadoran history, the murders of religious leaders by government or government-linked forces symbolized a remarkable shift.

It has been almost two decades since trends in research on Latin American politics were measured in any systematic way. The early profile of the state of Latin American research in political science developed by Peter Ranis showed that Mexico, Brazil, and Chile “receive about one-third of all political science research attention.” Less than 1 percent of political science research was devoted to Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua. The subjects that received the most attention in the 1960s were interest groups (the military, students, and the church), the history of political institutions, and the nature of political, economic, and social change.

Abstract This article analyzes the responses of Moravian missionaries in Nicaragua when they encountered colonial and national competition over sovereignty and internal strife and challenging conditions in indigenous communities, from the 1890s to the 1930s. The focus is on Moravian missionaries who settled in the northern portion of Miskitu territory, which is located in the Mosquitia on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast. Diaries and notes, as well as official reports and accounts to the Moravian Church, provide a unique historical lens through which to examine how the missionaries navigated indigenous resistance, land claims, foreign competition, and economic booms and busts. Although not acting according to an explicit political agenda, missionaries systematically constructed religious, educational, and medical institutions that overcame Miskitu resistance to Christian conversion and became integral to Miskitu lives and welfare. Despite this, the Miskitu people preserved a tradition of self-government during the period under consideration. A change of religious beliefs did not constitute a fundamental transformation of Miskitu ideas and aspirations about political and cultural autonomy. The consolidation of Moravian influence contributed to the intensity of Miskitu nationalist sentiments and land claims when demands for indigenous autonomy resurged later in the twentieth century. This article examines Moravian perspectives on disunity and anxiety in coastal and savannah communities on the Tawira side of Miskitu geographic and ethnic divisions. Moravian accounts of the foundation of the Tawira community of Tuara elucidate ancestral roots and communal struggles during the ebb and flow of Miskitu autonomy and vulnerability.

O presente estudo tem como objetivo analisar a produção de imaginários políticos e culturais orientados pela Teologia da Libertação durante o governo sandinista na Nicarágua (1979 1990) procurando mostrar a mescla que aí se deu entre religião e revolução. Pretendemos investigar como se constituíram esses imaginários expressos em discursos de políticos e religiosos, jornais, livros, cartilhas, músicas, poemas, fontes visuais produzidas por membros das Comunidades Eclesiais de Base (CEBs) atuantes na Nicarágua, com a meta de ampliar a adesão de setores populares à Revolução Sandinista. Procuramos averiguar em que medida uma comunidade de fé atuou, através da cultura, da educação e das ações políticas, no sentido de colaborar com o projeto revolucionário da Frente Sandinista de Libertação Nacional (FSLN). Uma questão que aqui se coloca é a da identificação entre os ideais revolucionários no poder que se orientavam por concepções marxistas e os dos cristãos que, a partir do Concílio Vaticano II e das Conferências de Medellín e Puebla fizeram a opção preferencial pelos pobres, inserindo-se nas lutas sociais da América Latina. Pretendemos discutir as possibilidades e limites de uma proposta socialista cristã que se constrói a partir de pressupostos teóricos conflitantes como é o caso do materialismo marxista e a doutrina católica que o recusa. A relação entre imaginários sociais e práticas políticas constitui o eixo central desta análise que se propõe verificar como os imaginários se constituem a partir de conflitos diversos e se transformam em armas de luta que orientam as práticas dos agentes envolvidos nesse processo.
The present study has the objective to analyse the production of political and cultural imaginariness oriented by the Theology of Liberation during the sandinist government in Nicaragua (1979-1990) trying to demonstrate the mixture of religion and revolution. Our intention is to investigate how were constituted the imaginariness expressed on political and religious speeches, newspapers, books, spelling books, music, poems and visual materials produced by members of the Base Communities (CEBs) acting in Nicaragua, with the goal to increase the adherence of popular sectors to the Sandinist Revolution. We attempt inquiring in what extension a community of faith acted through the culture, the education and political actions, with the objective to collaborate with the revolucionary project of the Sandinist National Liberation Front (FSLN). One question here presented is the one of the identification between the revolucionay ideals in power that were oriented by marxist conceptions and the christian ones that, with the Vatican II Council and the Conferences of Medellin and Puebla, made a preferred option for the poor, inserting themselves in the social fights in Latin America. We intent to discuss the possibilities and limits of a christian socialist proposal built based on conflicting teorical purposes which is the case of the marxist materialism and the catolic doutrine that refuses it. The relationship between social imaginariness and political practices constitutes the main point of this analysis which has the purpose to verify how the imaginariness constitutes itself from different conflicts transforming itself in weapons of fight which orients the practices of the agents involved in this process.