At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, two liberation movements arose autonomously and gradually began to converge. One was liberation theology, to use the term coined by the Peruvian Gustavo Gutiérrez, which expanded throughout the continent emphasizing an “option for the poor,” that is, a religious orientation centered on the marginalized and exploited. Second, in a number of Latin American countries, new indigenous movements began gaining ground. Bolivia was one of the earliest such cases, with its predominantly Aymara indianista and katarista currents. Since the 1990s, such convergences and emphases have contributed toward so-called Indian theologies, which have been the focus of regional gatherings in diverse parts of Latin America.
The encounter between the dual movements can be seen in the two creeds presented below. They emerged from one of many meetings of Aymara catechists—in this case, the gathering in the town of Carabuco (La Paz) also included Methodist and Lutheran pastors of Aymara origin—and both creeds were published in the ecumenical journal Fe y Pueblo (Faith and the People) in 1987. They were inspired by the so-called rereadings of the Bible popularized by the Brazilian biblical scholar Carlos Mesters, who proposed a reinterpretation of biblical and other texts in the context of concrete sociocultural situations. These Aymara believers “reread” the history of the biblical salvation of the Israelites, applying it to their own history and present situation, with the twist that their oppressors were not Egyptians, but rather the conquering Spaniards and that their descendants, calling themselves Catholics, have oppressed them up until today. In the second text, different syncretic notions also explore how to combine an Andean vision of the cosmos with the Catholic creed, which they also accept.
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