Michelle A. González’s Afro-Cuban Theology: Religion, Race, Culture, and Identity is not a history book; it is, rather, a work of systematic theology, informed by scholarship related to Latin American Liberation Theology and United States Latino and Afro-American theologies. The author discusses in much detail the limitations of each of these particular theologies as tools to comprehend Cuba’s complex religious systems and rituals, both on the island and in the diaspora. González proposes to integrate black and Latino theologies to better understand a particularly hypersyncretic Cuban religious culture that is strongly African, Catholic, and Latin American.
The author provides a basic overview of Cuba’s cultural and religious development, with strong emphasis on the contributions of African slaves and their descendants and a useful introduction to various forms of African-derived religious systems, including Regla de Ocha, las Reglas, Abakuá, and Regla de Ifá. Much attention is devoted to Santería (Regla de...
