Ten Considerations for a Christian Pneumatology from an Indigenous Perspective

Abstract

The Latin American (Amerindian) indigenous peoples, not only Amazonian, were probably never on the verge of extermination as at present, due to great international economic powers and interests that threaten the territory itself: the indiscriminate felling of trees, pollution of rivers, lakes and affluents, indiscriminate use of agrotoxic, oil spills, legal and illegal mining, neo-extractivism, monocultures, mafia networks and drug trafficking, trafficking and trafficking of people (mostly women), child prostitution, among others. Faced with this situation, indigenous communities, together with other peoples, raise their voices, organize and fight to defend their territorial living spaces. In this fight of David against Goliath, Christian communities and Amerindian theologies, faithful to their cultural and evangelical roots, accompany the process by re-weaving their own memories, ancestral wisdoms and millenary spiritualities with the experiences lived by the first Christian communities. In this process, indigenous theologies rediscover the perennial presence of the Holy Spirit, which has always accompanied, encouraged and pushed believers to put into practice the “good living” among all the peoples of the earth.