Luis R. Rivera traces the origins, context, and transformative history of a Latinx Protestant movement from the margins that changed the landscape of American theological education in the 1970s. Rivera's careful research and comprehensive analysis identifies and defines the emergence of the Protestant Latinx Academic Movement, or PLAM, a groundswell of activism that catalyzed new ideas, programs, and ways of educating for ministry across the geographic and denominational landscape from the late 1960s through the end of the 1970s. Inspired by and connected to the diverse Hispanic social justice and civil rights movements of the period, PLAM grew increasingly bold in seeking change and more organized in challenging and negotiating with the Protestant theological establishment. Rivera traces the movement's development from its initial coalescence, centered on programs such as the Hispanic American Institute at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, through the first waves of transformation in theological education with the establishment of programs at schools including Perkins School of Theology, New York Theological Seminary, McCormick Theological Seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Wartburg Theological Seminary. Throughout, he paints a rich picture of the personalities and approaches involved in PLAM, also connecting the movement's advocacy to that undertaken by other minoritized populations. By the end of the 1970s, Rivera argues, PLAM had seen the emergence of a variety of academic programs for Latinx students, the development of a cadre of Latinx scholars and educators, and the validation of the field of Latinx theology by stakeholders in the academy and philanthropic foundations. PLAM had moved from the outskirts to the margins of the academy, from which it has continued to fight externally and struggle internally to keep its vocation as a Latinx academic prophetic and reformist movement.
Luis R. Rivera is a retired senior scholar in theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary who served as the institution's first Latino academic dean and vice president for academic affairs. Born in Puerto Rico, Rivera holds a ThD from Harvard Divinity School and has been deeply involved in the work of theological education organizations including the Association for Theological Schools (ATS), Association of the Hispanic Theological Education (AETH), the Wabash Institute, the Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI), and In Trust Center for Theological Schools. Justo L. Gonzalez, author of the highly praised three-volume History of Christian Thought and other major works, attended United Seminary in Cuba, received his M.A. at Yale, and was the youngest person to be awarded a Ph.D. in historical theology at Yale. Dr. Gonzalez is Director of the Fund for Theological Education.
Acknowledgements and Dedication Foreword by Justo L. Gonzalez List of Abbreviations Preface Prologue Introduction PART I PLAM as a socio-religious reformist movement Chapter 1: A new history for a marginal story...worth telling Chapter 2: Hispanic social movements and Hispanic Protestants Chapter 3: Protestant seminaries and Hispanics before the 1960s PART II PLAM 's formation and collective actions Chapter 4: HAI: The great pioneer experiment Chapter 5: Organizing, advocacy, negotiations: 1965-1969 Chapter 6: Theological movements challenging the status quo: 1960s-1970s Chapter 7: The emergence of key organizational allies: 1971-1976 PART III PLAM?s transformative work in seminaries Chapter 8: Pioneer schools: From the Southwest to the East Chapter 9: Pioneer schools: From the Midwest to the West Chapter 10: Pioneer schools: Back to the Southwest Chapter 11: New perspectives on Protestant Hispanic theology Conclusion Afterword by Dr. Felipe Hinojosa Bibliography Author and Subject Index
As a living example of teologia de conjunto, that is, theology done as a community, a community concerned about action in the face of injustice, this well-researched work by someone who has sat in the dean's chair provides a much-needed history of the role that key individuals and institutions played in creating a movement, demonstrating that good theology is not done in a vacuum. Rivera-Rodriguez keenly draws from social movement studies to show the relationships between the particular and the universal, between the insider and the outsider, and between churches and social justice. --Eduardo C. Fernandez, SJ, professor of pastoral theology and ministry, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and the Graduate Theological Union, and author of La Cosecha: Harvesting Contemporary United States Hispanic Theology (1972-1998) In Doing Theology Latinamente, Luis R. Rivera-Rodriguez powerfully narrates a long-neglected story, illuminating the social movements that gave rise to Latinx theology and its transformative impact on graduate theological education and communities of faith. This essential volume offers a compelling account of the Protestant Latinx Academic Movement and demonstrates the enduring social impact of doing and practicing theology from the margins. --Frank M. Yamada, executive director, Association of Theological Schools Thanks to a tour de force of painstaking archival research, this book retrieves a key part of recent theological history that too easily could have been lost: the formative and transformative years of what the author calls the Protestant Latinx Academic Movement. By unveiling this inspirational story for us, Luis Rivera-Rodriguez provides us latinamente with timely inspiration for how to seek justice, imagine new options for theological education, and resist marginalization in our own time. --Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Georgia Harkness Professor of Theology, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and coauthor with Guillermo Hansen of Nuestra Fe: Una introduccion a la teologia cristiana Rivera-Rodriguez expands the archive in this important story of people, ideas, agendas, and institutions. Through a rich and informative synthesis of a remarkable array of interviews, school records, and secondary sources, Rivera-Rodriguez, the historian, describes formative contexts and explains the emergence of coherent but diverse academic forms of Latinx theology. Tracking programs through successive stages, including failed efforts and false starts, Rivera-Rodriguez describes the ways in which Latinx ministries achieved visibility and voice in seminaries and by way of accrediting agency mandates. In this well-crafted work on Protestant theological education, Rivera-Rodriguez has produced the new standard. --Kenneth Sawyer, professor of church history, McCormick Theological Seminary
