A Violent Evangelism: The Political and Religious Conquest of the Americas

In this thought-provoking book, Luis Rivera argues that evangelical reasoning and symbolism were appropriated to justify the armed seizure of people and land in the New World and to validate the conversion, peaceful or forced, of the natives. He recaptures the sixteenth-century political debates--where priests and theologians are both voices of dissent against the Spanish military conquest and fervent defenders of it. Rivera contrasts discovery and conquest and examines the tragic outcome: demographic collapse--from the islands Columbus first sighted to the Inca empire in Peru.

Author: Luis N. Rivera
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Published: 09/01/1992
Pages: 376
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.33lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.99d
ISBN: 9780664253677

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 12/01/1992

About the Author
Rivera, Luis N.: - Luis N. Rivera is Henry Winters Luce Professor Emeritus of Ecumenics and Mission at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey.