The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista

The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista PDF Author: Elisa Eastwood Pulido
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190942118
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This book is the first full-length biography of Margarito Bautista (1878-1961), a celebrated Latino Mormon leader in the U.S. and Mexico in the early twentieth century who was a Mexican cultural nationalist, visionary, founder of a utopian commune, and Mormon dissident. Surprisingly little is known about Bautista's remarkable life, the scope of his work, or the development of his vision. Elisa Eastwood Pulido draws on his letters, books, pamphlets, and unpublished diaries to provide a lens through which to view the convergence of Mormon evangelization, Mexican nationalism, and religious improvisation in the U.S. Mexico borderlands. A successful proselytizer of Mexicans for years, from 1922 onward Bautista came to view the paternalism of the Euro-American leadership of the Church as a barrier to ecclesiastical self-governance by indigenous Latter-day Saints . In 1924, he began his journey away from mainstream Mormonism. By 1946, he had established a completely Mexican-led polygamist utopia in Mexico on the slopes of the volcano Popocateptl, twenty-two kilometers southeast of Mexico City. Here, he preached an alternative Mormonism rooted in Mesoamerican history and culture. Based on his indigenous hermeneutic of Mormon scripture, Bautista proclaimed that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were a chosen race, destined to wrest both political and spiritual authority from the descendants of Euro-American colonists. This book provides an in-depth look at a man still regarded with cultural pride by those Mexican and Mexican American Mormons who remember him as an iconic and revolutionary figure.

The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista

The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista PDF Author: Elisa Eastwood Pulido
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190942118
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book

Book Description
This book is the first full-length biography of Margarito Bautista (1878-1961), a celebrated Latino Mormon leader in the U.S. and Mexico in the early twentieth century who was a Mexican cultural nationalist, visionary, founder of a utopian commune, and Mormon dissident. Surprisingly little is known about Bautista's remarkable life, the scope of his work, or the development of his vision. Elisa Eastwood Pulido draws on his letters, books, pamphlets, and unpublished diaries to provide a lens through which to view the convergence of Mormon evangelization, Mexican nationalism, and religious improvisation in the U.S. Mexico borderlands. A successful proselytizer of Mexicans for years, from 1922 onward Bautista came to view the paternalism of the Euro-American leadership of the Church as a barrier to ecclesiastical self-governance by indigenous Latter-day Saints . In 1924, he began his journey away from mainstream Mormonism. By 1946, he had established a completely Mexican-led polygamist utopia in Mexico on the slopes of the volcano Popocateptl, twenty-two kilometers southeast of Mexico City. Here, he preached an alternative Mormonism rooted in Mesoamerican history and culture. Based on his indigenous hermeneutic of Mormon scripture, Bautista proclaimed that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were a chosen race, destined to wrest both political and spiritual authority from the descendants of Euro-American colonists. This book provides an in-depth look at a man still regarded with cultural pride by those Mexican and Mexican American Mormons who remember him as an iconic and revolutionary figure.

The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista

The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista PDF Author: Elisa Eastwood Pulido
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019094210X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
"In 1903, at the age of twenty-four, Margarito Bautista (1878-1961) left his childhood home on Mexico's Central Plateau and relocated to the Mormon Colonies in the northern Mexican wilderness. Enthused by his recent conversion to Mormonism, Bautista wanted to live in proximity to and learn from the Euro-Americans who had evangelized him. Nearly forty years later, as a Mormon excommunicate and religious entrepreneur, he returned permanently to the Central Plateau to establish his own indigenously-led polygamous utopia in the town of Ozumba. In this volume I have tried to answer two central questions concerning Bautista's journey: After dedicating so many years of his life to the evangelization of Mexicans on both sides of the U.S. border, what led to his separation from the Mormon Church? How did he become the founder of an indigenous movement which observed Mormonism's most difficult practices? My study of Bautista's spiritual trajectory has been an exercise in deep "listening" to the writings he left: a 564-page tome that employs an indigenous hermeneutic in its melding of Mormon theology and the history of Mexico, nearly sixteen years of diaries, numerous letters, and multiple pamphlets. Bautista is often represented as the sole creator of his Mexican-inspired improvisations on Mormon doctrine. The Mormon Church however played a major role in his spiritual education. Bautista took his life-long views on indigenous exceptionalism directly from Mormon scripture. In the two decades following his conversion Bautista thrived under the Mormon umbrella, moving through the ranks of Mormon priesthood, mastering Mormon doctrine and scripture in English, and becoming acquainted with esoteric temple rituals. But in 1924 his meteoric rise stalled. In this volume I will demonstrate that Bautista's insistence on independent Mexican ecclesiastical authority and his fundamentalist clinging to historical practices and doctrines, at a time when the mainstream Church was abandoning them, estranged him from both Euro-American and Mexican Mormons. Nevertheless, These same views propelled him on to his ultimate calling and mission, that of an independent religious entrepreneur and utopian founder. I will show that the roots of Bautista's uncompromising doctrine and religious activism are multiple and complex. They are found in the Mexican anarchism extant in the farmlands of central Mexico where he was raised, in the flourishing cultural nationalism of Mexico, in the transnational perspective created by his frequent movement across borders, and in the tenets of early Mormonism, which Bautista learned while a resident from 1903 to 1910 in the polygamist Mormon Colonies in the wilderness of northern Mexico"--

The Glass Church

The Glass Church PDF Author: Mark T. Mulder
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813589053
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
For most of his life, the megachurch ministry of Robert H. Schuller in Orange County, California, displayed an apparent strength that betrayed none of the fractures that lay below the success-oriented surface. Yet, when tested and stressed in the late 2000s, the ecclesial structure's accumulated fragility proved to be catastrophic. Drawing on extensive data gathered from archives, interviews, and ethnographic observation, The Glass Church examines the spectacular collapse of The Crystal Cathedral to better understand both the strength and fragility of Schuller's ministry. The apparent success of the ministry obscured the many tensions that often threatened its future. Certainly, all churches depend on a mix of constituents, charisma, and capital, yet the size and ambition of large churches like Schuller's Crystal Cathedral exert enormous organizational pressures to continue the flow of people committed to the congregation, to reinforce the spark of charismatic excitement generated by high-profile pastors, and to develop fresh flows of capital funding for maintenance of old projects and launching new initiatives. The constant attention to expand constituencies, boost charisma, and stimulate capital among megachurches produces an especially burdensome strain on their leaders. By orienting an approach to the collapse of the Crystal Cathedral on these three core elements--constituency, charisma, and capital--The Glass Church demonstrates how congregational fragility is greatly accentuated in larger churches, a notion we label megachurch strain, such that the threat of implosion is significantly accentuated by any failures to properly calibrate the inter-relationship among these elements.

The Fall of Che Guevara

The Fall of Che Guevara PDF Author: Henry Butterfield Ryan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019028367X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The Fall of Che Guevara tells the story of Guevara's last campaign, in the backwoods of Bolivia, where he hoped to ignite a revolution that would spread throughout South America. For the first time, this book shows in detail the strategy of the U.S. and Bolivian governments to foil his efforts. Based on numerous interviews and on secret documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the CIA, the State Department, the Pentagon, and the National Security Archive, this work casts new light on the roles of a Green Beret detachment sent to train the Bolivians and of the CIA and other U.S. agencies in bringing Guevara down. Ryan's shows that Guevara was an agent of Cuban foreign policy from the time he met Fidel Castro in 1955 until his death--not a mere independent revolutionary, as many scholars have claimed. Guevara's attempted insurgency in Bolivia was in reality a Cuban attempt to achieve another badly-needed revolutionary success. This dramatic account of the last days of Che Guevara will appeal to scholars and students of United States foreign policy and Latin American history, and to all those interested in this revolutionary's remarkable life.

Your Sister in the Gospel

Your Sister in the Gospel PDF Author: Quincy D. Newell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199338671
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
"Dear Brother," Jane Manning James wrote to Joseph F. Smith in 1903, "I take this opportunity of writing to ask you if I can get my endowments and also finish the work I have begun for my dead.... Your sister in the Gospel, Jane E. James." A faithful Latter-day Saint since her conversion sixty years earlier, James had made this request several times before, to no avail, and this time she would be just as unsuccessful, even though most Latter-day Saints were allowed to participate in the endowment ritual in the temple as a matter of course. James, unlike most Mormons, was black. For that reason, she was barred from performing the temple rituals that Latter-day Saints believe are necessary to reach the highest degrees of glory after death. A free black woman from Connecticut, James positioned herself at the center of LDS history with uncanny precision. After her conversion, she traveled with her family and other converts from the region to Nauvoo, Illinois, where the LDS church was then based. There, she took a job as a servant in the home of Joseph Smith, the founder and first prophet of the LDS church. When Smith was killed in 1844, Jane found employment as a servant in Brigham Young's home. These positions placed Jane in proximity to Mormonism's most powerful figures, but did not protect her from the church's racially discriminatory policies. Nevertheless, she remained a faithful member until her death in 1908. Your Sister in the Gospel is the first scholarly biography of Jane Manning James or, for that matter, any black Mormon. Quincy D. Newell chronicles the life of this remarkable yet largely unknown figure and reveals why James's story changes our understanding of American history.

The Pearl of Greatest Price

The Pearl of Greatest Price PDF Author: Terryl Givens
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190603887
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The Pearl of Greatest Price narrates the history of Mormonism's fourth volume of scripture, canonized in 1880. The authors track its predecessors, describe its several components, and assess their theological significance within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Four principal sections are discussed, along with attendant controversies associated with each. The Book of Moses purports to be a Mosaic narrative missing from the biblical version of Genesis. Too little treated in the scholarship on Mormonism, these chapters, produced only months after the Book of Mormon was published, actually contain the theological nucleus of Latter-day Saint doctrines as well as a virtual template for the Restoration Joseph Smith was to effect. In The Pearl of Greatest Price, the author covers three principal parts that are the focus of many of the controversies engulfing Mormonism today. These parts are The Book of Abraham, The Book of Moses, and The Joseph Smith History. Most controversial of all is the Book of Abraham, a production that arose out of a group of papyri Smith acquired, along with four mummies, in 1835. Most of the papyri disappeared in the great Chicago Fire, but surviving fragments have been identified as Egyptian funerary documents. This has created one of the most serious challenges to Smith's prophetic claims the LDS church has faced. LDS scholars, however, have developed several frameworks for vindicating the inspiration of the resulting narrative and Smith's calling as a prophet. The author attempts to make sense of Smith's several, at times divergent, accounts of his First Vision, one of which is canonized as scripture. He also assesses the creedal nature of Smith's "Articles of Faith," in the context of his professed anti-creedalism. In sum, this study chronicles the volume's historical legacy and theological indispensability to the Latter-day Saint tradition, as well as the reasons for its resilience and future prospects in the face of daunting challenges.

Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon

Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon PDF Author: Elizabeth Fenton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190056533
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
As the sacred text of a modern religious movement of global reach, The Book of Mormon has undeniable historical significance. That significance, this volume shows, is inextricable from the intricacy of its literary form and the audacity of its historical vision. This landmark collection brings together a diverse range of scholars in American literary studies and related fields to definitively establish The Book of Mormon as an indispensable object of Americanist inquiry not least because it is, among other things, a form of Americanist inquiry in its own right--a creative, critical reading of "America." Drawing on formalist criticism, literary and cultural theory, book history, religious studies, and even anthropological field work, Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon captures as never before the full dimensions and resonances of this "American Bible."

Mormonism

Mormonism PDF Author: Terryl Givens
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190885084
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
"Mormonism, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is America's most successful--and most misunderstood--home grown religion. Avoiding the textbook, narrative approach of most introductions, this volume instead poses well over a hundred commonly asked questions--and some not so common!--and provides thoughtful, short essays in response. The question and answer format means enhanced readability; perfect for casual browsing or in-depth study. General topics include theology, culture, history, scripture, and practice. Questions range from the straightforward ("What circumstances gave rise to Mormonism?"), to the controversial ("Why do Mormons Accept the Book of Abraham as scripture if Egyptologists have discredited it?") to the exotic ("What is Kolob?"; "Is the Garden of Eden in Missouri?")"--

State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2013

State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2013 PDF Author: Beth Walker
Publisher: Minority Rights Group
ISBN: 1907919406
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
In almost every country in the world, minorities and indigenous peoples suffer greater ill-health and receive poorer quality of care than other segments of the population. They die younger, face higher rates of disease and struggle more to access health services compared to the rest of the population. This year's edition of State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples presents a global picture of the health issues experienced by minorities and indegenous communities, features country profiles and case studies, and makes recommendations for addressing these key issues.

Joseph Smith for President

Joseph Smith for President PDF Author: Spencer W. McBride
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190909412
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
"In 1844, Joseph Smith, the controversial founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had amassed a national following of some 25,000 believers-and a militia of some 2,500 men. In this year, his priority was protecting the lives and civil rights of his people. Having failed to win the support of any of the presidential contenders for these efforts, Smith launched his own renegade campaign for the White House, one that would end with his assassination at the hands of an angry mob. Smith ran on a platform that called for the total abolition of slavery, the closure of the country's penitentiaries, the reestablishment of a national bank to stabilize the economy, and most importantly an expansion of protections for religious minorities. Spencer W. McBride tells the story of Smith's quixotic but consequential run for the White House and shows how his calls for religious freedom helped to shape the American political system we know today"--