Abstract

Latin America has been a place of radical political inspiration providing an alternative to the neoliberal model. Religion without Redemption looks at the sociology of religion, political philosophy and the history of ideas of the continent, in an attempt to show how Western understanding fails to come close to a correct analysis of how and why political and economic characteristics work as they do.

It focuses on how the centrality of religion for the people of Latin America has influenced how they interact with the changes in the modern economic system. Capitalism has taken on religious characteristics: it has sacred places of worship, such as the shopping mall, as well as its own prophets. This book explains how this form of ‘cultural religion’ accompanies many aspects of life in a contradictory manner: not only does it fulfil the role of legitimating oppression, it also can be a powerful source of rebellion, unveiling thus a subversive side to the status quo.

Religion Without Redemption advances the ideas of liberation theory into the 21st century, and challenges the provincialism to which many Latin American thinkers are usually consigned.