Orbis has republished Cardenal's Gospel in Solentiname, all four volumes bound as one, paperback

[struggle4progress]

Released 15 September

[rug]

1. Good news.

"For many years, the peasants in Solentiname, a remote archipelago in Lake Nicaragua, gathered each Sunday to reflect on the gospel reading. From recordings of their dialogue, this extraordinary document was composed. First published in the 1970s in four volumes, it was immediately acclaimed as a classic expression of liberation theology, a radical reading of the Good News of Jesus from the perspective of the poor and oppressed."

http://www.alibris.com/search/books/qwork/2665203/used/The%20Gospel%20in%20Solentiname

[cleanhippie]

2. Can this be seen as simply just another interpretation?

Will other christian sects accept this as valid or consider it blasphemy?

[laconicsax]

3. Does the sun rise in the east?

[struggle4progress]

5. Well, let us compare Cardenal's approach to yours. Cardenal was interested in

actual poor people, living under a dictatorship, and he went to live with them and encouraged them to reflect in words and by action about the lives they lived and the world they hoped for. Of course, not everyone appreciated that point of view: one can often identify in advance who will be most offended when the poor begin to speak openly of their situation and the social forces that produce their situation; people who supported Somoza's military dictatorship, for example, have always been displeased by Cardenal. During the Cold War era, the usual code-language (among the US militarists who supported Central American dictatorships) for people like Cardenal was "godless Communist" -- typically used to mean "somebody who supports democracy and self-determinism in the third world"

I think your questions mainly illuminate your own prejudices. Cardenal was interested in real people and their circumstances; you are interested in assessing abstract "interpretations." You merely want to sneer that some people regarded Cardenal's religious approach as blasphemous -- but of course people like Cardenal understood perfectly well that the existing social structure would produce automatic opposition to any such work among the poor

[cleanhippie]

7. I had no approach. I simply asked a question, and I appreciate the additional info.

I had not heard of this, and honestly, I was just asking what I thought was a simple question.
To me, this seems just like another interpretation of biblical teachings, and since it sounded more modern, I wondered if other christians had accepted or rejected the idea.

[AlecBGreen]

4. Have you read it?

I read the synopsis at Rug's link but I was hoping to hear more of what it is about.

[struggle4progress]

6. About 25 years ago. I couldn't afford the four volume set back them. I just ordered it

IIRC, it's based on community conversations about what living as a Christian ought to mean, but it is conversations between poor Nicaraguan peasants living under the Somoza dictatorship: these are not entirely abstract conversations

For cultural reasons, I didn't find it an easy read then, and the cultural difficulties may have increased substantially with time, since today's internet addict may not readily understand the views of poor Nicaraguan peasants forty years ago

I was interested, of course, because Reagan's contra war was directed against the Sandinistas who had swept away the Somoza dictatorship, and because Cardenal's reputation earned him a place in the Sandinista government, much to the displeasure of Pope John Paul II