The Liberating Spirit Summary

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Ancient Earth Religion
In his book, The Liberating Spirit: Toward an Hispanic American Pentecostal Social Ethic, Eldin Villafañe examines the role and importance of the fiesta in Latino culture. This book continues his theoretical approach with an examination of how the fiesta is played out in Espinazo in the cult of the Niño Fidencio. Villafañe describes the Latino fiesta as follows:
“The fiesta in Latin American culture and society is deeply meaningful. The fiestas patronales/patron saints (such as El Niño Fidencio), is typical throughout the Latin American world. Religious and non-religious events in the calendar year mark the occasions that are the basis of a marvelous sense of community that celebrates life through fiesta.”
Catholic theologian Virgilio Elizondo places the fiesta in an even more primal context, “The happiness and joy…is immediately obvious to outsiders. The tragedies of their history have not obliterated laughter and joy…fiesta is the mystical affirmation that life is a gift and is worth living….In the fiesta the Mexican American rises above the quest for the logical meaning of life and celebrates the very contradictions that are of the essence of the mystery of human life (Elizondo, 1983).” …show more content…

Elizondo’s fiesta is very different from the indigenous cargo cult fiestas studied by American anthropologists in southern Mexico and Guatemala in the 1960s and 1970s. Anthropologist Waldemar Smith in his book, The Fiesta System and Economic Change, states that one distinguishing feature of the fiesta system is the extraordinary costs that families bear during their year in office in the cargo cult. “Fiesta sponsors are expected to hire ritual specialists, perform considerable ceremonial labor, and host a fiesta complete with food, drink, and musical entertainment for other members of the community (Smith,

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