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Culture

Mourning Jenni Rivera: “When a Lady Dies”

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In Monterrey, where Jenni had just performed what was to be her final concert, fans processed the streets carrying candles and images of her, just as in the religious processions that have occurred throughout Latin America since the arrival of the Spanish over five hundred years ago. From Mexico to California, shrines in her honor have surfaced in neighborhoods and lawns.

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(A)theologies

Obama at Romero’s Tomb: The Politics of Liberation

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Today, on the eve of the 31st anniversary of Oscar Romero’s assassination, President Barack Obama visited the Archbishop’s tomb. Romero was of one of the most beloved, misunderstood, and critiqued figures in the modern Latin American Catholic Church, and Obama’s visit has sparked some surprise and controversy—especially given Romero’s public critiques of the US government in the final years of his life and his association with Latin American liberation theology.

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(A)theologies

A Meditation on Shopping and Desire

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Shopping is an ethical act. Today we live in a culture of cheap. We have an unprecedented access to cheap goods, yet we must recognize that cheap goods are cheaply made. I am not speaking of quality, I am speaking of cheap labor. We must recognize that through the act of shopping—whether it is for an article of clothing, a toy, a pint of strawberries, or even our morning cup of coffee—we participate in a global economy that values profit over people. Disposable goods are made by disposable people, faceless individuals whose backbreaking and unjustly paid labor produce the goods we consume. What we buy and where we buy it is a political act. It is also, I argue, a religious act.

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