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In early Christianity, the descent into hell was the symbol of the range of the resurrection: even the dead would be liberated from the evil powers holding them captive. Together with the phenomenon of exorcism during the baptism rite in the night of Eastern it is a clear indication of the strong awareness of the influence of evil powers upon the living and dead in the ancient church. This contribution will discuss the continuous struggle with evil for the dead and living believers. It confronts us first with our beliefs on the place of our ancestors and, second, with our own position regarding bad (evil) spirits, even after our baptism. By speaking about demons, the New Testament intends to underline the seriousness and power of the temptations to which human beings are exposed and to which they repeatedly succumb. The prayer “deliver us from (the) evil (one)” indicates that we need strength from elsewhere to be delivered from the grip of evil. Evil, then, not only has to do with a good or bad will or with a concretely good or bad deed but also with a third power which we cannot apparently denote in a different or more adequate way than by means of such words as demon, devil, Satan, etc.
In early Christianity, the descent into hell was the symbol of the range of the resurrection: even the dead would be liberated from the evil powers holding them captive. Together with the phenomenon of exorcism during the baptism rite in the night of Eastern it is a clear indication of the strong awareness of the influence of evil powers upon the living and dead in the ancient church. This contribution will discuss the continuous struggle with evil for the dead and living believers. It confronts us first with our beliefs on the place of our ancestors and, second, with our own position regarding bad (evil) spirits, even after our baptism. By speaking about demons, the New Testament intends to underline the seriousness and power of the temptations to which human beings are exposed and to which they repeatedly succumb. The prayer “deliver us from (the) evil (one)” indicates that we need strength from elsewhere to be delivered from the grip of evil. Evil, then, not only has to do with a good or bad will or with a concretely good or bad deed but also with a third power which we cannot apparently denote in a different or more adequate way than by means of such words as demon, devil, Satan, etc.
This contribution will illustrate new developments in the field of intercultural theology as the integration of ecumenics and missiology, discussing the changes in Latin American Christology. We will do that in four steps. First, we will show how acontextual the liberation theology of liberation of the 1970s and the 1980s was. Second, we will argue that the attention paid to Latin American Mariology created a way to Christological reflection. Third, we will give some Afro-American examples of such a breakthrough. Finally, we will articulate some criteria for assessing these new images of Jesus. The main question is if one can also speak of a “hidden Christ” in the current Latin American religious movements as one can in Africa and Asia. The answer will be by means of the principle of the so-called double transformation. If it is the case that not only Latin American movements color the images of Jesus but the Jesus of the New Testament scriptures can complete or even correct these images, then one can truly speak of a double transformation in which the catholicity of the Christian faith can be experienced.