“Spirit Guide:
Carlos Cumpian on Poetry, Chicano Culture, and the Emergency Taco”
By Benjamin Ortiz, for “Our Town” in the Chicago Reader
September 05, 1996
Category: Book Reviews
“Reading Out:
D-Knowledge pushes poetry into the light”
By Benjamin Ortiz, for the Chicago Reader Calendar Section
January 29, 1998
Review of Hotel America: Scenes in the Lobby of the Fin-de-Siecle, by Lewis Lapham (Verso, 1996)
Review of Roll Down Your Window: Stories From a Forgotten America, by Juan Gonzalez (Verso, 1996)
“I think that Christ was a heavy radical.” As a statement of politicized spirituality by a religious Latino, this comment suggests progressive associations with Catholic liberation theology, especially for those familiar with ’80s Latin American solidarity movements.
But Arlene M. Sánchez Walsh—a DePaul University professor of religious studies—records these thoughts from John Luna, a 50-something Southern California Chicano and member of the Vineyard ministry, a post-denominational strand of evangelical Christianity labeled charismatic. Where Luna challenges his church to “walk a picket line or be willing to do a sit-down,” another Latino evangelical—Cruz “Sonny” Arguinzoni, a founder of Victory Outreach Pentecostal ministries—clarifies his political outlook for Sánchez Walsh: “The Kingdom of God is not a democracy.”
