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[German Version] I. Intellectual History – II. Theology and Church History – III. Latin America, Asia, Africa – IV. Missiology I. Intellectual History 1. The Term Equivalents to the term “Enlightenment” are found in all European languages (Dutch verlichting, Fr. les lumières, Germ. Aufklärung, Ital. illuminismo, Span. ilustración). The term is ambiguous almost to the point of equivocation. The history of the German word is especially illuminating. The verb aufklären appears for the first time in Kaspar Stieler's Teutscher Sprachschatz (1691), where it is used in the se…

¶ 1. General Situation The Republic of Haiti is located in the western third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The country is mostly mountainous; the population of almost 8 million has a black majority and a mulatto minority. The great majority of Haitians are descendants of African slaves who, brought as a labor force by the Spaniards or (from 1659) the French (Slavery), replaced the original indigenous Indian inhabitants, who had been largely exterminated by the 16th century because of the cruelty of slavery and epidemics of European diseases. Hispaniola was discovered by Colu…

Uruguay is a relatively small country situated in the southeast section of South America. It is bordered by Brazil (east and north) and Argentina (west) and has a large coastline on the Atlantic Ocean and the Río de la Plata (or River Plate, south and west). Its capital city, Montevideo, founded in 1724, has 47 percent of the total population. Overall, there is a high rate of urbanization (93 percent in 2003). 1. General Situation 1.1. Before European colonization, tribes of hunter-gatherers belonging to different native cultures lived in the southern region of the con…

1. Term The word “persecution” evokes a number of ideas, including opposition to the Christian shaping of society, hindrances to the exercise of the Christian religion, and the suppression and extirpation of people of Christian conviction. Similarly, there have ¶ been many events in Christian history in which Christians have suffered pressure of differing intensity and for different purposes. We cannot give a single definition of what may be recalled and recounted as persecution for the faith, for it covers the whole period from the p…