Evangelization of the “New World”: A New World Perspective

Abstract

This article offers a critique of the evangelization process from the point of view of the “respondent” culture. The Aztec-Nahuatl world had developed a sophisticated system of communication which was orally based. The Spanish evangelizers belong to a literate culture. Recent studies in the area of orality and literacy suggest that there is a significant difference between the consciousness of an oral culture and a literate culture. The author of this article suggests that this fundamental difference was responsible for some of the miscomprehensions that accompanied the evangelization of the New World by Spain.