Torture and Eucharist

As most of the world has heard by now, the infamous Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died yesterday at the age of 91 after suffering a fatal heart attack. His era of leadership ended in the early 90's and his popularity among the Chilean people has continued to dwindle to almost complete disdain. Not that he was ever really popular, for he ruled by military force, torture and fear. However, he managed to maintain some support as folks felt that he at least provided stability in an unstable country, and some of the economic prosperity that has begun to bud in the region was attributed, in part, to some of his reforms.

I actually know very little about the political landscape in this particular part of the world. However, it seems to me that Pinochet proves a perfect icon for the politics of power. In fact, what little I do know about the Pinochet era in Chile comes primarily from William T. Cavanaugh's excellent book Torture and Eucharist, which compares the politics of power and torture with the politics of the Kingdom of God - that is the politics of God's people who are shaped by His self-giving act in Christ that we celebrate and participate in through the Eucharist. I don't have the space or time to even summarize Cavanaugh's work here, but I would highly recommend picking it up if you have some time and are interested in such subject matter. It is a rather technical book and is somewhat difficult to understand at times, but it is worth wading through the difficulty to gain some glimpse of the Kingdom that many of the Chilean Christians saw in the midst of such tumultuous times. Blessings ~ RLS

To learn more about Pinochet check out Wikipedia's article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet