Scope and arrangement
The Theology in the Americas records document the group's general organization, the two major conferences it sponsored, and its affinity groups.
The Theology in the Americas records are arranged in four series:
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1975-1984
The Administrative records encompass minutes and agendas of the Executive Committee; correspondence from Executive Secretary Sergio Torres and David Kalke, head of the Coordinating Team; files of the Steering and National Committees which planned the Detroit II Conference in 1980; and financial documents.
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1974-1982
The Conferences series consists of records which pertain to the Detroit I Conference held in 1975. These records include planning documents, invitation lists, publicity and press reports, personal data sheets filled out by the participants, files concerning the reflection groups, and transcripts of talks by many of the participants. The Detroit II files provide a history of the projects, applications from the participants of the various affinity groups as well as international guests, press articles, and an interview with black theologian James Cone who was a proponent of Black Theology. There are also transcripts of the papers presented at the conference and a manuscript of these same papers that were published in book form (Theology in the Americas, 1976).
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The Projects series includes material related to the various affinity groups sponsored by TIA.
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The final series, Printed Matter, contains publications of the Theology in the Americas Project, including newsletters, a documentation series concerning the various affinity groups, a book entitled Is Liberation Theology for North America? The Response of First World Church to Third World Theologies (1978). There are also brochures, as well as two issues of a journal titled Doing Theology in the United States in Dialogue with the Indigenous Nations and Traditional Peoples (1985-1988). Two books containing the conference proceedings of Detroit I in 1975 and Detroit II in 1980 complete the collection.