Latin America is a complex place, and not always easy to understand. The history of colonialism deeply marks its development, paradoxes, mixtures, hybridisms and moving definitions of cultures, race, politics, religions and social living. These present a significant challenge to anyone who tries to compose any frame of explanation or understanding. Modernity and all its tragedies turned the continent's inhabitants into barbarians, sinking their machinery teeth deeply into the flesh and bone of Latin American bodies and land, making coloniality the very plague that turned everything into a commodity, and everyone sick to the point of death.

The religiosities of Latin America are expansive and innumerable. Since the first forms of cosmologies from their earliest inhabitants, their ways of being have lived in dispute and cannot be fully known. With the advent of 1492, Christianity brought new forms of spiritualities that were the stamp of the empire, subjugating existing forms of religious existences, suppressing resistances and plundering the very life of Pachamama (Earth Mother). Nonetheless, Latin America cannot be thought of or understood without the presence of Christianity in its paradoxical varieties, both in its imperial forms and in its liberating presence.

As we think about the worship and spiritualities of Latin America, we must keep in mind those who were decimated by the Christian forces. As we talk about Christian worship and spiritualities, we must remember those who were annihilated throughout colonial history. We can name a variety of Indigenous religiosities according to each people, as well as African religiosities under the African roots of Banto, Jeje, Ketu, Yoruba, Vodu and Santeria. We can also name European and Eastern religions such as Christianities, Judaisms, Islamisms, Buddhisms, Hinduisms and so many other religious presences. Latin American bodies and souls are a plethora of spiritualities and mixtures that are impossible to classify.

Christianities are plural and fill a broad gradient of theologies, spiritualities, emphases and sources. The invasion of the land by different European countries and attempts at conversion have left markers from Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland in their various missionary attempts, both successful and failed. Roman Catholicism promoted the Christian wars and kept its major influence until the middle of the twentieth century.