McCall Hispanic Ministry Write Up 3
Common Cultural Themes within Community Based Theolgy
Pgs. 42-70 in ILT.
The authors assert that in order to do theology, one must participate in angoing communal process. Eurocentris theologies have positioned themselves historically and socially as the “Center” of worldwide theological thought, as though they were somehow more legitimate or objective. Hispanic theology is a distinctive type of God-talk whose function is to understand the Divine from within the Hispanic culture, to seek God’s liberative will in the face of oppression, to seek a voice that proclaims liberation and salvation, to create harmony between the Scriptural revelation and the practice of Hispanic communities, to strive against the perceptions of the dominant culture toward Hispanics, and to expose the racism, classism, and sexism that is implicitly contained within the dominant culture’s theology (note that author uses “dominant culture” to be code-word for white). I have deduced, from reading this article in its entirety, that De La Torre absolutely despises white folks.
Recurring themes within Hispanic societies are not applicable to all groups, but nonetheless do serve as reliable guides for the Hispanic population at large. Hispanic cultural roots affect and shape the community based theology of Hispanics. Indeed, cultural roots directly affect the perception of God and the personhood of Jesus, how they read and understand the Bible, how they worship and praise God, and how they practice the justice-based teachings of the Bible (I openly question the rendering of diakasune as “justice” instead of “righteousness”, and find De La Torre’s explanation of it to be inadequate).
For the large part, Hispanics are viewed as people who do not belong in the USA. It is important to note that Hispanics generally define their ethnicity in terms of where they were born. I wonder, then, if that does not at all contribute to the perception of Hispanics as people that do not belong. After all, if a person asks a Hispanic their ethnicity, and they reply “Mexican” versus “American” (though they live in America), the questioner has little recourse than to think of the person as an “outsider.” I am a 4th generation descendant of a poor Irish potatoe farmer, who left Ireland because of famine and lack of opportunity. However, when asked my ethnicity, I do not retrace my lineage to Ireland (though verily it does, and even my Grandfather remembered Ireland from his adolescence, and spoke of it frequently), but to America instead. I am struggling with this material because it is presented as if the Hispanic population does nothing to precipitate the perception of being “outsiders”, “aliens”, or “exiles”. I have found it to be true, in my own experience with Hispanic communities in South Georgia (although I will never, ever, assert that my experience is normative!) that the Hispanic communities form a sub-culture within the American culture, and exist as a practically autonomous body within the prevading American (white) culture. I understand that perhaps they are doing such, as to retain their cultural distinctives, and ensure the passage of said distinctives to their children. However, in opposittion to the example of my Irish lineage being assimilated into the American culture, it seems as though the aforementioned “subcultures” of Hispanics refuse assimilation, and thus force upon themselves the perception of being “outsiders”. In the 2000 Census, there were ~36 million Hispanics registered in America, and that number is bound to increase drastically as time progresses. Perhaps if the Hispanics assimilated more so, they would be accepted as veritable “Americans”, and not “outsiders”, “exiles”, or “aliens”. I am sure you do not like my statement, however.