Confessional Identity

By Alexis Bastidas

Confessional Identity is an important issue concerning how Christians connect with societies and cultures of which they are part. Now days our civilization is living a ground breaking transformation, where ordinary people are reshaping traditional ideas about the essence of the daily life. As a result of this changing environment, and in order to understand the metamorphosis of a Christian immigrant in US, we reach out to a very well know definitions of Christianity in the works of K. Rahner an H. Richard Niebuhr.

Christianity in opinion of K. Rahner is: ” The assent on the part of the whole community (church) formulated and held explicitly by that community to the absolute mystery which exercises an inescapable power in and over our existence, and which we call God. It is our assent to that mystery as pardoning us and admitting us to share in its own divinity; it is that mystery as imparting it self to us in a history shape by our free decisions as intelligent being; and this self-bestowal of God in Jesus Christ manifested itself as finally and irrevocably victorious in history “(1)

Christianity in opinion of H. Richard Niebuhr is describes true the life of the believer as ” the one who believes in Jesus Christ or as a follower of Jesus Christ. He elaborates: He (Christian) might more adequately be describe as one who counts himself as belonging to that community of men for whom Jesus Christ- his life, words, deeds, and destiny– is of supreme importance as the key to understanding of Themselves and their world, the main source of knowledge of God and man, good and evil, the constant companion of the conscience, and the expected deliver from evil (2)

In this particular instance both thinkers approach Christianity as a perception or perspective that emerge from the relationship between community and the daily experience of God in Jesus Christ. This dynamic relationship between the humans and God in Jesus Christ work out throughout history the confessional identity of a good number of societies and nations. It is in this historical context that the work of H. Richard Niebuhr becomes a helpful tool in the understanding of what happen in the life of people when Jesus Christ the key factor in the way they construct a new reality in Him.

Christ Against Culture in which ” we shall consider is the one that uncompromisingly affirms the sole authority over the Christian and resolutely rejects culture’s claims to loyalty”. (3) 45 An other Example is: The Tolstoy’s rejection of culture: “Its intention was directed to the achievement of Christian life, a part from civilization, in obedience to the laws of Christ, and in pursuit of a perfection wholly distant from the aims that men seek in politics and economics, in Sciences and Art. Jesus Christ was for Tolstoy always the great lawgiver, whose commandments were in accordance with Man’s true nature and with the demands of uncorrupted reason. He believes that his interpretation of the gospel was faithful and undertook the task to summarize this new law in five injunctions. First, live at peace with all men and never consider anger against any man justified. Second, do not make the desire for sexual relations an amusement. Third commandment, never take an oath to anyone, anywhere, abut anything. Fourth commandment destroys the stupid and bad social order in which men live. Never resist the evildoer by force, do not meet violence with violence. The final one, enjoining love of the enemy”(4)

Christ of culture. “In every culture to which the gospel comes there are men who hail Jesus as the Messiah of their society, the fulfiller of its hopes and aspirations, the perfect of its true faith, the source of its holist spirit. These men are Christians that they count themselves believers in the Lord but also they seek to maintain community with all other believers; they seem equally at home in the community of culture. They feel no great tension between church and world, the social laws and the Gospel, the working of the divine grace and human effort, the ethics of social conservation or progress. They interpret culture through Christ; they understand Christ. Examples of this tendency are through culture: the Christians Gnostics, Protestants in the western world inclusive some Roman Catholics. One of the leading theologians in this tendency is Schleiermacher. He stated: Christ belong in the culture, because culture itself, without senses and taste for infinite, without a holy music accompanying all its work, become sterile and corrupt”. (5)

Christ above culture: If Christ and culture are the two principles with Christians are concern, the most of them will seem to be compromising creatures who somehow manage to mix irrational fashion an exclusive devotion to a Christ who reject culture, with devotion to a culture that includes Christ. We can call this group the church of the center, which it has refused to take either the position of the intercultural radicals or that of the accommodators of Christ to culture, because for them the fundamental issue does not lie between Christ and the world, but between God and man. The Christ culture problem is approached from this point of view and with this conviction.

Christ and culture in paradox. “The theology of dualist; among these paradoxes two are of particular importance in the dualist’s answer to the Christ-culture: Those of law and grace, and of divine wrath and mercy. They join the radical Christian in maintaining the authority of the law of Christ over all man. In doing so, grace is not grace but law and theses are the abstractions.  Grace is in God, and man is in sin”. (6)

Christ the transformer of culture. “ The Christian history is the story of a rising Church or Christian culture and a dying pagan civilization; for the cultural Christian, it is the story of the spirit’s encounter with nature; for the synthesits, it is a period of preparation under the law, reason, gospel, and church for an ultimate communion of the soul with God; for the dualist, History is the time of struggle between faith and unbelief, a period between the giving of promise of life and its fulfillment. For the conversionist, history is story of God’s mighty deeds and of man responses to them. It is with this view that conversionist present the encounter with God in Christ and the power of the Lord to transform all things by lifting them up to himself”. (7)

However, It is in this context the American immigrant tray to see and understand the value of confessional identity and the consequences of the new identity at this point on time.

The first question of this inquiry is center in the meaning of God and religion in America,. The second one is where is Christ in this culture. When immigrants arrive, they do so with few things and Christianity is one of them. By the same talking they are looking for a dream, the American Dream. In this transcendental state, happiness and wellbeing are possible. But as the days are going by, the contrast between Dream and reality becomes a Drama. Every day American immigrants see themselves far from the preaching of the dream that motivate in the first place to come to US. The values in which people build and frame the democratic institutions are broken. The culture in which the thinking process is setting is in crisis. Denial, pain and suffering become the life style of immigrants and not immigrants in US. But where are Christ and Christianity right now in America among of all this. To be honest is very difficult to tell. We can say is here or there. They are in this institution or in those particular policies. For Example: we know where Christians supposedly are in the public administration.  Well they become: The President, The Congress and the Supreme Curt. But is Christ or his values present in the business of continuing in the process of making a more perfect union in communion. Not.  So, How come we can reconcile to be “Christian” and behave lake God never exits become a real challenge for every Christian immigrant who come to this land. The current Class of religion, society and culture present a tree interesting windows in the work of Michelle a. Gonzalez, Shopping, Sweet Dreams In America of Sharon D. Welch and Blessed are the Organized of Jeffry Stout, that offers the opportunity to grasp in some fashion the confessional identity of Christianity in America.

Michelle A Gonzalez stated: “ A country that turns a blind eye to unjust labor practices in order to have cheaper material goods is a country that values the price of the product over the life of the worker. (How Christian is it?) Our appetite for material goods is base on the notion that these goods have value. Yet that value is impose bay the marketplace and in entirely constructed”(8). Avery good example of how the market place defines Christianity is “the holy days” former calls Christmas. Now days the celebration of the incarnation of God become irrelevant. The center of the “holy days” is the joy that someone has when he or she buys things. Jesus Christ is no more in Christmas, now we have the fat red guy. So where is Christ during Christmas in America. Can we define ourselves as Christians? Or better what kind of Christians are we? Therefore in our time and in this environment (market environment) Christianity in America means business.

Sharon D. Welch say: “Many see American Dream as a nightmare at worst, a delusion at best: the reality of downsizing and job loss; massive cuts in social services; the mandate for people on welfare to get jobs in the absence of an economy that provides affordable, high quality child care, or jobs at living wage; violence hopelessness, homelessness, and anger: the anger of with males at woman and minorities for supposedly getting their jobs, the anger and violence of marginalized urban under class” (9)  How we can reconcile confessional identity of Christian America with reality. What is the meaning of be a poor and without job in Christian America? Once agent. What kind the Christians are we? The struggle is bigger when you are an alien, in this Christian culture where the aliens not a person any more. But what happen when these no-people are a big part of Christianity in America. It is something wrong to be a brown in this kind of Christianity? So is possible to describe a brown Christian America as a kind of ghetto?

Jeffrey Stout says: “ Governmental and economic elites are increasingly in a position to exercise their power arbitrarily over the rest of us. The case of New Orleans after the storm reveals a broader social structure nearing the tipping point between a society in which elites are held at last somewhat accountable to the people and society with elites can do as they please. In economy base on the market system, elites always have advantage of institutional power at their disposal” (10) . But how Christian this behavior is? How come these American Christians elites are incapable to produce polices and laws that represent or resemble Christ and his teaching?

To understand Christianity for any immigrant in US becomes a complex task that requires: wisdom, patience, accountability, transparence and tolerance.

———————————————————————————————————–

1) Page 45 K. Rahner The Content of faith. Crossroad. New York

(2) Page 11 H. Richard Niebuhr Christ and Culture, Harper Colophon Books, New York

(3) Page 45 H. Richard Niebuhr Christ and Culture, Harper Colophon Books, New York

(4) Page 56-57-58 H. Richard Niebuhr Christ and Culture, Harper Colophon Books, New York

(5) Page 83-85-91-93 H. Richard Niebuhr Christ and Culture, Harper Colophon Books, New York

(6) Page 157 H. Richard Niebuhr Christ and Culture, Harper Colophon Books, New York

(7) Page 195 H. Richard Niebuhr Christ and Culture, Harper Colophon Books, New York

(8) Page 13 Michelle A. Gonzalez Sopping Compass, Fortress Press. Minneapolis

(9) Page xix Sharon D. Welch Sweet Dreams In America Rutledge New York

(10) Page 55 Jeffrey Stout. Blessed are the organized. Princenton University Press

“Theology is autobiographical, but it is not an autobiography” (1) This words challenges in some degree the idea that God happen in life for some kind of people, in contrast with real people and in a real time. The history of salvation describes in the Bible almost in detail personal experiences of Abraham, Moses, and David etc. In other words God is the story of their life and Christianity is founded in their personals experiences.  “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was call to set out for a land that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land… For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:8-10) But what about the people, the community. Can God happen to the community as a whole? These great figures of Christianity are important because God happen to them, no because God happen to the Community. They in fact have a questionable moral record. Abraham as a man of weak character who is capable of sends Ishmael his son to die at the desert with his mother and endanger the life of the second son Isaac when he tray to kill him. It is interesting enough, that Christianity, Judaism and Islam call this man the father of their faith.  Also the case of Moses is similar a wetly and powerful man who kill a Egyptian man in the name of God and also kill many from his own people because they question the authority and authenticity in which his law is establish. David, king who kills an important general because he wants to have the woman of Uriah. As we can see, moral is not the core value of theses religious figures, but what is it? One of the answers can be, that common people have the appreciation of when God happen in epic form in the life of their abusers is a sacred sign. God bless them, God punishes them. Other answer can be that people is convince that God happen to   powerful people but not to them.
It is possible to argue that these perceptions can offer a different perspective at the time where the community is looking for its Christian identity.  For example, if the community see itself as the people of God which is the case of Jesus and his community.  So the common bond for the community is Jesus poor with a poor community in which God reveled a new vision of reality. From now on God is happening to a poor people, no figuratively but real.

The story of Jesus becomes the story of the 99% and not the theology of the 1% of people. Consequently theology becomes the reflection for freedom, Justice and peace for every one. Theology becomes the autobiographical experience of God in the life of the 99%. In other words, Theology achieves freedom from elites and becomes a place where common people can say: “ It is my story of seeking who I am in relation to the community, the natural environment, time and history, and ultimate reality of my existence which I accept by faith. It is my story of seeking to understand how God acts in my life and in the lives of those who are part of my life” (2)

God happen to all of us and Practice Theology is the scientific tool that everyone in a community of faith is call to develop with the intention to share the experience of God as liberating way of being. Theology that no have contact with real people in real time, it is a brilliant scientific exercise which satisfy the life of some people with a large amount of time and probably live in bubble.  This argument is very easy to probe. For example, If a research professional any day of the week at the 72St Subway Station ask to the user of the subway:  Can you name three of the theologian who make difference in your Christian life?  The answer will no surprise anyone, because people do not read theology, they do theology in an empirical manner, a theology that nurseries them and the community. For the seek of this argument it is perfectly understandably that the language of the new roman missal does not reflect the life of the poor or currently call the 99% which the liturgical bobble pretend to reach out.  The current missal reflects more a language for Park Avenue, Wall Street, Cupertino California and some areas of Connecticut. It is not the language of Jesus and his community. So ones again the brilliant people of the church write a missal for themselves but not for the people, nothing wrong but…..  the poor has to seek Jesus Christ in the reality of their life and with great difficulty in the courtesan language of our mother, the Church.

Anyway, there is hope, when the élites take notices of how many people is going away and with them the Sunday money that sustain the bubble, they will change for better. In these days it is ruff to become a poor and find consolation without the community support. It is in this context of grace and love that a new story of redemption is borne.
In conclusion “theology begins with my life, but my life is related to the lives of others”(3). Life and gospel as one.

1. Page 7Jung Young Lee, Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995
2. Page 7Jung Young Lee, Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995
3. Page 8 Jung Young Lee, Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology.

 Minneapolis: Fortress, 19955

By Rev. Alexis Bastidas

The history of Latino people who came to New York searching for fulfillment of
their lives is a powerful manifestation of pain and suffering in which Christianity
and catholic tradition play and important roll. Big numbers of them are walking
away from institutional churches as a consequence of the racial context in which
this churches are put together and function. Discrimination continuous and the
treatment offer by some churches to the poor is often perceive as a problem (the
Brown problem) with some exceptions. One of the common excuses is resume in “
No Hablo Español” consequently the entire community does not have anything to
do with the Christian immigrant who live among them. It is a polite answer, which
freed then from the pastoral duty to see Jesus Christ in the poor of the poor. These
unchristian behaviors pushes the Latino community in the path of Christian’s
practices outside of the main understanding of Christianity and catholic tradition in
New York and in many places of U.S.A.

The Latino immigrant community is moving toward a new religious identity in
which spirituality is founded in a more contextual form where the community is
capable to have a life in Jesus Christ through the pastoral authentication of the
gospel in real and local time.

The pastoral circle is an important tool in the transformation in which the Latino
immigrant community is making the spiritual journey in New York, the reason is
because “ the pastoral circle, sometimes called pastoral cycle or spiral, has been
helping Christians communities to live contextually for the past twenty years” (1)
everywhere in Latin America.

It is helpful for a pastoral worker in the Latino field in New York, to go true the
experience of the pastoral circle. In doing so, he or she will discover how this
theological way of thinking and doing the will of God become a important tool that
connect the Latino community with the main pastoral plan of the local church. The
reasons for this connection are: First, when churches practice hospitality and open
the mind and hart of the community “ a new way of being church that is more
helpful to practice our Christian faith”(2) emerge, more flexible to face the current
challenges. So it is an imperative for the pastoral worker to be open at the
transformation in which the Latino community is at work; “A basic Christian
community open and in tuned with a basic human community, involve in social
actives with the mission to eliminate suffering, to struggle for a just society and to
sustain the development of the people and the environment”(3) Second, When
churches practice dialogue with the poor, culture and faith. The “ pastoral circle
should become a means of linking faith and justice, a means of making a serious
option for and with the poor. Contextualization means the effort of a community of
faith to live out the gospel of Christ”(4) Third, the pastoral worker “need to respect
tradition in critical dialogue in order to be able to touch their inner core. Contextual
faith and theology should be rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has been
always interpreted and will always e interpreted by the faith community”. (5)

Fourth, without prayer and contemplation the Latino community is lost. Therefore
the pastoral worker is call to develop a profound sensibility, in order to “encounter
the mystical experience”(6) through the community. Fifth, with no contextual
analysis and reflection, he or she is in risk of losing “the hermeneutical dimension
and the concrete direction of the ethical dimension” of the life of the community. In
conclusion, to become a parte of the transformation leaders and churches are in a
prophetic situation of denouncing what is wrong and practice Christianity and the
confrontation with the gospel and the Latino community here in New York.

Community for whom Gospel and life is a cohesive unity in which Christian life is
blooming.

Notes
1) Page 73 Johanes Banawiratma. The Pastoral Circle as Spirituality.
2) Page 73 Johanes Banawiratma. The Pastoral Circle as Spirituality.
3) Page 74 Johanes Banawiratma. The Pastoral Circle as Spirituality.
4) Page 75 Johanes Banawiratma. The Pastoral Circle as Spirituality.
5) Page 77 Johanes Banawiratma. The Pastoral Circle as Spirituality.
6) Page 79 Johanes Banawiratma. The Pastoral Circle as Spirituality.