We are in unprecedented times. Not since the 1950’s have we as Latinas/os been hunted, deported, and rechazado in this way. It is a tough time to be Latina/o and a follower of Jesus in the United States. Not since Operation Wetback deported more than one million Mexicans in 1954 in one year, including countless U.S. citizens.
In June 2025, high school student Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz, a U.S. citizen, was kidnapped by ICE while walking his dog in Van Nuys, California. Despite his pleas, and that of his parents, and even the advocacy of a state legislative representative, Benjamin was transferred to a detention facility in Arizona without anyone’s knowledge.
Also in June, I received the following notes from students in my class. It was finals week, and instead of getting to live the normal college life of late nights studying over frappuccinos with friends in the dorms, they lived a nightmare. That week of June 6 was a week of terror:
“Our communities have been under attack…Friends and I have been teargassed and injured as we stand with our communities who are being kidnapped and torn apart from their loved ones…I fear for my family and my undocumented community back at home in East LA. I have not been able to resume my schoolwork and finals due to extreme stress, anxiety, mobilizing, and checking in with family and loved ones…”
“The past week has been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. One of my family members was unfortunately and wrongfully detained. I cannot even begin to describe the pain and emotions that my family and I experienced and felt when it happened…”
People have been disappeared and hunted by masked men at the point of a gun, from bus stops, grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, car washes, and even while riding their bicycles to work.
Children have been torn away from their parents, still in their pajamas, in the middle of the night, and thrown into U-haul trucks like boxes of kitchen plates. And when Latino US citizens–even veterans– have dare raised their voice to complain, they have been falsely charged with assault.
The cause: White Christian Nationalism. No, more accurately, religious nationalism which has no plausible relationship to the revolution of love, justice, mercy, and reconciliation begun by Jesus and the apostles in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia two millennia ago.
Eric Trump has even become a prophet and theologian for MAGA religious nationalism:
“We’re saving Christianity. We’re saving God. We’re saving the family unit. We’re saving this nation. I mean, DEI is out of the window…You no longer have Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem. You no longer have Budweiser going woke as hell. All of this is dead. We have a return to people going to church.”
“Saving God” ???
One evil consequence of such religious nationalism expressed as immigration policy is the destruction of the Latino family unit. Children ripped away from parents and grandparents. The skyrocketing of depression and other mental health concerns have among children who fear that their parents will not be there when they get back from school. Parents barricaded in homes, afraid to leave the house for work, to buy groceries, or even to go to church.
As I pen these words, the majority of the US Supreme Court has even green-lighted the racial profiling of the Latino community, leading Latina Justice Sonia Sotomayor to protest:
“[Y]et another misuse of our emergency docket. We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”
In a recent consultation with emerging Latina and Latino pastoral leaders who were wrestling with these issues of this historic moment, Fredy posed this question:
“What will I say to my kids? Twenty years from now, when the world looks back at this historic moment, what will I answer my kids or grandkids about how I got involved?”
It’s an important question for all of us.
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All of this makes me think of the corito, or worship song,“Un Dia a la Vez,” which has given hope to thousands of Latino Christians over the decades:
“Tu ya viviste entre los hombres/You have already lived among men
Tu sabes Señor/You understand Lord
Que hoy está peor, es mucho el dolor/That today is even worse. There is so much pain
Hay mucho egosimo/y mucha maldad/There is much selfishness and evil
Señor por mi bien, you quiero vivir un dia a la vez/Lord, for my sake, I want to live one day at a time
Un dia a la vez, mi Cristo/One day at a time, my Christ
Es lo que pido de ti/Is what I ask of You
Dame la fuerza para vivir, un dia a la vez/Give me the strength to live, one day at a time.
Un Dia a La Vez captures la lucha and suffering of this present moment, and it elicits, almost involuntarily within me, a “grito.” A grito is a deepy cry or shout from a deep place in the soul which communicates a profound emotional release or lament, and even the birth of hope. When the weight of human suffering grows too great, coritos stir not only metaphorical gritos within us, but also literal gritos of solidarity of the Spirit of God: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).
In this historic moment, stirred by the struggle of deep suffering experienced by the Latino community, millions of gritos rise to God in homes, churches, and immigrant detention centers throughout the United States. And with our deep faith in Christ shaped by decades of generational struggle, in the words of one Brazilian theologian, “nos aguantamos.”
Among many second generation Latina/o youth and others, another grito has reached fever pitch as thousands cry out to God in search of spiritual purpose and belonging. Disenchanted by the racism and anti-immigrant politics of religious nationalism, they seek a spiritual home and identity which encompass their love for Jesus, their diverse God-given cultural heritages, and their passion for racial justice.
They are also deeply wounded and confused by the embracing of Christian nationalism by many of their family members who act as neo-colonial intermediaries and power brokers, aligning themselves with racism in hopes of gaining a modicum of social acceptance. In exchange for a third-class seat at the MAGA political table, they are willing to throw most members of the Latino community under the bus, but with the sad irony that many of them eventually also find themselves entangled in the undercarriage. And when that occurs, they say, “But wait, I thought that he was only going to go after the ‘criminals.’” He meant what he said, and always had us in mind.
I’ll never forget another note I received from a student in which he expressed the identity conflict he was experiencing because of the white Christian nationalism he had experienced in his church and denomination:
“As a Latino growing up as the son of an undocumented pastor, my experience was much different from those who surrounded me. I felt that I could not identify with my peers and I always felt out of place. My white peers accepted me in the way that I stood in right by being [part of their denomination], but I was not accepted because of my skin color, my race, or my father’s undocumented status. I wanted to believe in what my family and church taught me as truth but I slowly drifted away from my beliefs as a result of the testimony I received from the Anglo church and their members. Even to this day those same Protestants refer to us as ‘wetbacks, beaners, and spics.’ I find myself conflicted with my identity.”
As reflected in this quotation, millions of young Latinos in the US wrestle with questions of religious IDENTITY.
This is a natural consequence of the surge of white Christian nationalism since 2016. In essence, they are asking, “What does my cultural heritage have to do with my faith in Jesus? Does God care about my Latinidad in the face of blatant racism in society and the church? Do I have to throw away my cultural identity in order to be a Christian? As a logical corollary, some ask, “Does God care about the injustices experienced by my community?
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This book is for those like my students who find themselves wrestling with their identity as Latina/o followers of Jesus in this historic moment of the heresy of white Christian nationalism. You are seen. You are heard. Because the Brown Church is about the beloved community of all, everyone else is welcome, too. The Brown Church just represents a different entry point. Bienvenidos a todas/os.
This book addresses one central question:
Drawing upon the rich legacy of Brown Theology over the past 70 years, how can we deconstruct the heresy of white Christian nationalism and rebuild upon its ashes, a Christian faith which is faithful to the biblical vision of “teologia en conjunto” (theology as communal reflection) of the entire Body of Christ, comprised of the saints of every tribe, language, nation, and tongue over the past 2,000 years?
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Bendiciones y nos hablemos la semana que viene.
En Cristo,
Roberto