Brown Theologians have been fighting a theological battle against the various expressions of White Christian Nationalism in the Americas for over 500 years.
In 1511, decrying the evils of the Spanish Conquest, Dominican Friar Antonio de Montesinos preached the first racial justice sermon:
“In order to make your sins against the Indians known to you I have come up on this pulpit, I who am a voice of Christ crying in the wilderness of this island (Hispaniola), and therefore it behooves you to listen, not with careless attention, but with all your heart and senses, so that you may hear it; for this is going to be the strangest voice that ever you heard, the harshest and hardest and most awful and most dangerous that ever you expected to hear…
This voice says that you are in mortal sin, that you live and die in it, for the cruelty and tyranny you use in dealing with these innocent people. Tell me, by what right or justice do you keep these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged a detestable war against these people, who dwelt quietly and peacefully on their own land…Are these not men…Are you not bound to love them as you love yourselves?”
In the ensuing decades of the 16th century, Dominican Friar Bartolome de Las Casas would pen the first racial justice books in the history of the Americas, depicting in vivid detail the brutalities of the Conquest, framing the earliest theologies of racial justice, and accurately predicting the destruction of Christian witness which would result for centuries to come:
“Therefore, if Sepulveda’s opinion (that the campaigns against the Indians are lawful) is approved, the most holy faith of Christ, to the reproach of the name Christian, will be hateful and detestable to all the peoples of the world to whom the word will come of the inhuman crimes that the Spaniards inflict on that unhappy race, so that neither in our lifetime nor in the future will they want to accept our faith under any condition, for they see that its first heralds are not pastors but plunderers, not fathers but tyrants, and that those who profess it are ungodly, cruel, and without pity in their merciless savagery.”
The prophetic words of Las Casas ring true today in the United States more than ever, as millions of young adults, Latino and of every ethnicity, reject Christianity because of the misrepresentations of White Christian Nationalism which began with the Spanish Conquest and have continued to the present day as White Christian Nationalists are seated on the throne of political power in the United States.
Building upon the legacy of Montesinos, Las Casas, and others from the colonial period such as Guaman Poma de Ayala, Garcilaso de la Vega el Inca, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, over the past 50 years, a treasury of Brown Theology has been produced in Latin America and the United States, which deconstructs White Christian Nationalism in its various guises and reconstructs a multicultural and justice-centered biblical vision of the Gospel grounded in the larger 2,000 year tradition of the apostolic and catholic Church. Brown Theologians such as Orlando Costas have even documented their own wrestlings with Christian cultural identity in the face of U.S. Christian racism, similar to that expressed by my student above.
Writing in 1980, Latino theologian Orlando Costas referred to his own journey of spiritual deconstruction and reconstruction as his “three conversions.” As a Puerto Rican Latino growing up in New York, Costas first came to personal and transformative faith in Jesus at a Billy Graham crusade. This was his “first conversion.” Following his personal conversion, Costas attended Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian college in Florida and faced the worst racism of his life. Similar to my student’s experience, a culture of white Christian nationalism pervaded Costa’s campus experience and made him question whether or not he belonged in the US church. In the words of Costas:
“I came face to face with Anglo-Saxon culture in its worst form…the exaltation of Anglo-Saxon literature…the daily chapel services, saturated by the North American…crusading spirit; the puritanical value system…the shameless defense and justification of racism, so characteristic of Anglo-Saxon culture; and the triumphalist belief in the divine destiny of the United States—all of these cultural configurations led me to ask myself whether I had any part in such a world?”
Wrestling with this painful question, Costas came to understand the role which US colonialism had historically played in shaping such racist perspectives. He also distinguished between the harms committed by the institutions of the United States and individuals who were part of this same system:
“That did not mean that I had become hostile to North Americans as persons. It meant rather that I was becoming increasingly aware of the political oppression and economic exploitation which their nation, as an imperial and neo-colonial power, was exercising over Latin America as a whole…” Costas, “Conversion as a Complex Experience—A Personal Case Study.” In, ed. John Stott and Robert Cootie, Down to Earth: Studies in Christianity and Culture. 1980.
As a side note, and in confirmation of Costas’ observations which he encountered, interracial dating between whites and non-whites was banned by Bob Jones university until the year 2000.
On the other hand, and in fairness to Bob Jones, Costas also stated that he gained an understanding and appreciation for evangelism while a student. In his words:
“At Bob Jones I also discovered the Christian imperative of evangelism. Through the testimonies of friends who had gone on evangelistic missions to Mexico and Central America and, especially through the inspiration of a Puerto Rican colleague who had the gift of evangelism, I developed a passionate concern for the communication of the Gospel to those who live outside the frontiers of the faith.” Costas, “Conversion as a Complex Experience—A Personal Case Study.” In, ed. John Stott and Robert Cootie, Down to Earth: Studies in Christianity and Culture. 1980.
Throughout his life, as much as he became known for his zeal for social justice, Costas never lost his passion for seeing lives personally changed through Jesus Christ. According to Bishop Raymond Rivera, author of, Liberty to the Captives, Costas was known to one moment preach a hard-hitting sermon on racial justice and the destructiveness of colonialism, only to suddenly pivot to a message on personal salvation based upon John 3:16. As we’ll see, for Costas, this was no bait and switch, but flowed from his conviction that the Gospel was by nature holistic, necessarily involving both personal and social transformation. “In this political praxis I never lost my Christian and pastoral identity.” Costas, “Conversion as a Complex Experience—A Personal Case Study.” In, ed. John Stott and Robert Cootie, Down to Earth: Studies in Christianity and Culture. 1980.
Costas’ “second conversion” involved the deconstruction of the unbiblical theology of white Christian nationalism which he encountered at Bob Jones, but equally important, the reconstruction of a biblical understanding which valued his Puerto Rican/Latin cultural heritage as a treasure, and a God-given gift.
Costas’ third conversion came as a pastor in the Midwest. During the 1960’s and the war on poverty, government funds were being distributed to churches and community organizations to address the suffering of underserved communities. Then as now, Latino churches were overlooked and left out of these opportunities, and so Costas was appointed by the members of his church to advocate for them with the local government. Through this experience, Costas came to the same realization as the bishops of the early church, that advocacy on behalf of the poor was an important part of his pastoral responsibilities. Justice was important to God as evidenced by thousands of verses of scripture. This was his “third conversion to the world.” Costas underscored the interrelationship between his first and second “conversions”:
“My conversions to Christ and to my culture had been complemented by a conversion to the world, especially the world of the forgotten and exploited. Interestingly enough, this enabled both the church and me to deepen our understanding of our relationship to Christ and to our cultural heritage.”
In the years to come, Costas would write many books which explored the biblical and theological bases for racial equality, justice, and advocacy, some of which will be discussed later in this book. Some of these books include: The Church and its Mission: A Shattering Critique from the Third World (1974); The Integrity of Mission: The Inner Life and Outreach of the Church (1979); and Christ Outside the Gate, Liberating News, and the Integrity of Mission (1982).
As an interesting experiment, I asked one of my graduate students, Christian T., to read several of these books and to tell me what stood out. He graciously agreed, and here are a few of the many quotes which he selected:
“What is hard to take, however, is the way that the values undergirding the imperialistic philosophy and practice of these nations make their way into the church, distorting the gospel sometimes beyond recognition, and setting up what some of my Latin American friends would call ideological and/or cultural roadblocks to the understanding of biblical faith.” The Church and Its Mission (1974), 13.
“Having lived and studied in North America I can understand why so many missionaries think and act as they do. They are part of a syncretistic religious culture. I say syncretistic because many of the values inherent in this culture are definitely not Christian. Yet they have been made to appear as if they were.” The Church and Its Mission (1974), 14.
“In the church, the fullness of God’s grace is offered to all humanity. Any nationalistic, racist, or sectarian notion is categorically rejected. In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female (Galatians 3:28). The Church and Its Mission (1974), 14.
“The true test of mission is not whether we proclaim, make disciples or engage in social, economic and political liberation, but whether we are capable of integrating all three in a comprehensive, dynamic, and consistent witness.” The Integrity of Mission (1979), 75.
“In this context, the church is called on to bear a direct witness against the scandal of poverty, whether in its sociological expression or in its psychological manifestation. But it can only bear this witness to the extent that it assumes the identity of the sociologically poor and lives in a spirit of humility, openness and dependence on God.” The Integrity of Mission (1979), 15.
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Costas’ words have never wrung truer. The Gospel has become so distorted by White Christian Nationalism that it is barely recognizable in the United States today. Many of us are in the midst of our “second” and “third” conversions.
For millions of Christians who are trying to detangle their faith in Christ from the strangling knots of five hundred years of White Christian Nationalism, how does one even begin?
As reflected in the testimonio of Costas, such confusing experiences in the theological borderlands are not new, and Latinas/os across the decades, even the centuries, have left a theological roadmap which can help navigate the painful and disorienting process of spiritual deconstruction and reconstruction. This roadmap can be called, Brown Theology: the little known, five-hundred year old tradition of Latina/o theological reflection upon issues of race and justice. Like Orlando Costas, many Brown Theologians have had their “three conversions” and come out thriving and with vital faith on the other side.
Sadly, many others have embarked on the journey and haven’t made it. As a pastor, nothing breaks my heart more. Drawing upon the insights of Brown Theology elders and ancestors who have successfully traversed this rugged and perilous, yet exciting, terrain, over the past 50 years, this book is like a theological topographical map for those seeking to backpack through the hills, valleys, plateaus, and waterways of the often dangerous journey of spiritual deconstruction and reconstruction.
Cuidense mucho,
Roberto