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I attended a seminary class which omitted on how to serve those on the margins or support others who engage with issues of injustices. So for my final paper….
Here is my end product! Hope it encourages you forward in knowing there are faith based leaders rooting for our immigrant communities ❤
Rosalias Rising
Reading the news headline of another young teenager Adam Toledo being killed, a young Afro-Latina lady, Rosalia who’s Venezuelan and undocumented in her mid twenties clicks on the article with tears. Wincing with every word of the report she starts crying profusely. Crying because one of the teenagers of the community has been killed because of the color of his skin. Crying because she wants to scream, yell and curse up a storm on who committed this violence. Has only angry cries in her soul with no capacity to pray to God – is a story being heard in all our urban churches today. How to save a life who is hurt by the pains of society and systems of this world which have contributed to invisibility is the grand question. According to readings, classes and discussions three components must be tackled to help disciple a life which are the mind, heart and feet according to God’s heart for the broken. In order to have these components a church plant is highly challenged to be a missional community with a heartbeat of justice, mercy, lament and hope in the Christ who sees, grieves and loves those labeled as “the other.” In order to help all Rosalias in our church plants, the following shall cover a possible solution on the need to talk about the injustices of this world as we are losing Generation Z to the silence speaking volumes on Sunday services, life groups, pastoral counseling and leadership development. In Reconcile Brooklyn, we desire to help others to deeply know God, journey life together and serve the suffering and forgotten by engaging in discipleship which doesn’t shy away from speaking on the beauty of ethnic identity, emotionally healthy activism and cultivating leaders with a multiethnic heart for Christ glory to be shown as the great Kinsman Redeemer calling all nations to be one.
Discipleship celebrating Ethnic Identity
Madison Muller (2021) recently wrote an article titled Can Churches Earn the Trust the Trust of Young Racial Activists? highlighting Gen Zers stand with a religious decline though they are the majority of protesters demanding justice after George Floyd’s murder. Pew Research Center (2021) gave a survey to more than 8,600 Black adults (ages 18 and older) which revealed one in five Black Americans are not affiliated with any religion (21%), three in ten Black Gen Zers (28%) and Millenials (33%) are religiously unaffiliated compared to the Baby Boomers (11%) and the Silent Generation (5%). This is scary as we are losing youth due to churches having a hard time earning the trust of these young activists. In the case of Rosalia, who identifies as both African American and Latina hence the term “Afro-Latina,” she fits these statistics presented in the Pew Research. Rev. Dr. Robert Chao Romero, an Asian Latino professor of Chicana/o Studies and Asian American Studies in UCLA and author of Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology and Identity (2020) gives us motivation on speaking to Latinas/os caring about faith and justice who occupy a “spiritual borderlands” by helping us understand stories like Rosalia’s pain:
In many institutional religious spaces, we feel out of place because our concern for social justice issues is not understood. When we share our concerns about issues of educational inequity or comprehensive immigration reform we are met with blank stares or even outright opposition. We are told, “Those are political issues that are separate from faith.” As a result, we often walk away from church and formal religious institutions. We may cling tenuously to a personal faith, but our activism becomes divorced from institutional Christianity (Romero 2020, 5).
According to Rev. Dr. Romero, as the church we cannot dismiss the sheep who are engaging injustices, we need to speak up on where Christ stands, and gives a proposed solution which he names the “Brown Church” which is “a prophetic ecclesial community of Latinas/os what has contested racial and social injustice in Latin America and the United States for the past five hundred years” (Romero 2020, 10) and engage in Brown Theology that “rejects the narrow presentation of Christianity as eternal “fire insurance” that leaves most of life untouched by God’s love and redemption” (Romero 2020, 11). In other words, to support Rosalia, we are challenged to learn on the contributions of Latinas/os heroes in our history and theology to ensure her on a salvific premise to love her ethnic identity, as God calls her and all of us His children to be “fearfully and wonderfully made.” The negation of not introducing Rosalia to celebrating her ethnic identity is a further contribution of her societal tension of colonistic dominion of the formation of the Americas of “saving souls” sharing Christianity in this manner. Rev. Dr. Romero further states:
“Notwithstanding the critical importance of heaven and forgiveness, this short-sighted version of Christanity presented during the conquest of the Americas ignores the biblical value of justice and the social dimensions of Jesus’ redemption. It thereby allowed for the genocide and dehumanization of native and African communities, and the presentation of a corrupt and distored gospel: “It’s okay for us to decimate and enslave millions of ‘Indians’ and thousands of African slaves because we are saving their souls by sharing Christianity with them. Without us they’d just go to hell” (Romero 2020, 11).
In discipling Rosalia, we cannot escape speaking on others who were Christ centered believer advocates of justice but we also need to speak on the “elephant in the room” of the origins of Christianity, especially in America. It is understandable to wrestle with this tension as we all are passionate about the country we reside in yet, the challenge here is the renewal of our minds as stated in the book of Romans for Christ glory.
Mind: Who Am I? One of the greatest questions Rosalia will have after the acknowledgement of knowing another tragedy occured to the Latino community due to police brutality is her systemic pain and identity crisis. In Jonathan Walton’s book Twelve Lies that Hold America Captive And The Truth That Sets Us Free (2019) helps us further comprehend as his own story of an African American brother in Christ the vitality of not dismissing systemic pain:
But most excruciating is the disregard for the pain and suffering that those with “the privilege of moving on” exhibit on a regular basis in the church. I should not have to convince a pastor that police brutality is a gospel issue. My fear should not be dismissed or need substantiation. The conscious and unconscious fear of people of color needs to be dealt with, not swept away…Some of America’s most famous “Christian” leaders and institutions doubled down on bigotry, homophobia, racism and Islamophobia. These leaders reinforced their defense of gun lobbyists, silence on sexual assault, and endorsement of greed and militariams throughout the 2016 election cycle. This reality isn’t just ideological but has real-life implications as 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump while 88 percent of African Americans voted against him. To claim that the American church does not embody and enforce the ethnic, social, and political division and call it “Christian” is to live in denial (Walton 2019, 7).
Admitting the flawed state of our nation due to the idolatry of patriotism is a great start of sharing in the grief our young sister Rosalia experiences without denying the systemic injustices and clarifying God’s invitation. As Mr. Walton further expands on going against patriotism “There are great promises and aspirations in the US Constitution, but it is neither a holy text nor does it describe the plan of God for the renewal of all creation and the restoration of shalom” (Walton 2019, 32). With our heart on our sleeve, we must confess to our nation not being a “Christian nation” and “all men created equal” – because in this profession of truth we set liberty to the captives which is part of Jesus’ commission to us.
This acknowledgment of America not being a Christian nation is liberating because it gives context to taking responsibility for the flawed systems and documents such as the Declaration of Independence which states on the “others” who aren’t white american to be subhuman which is not the heart of our Triune God. As Romans 12:1 calls for the renewal of our mind with Paul writing these words to the Romans who were a diverse ethnic group, we acknowledge a mindshift must be taken as well in our today regarding what God’s heart is for our sister Rosalia. She is loved, cherished, the apple of God’s eye and Jesus weeps with her on the sufferings she has for her family being discriminated due to humble beginnings as immigrants, undocumented as they had no means due to the captivity in her home country Venezuela, seeking asylum in the pursuit of happiness. To suggest solely only societal needs of free legal services is stereotypical because it implies Rosalia & her family being seen according to their status to this country to be synonymous with their worth, identity, discipleship and any form of leadership development negates the gospel for the suffering and their worth in God’s eyes. To only suggest legal services to those on the margins is a further exasperation of highlighting their bird caged limitations implying it as an indicator to needing a green card to be accepted by Jesus going against the heart of God which is that all communities including the undocumented are His imago dei. Documentation does not negate anyone’s place in our Triune God’s kingdom, we are all welcomed and are part of being part of His image and likeness. Without each other, we are incomplete. Lastly, another great reason only suggesting legal services as the ultimate solution for Rosalia and her family to be damaging, is that it takes every possibility of aspiring to leading with what God has designed them for in His missio dei. He calls us all to His mission never looking to our limitations as a negation of His call, why should we limit our family in Christ who are undocumented from that possibility due to a lack of understanding their full story? Sometimes it’s not for us to understand but obey His Word as spoken in Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” In obeying God’s Scripture, it’s a reminder of our heart posture to be open in justice and mercy with humility in thinking we “know it all” but surrendering to be great listening ears serving as a minister of presence hearing stories such as our sister Rosalia as she is a Mija which in Spanish is a combination of mi (my) hija (daughter).
Heart: Do you see me? Giving safe space for Rosalia to discuss her story with all hardships of being a woman, undocumented, identifying as African and Latina is to validate her experience of who God has created in her despite the powers and principalities against her, there is beauty in her ethnic identity and she’s not alone as there are many atrevida, courageous women in the Bible whom she can relate to such as the bleeding woman (Matthew 9:20–22, Mark 5:25–34, Luke 8:43–48). In describing the bleeding woman’s story without negating her ethnic identity as a Latina, Noemi Vega Quiñones, co-author of Hermanas: Deepening Our Identity and Growing Our Influence (2019), says the following:
There are many bleeding women who are longing to be called mijas living among us today. Some of these stories I cannot tell, but I believe that if you look at your barrios and your childhood, at your relatives and your antepasados, that you will most likely find a legacy of Mija leaders. These are women who have rooted their identity in Jesus as daughters… It seems that the longer I walk with Jesus and learn from Mija’s leadership, the deeper my healing becomes. At first, I was inspired by Mija to share my immigrant story with others and to show how Jesus was healing me in this area. Later in life, I was inspired by Mija to root my worth in my daughter identity and not on whether or not a ministry supporter agreed to partner with me. Now, in my mid-thirties, I lean on Mija’s mentorship to keep me rooted as a believed daughter who is worthy of love and belonging in community. I am still single, but my fear of men is diminishing and my trust of Jesus continues to grow. Now I center my identity not on my relationship status or how many preaching opportunities I get or how many people choose to join our ministry, but on the sole reality that I am the Lord’s beloved Mija (Kohn et al. 2019, 56-57).
Ms. Quiñones description of the bleeding woman is wonderful because it encompasses her story on how she too has suffered from being an immigrant, her identity, struggles with sexism and built courage by trusting in Jesus and being called our Lord’s beloved daughter which she expresses as Mija. In order to help Rosalia grieve, lament and see through mentorship and pastoral counseling, she needs to hear of a God who sees her just as the bleeding woman who was in the shadows of society for her condition, seeking solutions which never helped her yet risked shame and guilt in reaching out in a crowd to Jesus. God sees Rosalia’s systemic pain of racial discrimination and sexism, and is her Healer embodying He paid it all for her as His daughter. Also, it is imperative to have safe mental health trusted resources and encourage her to therapy to continue in her healing journey.
As a first generation Latina graduate DACA Dreamer who has been a youth worker since the age of 18, currently serving as a Discipleship Pastor for a church plant named Reconcile Brooklyn formerly located prior to COVID-19 in Bedford Stuyvesant-Brooklyn, New York area–I can attest to the need of hearing, reading and listening from other Latina leaders to help me bridge my story. Countless of times I have heard coaching and counseling which negates my ethnic resiliency or seen the cringyness of leaders hearing my status in this country to have been an anchor of uncertainty not to be “prayed away” yet preferring someone to sit with me in grief without trying to diminish my pain but in listening validating my experience taking me to my Beloved who calls me by name. Being prayed over by great Latina leaders in my life along with learning from other Latino heroes in our theological history and receiving mental health counseling has strengthened my voice to help amplify the voices which are in the margins due to fear, being misunderstood and invalidated in systemic and broken systems of this world. As a Latina leader, I won’t negate my ethnic background as it’s part of my identity and gives me strength to lead for His kingdom. Rev. Dr. Orlando Crespo wrote in his book Being Latino in Christ (2003) encouraging Latinos to recognize their particular giftings saying
“Because of our racial diversity and the marginalization Latinos have experienced, we can actually make important contributions in bringing radical healing in our nation… Those of us who take our Christian faith seriously must be committed to the health of our relationships with our White, Black, Asian and Native American sisters and brothers” (Crespo 2003, 108).
Being a Latina in America with Afro-Peruvian and Peruvian-Italian roots given to me by my parents, I am in complete agreement with Rev. Dr. Crespo. With the injustice of George Floyd’s death last year, I knew where I stood without a doubt, calling my Latino community to the united cause of Black Lives Matter because we are also part of being discriminated against by the color of our skin. To deny my roots to either of my parents is a dishonor to my family and also Christ’s family as He calls us in Romans 12:26 as His body, if one part hurts we all hurt yet He calls me to commit to the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5).
Discipleship involving emotionally healthy activism
Rosalia can be nursed back into the community if we approach her with humbleness in listening to her pain, strengthening her to know God sees her, showing examples of women of faith such as the bleeding woman and motivating her strength in her ethnic identity. It will take time but will be worth it in seeing an Esther of this generation who is ready to embrace emotionally healthy activism. Rev. Dr. Raymond Rivera writes in his book Liberty to the Captives (2013) on instilling in us to engage our community:
God calls the church to be a healing community that responds to the spirit, soul, and body needs of the people. As it meets these needs, the church gains the right to be heard and is empowered to lead souls to Christ. The church needs to be a transformational community that reveals glimpses of the Kingdom of God by opposing godless policies and practices; this is how it is light and salt to the earth. This is why you must embrace the church’s critical role to seek peace and prosperity, or welfare (shalom), for the larger society (Jeremiah 29:5-7) (Rivera 2013, 43).
As Rosalia learns who she is in Christ’s eyes as His Mija, she will see her Beloved calling her to step out like Esther out of the shadows of what societal, familial, cultural values she has held to which is symbolized in Mordecai who told Esther to hide her Jewish identity–this is synonymous to how we are trained by our Latino families to conceal and assimilate white American culture. Rosalia will respond to the calling in Esther 4, on speaking forth against the powers of this world for “such a time as this” which has been seen in the rhetoric of Trumpism, a spirit of white supremacy which prevails in the aftermath of Trump’s sayings for four years of dehumanization against the immigrant community where he campaigned in 2015 describing us to “bringing drugs, crimes. They’re rapists.” It will not be an easy endeavor but not impossible as she will be in a community both ethnic and multiethnic knowing the importance of the unity Jesus prayed for us to have in John 17, to be “one” just as Him and the Father are one, this is how we will be known by our faith. Rosalia will also need to be encouraged in her spiritual formation in emotionally healthy spirituality – a value Reconcile Brooklyn has which states:
In order to be spiritually mature, we acknowledge emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable. We aim to grow deeply in love with God by having a spirituality that goes beneath the surface to love God, ourselves and others well. We will go back to go forward, learning and understanding how our families’ narratives and past experiences have shaped us over time to commit in becoming more Christ-centric (Reconcile Brooklyn 2021, 4).
Emotionally healthy spirituality will help her to grow in loving others well as she engages with her own spiritual growth in describing candidly her emotions yet being guided to knowing God is with her and can handle hearing her laments of sadness, loneliness, anger, anxiety as He has in so many psalms of David, in the story of Noami (Ruth 1) to name a few. After engaging in these discipleship classes on emotionally healthy spirituality it would be a great next step to see her spiritual gifts by having her take the APEST assessment along with a continued communal study on the curriculum of Emotionally Healthy Activism (EHA) Course. The EHA course encompasses for her to become an emotionally healthy activist to “operate, not out of the broken patterns and narratives of their cultures, families, and systems of this world but to take discerned, purposeful, contextualized, loving and sincere action that is informed by prayerful individual and communal reflection” (EHA Course 2021, 4). Rosalia will learn a different definition to not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed in the renewing of her mind (Romans 12:2) by being challenged on not only her view of what she considers as “the other” which in her case can be white American supremacists and Trump supporters–to not dehumanize them even if she completely disagrees with their dehumanization of her & her communities. A grand way of challenging Rosalia in Christ’s love is to hear testimonies of her white American brethren who were formerly in white American supremacist and Trumpism mindset without their knowledge as to be Republican equated to being Christian. Hearing the testimonies of a dear couple in Reconcile Brooklyn who were once in this mindset of voting without acknowledging the dehumanization in it, to now being advocates with their own white American friends in red states to have a cup of coffee with and challenge them; this will open Rosalia’s heart to seeing the sin of dehumanization and lead her to repentance on labeling in an extreme manner “all” who are white American are racists to then rephrasing to “some.” This will help her have a change of heart and confess her own dehumanization.
Cultivating leaders with a multiethnic heart
Feet: Rising in leadership As Rosalia finishes the EHA course along with other brothers and sisters in Christ who have multiethnic and multicultural backgrounds, her heart will expand to see the shalom God always intended for all his children. It is not enough to train a leader in the skills but also the heart matter of engaging in their own ethnic identity and narrative to then being intentional in helping others who are suffering in their distinct communities due to the principalities of white supremacy and patriotism which have existed since the foundation of this nation. Though understanding her own context to be distinct to perhaps an Asian American friend who currently is suffering from the violence against their community due to Trump calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus,” Rosalia will be able to lean in with her friend’s grief and pain without spiritualizing away but validating her friend’s hurt. Rosalia will be able to be the hands and feet of Jesus for such a time as this for her Asian American friend, seeking help from Asian American resources who narrate their theological and historic heroes of the faith such as Soong-Chan Rah, Nikki Toyama-Szeto and Kathy Khang.
This proposed new discipleship training encompassed in Rosalia would not be able to be initiated without the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit. As described in Latinas Evangelicas: A Theological Survey from the Margins (2013) stating on the Holy Spirit:
The Spirit is the subversive One who pours out charisms and enables women as personas llamadas (called) to do trabajo personal (God’s work) in peripheral places where others hesitate to go, because where the Spirit is, there is God. Spirit is evidence that God is presente (present). To be called is to be sanctificadad (sanctified) (Martell-Otero et al. 2013, 9).
The Spirit has called each one of us women and men alike to do His work as the Spirit is present to pave the way in peripheral places. We are called to help Rosalias rising for such a time as this.
Bibliography
Cauguiran, Cate. “Adam Toledo Shooting: Bodycam Footage of Teen Killed by CPD Narrated in Court Ahead of Public Release.” ABC7 Chicago. WLS-TV, April 10, 2021. https://abc7chicago.com/adam-toledo-ruben-roman-13-year-old-shot-shooting-video/10505123
Crespo, Orlando. Being Latino in Christ: Finding Wholeness in Your Ethnic Identity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003.
Gabbatt, Adam. “Donald Trump’s Tirade on Mexico, Drugs and Rapists; Outrages US Latinos,” June 16, 2015, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/16/donald-trump-mexico-presidential-speech-latino-hispanic
Kohn, Natalia, Quiñones Noemi Vega, and Kristy Garza Robinson. Hermanas: Deepening Our Identity and Growing Our Influence. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2019.
Martell-Otero, Loida I., Pérez Maldonado Zaida, Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, and Serene Jones. Latina evangélicas: a Theological Survey from the Margins. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013.
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Muller, Madison. Can Churches Earn the Trust of Young Racial Justice Activists? Sojourners, April 8, 2021. https://sojo.net/articles/can-churches-earn-trust-young-racial-justice-activists?fbclid=IwAR1EUn77SUiL1WPo0oAE3w5A1-Jy2wSW6gT75CLECWeVzBxRysc5xyMhu3E.
Reconcile Brooklyn Membership Guide. Reconcile Brooklyn, February 1, 2021. https://mcusercontent.com/601be00b45d0140924ad9e2ad/files/3dbd0c78-44fd-4a9f-ba5c-1df856883682/Membership_Guide_updated_2.1.21_.pdf.
Rivera, Raymond, and Montes José. Liberty to the Captives: Our Call to Minister in a Captive World. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013.
Romero, Robert Chao. Brown Church Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2020.
Walton, Jonathan, Kristal Calkins, Emily Craig, and Stephen Rowe. EHA Course – InterVarsity Experiential Discipleship. InterVarsity Experiential Discipleship, March 30, 2021. https://www.experientialdiscipleship.com/eha.
Walton, Jonathan. Twelve Lies That Hold America Captive: and the Truth That Sets Us Free. Doweners Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2019.