Racism and God-Talk by Rosario Rodriguez Ruben;

Author:Rosario Rodriguez, Ruben;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 2008-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

PART II

The Theological Response

4

Guadalupe

Imago Dei Reconsidered

César Chávez is arguably the most famous Latino public figure in U.S. history. Often compared to Martin Luther King Jr., Chávez is remembered by academics and activists as primarily a political organizer and charismatic leader, while the role of his Catholic faith in the struggle for justice has been largely ignored. Recent scholarship is working to counter this misconception by arguing that both the liberal intelligentsia and Chicano activists uncomfortable with the role of faith in public matters perpetuated the myth of a “secularized” Chávez.1 This popular perception of Chávez as a secular activist survives despite the fact that protesting United Farm Workers often carried banners of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe and despite his own words, which often described his cause in terms of imitatio Christi (imitation of Christ): “I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!”2 In fact, Chávez invoked the Old Testament prophet Micah in his first major speech after his 1988 hunger strike: “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”3

Some Latino/a theologians maintain that at this point in history, U.S. Latino/a theology needs to move beyond the narrow walls of confessional theology in order to strive for a “wider sense of human solidarity across racial, cultural, and ideological lines.”4 At the same time, the prophetic witness of César Chávez and the ubiquitous presence of Guadalupe necessitate an analysis of Latino/a political activism that understands the role of religion—especially Roman Catholic popular religion—in the struggle for liberation. In this search for political solidarity Latino/a theologians have downplayed significant doctrinal differences between Protestants and Catholics for the sake of creating a unified movement. While U.S. Hispanic/Latino/a theology defines itself as an intentionally ecumenical movement, it is important to engage the beliefs and practices of particular communities of faith. Accordingly, when confronted by certain essentialist claims about ethnicity and theological identity from U.S. Latino/a theologians, it is important to question such claims or risk undermining the intellectual credibility of the movement. For example, Virgilio Elizondo projects a particularly Mexican American and Roman Catholic popular religiosity as normative for all Latino/a Christians when he writes, “I do not want to say that every Hispanic has to remain a member of the Roman Catholic Church in order to be a Hispanic, but I am saying that when a Hispanic ceases to be catholic (to participate in the religious-cultural expressions of our people), he or she ceases to be a Hispanic.”5 He thereby overlooks the many Hispanic Protestants who consider some aspects of popular Catholicism—especially the apparition of (and subsequent devotion to) Our Lady of Guadalupe—as superstitious and therefore antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the spirit of the thirty-year history of cooperation across confessional boundaries, I am arguing that for U.

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