Mañana

As an Anglican Christian with deep affection for Latin America and Latino culture(s), I resonated with stuff on nearly every page of this book. Mostly I come away encouraged. But I’m also perplexed by one nagging question.

Justo González, a theologian originally from Cuba, is the kind of mainline Protestant who gladly says the creeds without crossing his fingers. In the big stuff, he finds himself in good company with small-c catholic Christians throughout time and space. But practically, as a Methodist surveying a Hispanic religious landscape dominated by the Roman Catholic Church on one hand and Pentecostalism on the other, González is, for all intents and purposes, holding down a very small fort in no-man’s land.

This book, it seems to me, is precisely an attempt to cast a vision for a distinctly Hispanic and distinctly Christian theology that, yes, respects the prevailing theologies on either side and looks for common ground whenever possible. But ultimately González charts a different path – one that is rooted in creedal orthodoxy, animated by the Spirit, and aligned with the poor.

Which makes me wonder: how many Hispanics would actually share the “perspective” promised in the subtitle?