“Do This in Remembrance of Me” 93 17. Mk 14:12–14, 16, 32; Mt 26:1, 17–19, 26, 35–36; Lk 22:11, 39; Jn 13:5, 22, 23, 35. 18. E. M. Tetlow, Women and Ministry in the New Testament (New York: Paulist Press 1980), 123. 19. Rakoczy, In Her Name, 205. 20. Although permission was not sought from this reverend to use her story in this study, I use it as a way of responding to the call of African Women Theologians to bring the experiences of men and women about church into academia and into our theological debates. For more information, see M. A. Oduyoye, Introducing African Women Theology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). This woman’s story moved many people in the pews to tears as she related how her church has denied her, over the course of ten years, the opportunity to conduct Holy Communion services due to her physical disability. As I stood there watching as she blessed the bread and wine and called the congregation to the altar to join her in partaking of the Lord’s Table, I was reminded of Njoroge questioning: How long? (N. J. Njoroge, “Groaning and Languishing in labour pains,” in Groaning in Faith: African Women in the Household of God, ed. Kanyoro, M. A. and Njoroge N. [Nairobi: Acton, 1996], 1–15). My question was, how long will it take the church to realize the abuse suffered by women in the name of liturgical power space? 21. Senn, Christian Liturgy, 687. 22. Ibid. 23. Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 2. 24. Ibid. 25. Rakoczy, In Her Name, 206. 26. Senn, Christian Liturgy, 676. 27. Mercy A. Oduyoye, Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995); M. R. A. Kanyoro and M. A. Oduyoye, eds., The Will to Arise: Women Tradition and Church in Africa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992). 28. E. Watson, Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). 29. A. van Schalkwyk, “Hectic but Faithful: The Reclaiming of the Body as Sacred in Christian Feminist Theology,” Journal of Religion and Theology 9.1–2 (2002): 137. 30. E. Moltmann-Wendel, I am a Body: New Waves of Embodiment (London: SCM Press, 1994), 1480. 31. Schalkwyk, “Hectic but Faithful,” 148. 32. Russell, Church in the Round Feminism Interpretation of the Church, 150. 33. Ibid., 58.
6 Liturgy and Justice in Post colonial Zimbabwe: Holy People, Holy Pl aces, Holy Things in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe Herbert Moyo Introduction Liturgy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ)1 is central to worship. Both clergy and laity have to be trained for participating in the liturgy, which is understood by laity and some members of the clergy to be limited to the activities of the church during a worship session, mainly on Sundays, in designated worship spaces. The ELCZ is a product of missionaries from Sweden who started mission stations in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces of what was then Rhodesia.2 Attending church services was meant to transform black people into Westerners through worship, dress code, hymns, language, liturgical moves, and musical instruments. In other words, the holy people, holy places, and holy things3 were aligned to western culture. Being a Lutheran was tantamount to being a photocopy of a Swedish person. Any activities that missionaries associated with ancestors were dismissed as unholy. The trend was therefore that on Sundays, Africans became some form of Europeans, and then on other days during the week, reverted to being Africans. The aim of this chapter is to discuss and expose the liturgical activities of the postcolonial ELCZ, as opposed to the colonial ELCZ. It should, however, be noted that the ELCZ is called the Evangelical Lutheran Church IN Zimbabwe, and not Zimbabwe, in contrast to the mother church in Sweden, the Evangelical Lutheran Church OF Sweden.
96 Herbert Moyo I gathered the data for this chapter through being a participant observer in the life of the ELCZ in all its three dioceses for long periods of time, both in the colonial and postcolonial era. I have also used information that I have gathered from literature. This chapter discusses the concept of liturgy from the perspective of justice and holiness. It interrogates liturgy beyond the church service to the role of the church in public life, because authentic liturgy encompasses public service by the church in enacting the kingdom of God on earth. People who are made holy by the liturgy express their holiness in society through acts of justice.4 The theoretical framework of this chapter is based on the following definition of liturgy: Liturgy (leitourgia) is a Greek composite word meaning originally a public duty, a service to the state undertaken by a citizen. Its elements are leitos (from leos = laos, people) meaning public, and ergo (obsolete in the present stem, used in future erxo, etc.), to do . . . The meaning of the word liturgy is then extended to cover any general service of a public kind.5 The above definition insinuates that liturgy goes beyond the church service; it has to do with public diakonia, in this case by the church. Diakonia is inherently fused in the life of the church. In this case, diakonia is the works of mercy and love through donations of material gifts to the needy by the church. Diakonia is linked to the liturgy, which enacts the envisaged ideal. For example, in the Eucharist, people eat and drink from the same table despite social status disparities. This is acting out what the ideal world should be like. Nsibande says the liturgy, “must be in touch with the problems of its day. . . . ”6 The colonial and postcolonial liturgies cannot be the same since the contexts are not the same. In postcolonial Zimbabwe, how have Africans appropriated the liturgy to show that they now own the church? This chapter explores holy places, holy things, and holy elements used in church services to determine the extent to which these respond to the socioeconomic and political context of Zimbabwe. During the colonial era, the liturgy of the church was blind to colonial atrocities done to citizens, and this blindness should be eradicated in postcolonial Zimbabwe. Has the church transformed from Euro-Swedish to African forms of worship? Has the church transformed its liturgy in line with the new context faced by Zimbabweans? Does the liturgy foster a sense of justice and peace given by God? The Colonial Liturgy The context of liturgy in colonial Zimbabwe was the political oppression of indigenous people by the colonizers. The challenge was the fact that the skin color and culture of the colonizer were the same as those of the
Liturgy and Justice in Post colonial Zimbabwe 97 missionary. Even though the ELCZ missionaries came from Sweden while the colonizers came from Britain, from the perspective of the indigenous Zimbabweans, these two groups had the same sociopolitical understanding. The missionaries wanted to kill African culture. Schreiter captures this correctly when he says that in Africa, “embracing Christ and his message meant rejection of African cultural values. Africans were taught that their ancient ways were deficient or even evil and had to be set aside if they hoped to be Christians.”7 Liturgy should be a safe sacred space where people are free to express their worldview in the presence of God. The colonial liturgical space was a symbolic space for the Europeanization of Zimbabweans. The colonial liturgy located God in books: to understand God, one had to read the Bible, the hymns, and the leitourgia. To worship God, one had to first get a Western education. Books deprived the illiterate of access to God, because the liturgy was based on education. To be a Christian, one had to be able to read and memorize the catechism. This was an act of injustice to the illiterate, because they would not be able to participate fully in the liturgy. Surely, there were advantages to getting a Western education, but from a liturgical perspective it killed the oral flare of African understanding of worship. Pato says that Christianity in Africa was “burdened by European structures and European mindsets.”8 The western form of Christianity failed to liturgically incarnate itself to the dominant African cultures. The church service was formal and cold. The congregation was expected to sit in pews while singing without instruments. Dancing was prohibited. The congregation was in a way a spectator of the actions of the liturgist who was always a local evangelist, except during Eucharist services that were conducted by an ordained male minister. The dressing for church services was Western. Males were expected to put on jackets, which were mandatory if one wanted to receive communion. “African inculturation theology (or contextualization), black theology and liberation theology”9 have arisen in resistance to the colonial liturgy. Holy People, Holy Places, and Holy Things Colonial liturgy implied that males were the holy people, since male evangelists or pastors conducted the liturgy. However, pastors were holier than evangelists when it came to sacraments. Children were not holy, since they were not even allowed to observe the Eucharist service. From an ideological perspective, holy people were those who denounced the African culture. A holy person would not celebrate their ancestors, but they would celebrate All Saints Sunday. The saints were westerners such as Luther and biblical figures; Africans were never acknowledged, because by implication they were not holy. The dancing, singing, eating,
98 Herbert Moyo and lifestyle were to be Western if they were to be holy. This resulted in religious syncretism, where Africans acted as westernized in church services, while during the rest of the week they became true Africans. Since culture is a way of life of a people, and hence encapsulates their worldview, Africans were never successfully divorced from their culture.10 Holy Places and Holy Things Since Africans venerated ancestors mainly from the graves and the cattle kraal, these were designated as unholy places, as were also mountains that in most parts of Zimbabwe were burial places for tribal leaders. Places associated with alcohol, homes of spirit mediums, traditional healers, and prisons were also labeled as unholy places. Holy places were only those associated with Western culture. The graves of missionaries in and around mission centers could be visited and mentioned in liturgical practices. The church was the Holy place while the altar area was the Holy of holies reserved for ordained ministers. Holy things consisted of any Western liturgical items. The liturgical vestments, such as the white waivers, wine, the leitourgia, the bible, the hymn book, paten, and chalice, were also westernized. Vestments such as the cope, stole, and chasuble were decorated in Western theological symbols. The color of the vestments was colonial; for example, in funerals, black would be used, while at weddings, white would be used. Ideological death was associated with black, which in turn is associated with the dark continent of black people. Then weddings are good, so white was used, a color associated with light and white people. God, Jesus, and angels were portrayed as white, while the devil was an ugly black man. Omulokele correctly puts it when he says missionaries clothed Christianity in Western garb when they came to Africa.11 In agreement with what is described above, Chavunduka says missionaries would “transplant a Christian faith with all its European cultural background, imagery and orientation: They did not see any need for entering into any dialogue with the practitioners of the African religion and other community leaders.”12 However, in postcolonial Africa, “this non-Africanness, this foreignness, this assumption that the ethos of European culture is the starting point of Christian theology on the African continent, has been . . . challenged by African Christians”;13 hence the transformed postcolonial liturgies. Postcolonial Holy Things, Holy People, and Holy Places Culture is a phenomenon that is difficult to kill while those who have lived according to it are still around. It may die if the adherents also die and in the process die with it. Another scenario is that the Western
Liturgy and Justice in Post colonial Zimbabwe 99 culture and church culture brought by missionaries and colonialists are also transformed by the local culture through contestation. There is no way each culture can remain uninfluenced, including the dominating culture. Africanism refused to die during the colonial era. Nsibande says, in times of existential crisis (sickness or death) the average black Christian reverts to traditional African religious practices . . . many black Christians accepted the Gospel . . . But deep down in the subconscious dimension of their beings, their cultural conditioning remains intact to determine their behaviour in moments of life’s problems.14 Nsibande’s point of view has influenced the transformation of the world of the church to meet the needs of Africans. The postcolonial ELCZ has transformed and adapted liturgical practices to the African worldview. However, the vestments have maintained symbolic colors (red, green, white, purple, blue, gold, and black) that are difficult to change because of their theological symbology. The decorations on stoles, chasubles, and copes have changed significantly, and African symbols such as scotch carts, calabash, a map of Zimbabwe, shields, spears, animals, and clay pots have been added to liturgical vestments. We also have portraits of a black Jesus. In addition to the above, instead of the traditional silver paten and chalice, the ELCZ is now freely able to use a clay paten and chalice decorated in African designs. Even though the Eucharistic elements have remained the same white wafers and wine, the altar area has been Africanized in many ways.15 Ministers also carry wooden forms of the crucifix with a necklace made of colorful African beads. The bishop’s wooden staff also carries wonderful African designs that depict liberation from the Western mentality of labeling every African artifact as defiled and unholy. Musical instruments have now become holy and are allowed in the liturgy: traditional African drums, jingles, Amahlwayi, guitars, and any form of musical instrument is welcome, while still accommodating Eurocentric instruments such as the organ and the piano. In terms of Holy things, the church has shown a high level of hybridity. The unholy are made holy by the holiness of God.16 Having introduced instruments to the liturgy, dancing became a reality in the church. Africans are naturally charismatic, and singing choruses, playing drums, and dancing isitshikitsha during liturgy allow people to be themselves before God. Congregants no longer watch the minister doing liturgy, but do liturgy with the minister. Africans are inherently Pentecostal, and want to express themselves before God rather than having one person pray and make petitions for them. Thus, postcolonial liturgy needs to create spaces for self-expression in the form of mass prayer to soothe this inherent Pentecostal characteristic.
100 Herbert Moyo The need for a direct line of communication with God has resulted in a conflict between the traditionalists, who want to maintain the colonial traditions, and the liberated, who possess a postcolonial mentality related to political democracy. The majority of the ELCZ members now prefer spontaneous prayer as opposed to reading one from the leitourgia. They want a moment to express themselves, a practice/tendency which has been labeled as being Pentecostal by the church leadership, who are often guardians of the colonial liturgy. Mass prayer is an expression of liberation and democracy in the postcolonial church, a phenomenon absent during the colonial era. In addition to mass prayer, all members of the church are now holy: as evangelists were ordained into priesthood, the gap created by the ordination of evangelists has been filled by church elders, who take turns conducting church services. In this postcolonial practice, all believers practice priesthood. Another blessing of the postcolonial liturgy in the ELCZ is the advent of the ordination of women into priesthood. The liturgy makes all people holy and equal before God, regardless of their biological, God-given sex. Sermons are now rooted in the social context of the given congregation. In cases of crime, injustices, and suffering, this comes out strongly in the sermons and prayers of the church. The life of the liturgy speaks to social challenges, and petitions are made to God to bring about social transformation.17 This is in a way a cry for social justice by people who know the holiness of God and in turn are made holy by participating in the liturgy. Moreover, particular modes of dress are no longer enforced. Congregants are free to dress in African attire during liturgy, even if a congregant is dressed in animal skin—ibhetshu. The liturgy has moved into the community, outside of the traditional holy chapel space. Funeral services are conducted in the homes of the deceased, and these services include the Eucharist. This was anathema in the colonial ELCZ liturgy of the Eucharist, which was restricted to the holy space of the chapel. This transformation reflects a new theological understanding: the liturgy makes unholy spaces holy, so fellowship services, funerals, weddings, birthdays, and graduations can take place at believers’ homes or in cities, hotels, and public halls, in beer gardens and farms. The Eucharist Liturgy in the Postcolonial ELCZ In the ELCZ, we do have Christians who go to church only when there is Holy Communion, which usually happens on the last Sunday of the month. This practice was a consequence of the shortage of ministers and of the presence of large parishes with many congregations. It became operationally viable to bring the congregations to a central point once a month for communion.
Liturgy and Justice in Post colonial Zimbabwe 101 According to Davies, “liturgy denotes an act of worship, more specifically the Eucharist . . . ”18 Even though the concept of worship is central in liturgy, in the ELCZ the Eucharist is taken by many members as some form of magic that cleanses sins and cures some diseases. A new postcolonial phenomenon in the ELCZ is the use of individual cups for wine. The chalice is now common only in rural poor congregations, while in urban areas, small individual cups are in general use. The individual cups were popularized during the initial appearance of HIV, when congregants thought they could contract the disease by sharing the chalice with an infected person. The common trend is that people take turns going to the altar rail to receive communion from the minister. In the colonial era, each group on the altar rail would receive communion and be dismissed. In the postcolonial era, the dismissal is done after the whole congregation has received communion. According to Davies, “communion is reserved for those who are in good standing of the local congregation . . . In many places the practice was to hold two services on a communion Sunday. The first, including the sermon, would be for all who came; the second was for those who were entitled, to receive communion . . . ”19 In the postcolonial liturgy of the ELCZ, the liturgist issues “a general invitation to all who believe in Christ and who are in love and fellowship with their neighbors to partake in the service. The service of word and table is one, and all, including those who do not communicate, remain”20 in the service. This invitation to partake in the Eucharist cuts across denominational boundaries. The new understanding of the Eucharist is that it is a symbol of a special gift to humanity by God. New forms of exegeses surrounding the Eucharist are emerging. In as much as the Eucharist is celebrated as worship, it is also a lesson to be taken to the community after the service. The words of Jesus raise many socioeconomic and political issues: “‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me’. In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying: ‘this cup is a new covenant in my blood do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’” (1 Cor.11:23–25). The words “in remembrance of me” are highlighted in the postcolonial liturgy. The ELCZ identifies specific acts of Jesus, such as healing, feeding the hungry, challenging oppressive systems, relating to gentiles and females, establishing a community of resistance, all of which displayed his love and relationship with the underprivileged. The liturgy of the Eucharist cannot be realistic if it is divorced from the socioeconomic and political experiences of society. The ELCZ does remember that Jesus died and was resurrected, and all the suffering, death, and resurrection was based on Jesus’s will to set up the kingdom of God on earth. The ELCZ remembers the lifestyle of Jesus in the Eucharist. As a result of this remembrance, the ELCZ encourages every congregation to have home–based care teams to care for the sick. The church has also developed some bursaries to help with school expenses for children.
102 Herbert Moyo Despite financial challenges, congregations do share some groceries with elderly people, especially at Christmas time. The Eucharist is a lesson for deliverance from socioeconomic and political challenges. This is in agreement with the view of the World Council of Churches that the meals which Jesus is recorded as sharing during his earthly ministry proclaim and enact the nearness of the kingdom of which the feeding of the multitude is a sign . . . the Eucharist continues these meals of Jesus during his earthly life and after his resurrection, always a sign of the kingdom. Christians see the Eucharist prefigured as the Passover memorial of Israel is deliverance from the land of bondage . . . 21 In this sense, the liturgy of the Eucharist reminds the church of the Jesus who liberates from poverty, deprivation, and social injustices. After being reminded of Jesus, Christians go to their communities as agents for liberation so that the world can be governed by the will of God as experienced in the liturgy of the Eucharist. “The Eucharist thus signifies what the world is to become; an offering of hymn and praise to the creator, a universal communion in the body of Christ, a kingdom of justice, love and peace in the Holy spirit”22. During the colonial era, the government used the divide-and-rule system of governance. The Zimbabwean provinces are divided on tribal lines: for example, Matabeleland for the Ndebele, and Mashonaland for the Shona. The church was also divided along those lines. However, we now have congregations that worship in different languages: the Matabo parish uses Shona and Ndebele, despite all the congregants being Ndebele; the Gwanda parish now uses English, Ndebele, Shona, Venda, and Sotho in one service. Congregants are also embracing one another in issues of businesses, despite tribal and political differences, as long as they worship together. One can say, “The Eucharist embraces all aspects of life . . . The Eucharist celebration demands reconciliation and sharing among all those regarded as brothers and sisters in the family of God and is in search for appropriate relationships in social, economic and political life . . . all kinds of injustice . . . are challenged.” The very nature of the Eucharist challenges injustice, oppression, exploitation, and manipulation. The liturgy of the Eucharist in the postcolonial ELCZ has taught communicants that all kinds of injustice, racism, separation, and lack of freedom are radically challenged when we share in the body and blood of Christ. Through the Eucharist, the all-renewing grace of God penetrates and restores human dignity.”23 In fact, there should be “solidarity in the Eucharist communion of the body of Christ and responsible care of Christians for one another and the world find specific expressions in the liturgies: the eating and drinking together; the taking of the elements to the sick and those in prison . . . The place of such ministry between the
Liturgy and Justice in Post colonial Zimbabwe 103 table and the needy properly testifies to the redeeming presence of Christ in the world” (WCC 2004:14). Liturgy and Justice Justice is seen as a community practice where each person’s rights are respected especially by those in political authority, giving dignity to citizens regardless of differences. Wolterstorff says justice is “grounded ultimately on inherent rights.”24 The liturgy implores participants to be responsible citizens who care for others. Liturgically, Christians learn to reject the abuse of others by becoming communities of resistance to abuse and injustice, and learn to be good stewards of God’s people and nature. According to Gundani, “the Church, as a community of believers, consistently tries to interpret God’s will in order to align their lives and the lives of those around them to God’s will.”25 The concept of human dignity has developed as a form of rhetoric against injustice in the postcolonial ELCZ liturgy, based on the fact that every human being is created in the image of God. People from different socioeconomic backgrounds share pews and sing and pray together as a sign of the envisaged life in the kingdom of God. The sermons insist that God does not see skin color when he looks at human beings. The image of God in human beings is deeper than human physical appearance. Justice, Liturgy, and Holiness The liturgy is based on the concept of the holiness of God. The holiness of God is sung in every opportunity of liturgy at the opening of services. The introitus consists of the words found in Isaiah 6, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabaoth. . . . ” In the liturgy of the Eucharist these words of the holiness of God are also found in the Sanctus and the Anamnesis. The liturgical congregation receives forgiveness of sins, thereby being made to share in the holiness of God. Holiness to Christians has an eschatological implication whereby Christians can imagine their holiness as linked to heavenly glory. While this understanding of liturgy and the holiness of God is important as a way of worship that celebrates the presence of God, there is a need to manifest that holiness in the world today. ELCZ Christians, as a response to the liturgy, participate in social programs through diakonia by helping the underprivileged. Liturgy is not some form of escapism from the world; it is a form of response to realities based on God’s holiness. Holy things, the holy God, and holy places are in this world, and the result of their presence in the world should demonstrate the presence of the holy God in an unholy world. Wolterstorff says that holiness is a sacred act in the liturgy that shows the presence of a just God. In other words, “God’s justice is a manifestation
104 Herbert Moyo of God’s holiness; our justice is a reflection of God’s holiness . . . holiness binds liturgy and justice together.”26 As a way of bringing about the justice of God to society, the ELCZ is building self-help income-generating projects. The ELCZ spearheaded the fight against HIV–AIDS from the early 1980s in Mberengwa and Gwanda. The ELCZ has contributed to the provision of clean water through planting boreholes, and has constructed dams for mini-irrigation schemes. In rural Mberengwa and Gwanda, all hospitals and high schools belong to the ELCZ as a way of improving rural communities. The ELCZ also runs 14 primary schools across Zimbabwe, some of which are specialized schools for the blind and the deaf. This is an enactment of social justice through the provision of services based on the liturgical holiness of God. The ELCZ has vibrant programs, catering for orphans and widows to be self-reliant through educational programs in places such as the Vashandiri Centre in Gweru, and the Njube Youth Center in Bulawayo that teach project management skills to widows and youth. Wolterstorff argues that God’s holiness is linked to completeness and wholeness. He further thinks that justice and holiness are connected through works of mercy by people who understand a holy God. He says God “executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing” . . . If the society is to be a just community, there must be social arrangements and practices that assure to such people a voice in society and fair share in its goods.27 The ELCZ is therefore bringing social justice through diakonia to widows and orphans. Wolterstorff goes on to say that “God asks us that we, in our communities, reflect God’s holiness . . . to befriend the broken ones and work for their healing. In the liturgy, we voice our acknowledgement of God’s holiness. In the struggle for justice we embody that acknowledgement.”28 The ELCZ is struggling to bring those in the margins of society to the mainstream of society by offering them education and skills. The clergy and laity are concerned with the transformation of people as a way of contributing to social justice. Conclusion The liturgy is a form of service to God that concerns itself with worship. The liturgy also manifests the socioeconomic and political context of the church by playing out the power dynamics of society in the church. The colonial liturgy of the ELCZ manifested the colonial political dynamics of racism. The liturgy tried as much as possible to be divorced from the realities of congregants, though without success. In the postcolonial liturgy, the church is demonstrating the holiness of God through diakonia;
Liturgy and Justice in Post colonial Zimbabwe 105 it manifests African culture and is a tool for social justice. Holy things, the holy God, and holy places cannot be divorced from a just God, just people, and just places. Notes 1. The ELCZ during the colonial era was called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Rhodesia (ELCR), and it became the ELCZ in 1980, when Zimbabwe attained independence from the Rhodesian Front. 2. Terrance Ranger and Nagwabi Bhebe, eds., The Historical Dimensions of Democracy and Human Rights in Zimbabwe. Pre-colonial and Colonial Legacies (Harare, University of Zimbabwe, 2001). 3. Gordon W. Lathrop, Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); Lathrop, Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1999); Lathrop, “Central Things: Worship in Word and Sacrament,” Series: Worship Matters (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2005). 4. Wolterstorff Nicholas, Hearing the Call: Liturgy, Justice, Church, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 61. 5. Adrian Fortescue, “Liturgy,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, accessed October 13, 2011, http://bit.ly/postcol2-84. 6. A. E. Nsibande, “The Black Theologian and the Black Church,” in Dynamic African Theology: Umphumulo Contribution, ed. H. L. Nelson et al. (Durban: Pinetown Printers, 1992), 26. 7. Robert J. Schreiter, Faces of Jesus in Africa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991), viii. 8. L. L. Pato, “African Theologies,” in Doing Theology in Context: South African Perspectives, ed. John W. De Gruchy and Charles Villa-Vicencio (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), 153. 9. Tite Tienou, “The Theological Task of the Church in Africa,” in Issues in Africa Christian Theology, ed. Samuel Ngewa, Mark Shaw, and Tite Tienou (Nairobi, Kampala, and Dar es Salaam: East Africa—Educational Publishers, 1998), 6. 10. Victor B. Cole, “Africanising the Faith: Another Look at Contextualisation of Theology,” in Issues in African Christian Theology, ed. Samuel Ngewa, Mark Shaw, and Tite Tienou (Nairobi, Kampala, and Der es Salaam: East Africa—Educational Publishers, 1998), 20. 11. Omulokolei, Watson. “The Quest for Authentic African Christianity.” In Issues in African Christian Theology, ed. Samuel Ngewa, Mark Shaw, and Tite Tienou (Nairobi, Kampala, and Der es Salaam: East Africa—Educational Publishers, 1998. 24–48. 12. Gordon L. Chavunduka, Dialogue among Civilizations: The African Religion in Zimbabwe Today, Occasional Paper, 1 (Harare/Munster: Crossover Communication, 2001), 3. 13. Pato, “African Theologies, 153. 14. Nsibande, “The Black Theologian and the Black Church,” 28–29. 15. The altar accommodates African drums, altar cloths with African decorations such as shields and spears, beads, the paten, and chalice made from African materials such as wood and or reeds/grass.
106 Herbert Moyo 16. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Hearing the Call: Liturgy, Justice, Church, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011). 17. For example, petitions for political peace and economic stability. 18. J. G. Davies, ed., A New Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship (Norwich: SCM Press, 1994), 328. 19. Ibid., 325–326. 20. Ibid., 326. 21. World Council of Churches, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982), 10. 22. Ibid., 11 23. Ibid., 14 24. Wolterstorff, Hearing the Call, 21. 25. Gundani, P. Prophecy, Politics and Power: Changing Relations between the Catholic Church and the Zimbabwean State (1980–2007), accessed October 12, 2011, http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/4504/Gundani -SHEXXXIV(1)-July2008.pdf?sequence=1. 26. Wolterstorff, Hearing the Call, 61–62. 27. Ibid., 72–73. 28. Ibid., 79.
7 Navigating in Different Seas: Christianity and African Brazilian Religion* Miriam Rosa Introduction—Liturgy and Subjectivity When thinking about liturgy, we think of rituals and symbols that build a language to facilitate contact with the sacred through the expansion of the senses. It is a corporeal representation, a materialization of symbols and an organizer of meanings. The liturgical scene invites sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste, and the whole body to reframe one’s perception. And, while liturgy sensitizes us to the perception of the divine, it also puts us in touch with the nonverbal that constitutes ourselves. While Western rationalist heritage favors the word, it seems that there are corners of the human soul that can only be accessed through this sensory-symbolic language. Is that not where the power of liturgy resides? In evoking the senses, inviting the whole being to encounter the sacred, both the sacred that dwells in us and the sacred that transcends us? Putting us in touch with the mystery, a mystery that is not there for discovery, but for realization? In the words of Jaci Maraschin, Participating in the liturgy was like entering a garden. What happens in a garden? The wind blows over the flowers and they give forth fragrance. I find myself in the midst of beauty and do not know exactly where it comes from. She is like the Holy Spirit. She possesses people and things; and she ignores them. She comes when she wants to and does not come when she does not want to. She mysteriously communicates to anyone she wishes. She communicates unexpectedly and this communication is like an enchantment. It seduces and delights. It is the way that the transcendent chooses to reveal itself to mortals.1
108 Miriam Rosa The liturgical gesture communicates with that which is most fundamental and authentic about the human body, and this is why it can reach us so profoundly. Liturgical language can mobilize psychological states that are not attained by words, and in fact precede anything verbal. Let us stop and think a little bit about what makes us human. At birth, we are the most helpless of beings, fragile and absolutely dependent on care from an “other.” We need more than just care to ensure our survival; we need to be welcomed and to have this other person help us construct meaning out of the world. The mother, our first “other,” builds a path of access for a baby first and foremost to him or herself. The particular cooing of a mother, the tone of her voice, and the way she touches the baby’s body introduces the baby first to his/her own body and then to the body of another (their mother) with which the baby can interact. It thus enables the organization and significance of that which is initially only pure sensation: sounds, temperatures, colors, and smells. Maternal care maps out for the human newcomer its first perceptual and aesthetic experiences. When speaking of aesthetics, we refer to the idea of art and beauty; however, the word “aesthetic” itself refers to the science of meaning and feeling, from the Greek word aisthanesthai, which means to perceive; aisthesis, which means perception; and aisthetikos, which refers to that which is capable of perception. Thus, the first relationships between human beings and the world are aesthetic relationships. From these first aesthetic relations surge the images and means of conveying feelings of security, welcome, wonder, fear, terror, etc., therefore forming the symbolic framework of the subject. The first part of human formation is sensory, and it is from here that one perceives the world and builds the foundations of symbolic meaning that will frame one’s life. Sensuousness, symbol, and meaning are intertwined in the constitution of subjectivity. I recall an example from a psychoanalytic practice that demonstrates this link. I remember a 16-year-old patient of mine whom I will refer to as “Girl.” As hard as I tried to interact with her, everything seemed futile. Our interaction was extremely difficult, mostly because it was not her choice to meet with a psychoanalyst. It was an obligation she had to meet given that Girl was on probation. She insisted on spending entire sessions in complete silence, or at most speaking only in one-syllable words. I confess that I did not see any ways to reach or help her. One afternoon she arrived with a sketchy guy. She sat and bent her knees, propped her feet up on the chair, crossed her arms, and hid her face. “Girl?” I called her name as she continued to hide her face. “I’m hung over,” she said. I said nothing. I intuitively knew that that was not the time or the place for words. Without thinking, driven by a feeling of tenderness, I got up without speaking, went to the corner, and began making a cappuccino.
Navigating in Different Seas 109 As I did this, I knew it was not a random act. I felt it. I stirred the cappuccino as if preparing a ritual. All around me hovered feelings of motherhood . . . Yes! That was it! Breastfeeding! That cappuccino was symbolic! If offering words would not help, I sought to offer her a symbol, a symbol of care. In the waiting room, a CD played that had already been heard many times (considering that the CDs had not been updated for a long time, Adriana Calcanhoto sang for the umpteenth time!). I entered the room and I offered, without words, my care in the form of a cappuccino. Girl looked at me, past my outstretched arm to the cup, and took it in silence. She slowly inhaled the aroma and drank in silence. As she finished, she made a comment that surprised me, “Hey I know this song!” as if she were hearing the melody in the office for the first time! “My mom also likes her!” and then, “Can I take it home?” she asked, pointing to the coffee cup. “Yes, of course.” I replied. And after many months of sterility and this simple sensory-symbolic gesture, clinical work flourished. Understanding the scope of symbolic language makes us understand liturgy not only as an order of worship but also as a valuable tool for reframing both the divine and the human. Liturgies: Singular Expressions en Route I grew up in a Protestant home of Calvinist origin. Among my most pleasant memories of childhood are Sunday mornings. Sunday school for me was an encounter with joy! I remember as I happily climbed the stairs of the Independent Presbyterian Church, I knew I’d hear about God and that my voice, my body, and my mind would celebrate together the love that we shared. I know that the marks that were left on me in this period make up the very foundation of who I am—a blessed inheritance of faith in an available God, a joyful friend. In adolescence, I affirmed my conscious desire to belong to the Church by choice and not only by inheritance. I prepared myself by studying doctrine in catechism class and offered my “profession of faith.” Both the preparatory classes as well as the liturgy itself, public questions about agreeing with the professed creed, were marked by seriousness, rationality, and objectivity—all characteristic of a Protestant, European, Western, rationalist heritage. The clarity of that faith left me safe and seemed to provide me with a path on which I could walk without getting lost. I loved the challenges and disputes over biblical texts and themes (I know without a doubt that my affinity for studies stems from that era). All this reinforced in me a faith that could largely be intellectually discussed, debated, and articulated. My adolescent fears were contained by this network of certainties. However, I was surprised to find that in the order of worship, joy was considered in opposition to seriousness. And I missed a more intimate experience with the supernatural.
110 Miriam Rosa Seeking to expand my already precious experience, I navigated another arm of this wide river and met with the intense waters of Pentecostalism. I soon understood that it is not without reason that we use the expression of Pentecostal “movement.” Movement is really the word of expression for Pentecostalism. Liturgy is in the movement of the body: knees that bend, hands that clap, dancing and jumping legs, mouths that not only sing but also cry and shout out loud. Pentecostalism for me proposes a deeper religious experience. It brings to Christian life the experience of ecstasy and the presence of the supernatural. How does one frame ecstasy in the order of worship? The body is there to receive the manifestation of the divine and the liturgical space must offer freedom to do so. What is sought is the supernatural’s takeover of the mortal body and expansion of human capabilities, bringing visions, gifts of speaking in nonhuman tongues, and the power to interfere in physical matter and the spirit with healing and deliverance. We can say that the subjective experience of this experience of the sacred is promoted by a stance that is more active than contemplative. It is the faithful who are asked to determine, claim, prophesy, cry, and provoke miracles. However, in order to have an ecstatic experience, the Christian needs to sanctify and “spiritualize” the body through fasting and prayer. As someone who belonged to the Pentecostal environment, I often heard about the diabolical nature of religions of African origin and fought them fervently. And this was without questioning why exactly these religions were considered so malignant. Despite being of African descent, issues of racial prejudice and discrimination did not seem relevant to me, nor had they been the focus of conflict or reflection. I did not realize that my ideas about good and evil had been generated from an ethnocentric point of view, marked by “Brazilian racism.” Until, that is, the first encounter that triggered a shift in me. I met Xavier Juarez at the university where we both taught. He was black and an activist in various movements of black power and Candomblé. I, also black, was oblivious to these issues. As often as we could, we engaged in thought-provoking conversations about our African origins and the identities that are built from there. Thus began to awaken, timidly, a sleeping ancestry that was “strangely familiar.” The second decidedly disruptive encounter was with Cláudio Carvalhaes, a pastor and theologian, who at that time brought a group of black students from New York for an exchange program in Bahia with activists from the black movement. He returned from this encounter absolutely touched by the living contact with the history and culture of black people, surviving 400 years of slavery. We talked a lot and were both deeply moved. We exchanged more than just ideas. We exchanged amazement. It is impossible
Navigating in Different Seas 111 to rationalize the impact that was left on us when we looked at the wound, the “raw meat” and the incomprehensible absurdity of slavery. Before his departure, my precious friend said goodbye to me with a short liturgy and blessing. And his blessing was such, “I bless you with the strength of your ancestors, with the resistance of those who came before them and surpassed their cries.” Thus arose in me a cry that had been long kept silent, a deep sense of reunion. From there began an identity journey, and with it the realization that faith has a human dimension that carries with it the historical and cultural context shared by a group. In this regard, it would be hypocrisy, cynicism, or blindness to ignore the racial prejudice and discrimination that are intertwined in culture and undermine the vision of religions of African origin. These attacks and demonization fall precisely on the religions of African origin and not on any other religious groups, including Catholicism, for example. Vagner Gonçalves da Silva, an anthropologist, dedicated to the study of religions questions, asks, “In other words, shouldn’t the ‘good fight’ be fought be against Catholicism, which despite the decline in recent decades, still represents 73.7 % of the population? But how does one declare open war on this religious monopoly that has links to various spheres of Brazilian society? The ‘kicking of the saint’ and its negative repercussions are a good example of the difficulty of that open confrontation.”2 It is undeniable that neo-Pentecostal churches make use of numerous components of the rituals of Candomblé and Umbanda, taking them completely out of the context to which they belong and from which they convey meanings. Regarding Neopentecostals, Silva affirms, “at the same time that they fight the ‘spell,’ they do not discard the implicit magic in their liturgies, taking advantage of the lexical and symbolic elements of Afro-Brazilian religions.”3 How would religions of African origin be viewed without the glasses of prejudice? These reflections have caused me to gaze upon black heritage from a new paradigm. Understanding the mechanisms that produce the “demonization “of this religious segment triggered in me a deconstruction of well-fitted beliefs. And although this process was uncomfortable, it was also liberating. I confess I was surprised by the beauty and richness of these waters! In Afro-Brazilian Waters Within the many liturgies in religions of African origin, I wish to choose for our reflection one in particular that belongs to Candomblé, the bori. I focus here not on a description of the ritual, which would be long and complicated due to the multiplicity and richness of the symbols, but on its
112 Miriam Rosa meaning, that shows the relationship between liturgy and the construction of self. Let us navigate together. Candomblé is a religion of oral and initiatory tradition. Thus, the learning of its followers takes place in the living together of the community and in the liturgical acts that happen there. Ritualistic action and living together with the symbols represent the learning for “sons and daughters of the saints,” as the insiders are called. Each touch of the drum, every dance move, every garment, color, or object is charged with meaning, meaning that is ritually transmitted. Knowing the ritual and each one of its symbolic elements is for a child to know the meaning of its faith, which is revealed little by little. In Candomblé, as well as in other religions of African origin, the liturgy not only symbolizes, but also sanctifies, the elements. It is the key for direct contact that leads to the supernatural and enables it to enact and intervene in human life. But to understand the ritual, it is necessary to understand the connection of this ritual with mythology, the sacred story that took place in a primordial time, since it is this which gives it meaning. According to Eliade, “In short, myths describe the various and often dramatic outbreaks of the sacred (or supernatural) in the world. It is this eruption of the sacred that actually founded the world and what makes it what it is today. Moreover, it is thanks to the intervention of the supernatural beings that man (sic) is what he is today, a mortal, sexed and cultural being.”4 Mythological narratives are considered sacred and true because they refer to the reality of the human condition. Take, for example, the myth of Ajalá, which gives meaning to the ritual of bori. The job of making humans fell to Obatala, son of Olorun, and he painstakingly modeled their bodies from clay. But he soon realized that to live on earth, humans needed something that would give each of them their own individual characteristics: they needed heads. Obatala then asked for the help of Ajalá, an old potter. Ajalá used materials from nature (water, leaves, soil, etc.) in the manufacturing of heads. When he became tired, he would vary the ingredients from one head to the next and the cooking time did not always come out just right. This is why, for humans, it is not an easy task to find a good mind to accompany a person in his or her existence on earth. Orisanku, Oritemere, and Afuwape wanted to come into the world. Orunmilá was worried about his son Afuwape. Knowing the suffering that a bad head could bring to him, Orunmilá went to a babalawo to consult the oracle. Afuwape would indeed be successful, the oracle prophesied, but in order for this to happen he needed to make an offering. Orunmilá then gave his son a thousand cowries, as instructed by the priest. Meanwhile, Orisanku and Oritemere, impatient with the delay of Afuwape, went to the potter’s house, but he was not there. With awe they
Navigating in Different Seas 113 gazed at the numerous beautiful heads; and having made their choice, they headed into the world. His friends had just left when Afuwape arrived. He searched for Ajalá, but instead of the potter, he met an old woman sitting on the floor who seemed to be waiting for someone or something. When asked about what she was waiting for, she answered that she had come for the thousand cowries that were owed to Ajalá. Afuwape then gave the thousand cowries to the old woman, who left after inquiring the reason for his visit and telling him about his friends. Ajalá, who remained hidden the whole time, was satisfied with the attitude of Orunmila’s son and appeared, proceeding to show him the heads. Afuwape looked around him fascinated! So many beautiful heads! But Ajalá warned him to be careful. Those beautiful heads do not help humans survive on earth. She then took the boy and showed him which head he should take with him, after affirming that human beings attract their own misfortune by not knowing how to choose a good head. On earth, the companions met, and the difference between their destinies was remarkable. Intrigued, Orissanku and Oritemere always asked, “Was it really the same place we got our heads?” In Candomblé, the head (ori in Yoruba) is cared for and worshipped in a special way, with a specific ritual for it (the bori). The ritual corresponds to the need of the human condition that is expressed in the myth: it is necessary to harmonize and strengthen the head before anything else. Augras, talking about a “saint’s son” says: “He has duties to himself, the first of which is to know who he is.”5 The “re-ligare” or “re-connecting” in the African vision, starts with Africa itself! The religious path of each son of a saint starts by a subjective encounter, by the knowledge of self; beginning with the knowledge of sacred material that formed his head. From there he can understand his path and role in the world. Being that the orixás are entities that govern the forces of nature, the predominance of certain sacred materials of nature in one’s head determines one’s orixá (“master mind” in Yoruba). Olodumare, the supreme creator god, handed the ruling of the elements to each orixá. Oxossi belongs to the forests, woods, and everything in them. Oshun belongs to freshwaters, and Iemanjá to the seas. Xango rules fire and thunder; Ossaim, herbs and medicinal plants; and Nanã, the mangroves. Iansã masters the winds and rays; Oxalá, the beginning of creation; and Oxumaré, the rainbow. Oba rules the whirlwinds and Ogun rules iron and with it the forging of instruments and tools. Omulu is lord of the land and to him was handed the control of diseases. Eshu rules the principle of motion, transformation, and all the paths of the world. The characteristics of these elements of nature are expressed in the personality of the deities and, consequently, their children. For example,
114 Miriam Rosa since the control of fresh water belongs to Oxum, and water brings life to everything, fertility and motherhood are their attributes. Therefore, the children of Oxum are characterized with maternal care for those who surround them. In Candomblé, “self” is conceived as an aggregate of sacred materials, a complex network composed of a primary deity (orixá), a second orixá ruling together with the first, as well as orixás of inheritance—erê, Exú. According to Augras, Human beings are microcosms, where all the forces of the world become ensnared. They possess individual meaning (ori, head), personal path (odu, destination), and an individual ability for transformation (Exú). They synthesize their paternal ancestors, symbolized by the right side of the body, with their maternal ancestors, represented by the left side of the body. They inherit the gods of their fathers. Their heads were shaped by the divine potter with some material that looks like the deities.6 These components of the sacred that individualize and make up the subjectivity of individuals are called the enredo de santo, literally the plot or story of the saint. In Candomblé, initiation rituals and the obligations that come at one, three, five, and seven years aim at “fixing” the personal storyline in the head of each “saint’s son.” The “I” thus consolidates and expands to the extent in which new elements are incorporated within them. Liturgy is the instrument through which one’s “I” strengthens and expands through the unification of the sacred fragments that constitute it. Each liturgical element opens a range of identifications and meanings, identifications that extend the possibility of contact with both the mystery and one’s very own “I.” Every culture expresses a certain aspect or dimension of human experience in the relationship between that which is divine and that which is earthly. When we approach Candomblé with an open and “unarmed” perspective, a narrative of the interaction between the sacred and the human that is able to guarantee integrity and completeness unfolds before our eyes. This happens through a liturgy of full corporeality. In the liturgy, all senses are contemplated; the sound emanating from vigorous drums, the wafting aroma of herbs, preferential foods of the saints that are offered, the body that dances. . . . Citing Augras once again: “As it turns out, the individual is not simply a plaything in the hands of the Powers. Through the rituals, he/she recreates the world, and even the gods themselves, as they make the holy. The individual participates in the distribution of holy power and even knows how to enlarge it. They feed the gods. They lend them their body, their dance, their voice.”7 Ah! Fishy African-Brazilian waters!
Navigating in Different Seas 115 Conclusion Sensory experiences inaugurate the entry of the human being in the world. The construction of rationality is further work that does not erase the foundation of sensuousness. And from this, humans construct their symbolic repertoire. Symbolic language, the key to the door, reaches deep inside of us and, overcoming rationality, creates a bridge that extends into the mystery of transcendence, as well as a bridge that extends into the mystery of the “I” itself. The African tradition, full of ancient wisdom, expresses this process in the primary ritual. Before all else, the initiates must know who they are. This is your first big adventure toward transcendence. And in the fascinating journey toward the divine and the human, liturgy beckons to us as a helpful and guiding companion. Notes * Translated from the Portuguese by Emily Everett. 1. Jaci Maraschin, A Beleza da Santidade: Ensaios de Liturgia (São Paulo: Aste, 1996), 12. 2. Vagner Gonçalves da Silva, Intolerância religiosa: Impacto do neopentecostalismo no campo religioso afro-brasileiro (São Paulo: EDUSP, 2007), 192. 3. Ibid., 207. 4. Mircea Eliade, Mito e Realidade (São Paulo: Perspective, 1963), 13. 5. Monique Augras, O duplo e a metamorforse: Identidade mítica em comunidades nagô (Petrópolis: Ed. Vozes, 1983), 214. 6. Ibid., 213. 7. Ibid.
Part III Latin American Perspectives
8 De-Evangeliz ation of the Knees: Epistemology, Osteoporosis, and Affliction* Nancy Cardoso Pereira I say without worrying that my body is tired of thinking from one place only. My head—heavy with loneliness—does not know the wise pieces of advice, the arrogant premises, or the brutal evidences of this difficult place. Those who wanted to cut me in pieces didn’t know what they were doing, or they did it on purpose. Myself, my entire being, thinks. My entire being knows . . . and I do not accept any invention of any essence, of any being or any conscience for myself, trying to say who or what I am. I live, therefore my entire being thinks. Thus, in this exercise, I will talk about what I know about my knees. And all the feminists will have fun—thinking with the knees is good for your health! It helps with the osteoporosis of monocultures and all its unviable articulations. I stand up and I ask you for a corner of your bed. But I ask. Knees trembling. You scoot over and an enormous space invites me to lie down at your side. I incline my knees, without needing to sit. You embrace me and interrupt the consciousness of the last movement. I am there where I always wanted to be. I bend my knees and feel you fitting flush against my leg. From behind. The friction of the smooth motion bends me. Cosmic chair. Circular horizontality, this kneeler. Kneeling with my back to you, I rest for milliseconds, before it gets every inch of my flesh. I know. I wait. One Day I Will Say: I Was a Knee and I Knew It Connected tibia, femur. Patella, cartilage, meniscus, and ligaments. These are my knees. I arrived here alone. I will not tremble in fear, shame, cold,
120 Nancy Cardoso Pereira or indecision. This is the best of all nights that were lost. After all, as of today, my knees belong to me and no one else! We have always had knees that were poorly evangelized . . . liturgically bent in the form of fear or the celebration of death. The ultimate gesture of the Christian conquest of the Latin American continent marked by the long reach of the Inquisition (late sixteenth century in Brazil) was the training of knees for the disproportion between gesture and belief. Bodies first learned to obey by the weight of violence and the punishment that accompanied the catechesis and the homily. No one was invited to conviction. The knees were coerced into bending and thus belief was invented. In the eyes of the Inquisition, at least in terms of numeric abundance, crimes related to corporeality are more prevalent than those related to actual heretical thinking. The representation of faith in the form of liturgy suggests the catechization of the body in predicting its movements. One sits and rises endlessly. Endless minutes on your feet. A tingle rises up the legs. The body begs for rest. Faith says no. The sign of sacrifice is required. Staging. Exhausted, the body departs from itself and sinks into that which is offered to it: ears, eyes, and nose. The liturgy devours my whole head. The knee loosens and asks to sit down. Endless prayer. The litany. An order comes from up high: you may be seated! The Liturgy and the Domestication of Knees Kneeling during the “Angelus” is as significant as the ringing of the bells that mark the prayers of the Angelus order the day and indicate the dominion of the Church over time.1 Therefore, kneeling at the ringing of the Angelus is also a form of accepting the Church as the owner of time and the sacred history as the source of order. Liturgy makes bodies, disciplines movements, and shapes time and space of personal and collective histories. To kneel down at the right time and right place is part of corporal techniques and symbolic systems. The education of our knees happens as an important part of the constitution of our bodies and becomes available through identities and geographies: above and below, inside and outside, open and closed, active and passive. A cartography that helps to discipline thinking, bodies, and the subjectivities. A cartography of meanings where the social body bends the knees of personal bodies: my knees are in pain . . . I take the pain as an expression of the small obedience to the great discipline. One day, without anyone listening to me, I will pray with my hands on my knees. I’ll raise my skirt and present them before God as a living and rational sacrifice. Behold my knees and their work! May they be Blessed! Scraped and tired, others paralyzed and sick. These, and nothing else, are
De-Evangelization of the Knees 121 what order history and time. I have learned to stand before God with firm knees and a curious face. Now everything is urgent: I take all things by my hands. If I had people tell me when I was a child, I would have known the face of god without losing a single word: rise and walk! I would have obeyed and I would not have feared to touch the world with my own hands. On my knees, I hoped for the prayers to be short, and that life would wait for me while I was obeying everything that was said. All that a young girl learns is to obey and to keep the knees together! Don’t you see? Can’t you hear it? “Close your legs! Put your knees together!” “Close your legs and shut your mouth, your eyes: Be a girl.” Also in school, in education, the knee learned, in a most painful way, the ABCs of obedience and its Cartesian imposition. In olden times, beating up bodies was part of methodological pedagogies: bend the body to educate the spirit. In the history of Brazilian schools, the bending of the knees was one of the various forms of discipline used to foster what was thought to be a good education: to kneel on corn grains was part of the old types of punishments in schools with harsh and strong forms of discipline. The task of learning was connected to the forms of bodily punishment, in both the physical aggression enacted by teachers and the students’ time-out by bending their knees for many hours on corn grains. It is in the punishment in the form of the folding/bending of the knees that any culture hides its mechanisms that teach how to fear, to give up, and to obey. Interior Knees: The Hinges of Morality and Shame Written on Your Face The production of bodies and the particular metabolisms according to which systems of knowledge function, are deeply involved in the domestication of objective and subjective hinges of men and women. Knees are educated and evangelized in different ways, with offsets, vertices, and different openings. Knees learn. Knees control and are controlled. Sitting: legs closed. The lesson repeated by generations of women: the opening of the legs avoided. The opening of legs and its cartography: In public, no. At home, yes. On the beach, yes. At a party, no. At carnival, yes. At dinner. No. In school, no. On outings, yes. The informality and formality of opening your legs and being a woman. The total effort placed on the knees with the learning of the “yeses” and “nos”! Knees as collective intelligence deposited in the kneecap and its ability to flex. Moving through permissible positions and through the vortex of abusive movement that welcomes what centuries of culture and biology have developed for the female knee: obedience, seclusion, graciousness. Or not.
122 Nancy Cardoso Pereira I don’t even dare. To be touched by myself. Not even a god. I will wait for the promises of videos and songs to be fulfilled and for a man to unlock my legs. A can-opener starting at the knees. A civilization lock. A worthless hula hoop. Bent by desire and confusion, a man unlocks my knees like he was opening a door, a can of beer, as if my knees were not there and were only an obstacle to overcome. Oh! The caresses that are necessary for the secularly domesticated knee! Oh! the groundwork! What I myself had to redo to the rounded shape of my own knee. Remove the layers of terror and kneeling of all my ancestors and slide my own hand into my opening and finally find my hairs below, my hand without feeling vulgar, paralyzed, or an orphan. Before a man breaks into my knees, I must have already been there. I must have given myself knees and not be afraid of any horizontality, verticality, circularity. Amen! Let me look at you from here! From the height of my knees I lean my face on your knee. You’re lying with your legs arched and that is all I remember. I am no longer me that waits for you to come and open me. We arrived here by misconception after misconception, through giving up and abandonment. It is me who touches your knees with a long kiss and loosens your light-colored legs for a good reason that brings me faith. We are woman and man without having to be what they ordered us to be. We are woman and woman without having to be what they ordered us to be. We are man and man without having to be what they ordered us to be. You pull me closer and my face, framed by your knees, knows nothing more of condemnation. An urgency of God takes the words. The mystery of the knees . . . And I go up as far as my hands and my tongue can reach . . . and I descend with no rush, sustaining myself in my knees. Mystery has no ends. And this will be my de-evangelization. I will un-catechize myself, jumbling up my knees and their obedience. Their saliency. I, in all my 50-some years, will not fear osteoporosis alone but also the interrupted memory of my knees, the withholding of possibilities, the postponement of alternatives. From the knees up. From the belly button down. The unending exercise of being fully alive. Mystery. Religion as the desire of the flesh doesn’t scare me. Jacob wrestled with God and came out maimed, his leg consumed by such a presence. I will only bend my knee when it is time and willed: by beauty, by tiredness, by orgasm, or by pain. No god, no man or idea. I have no fear to desire. Desire visited me and I faced it. Neither as a slave nor as a master . . . I left walking with my two feet. I was limping. A mark on my knees was the sign that God had visited me. The religious experience will only be good
De-Evangelization of the Knees 123 if visited bodies are not massacred by any form of discipline or civilizatory restriction used under a divine name. Knees are platforms of inhabited worlds and unimagined flights: in everything the divine abides as firmness or trembling of humanities. When my knee, and yours, fall over from distress, and the quietness and the nest of the bed is the comfort and grace of no longer wanting anything beyond an embrace, I will repeat with Teresa the question about the possibility of flying being clasped by her leg: God with us! As St. Teresa of Avila says: I wanted to know how to explain, with the favor of God, the difference between union and rapture, or enchantment, or the flight that they call spirit, or rapture, which are all one and the same. I say that these different names refer to only one thing, which is also called ecstasy.2 Notes * This text was orally presented at the Second Congress of Gender and Religion, São Leopoldo, 2006. Translated from the Portuguese by Emily Everett. 1. Manual dos Coroinhas—Diocese de Ponta Grossa, in: www.diocesepontagrossa .com.br/temp/arquivo312933. 2. Escritos de Santa Teresa d’Ávila (São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 1977), 125.
9 ¡PONTE A NUESTRO LADO! Be on our side! The Challenge of the Central American Liberation Theology Masses Ann Hidalgo During the tumultuous decade of the 1970s, the liberation theology movement in Central America drew the Catholic Church into the revolutionary struggles that sought empowerment and justice for the oppressed. Although the Church had a long history of alliance with state powers and the wealthy elite in Latin America, the balance shifted as a number of priests, sisters, lay pastoral workers, and even bishops embraced the preferential option for the poor. This new theological perspective called for creative forms of expression. Emboldened by the Second Vatican Council’s call for inculturated liturgy and the Latin American Bishops’ affirmation of liberation theology, musicians took up the task of composing new settings of the Mass. In this chapter, I analyze two Catholic Mass settings written during the late 1970s in the liberation theology tradition: the Misa campesina nicaragüense (Nicaraguan Peasant Mass) by Carlos Mejía Godoy and the Misa popular salvadoreña (Salvadoran Popular Mass) by Guillermo Cuéllar. These settings articulate the core ideals of liberation theology in the compressed poetic form of their song lyrics. By emphasizing the particularities of the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran situations, the composers resist the universalizing tendencies of the Eurocentric Catholic tradition and promote the decolonization of their peoples. The liberation theology Masses are not without precedent; a number of Latin American Masses were written during the 1950s and 1960s that honor the local communities. Musically, they feature popular instruments of the region, including the guitar and the marimba, and the rhythms and
126 Ann Hidalgo melodic types of local folk songs. In terms of performance practice, many follow the style of local folk and popular music, allowing for improvisation and congregational participation through clapping as well as singing. In these respects, they participate in a trend of community or participatory Masses that had been gaining ground in the Catholic Church through the 1950s and 1960s in Europe and elsewhere.1 Latin American Masses of this type include the Misa panamericana from Mexico, which features mariachis, and the Misa criolla from Argentina, which features Andean folk styles and instruments. Like their predecessors, the Misa campesina nicaragüense and the Misa popular salvadoreña use local instruments, popular performance practices, and folk song styles, but take the additional step of reflecting the theological perspectives of Latin American liberation theologians in their lyrics. Drawing on key liberation themes, such as the preferential option for the poor, identifying God’s actions in history, and understanding Christ as incarnate in the people of God, the composers transform the “universal” canonical texts into specific analyses of the realities of the poor communities of Nicaragua and El Salvador. The following sections will examine the Misa campesina and the Misa popular in their historical and cultural contexts and will analyze the ways in which the composers reworked the canonical texts of the Mass to promote an altered (and decolonizing) theological vision. Nicaragua Across the Central American region, the majority of the population lived in poverty while a small oligarchy controlled land and resources. Phillip Berryman suggests a number of reasons why the Central American nations were pushed toward revolution during the 1970s: the poor majority in each country suffered a loss of real earnings; deeply engrained structural causes of poverty prevented easy solutions; and landowners grew crops increasingly for export, which created food shortages among the poor. Berryman finds that the relatively small size of the Central American nations provided an advantage for creating nationwide revolutionary movements, and the fledgling movements were aided by the fact that the United States paid little attention to the region until 1978.2 Under the Somoza regime, Nicaragua was the poorest country in Central America. The Somoza family directly controlled 40 percent of the country’s total economy. The focus on cash crops, such as coffee, cotton, and tobacco, forced many peasants away from the traditional small farms where they could grow subsistence crops. Before the Sandinista victory, the official unemployment rate was 22 percent but that statistic does not take into account those who worked outside the formal sector of the economy. The average illiteracy rate among adults was 60 percent but in rural areas
¡PONTE A NUESTRO LADO! 127 was 93 percent. A university education was accessible to only 0.3 percent of the population, and only 5 percent attended school beyond grade five.3 During the 1970s, opposition to the Somoza regime increased dramatically. In 1972, a major earthquake destroyed huge sections of Managua. In the midst of the drastic suffering of wounded and displaced citizens, the Somozas diverted incoming foreign aid into their own bank accounts. As the decade progressed, harassment by the National Guard, repression of dissidents, and other governmental abuses grew so pronounced that most Christians became opposed to the Somoza regime. In Nicaragua, as in other Latin American countries, the shortage of priests in rural areas combined with an upsurge in grassroots movements and the educational process of Paulo Freire to transform the experience of many Christians. Groups of lay workers, in particular the Delegates of the Word, adopted Freire’s dialectical learning method, known as concientización, and formed base communities or comunidades eclesiales de base. These base communities focused on rereading the Bible as inspiration and support for the project of liberating the oppressed. This perspective called all believers to work for the transformation of unjust societal structures that oppress the poor and to create right relationships that bring about the kingdom of God on earth. Pastoral work in Nicaragua began to change during the 1960s with the establishment of base ecclesial communities in Managua. A Spanish priest, José de la Lara, and Maryknoll sister, Estela Cope, implemented this newly evolving pastoral method at a new parish founded in a squatters’ settlement on the edge of Managua. By the mid-1960s, base communities were established in other marginalized areas of the capital and in other cities as well.4 Ernesto Cardenal, a diocesan priest who had trained with Thomas Merton, founded the monastic community of Solentiname on an island in Lake Nicaragua in 1966. Using the base community approach, men and women gathered each week to discuss the gospel and interpret its relevance for their lives. As the 1970s progressed, Ernesto Cardenal and several other priests, including his brother Fernando Cardenal, Miguel D’Escoto, and Edgar Parrales, joined the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN). Their Christian presence among the revolutionaries altered the movement and broadened its ideological perspectives. As the movement took shape, Sandinista leaders acknowledged that its orientation was not strictly MarxistLeninist, but rather a mixture of Marxist, Liberal, and Christian thought.5 Reconciling the Marxist perspective prevalent in the Sandinista movement with Christian practice, Fernando Cardenal defines the atheist as the one who does not love. He explains that those who are dedicated to the cause of the poor show genuine faith even if they do not acknowledge God; in the same way, those who claim to be Christian but fail to work for the poor deny God through their actions. He justified his choice to join the
128 Ann Hidalgo Sandinistas, saying: “I prefer to be with those who, without putting God’s name on their lips, and perhaps without even formally knowing God, are doing all God asks to be done for a suffering people.”6 Similarly, Sister Martha Frech Lopez of the congregation Missionaries of Charity, a revolutionary who was exiled for her work, explains, “When I was still quite young I made the decision to combine a religious and political vocation . . . [Christ] didn’t agree with the corrupt government of his day. So for me, the way to be sure of not betraying the gospel is by standing beside my people.”7 Christian imagery is prominent in the vocabulary of the Sandinistas. The idea of martyrdom identified revolutionaries who were willing to shed their blood for the people with Christ. Tomás Borge, one of the FSLN founders, spoke of archaeologists finding the supposed tomb of Sandino empty, which became the source of popular slogans such as “Sandino lives” and “Sandino yesterday, Sandino today, Sandino forever.”8 Nicaraguan women who were active in the FSLN looked to the Virgin Mary as an example for the revolutionary “new woman.” Although traditionally Mary had been understood to encourage submissiveness, self-denial, and a sense of inferiority, Sandinista women honored her as a champion of the poor and liberator of the oppressed. Sister Martha Frech Lopez describes the new vision of Mary: Today Nicaraguan women hold Mary the Mother of God as their first model for promoting this Revolution. She too carried to the world a message of liberation . . . Mary isn’t the sugar-sweet stupid woman reactionary Christians so often make her out to be . . . At the age of fifteen she took an active part in the liberation of her people.9 MISA CAMPESINA NICARAGÜENSE In this section, I analyze the lyrics of the Misa campesina nicaragüense, composed by Carlos Mejía Godoy. The Misa, a prophetic call for social transformation, was written in the community of Solentiname, Ernesto Cardenal’s center of liberation theology. An analysis of the Misa campesina clearly illustrates the main impulses driving liberation theology and the Sandinistas’ peculiar mix of Marxist and religious language. Cardenal once pointed out that the Misa campesina is not neutral with respect to class struggle; it is a Mass against the oppressors.10 In 1975, the Misa campesina nicaragüense premiered in Ciudad Sandino in Managua with Fernando Cardenal presiding, but the celebration was interrupted and stopped by the National Guard. Within days, Archbishop Obando y Bravo declared the Misa unacceptable and unfit for use in a Roman Catholic context. While it has not been used formally as a Roman Catholic Mass, the Misa has been performed frequently underground and publicly in concert format after the Sandinistas took power.11
¡PONTE A NUESTRO LADO! 129 Composer Carlos Mejía Godoy includes many of the traditional elements of the Mass, but he handles them flexibly and includes additional pieces. He sets to music four of the five parts of the Ordinary of the Mass: the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, and Sanctus, omitting the Agnus Dei. He also includes songs for the opening and closing of the Mass, the offertory, a meditation following the offertory, and communion. Interestingly, he adds an additional piece before communion that is written in the Miskito language, an indigenous Nicaraguan language, rather than Spanish. Mejía Godoy’s texts are fascinating. Whereas other texts use more traditional religious language that asks the believer to identify God in the faces of the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, Mejía Godoy’s text rejects these abstract, ideal types in favor of very specific images from his contemporary Nicaraguan society. The “Canto de entrada” (Entrance Song) identifies God as a worker who sweats in the street and waits in line to be paid at the end of the workday. No job is too humble for the God who sells lottery tickets, checks the air pressure in truck tires, and pours hot asphalt on the streets wearing overalls and work gloves.12 Likewise, the “Gloria” praises God as present in various Nicaraguan cities and towns and calls for God to be praised with regional and indigenous musical instruments and types of dances. Several other songs locate the Misa in Nicaragua: the offertory song names types of fruits and vegetables that grow locally, the meditation lists many different types of local birds, and the communion song lists varieties of fish that seem to want to join in the singing and celebration. The “Kyrie” is a particularly interesting inversion of traditional practice. The classical text simply implores God’s mercy (Kyrie eleison/ Christe eleison/Kyrie eleison), and post–Vatican II Catholic Mass texts include an invocation of praise before each request for mercy. Mejía Godoy retains the repetitive structure but transforms the “Kyrie” into a request—or perhaps demand, depending on the tone of the individual performance—for God to be in solidarity with the oppressed. Rather than a cry for mercy for wrongdoings on the part of the people, the text insists that the people of the community have been wronged and need God’s support. Mejía Godoy writes, “Christ, Christ Jesus, identify yourself with us . . . Be in solidarity—not with oppressing class that exploits and devours the community—but with the oppressed, with my people who thirst for peace.”13 Based on his assessment of the economic relations between rich and poor Nicaraguans and his understanding of systemic evil, Mejía Godoy changes the liturgical structure by replacing the opportunity for self-examination with an accusation of the wrongdoings of others. The “Credo” is a curious mixture of original lyrics and passages of highly theological language borrowed from the Nicene Creed. The first stanza credits God with having created the beauty of the earth, the stars and moon, houses, little boats on the river, and the “forests that have
130 Ann Hidalgo been mutilated by the criminal axe.” The refrain calls God an architect, engineer, artisan, carpenter, bricklayer, and assembly-line worker. The second verse addresses Jesus as the Worker Christ followed by several phrases that roughly echo the language of the Nicene Creed although in slightly different order and with some changes of emphasis (light from light, only begotten son of God, to save the world he was incarnate in the humble and pure womb of Mary). This section is followed by a graphic quatrain describing Jesus’s suffering at the hands of the oppressive Romans: “I believe that you were beaten, ridiculed and tortured/martyred on the cross while Pilate was the judge/the Roman imperialist, bloody and heartless/who washing his hands wanted to wipe away the sin.” The third stanza, which would typically be the statement of faith in the Holy Spirit, instead praises Christ for giving rise to the new man who is for liberation. Rather than allow Christ to remain a historical figure who is accessible only through abstract terms, Mejía Godoy insists on highlighting God’s involvement in contemporary Nicaragua: “You are resurrected in each arm that is lifted to defend the people from exploitative domination.”14 El Salvador El Salvador differed from Nicaragua and many Latin American countries in that the Catholic Church had a large number of well-educated nativeborn priests. Archbishop Oscar Romero’s predecessor, Archbishop Luis Chávez y González, was archbishop of San Salvador for almost four decades. During this time he dedicated himself to encouraging Salvadoran priestly vocations, built a seminary, and sent many priests to study in Europe.15 These priests were often from rural families rather than the urban middle class, so they had strong sympathies for the struggles of rural communities. The archbishop hosted monthly meetings for ongoing training in which the priests read and discussed the documents of Vatican II and the Latin American bishops’ documents. He established a Pastoral Week, in which 200 bishops, priests, sisters, and lay people met to evaluate church work, critique social movements, and map out new directions in ministerial efforts.16 The Central American University in El Salvador also took on an important public role. Starting in the late 1960s, the faculty, led by Ignacio Ellacuría, promoted political, social, economic, and ecclesial critique aimed at helping the poor majority achieve justice.17 The style of pastoral work that Rutilio Grande, close friend and formative influence on Oscar Romero, initiated in the city of Aguilares followed the method of Paulo Freire described above.18 Pastoral teams gave twoweek missions during which they gathered data by talking with people and accepting people’s hospitality. In the evening sessions, the teams invited the whole community to read scripture and discuss its relevance. The pastoral workers presented information gathered in the process of
¡PONTE A NUESTRO LADO! 131 talking with the people as a way of echoing and giving renewed voice to their concerns. The teams chose to work within the framework of people’s existing religious vision; the teams’ intent was not to turn them from religiosity to activism but to deepen the traditional religious vision and to transform it from an attitude of passivity to one of active struggle for change. Although not all of the Salvadoran bishops agreed, Archbishop Romero understood the actions of the popular organizations to be consistent with the Gospel message. This was a direct application of the common postconciliar notion that the Spirit is at work in the world.19 Romero believed that the conflict was not between the church and the government; he believed it was between the government and the people.20 In his assessment, the church would fulfill its role only by standing on the side of the people. He stated publicly in January 1980 that those responsible for the violence in El Salvador were the families of the oligarchy who refuse to acknowledge or accept peaceful attempts to address social problems, and on March 23, 1980, in what became his last Sunday sermon, he encouraged the troops to refuse to obey orders to shoot unarmed peasants.21 MISA POPULAR SALVADOREÑA Guillermo Cuéllar composed the Misa popular salvadoreña between 1978 and 1980. It grew out of the base community movement around San Salvador, particularly in the parishes of Zacamil and Resurreción.22 Liberation theologian José María Vigil credits the priests of these parishes, Fr. Octavio Ortiz and Fr. Alfonso Navarro, both of whom were assassinated, as well as Fr. Plácido Erdozain, with developing the theological language that took shape in Cuéllar’s lyrics. Like the Misa campesina nicaragüense, the Misa popular salvadoreña is not articulated from an abstract, purportedly universal, or apolitical starting point. It is grounded in the perspective of the poor of El Salvador who are fighting to survive.23 Using techniques similar to those of Mejía Godoy, Cuéllar specifies the speaking voice of the Misa in the Entrance Song by naming cities and parishes in the San Salvador area. Likewise, the “Gloria” prominently names the nation of El Salvador as the location of God’s saving action.24 In his theological commentary to the Misa, Vigil describes the subject of the Mass as the Salvadoran people. Vigil explains that the speaking “protagonist” of the Mass is even more specific: the words are those of people who have been awakened, conscientized by the Word of God.25 In her article, “Oscar Romero’s Theology of Transfiguration,” moral theologian Margaret Pfeil explains that Archbishop Romero had a direct hand in the birth of the Misa. Romero asked Cuéllar to compose a piece for the Feast of the Transfiguration, which is celebrated to honor the Divine
132 Ann Hidalgo Savior, the patron of El Salvador. Cuéllar delivered the “Gloria” to Romero only days before the archbishop’s assassination. In his final Sunday homily on March 23, 1980, Romero wove lines from Cuéllar’s “Gloria” into his usual recounting of the week’s events and drew connections between the lived reality in El Salvador and his interpretation of salvation history.26 The “Gloria” is particularly noteworthy because it encapsulates the spirit of the Mass in a few short verses. Although it is a song of praise, Cuéllar’s “Gloria” does not use or paraphrase the canonical text, which left it open to criticism from the Catholic hierarchy. It begins with a celebratory call to gather the people in the cathedral for the patronal feast, and the refrain is an expression of praise that names “our land: El Salvador” as the location of God’s redemptive action. The second verse praises God for being just and for defending the oppressed, and it announces the people’s desire to proclaim their collective worth and dignity. The intriguing third verse raises the theme of the Gospel account of the transfiguration. The people tell God that he will be glorified again just as Jesus was transfigured on Mount Tabor when he sees the people transformed and “when there is life and liberty in El Salvador.” The final verse acknowledges the difficulty inherent in bringing this transformation to fruition: the gods of power and money are opposed to it. The people, however, inform God that he “must be the first to raise [his] arm against the oppression.”27 Like the “Gloria,” the “Interleccional,” a piece which replaces the responsorial psalm, opened the Misa to criticism by replacing official texts with a newly created one. This piece highlights the change of perception that occurs as an individual is transformed by a new understanding of faith. The lyrics speak of the sense of resignation with which the poor live their lives and the popular religious sensibilities that justify this resignation. The text explains: “My grandma told me, if you want to be saved, you have to carry your crosses in life,” and “The boss says we should resign ourselves and keep working if we want to obtain salvation in the next life.” Yet the refrain claims that while the protagonists had believed the inherited common sense perspective, hearing “God’s word caused us to change.” This new insight allows the protagonists to understand that the powerful gain their wealth and power through the labor of the workers, not through their own personal effort. Furthermore, God does not want people to be resigned to oppression at the hands of a new pharaoh who is proud and miserly; rather, God wants people’s actions to be works of love that serve to create their own liberation.28 The “Song of Peace/Agnus Dei” articulates an important insight of the liberation theology perspective, namely, that God suffers in the suffering of the people. The first verse offers a political analysis of Jesus’s suffering on the cross by interpreting his suffering as “denouncing the unjust oppressor and raising the poor from the dust.” The second verse bridges the chronological gap by explaining that just as Jesus was tortured
¡PONTE A NUESTRO LADO! 133 on the cross by the powerful, “he spills his blood again today in the blood of our fallen ones.” The third verse asks Jesus to “help us persist in the struggle for the coming of the kingdom.” Although the canonical text concludes simply with “grant us peace,” Cuéllar emphasizes the people’s responsibility to act by applying a condition to this request: “May your peace reach us when we have made justice well up.”29 Conclusion Phillip Berryman cautiously points out that throughout the decade of the 1970s, the pastoral agents who were committed to liberation theology were always a minority. Although some clergy were staunch traditionalists who opposed Vatican II and Medellín, most were modernizers who supported changes in the liturgy and spiritual practices but did not understand the task of struggling with the poor for a more just society to be central to the Christian faith.30 Despite their relatively small numbers, the liberation theologians and the pastoral agents who brought this vision to life had a significant impact on the revolutionary movements in both Nicaragua and El Salvador. Liturgist José De Luca writes, “It is not possible to have liberating worship if the community that performs the cultic act does not struggle concretely with contemporary society to reestablish (inharmonious human) relationships that are engendered by marginalizing injustice.”31 In the Misa campesina nicaragüense and the Misa popular salvadoreña, Mejía Godoy and Cuéllar engage in the struggle identified by De Luca as they grapple with the realities of oppression and present liberating visions for the people of Nicaragua and El Salvador. Because the Church had been coopted by the powerful so often in the histories of their countries, their Masses replace canonical language with a language of liberation that names the particularities of the people’s experience as they cry out for justice. The struggles of the moment, however, are never given the last word. The Masses envision a future of transformation, equality, justice, peace, and joy, and they endeavor to incarnate it in the present through the struggle and song of the community. Notes 1. José María Vigil and Angel Torrellas, Misas centro americanas: Transcripción y comentario teológico (Managua: CAV-CEBES, 1998, 5). 2. Phillip Berryman, Stubborn Hope: Religion, Politics, and Revolution in Central America (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994, 8–10). 3. Statistics from Margaret Randall, Sandino’s Daughters: Testimonies of Nicaraguan Women in Struggle, revised edition (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995, xiii–xiv).
134 Ann Hidalgo 4. Karla Koll, Struggling for Solidarity: Changing Mission Relationships between the Presbyterian Church (USA) and Christian Organizations in Central America during the 1980s (PhD diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 2004), 409. 5. Andrew Bradstock, Saints and Sandinistas: The Catholic Church in Nicaragua and its Response to the Revolution (London: Epworth Press, 1987), 21. 6. Ibid., 19–20. 7. Randall, Sandino’s Daughters, 154. 8. Bradstock, Saints and Sandinistas, 38. 9. Randall, Sandino’s Daughters, 162. 10. Montserrat Galí Boadella, “Música para la teología de la liberación,” Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, No. 11, Universidad de Navarra, 2002, 183. 11. “Misa Campesina Nicaragüense”, Wikipedia, April 7, 2014, http://en .wikipedia.org/wiki/Misa_Campesina_Nicarag%C3%BCense. 12. José María Vigil and Angel Torrellas, Misas centro americanas: Transcripción y comentario teológico (Managua: CAV-CEBES, 1998), 12. Unless otherwise indicated, translations from Spanish are mine. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., 13. 15. Berryman, Stubborn Hope, 17. 16. Phillip Berryman, The Religious Roots of Rebellion: Christians in Central American Revolutions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984), 100. 17. Berryman, Stubborn Hope, 18. 18. Berryman, Religious Roots, 107–108. 19. Ibid., 134. 20. Ibid., 137. 21. Ibid., 147. 22. Vigil and Torrellas, Misas centro americanas, 21. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., 23–24. 25. Ibid., 21. 26. Margaret R. Pfeil, “Oscar Romero’s Theology of Transfiguration,” Theological Studies 72 (2011): 87–88. 27. Vigil and Torrellas, Misas centro americanas, 24. I have avoided using genderinclusive language for God in my translations to be consistent with Cuéllar. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., 25. Italics are mine. 30. Berryman, Stubborn Hope, 13–14. 31. Edwin Mora Guevara, La celebración Cristiana: Renovación litúrgica contextual (San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Sebila, 2009), 34.
10 Choosing a Heritage: S ome Urban S outh American Mennonites Reread, Reinvent, and Honor the Tradition Marisa Strizzi Sixteen centuries ago, Prosper of Aquitaine wrote down the maxim “lex orandi, lex credendi”: the law of prayer is the law of belief. The Christian chronicler was underlining the importance of the priestly prayers “which having been handed down by the apostles are celebrated uniformly throughout the whole world and in every catholic church so that the law of praying might establish the law of believing.”1 In accordance with this we could infer that, insofar as worship establishes belief, the faith of a community should be easily grasped as one participates in its coming together in prayer and devotion. In the beginning of the twenty-first century, and not necessarily aware of the maxim that Prosper recorded, a congregation of South American Mennonites followed in this regard a way of subversion and displacement. The small community realized that if worship manifests belief, what they were doing in worship was not a good translation. Thus, some rereading and reviewing were needed. The Anabaptist Mennonite Community of Buenos Aires City is a small congregation, which over the last ten years has undergone a process of reshaping its ecclesiology answering to the challenge of a demanding context.2 This change brought about a current transformation in its worship, mission, and organization in the light of the Anabaptist Mennonite tradition. When revisiting the fresh history of the still ongoing process, it is not surprising to find that the first symbolic acts in this course were related to the liturgical space and pointed toward the theological significance of the changes underway. Yet, neither those first changes nor the others to follow would be easily recognized by most of the current, local
136 Marisa Strizzi or international, Mennonite institutional bodies as “traditional.” And this is, precisely, what entices the interest of this chapter: What does it mean to receive a “handed-down” tradition in the beginning of the twenty-first century? Within the context of a process of transformation in a given religious community, the particular object of this chapter is to focus on the liturgical changes involved in it. The purpose is to understand the character and implications of such transformation as a way to accompany its effects critically. My assumptions are first, that the missionary communication of Christian tradition was, and still is, a means of colonial influx in Latin America. Second, that liturgy as an important element of the Christian tradition can be both a sophisticated and efficient replicator of oppressive colonial worldviews and a means for the proclamation of the liberating power of the gospel. Third, that being faithful to a received tradition implies nurturing a critical view of it. My hypotheses are first, that the ongoing transformation in this particular community answers to a complex process of rereading in context, and such process involves reviewing, discovering, and reinventing as ways of honoring tradition. Second, that this transformational liturgical response is both implicitly and explicitly informed by critical elements of postcolonial awareness; hence, it can be fruitfully analyzed and pondered through a postcolonial theological strategy. In the following pages, I introduce briefly the Mennonite Community of Buenos Aires and the main aspects of the process under analysis. Secondly, I enumerate some liturgical changes that took place in this congregation and elaborate on the exercise of rereading, reviewing, and reinventing that took place. Third, I identify the postcolonial theological displacements involved in those exercises, which will finally allow me to address the trigger question of this chapter. The Community Although there is in Argentina one Mennonite “ethnic” congregation founded by central European immigrants, most of the communities are the fruit of North American missionary work, both from Canada and the United States.4 The history of the Mennonite missions in Latin America, and in Argentina in particular, goes beyond the scope of this work and can be traced in some other works.5 Yet, for the purpose of this chapter, it is important to notice that the community of Buenos Aires was started by missionaries who held the first Mennonite gatherings in Buenos Aires City in 1939, establishing a congregation in the quarter of Floresta in 1941. This mission is regarded as an effect of the religious “great awakening” that took place in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, and indeed, the theology of the missionaries reflected
Choosing a Heritage 137 elements of North American evangelicalism together with the principal theological currents of North American Anabaptism.6 More recent developments in this “North-South” doctrinal flow have occurred during the last 40 years, since some forms of the neo-charismatic movements that originated in North America in the 1960s have had a strong impact on the national church through the work of Mennonite missionaries which, still in the field, embraced the movement. As a result, the charismatic style of worship and doctrinal emphases influenced most of the Mennonite congregations in Argentina.7 As the only congregation within the limits of the capital city, the Mennonite community of Buenos Aires became a first center of reception for Mennonites journeying from abroad and, on a more permanent basis, for those coming to the city from other areas of the country for different purposes as, for instance, internal migrant workers and university students. This aspect granted the community the peculiar effervescence of the constant movement of people coming and going, and the energy and curiosity that a considerable number of youth can bring along. A small seed of interest about the Anabaptist roots of the community started to sprout, and the history and theology of the “Radical Reformation”—left behind by other doctrinal emphases—started to be seriously studied and reconsidered. However, the impulse to transform aspects of the life of the congregation through the critical light involved in rereading tradition was not welcome by everybody. Throughout the year 2003, there was a transitional time of evaluation, discussion, and unavoidable internal dispute during which some members, who did not agree with the process, left the community to migrate to other Mennonite congregations outside the city. After many hours of assemblies, for a period of months, some new commitments took shape through the laborious consensus of the remaining members. The main ecclesiological traits to pursue were formulated in the light of the Anabaptist Mennonite tradition and pivoted around the mutual compromise of becoming a community of believers conformed around the Gospel of Jesus Christ.8 The community understood this as a calling to be a fellowship of shared pastorship implying the mutual care of its members and participants; the nurturing of listening to each other promoting sincere and open relationships; the stimulus for each other’s skills and abilities within plurality and difference. The congregation acknowledged as a mission to fulfill that which its urban character imposed: becoming a place of welcome and shelter for those in need, nurturing the disposition and openness toward others and administering its resources to serve such aims. The pursuit of peace and justice through the practice of active nonviolence was kept as the overarching motif of the transformation of the congregation; this was enfleshed in the disposition to become informed about and involved with the challenges of the contextual social and political arena.
138 Marisa Strizzi In light of those commitments, the ministerial activities of the community were divided among members and participants in the congregation according to different areas of work: liturgy, diaconal service, counseling, education, and administration of resources. In executing the tasks involved in those different areas, the pastoral ministry of the community would develop as a decentered exercise of pastorship. Everyone would be encouraged to take responsibility for the service of the communal life according to their possibilities, skills, and vocations. A representative team of sisters and brothers was appointed by the Assembly in order to represent the community before different institutional bodies and to maintain relations within the national and international structure of the Mennonite Church, as well as with other ecumenical and interreligious organizations. The Assembly of all members was kept as the horizontal organ of decision. During this time of changes, the community realized at large the implications of its location. An urban church in the capital city of a Latin American country of the Southern cone: Argentina, a Spanish ex-colony, land of minimized indigenous populations, invisibilized Afro-Americans, and immigrants old and new. The congregation recognized the value of being a small piece of a global tapestry as the nationality of its members and participants turned particularly varied: Bolivian, Brazilian, Colombian, Chilean, Dutch, Honduran, Mexican, Uruguayan, . . . and Argentinean. Different peoples, different cultures, even different faith traditions became part of its constitution. Besides some “original” Mennonite members, the congregation started to bring together sisters and brothers of a variety of churches: Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic. Most of them became members of the community, sharing its commitments while still keeping their denominational identities; others participated in the life and work of the community without becoming formal members. This experience enticed the congregation to honor its global and ecumenical character. Some Changes The Space The earliest modification of the liturgical space consisted in the elimination of the narthex. With such modification, the front door of the temple (which looks more like a meetinghouse) opens to the sidewalk without any interference: no screen between street and temple. It followed the arranging of the pews from the traditional rows into a circular scheme, setting aside the pulpit into an “ornamental” function. A central small table became both the altar and the holder for small musical instruments of diverse origin.
Choosing a Heritage 139 Rereading and reviewing: The Anabaptist Mennonite history is very familiar with persecution and intolerance, the Martyrs’ Mirror witnesses to that.9 However, some Anabaptist Mennonites have also been a part of this vicious circle: The zealous eagerness for the “ethical purity” of the community of believers that runs in the tradition easily strays into fundamentalist labyrinths; the claim for purity turns easily into separatism and exclusion.10 The daily commitment to a welcoming disposition toward the neighbor is not an easy exercise, but the new space invites into a different circle, an open one that encourages the emergence and reception of otherness into worship. Reinventing: These transformations were performed as signs of openness and equality and, indeed, over time, they were experienced as such. Many times, passersby would open the door of the temple for the first time, just wanting to know what is going on, and encouraged by a small group of people sitting in a circle, they would come in and participate in the reunion. In several cases, a person in need of help felt at ease talking to a group of strangers, because the familiarity of an interacting round of people was inviting. Moreover, sitting face-to-face with each other stimulates the spontaneous involvement of those who, being part of the community, hardly expressed themselves during worship in the past. At the time of sharing intentions, and of Bible reading and reflection, many different voices arise with a diversity of experiences and points of views. The circle is akin to the indigenous and criollo (creole) cultural emphasis in the ring. Argentineans practice the drinking of the national herbal beverage in a round: “la ronda de mate.”11 In this way, people see each other’s faces, everyone take turns in exchanging ideas. Meanwhile, the person who serves the mate sees that everyone has their turn to drink. Moreover, drinking mate both symbolizes and performs the act of sharing: it is drunk out of the same pot and using the same straw. This is not just a touch of local color illustrating a change; mate is actually drunk during worship: when greetings are exchanged upon arriving, as the Bible reflection is under way, and at “coffee time.” The Order of Worship Every participant in the community is called to take his or her turn at coordinating worship. The different activities of the liturgy are imagined and crafted by those coordinating the encounter according to their skills and arts. Everyone is welcome into worship as a time of confession and forgiveness, testimony and gratitude, petition and prayer, reflection and dialogue. One important aspect with regard to the “order” is that crossing the threshold started to be experienced as entering worship. Rereading and reviewing: Due to persecution, Anabaptist Mennonite worship was hidden at the time of the sixteenth-century Reformation.
140 Marisa Strizzi The communities met where they could gather best, in an attic, in a cellar, in a granary, or in other hidden places. Later, they would start using the house of a member of the congregation, and when persecution stopped, Mennonites were allowed to use a meetinghouse: a plain building without towers or bells, lest they call the attention of the population and lure them into attending their services.12 At the time of hounding, to enter the meeting place meant to have made it to the gathering; it is possible to picture the fact that for those believers, “worship started as they crossed the threshold.” One theological aspect stressed by Menno Simons was that the real presence of Jesus Christ is in the community of believers who respond to the exhortation to love one another. If in the early times of their history Mennonites had to hide their places of worship, this particular community understood that nowadays, times have changed: Mennonites are no longer chased— definitely not in Argentina. Thus, the meetinghouse should be a refuge for everybody to see, enter, and join in worship—especially those who are excluded, marginalized, and persecuted. Reinventing: An urban community within a huge city is made up of people who do not see each other in the middle of the week and need, in many cases, a journey of one to two hours to get to worship. This group of people reflects as well the demographic complexity of a metropolis: intra-national and international migration; a variety of ethnic and social backgrounds; different lifestyles, occupations, trainings, and vocations; dissimilar models of families; ages from one to 87. Yet, for everyone, the door opens to familiarity and safety with the feeling of “having made it to the place”: the congregation is committed to the welcoming of everyone, regardless of age, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, economic or social circumstances, and ethnic background. Worship begins in greeting each other, in conversing and receiving newcomers, in sharing mate, in tuning up the instruments, etc. As everyone finds a seat in the circle, they assume that the encounter has already started. Nota bene: Transcending the order of worship but implicit in its content, it should be noted that if in the early rough times houses became temples, at the present time, temples become houses. Brothers and sisters can stay in the worship place; on different occasions it has provided housing for those in need. The Singing The songbook that had been used for many years was replaced, and a new collection with a worldwide variety of songs and hymns was adopted. Besides the keyboard and the guitars, a variety of new instruments were added—some of them were brought by members of the community, and some others presented as gifts by visitors.
Choosing a Heritage 141 Rereading and reviewing: The hymnbooks the community had used in the past were brought to them by the Anabaptist Mennonite missions, and many other songs and hymns were acquired on the way. Facing the new commitments in the light of tradition and context, the community went through the task of trying to answer questions like these: What do we sing about God? What do we sing about the meaning of the gospel? What do we sing about God and the gospel here and now? The discovery was that many hymns and songs portrayed God as an almighty King or, a distant Being located in heavenly spheres or, a vengeful warrior God (definitely a “He” god). The gospel was not always translated into real good news; most of the time it appeared related to spiritual goods identified with feelings beyond everyday life experience. The melodies included mostly European rhythms “normalized” by tradition and use. Reinventing: A number of old hymns, as well as many popular songs from different parts of the globe, are now part of the new repertoire— this includes many Latin American tunes and, among them, Argentinean folk music and tango. The new musical instruments, mostly indigenous percussion instruments, are placed in the middle of the circle available for anyone who wants to join in the performance. The songs and hymns tell about God’s forgiveness and extend welcome for any and everyone; they transmit encouragement and hope to face the struggles of life in the world as witnesses of Jesus Christ; they call for the realization of God’s peace and justice. The images and metaphors for God include what was left behind by tradition: the power of tenderness, vulnerability, nearness, and care. Liturgy can replicate oppressive structures once again but it can, at the very same time, displace those patterns: in the exercise of reviewing what they used to sing, the congregation reconciled with the power of singing. The Word The community decided to follow the Bible readings of the ecumenical lectionary, and the sermon was mostly replaced by the reading and reflection on the Bible texts. Sisters and brothers, members or participants of the community, take weekly turns in the coordination of this time and, after introducing their study and interpretation of the text, there is an open discussion and exchange of considerations where all the persons in the circle are encouraged to participate. Rereading and reviewing: One aspect that Menno Simons’s theology received from Anabaptism was the communitarian zeal for the “purification” of the church; this was strongly marked by a call to separation from the world (the “world,” including especially other Christian communities that were not “pure” in their practices). However, Menno was critical of those Anabaptists who understood that the apocalyptic urgency
142 Marisa Strizzi of the time summoned them to apply the purification by the sword.13 He believed instead in the imposition of purification by another sword: that of the Word of God as portrayed literally by the Bible. Hence, for Menno, the ultimate rule for Christian life was the Bible in its literal normativity, and the community of believers was the group of those who obey the Word of God.14 These emphases on literalism and purity have had some negative consequences for the Anabaptist Mennonite tradition, two to note are: first, the easy development of Biblicism and legalism, which in Anabaptism tends “to hinder the hearing of the promise of forgiveness;”15 and second, separation from those pictured as “the others” of the faithful church, closing the community upon itself in a sectarian fashion. Nowadays, literalism and separatism resurface in different ways. For instance, most of the Mennonite congregations in Argentina still retain the fundamentalist reading and interpretation of Scripture present in the teachings of the missionaries. Together with the later influence of neo-charismatic theology, such readings reproduce and reinforce the hierarchical patriarchal structure of male authority in the congregation as well as the family. On the other hand, “ecumenism” is not an acceptable option for the national church convention. Hence, although quite common for many churches, the use of the ecumenical readings is not practiced by the Mennonites in Argentina. Lectionaries are rejected on two different bases: first, in order to differentiate from “other” churches, mainly Roman Catholic but also mainstream Protestant churches; second, in order not to hinder the flow of the Spirit (after the influence of some charismatic movements, there is this understanding with reference to any “fixed” scheme). Reinventing: Against sectarianism, openness to different Christian expressions is a choice that the community made as a revision of tradition in a different context, and this is reflected in reading the Bible every Sunday in ecumenical companionship. On the other hand, the reading in the round brings with it a new hermeneutical air: the interpretation of the Word does not rest in one person but in the gathered community, the circle—which doesn’t have a front seat—symbolizes and portrays the message that the group wants to be a community of equals. Sisters and brothers reunite in talk around the Word, and brothers and sisters take turns in guiding the Bible reflection. Patriarchal hierarchy is thwarted in more than one way Nota bene: It is important to highlight here the alternative experience of the Mennonite missionary workers with the indigenous communities of northern Argentina, as they have made an option for a “mission without conquest.” They bear witness of how they were taught the hermeneutical importance of the circle by the indigenous peoples: in the Bible circle, everyone teaches and everyone learns.16
Choosing a Heritage 143 The Supper There is a mingling of the “social” and the “liturgical,” enriching both the Lord’s Supper and “coffee time.” While the latter is held in the temple every Sunday and takes place immediately after the blessing, the first is held in the social room together with the community meal once a month. Rereading and reviewing: Menno understood that the Eucharist is first, an act of remembrance of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, and second, an exhortation to love one another. For him, the “real presence” of Christ is in the community of believers who obey the Word of God.17 Baptism is the act of obedience that marks those who belong with the assembly of true believers and separates them from the godless world; belief is then a precondition for baptism—which is, in this sense, adult rebaptism or baptism.18 Reinventing: The Lord’s Supper in the very space and time of the communal meals points toward the salvific presence of Jesus Christ in the community, parting the bread and drinking the wine together. This understanding of the Lord’s Supper is shared with members of non-Anabaptist backgrounds and implies a new exercise of openness and mutual encounter: this particular Ana-baptist practice will not oblige re-baptism. Rebaptism is no longer what determines the members of the community of believers who share the meal; although the community will baptize only adults, the infant baptism received by those who become members or participate in the community is respected. The Lord’s Supper, an act of remembrance and exhortation to love, welcomes everyone as the real presence of Jesus Christ is discerned in the loving community searching together to understand and obey the Word of God. Postcolonial Theological Displacements This community perceived that traditions need to be reread not only because they are old, but also because they are constituted in the process of being transmitted. For instance, the community claims the heritage of Menno Simons, a Dutch priest of the sixteenth century who shared a few aspects of the Lutheran Reformation and many others of the Radical Anabaptist movement. Centuries later, such heritage was taken along to Canada and the United States by migrating Mennonites of Swiss and German origin. Later, the tradition was entrusted to Anabaptist Mennonite missionaries of different backgrounds and organizations who came from North America to the South of Latin America. And, in South America, the tradition continues to be received and shared by the different local national churches and their various manifestations. This heritage is made through unending whirls of peoples, places, cultures, and languages; involving epistemologies and moralities, positions of race
144 Marisa Strizzi and class, and conceptions of sex and gender instilled through forms and structures, through singing and praying, through preaching and teaching, through motifs and words. Different layers of colonialism which, along with the liberating power of the Gospel, reproduce and impose a wide range of elements of the missionary’s home culture.19 And with all this is the “receiving end,” which is always an implicated part of this making and transmission: as the one intended and imagined by the missionary, as the one who goes along, as the one who resists and negotiates. The receivers are always influencing what is transmitted. In this sense, a postcolonial theological strategy allows better perception of the complexity of traditions, their transmission, and reception. While some theological emphases of the tradition were received and rediscovered within a new context, some others were reviewed, and others even reinvented. Those who were in one “receiving end” of the tradition disordered the order established through a long period of acritical reception. The community performed simple actions, but those were experienced by many as intolerable disorder: There is not one authority up front; rather, sisters and brothers are the pastors of one another; tango and chamamé are as sacred as Bach; a round of mate is as “natural” in worship as are ordered rows of pews; the Ana-baptists no longer rebaptize. Besides, the community has turned into quite a Babel with the “multi-citizenship” of its believers, not only because of the presence of different ethnicities, or nationalities, but also because of the presence of different denominational traditions. Plurality and hybridization are the marks of the “postcolonial condition,” and we are all immersed in it.20 As Mario Aguilar discovered, what goes on in postcolonial times is “a process of theological disordering.”21 Liturgy expresses belief, and when liturgy gets disordered, theology is then a holy disorder as well. In this sense, a postcolonial theological strategy disorders the established order of the uncritical reproduction of tradition. However, this Anabaptist Mennonite group opted for the word “community” in its name. Yet, communities are tricky. The dynamics of communities are tied to the tension that allows their very possibility: openness and closure, inclusion and exclusion—a structural limitation that conspires against any commitment. The circle symbolizes protection, what is familiar, what is home—but both family and home tend to exclude whatever is perceived as a threat to what is proper. What welcomes and includes may also choke and exclude. What is generally implied by “community” is harmony, consensus, and agreement, but, for all the promise that this concept offers, it carries its own threat.22 Communities, in order to fulfill their promise, tend to homogenize plurality: a real menace. As this Mennonite “community” put the emphasis on openness, it discovered the need to recognize difference without colonizing it. As Letty Russell well observed: “As postcolonial subjects we share our groaning
Choosing a Heritage 145 and unjust world together, and are often both colonizer and colonized at the same time.”23 Open communities are heterogeneous, always the product of hybridization, negotiation, and resistance; many voices are welcome, and the colonial quest for homogenization and harmonization is abandoned.24 A theological postcolonial strategy knows that the possibility of the present rests in the constant expression of its irreducible multiplicity Receiving a Tradition in the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century Receiving a “handed-down” tradition almost five hundred years old— a tradition that is itself part of one older than two millennia—may mean many things, but one very specially: we do not receive it “firsthand.” Jacques Derrida, who contributed so much to postcolonial thought, wrote a great deal about tradition, and in concluding, it is important to bring some of it here. One important thing is the fact that we can inherit only because we are finite mortal beings, and for this reason we are always obliged “to receive what is larger and older and more powerful and more durable” than us.25 In spite of this, in order to save its life, a heritage “demands reinterpretation, critique, displacement, that is, an active intervention, so that transformation worthy of the name might take place.”26 And this is the segment of tension that we heirs inhabit: heritage gives us contradictory tasks, because we receive, but at the very same time we choose what we receive, and we welcome what has been handed down, but in the very same act we reinterpret it.27 Indeed, receiving a handed-down tradition in the twentyfirst century implies the postcolonial awareness of being part of the whirls; and the strategy is to assume the risks of choosing in the whirl. When we read the history of Christianity we can observe that, together with many, many others, Menno operated in tradition with temerity, and he did it consciously. Although he parted ways with the Lutheran Reformation, Menno expressed that one thing he received gratefully from it was the conviction that “it is not a mortal sin to break human injunctions,”28 and we know that he acted accordingly. In the twenty-first century, a small Anabaptist Mennonite community chooses its inheritance, and in order to honor tradition they review it, rediscover it, and reinvent it. The process involves some “breakings,” but they take it up in line with their own inherited conviction that no mortal sin is involved. Notes 1. “ . . . obsecrationum quoque sacerdotalium sacramenta respiciamus, quae ab apostolis tradita, in toto mundo atque in omni catholica Ecclesia uniformiter celebrantur, ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi.” Emphasis mine. Jacques-Paul Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina, vol. 51 (Paris, 1844–1865), 209.
146 Marisa Strizzi 2. I am referring here to the Comunidad Anabautista Menonita de Buenos Aires located in Flores, a quarter of Buenos Aires City. 3. As a member of the community, I am analyzing and writing on a history and a process I participated in, and in which I continue to participate. I express my gratitude to Luis María Alman Bornes, with whom I have commented on and discussed this chapter. 4. This historical pattern was modified by the end of the twentieth century with the migration of Mennonite colonists from Mexico to central Argentina. The colony, however, maintains its ethnic identity in an almost complete isolation from its Latin American context. See Juan F. Martínez, “Latin American Anabaptist-Mennonites: A Profile,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 74.3 (2000): 466. 5. Besides Martinez, see Jaime Prieto Valladares, Mission and Migration. Latin America: A Global Mennonite History (Riverside, NJ: Good Books, 2010). 6. Martinez, “Latin American,” 469. 7. Ibid., 472. 8. As gathered in the “Commitment of brothers and sisters” put together as a product of the assemblies, and accepted by everyone who expresses the will to become a member of the community. 9. Thielem J. von Bracht. The Bloody Theatre, or Martyrs’ Mirror, of the Defenceless Christians: Who Suffered and were put to Death for the Testimony of Jesus, Their Savior, from the Time of Christ until the Year A. D. 1660 (Lampeter Square, Lancaster, PA: David Miller, 1837). 10. See below under “The word.” 11. Mate is a traditional South American infusion prepared with dried leaves of yerba mate (Illex paraguariensis) and hot water. It was first consumed by the indigenous Guaraní and also by the Tupí people in southern Brazil. With the Spanish colonization, it was adopted by the Spanish settlers and spread within the colonial territory. Nowadays, it is consumed mostly in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Southern Brazil. In Argentina, it is defined by law as the “national infusion.” 12. On Swiss and Dutch Mennonite meeting places, see Krahn, Cornelius, Nanne van der Zijpp, and Robert S. Kreider, “Architecture,” In Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, accessed February 7, 2014, http://gameo.org /index.php?title=Architecture&oldid=113182. 13. 1n 1535, Menno wrote The Blasphemy of Jan van Leyden in which he opposed the use of the sword to establish the kingdom on earth. 14. Sjouke Voolstra, Menno Simons: His Image and Message (Newton, KA: Bethel College, 1997), 88–91. 15. Ibid., 69. 16. Willis Horst, Ute Mueller-Eckhart, and Frank Paul, Misión sin conquista: Acompañamiento de comunidades indígenas autóctonas como práctica misionera alternativa (Buenos Aires: Kairos, 2009), 255–260. 17. On Menno’s understanding of the Eucharist, see Voolstra, Menno, 67–81. 18. Ibid., 102–104. 19. Letty M. Russell, “God, Gold, Glory, and Gender: A Postcolonial View of Mission,” International Review of Mission 93.368 (2004): 41.