Interns, about oh two summers ago in Africa
with one of our, I won't mention his name,
but one of our missionaries there that's been
working in East Africa.
And this student was excited that he had been
chosen to spend the summer with this particular
missionary that had a great reputation.
And so our student flew to Kenya, got off the
plane in Nairobi and spent a couple of
days catching up with his sleep and getting
over jet lag and the missionary drove him
out several hours to some village out somewhere
outside of Nairobi.
They spent a few days there kind of helping him
get adjusted to life there at about 9,000
foot elevation.
And then the missionary informed our young
Pepperdine excited student that they were
going to be making a tour about two weeks
visiting villages out in the bush.
And our student was excited, our Pepperdine
student was excited to be able to be with
this great white missionary and he was going to
see the world through the eyes of this missionary.
It was a wonderful experience and so they got
into their four wheel drive vehicle and
took off together.
It was just him and the missionary and this was
better than any experience that he could
have ever had at Pepperdine with mission
professors there.
And so he was excited that he had this
opportunity and they drove for the best part of
a day.
And then about three, 4:00 in the afternoon the
jeep broke down or the land
Rover they were in broke down and the
missionary piled out of the vehicle and tried
to work
on the vehicle to get the vehicle working
again, couldn't get it working and finally
just reached out and grabbed his backpack and
said let's go.
They're waiting for us, we're about four or
five hours away, we can walk.
And the student was really excited now.
He was living this excited life of the
missionary now and he was with this wonderful experienced
man and so they take off walking.
After about three hours of walking about 9,000
foot elevation our Pepperdine student although
he has lots of experience climbing stairs was
in no shape to deal with 9,000 foot elevation
carrying a backpack trying to keep up with this
missionary who was almost twice his age.
So finally the missionary decided looking over
his shoulder and seeing our student panting
and sweating but never going to give up of course.
He decided to stop for a rest and they stopped
under a tree.
They decided to rest and they sit down under
the tree.
The missionary kicked off one shoe, kicked off
the other shoe just dangling his toes
there in the air and the young student decided
to do the same thing and kicked off his shoes
in the air and was dangling his toes out there
in the air and they were talking.
Actually the student was trying to get his
breath back.
And just then as he was talking the missionary
said Shh, be quiet, don't move and the student
thought he's trying to scare me.
You know these missionaries they want to scare
these young guys, Shh, don't move he said.
But he kept talking and he said I said be
quiet, don't move, not a muscle.
And then he thought well maybe he's not playing
a game, maybe this is serious and so he was
looking at the missionary's face that was very,
very serious looking out into the bush
and he quieted down and the missionary said
without turning his head almost without moving
his lips he said about 70 yards in the bush
straight ahead.
So the young student looked out there in the
Bush trying to figure out what is he looking at?
What is it that has this man apparently
terrified and then he figured it out because he looked
out there in the bush around 70 yards there was
a she lion crouched down in the bush slowly
making her way towards them.
And the young man could feel his heart pounding
out of his chest, 0 you've all been there right?
Getting your first kiss some of you remember that?
Your heart pounding out of your chest, your
hands are sweaty, some of you maybe haven't
got that first kiss yet you have no idea what
I'm talking about.
But this student's heart was pounding out of
his chest, the missionary almost said I
said be quiet, his heart was pounding so hard.
And the young student thought well I'm safe
because I'm with this experienced man he knows
exactly what to do we'll get out of this.
And then he watched as the missionary reached
slowly grabbed one shoe and put it on and
reached down and grabbed the other shoe to put
it on and then he was kind of puzzled
and without turning his head to look at the
missionary he said what are you doing?
And then when he didn't get a response he said
you can't possibly think that you can
outrun that lion.
And the missionary without ever looking at his
direction said I don't have to, I just
have to outrun you.
So being in a new place was rather exciting but
maybe a little bit surprising for this
young man.
It reminds me of the apostle Paul, are we going
to move, we're going to stay here?
Maybe we can go to the second session, we'll
just go there for the second session.
This kind of might have been the apostle Paul
situation and you remember in Acts chapter
14, you might want to, you might let some
people come in, let me introduce my daughter
Meredith is with me, she's my bodyguard, this
is my daughter Meredith, one of my four children,
our friend Annette Davison, her and her husband
Jimmy are hosting us, taking care of us in
the big city of Dudley.
You didn't know Abilene was a suburb of Dudley,
which is a suburb of Clyde.
When the apostle Paul went into Lystra with
Barnabas you remember the story in Acts chapter 14.
He had an experience similar to the one of this
student that I just recounted that went
to Kenya.
He had probably heard of the experience, maybe
even had been a witness in Acts 3,
remember when Luke tells us the story of John
and Peter walking into the temple.
When Peter and John walk into the temple in
chapter 3 you remember they see a man there
at the beautiful gate who is crippled and Peter
and John in the name of Jesus of Nazareth
they don't offer him anything but the power of
Jesus and they heal this man.
He jumps to his feet and they walk into the
temple and an opportunity to preach the gospel
is presented there as this sign from God is
very visible there.
And so there's Paul and Barnabas now, we're in
chapter 14 and Paul and Barnabas are walking
into Lystra and as they're walking into Lystra
there is a man crippled, it says from birth
he's crippled and maybe Paul and Barnabas are
thinking ah Acts 3 remember and
so they're rather new to this missionary
experience and Paul and Barnabas heal the man
but the
response is not at all what they expected, kind
of like this young man in Kenya, it wasn't
at all what he expected.
Instead of the people praising God and
listening to Paul and Barnabas, you remember
what happened?
They want to offer Paul and Barnabas
sacrifices, they assume Paul and Barnabas are
gods, Mercury
and Zeus and it tells us in chapter 14:18 that
it's almost impossible for Paul and
Barnabas even after explaining that they're
simply men servants of God to keep the people
from offering sacrifices to them.
Paul learned a lesson that day, Barnabas as
well, they learned a lesson that you can't
always apply the same method to every situation.
The context is different and when we're not
sensitive to the context and we just assume
that we can apply the same method we used in
one part of the world and another part
of the world we sometimes are surprised that
the response is very different.
One of the things that I would like to share
with you this morning is that the context
of Hispanics in the United States is quite
unique and it requires us to be sensitive
to the context so that we will not make some
mistakes that are quite common in our ministry
among Hispanics.
This particular lecture is entitled Not All
Hispanics Eat Tacos and before I move into
that, I just want to share that I think that
the apostle Paul learned something in this experience.
Two things that the apostle Paul learned in
this experience that are the basis of what
I'm going to share with you today, two
principles that Paul learned.
He learned that he needed to be faithful to God
in his word when he preached but he also
learned that he needed to be contextually relevant.
Paul needed to be relevant.
He needed to be sensitive to the context he was in.
Paul learned from that experience in Lystra.
When we see Paul for instance in Acts 13 in the
synagogue at Presidium Antioch,
Paul is familiar with that context.
He's familiar with the synagogue and he goes in
and he knows exactly how to behave.
He knows exactly how to approach the scriptures
and he preaches from the scriptures the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ as it was
foretold there.
He calls on men boldly to repent, to surrender
their lives to Jesus Christ as Lord and then
he warns them that if they don't respond that
there is a terrible judgment awaiting them.
Now in chapter 17, Paul preaches the exact same
lesson but he never quotes the scripture.
You remember in chapter 17 starting in verse
16, Paul is in Athens and he spends some time
in Athens while he gets there, he's waiting for
his comrades to join him and the scriptures
tell us in chapter 17 of the book of Acts that
while Paul is hurried off from Berea over
to Athens, it says that while Paul was waiting
for his comrades in Athens, he was greatly
distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
You remember that while he was waiting for his
friends to join him, he was studying the
city of Athens.
He was doing his homework.
We don't know how long he waited but it was
long enough for him to get an idea what the
context was like, who these people were.
He was probably more familiar with them maybe
than many others because being bicultural
or even better than that himself.
Paul very fluent in the Greek world as well as
in the Hebrew Aramaic world.
When Paul has the opportunity to preach, he
preaches the same lesson he preaches in Antioch
Sidia but it's a very different approach, same
message, different method.
He never quotes from the scripture.
Paul never quotes the scripture in Acts 17 when
he preaches in Athens.
In fact, the only person he quotes is a Greek
Stoic philosopher.
He never quotes it.
Can you preach the gospel without quoting the scripture?
Can you preach the gospel without opening the Bible?
Paul does so.
Same message.
He preaches the death, burial, and resurrection
of Christ.
He preaches the importance of surrendering to
the Lord and the warning of failing to
respond to the impending judgment.
Same message, different method.
Paul was becoming a contextual theologian, to
use a term that I'm familiar with.
He was becoming a contextual theologian.
He was explaining his faith, he was
interpreting spiritual reality but he was doing
it informed
by the culture, by the people, and by the
situations, by the historical surroundings
in which he found himself and he summarizes his
approach to mission work in that letter
that he writes to the Corinthians and you're
familiar with this passage starting about
verse 19.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul says in chapter 9:19,
though I am free and belong to
no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to
win as many as possible.
And then you remember this passage, this is for
those of us who are cross-cultural communicators
of the gospel.
This is kind of our Magna Carta.
Paul says, to the Jews I became like a Jew, to
win the Jews.
And to those under the law I became like one
under the law, though I myself am not under
the law.
So as to win those under the law, then he says
in verse 21, to those not having the
law I became like one not having the law,
though I am not free from God's law but I'm
under Christ's law.
So as to win those not having the law, to the
weak, what did he say?
I became weak. Why?
To win the weak.
I've become all things to all men so that by
all possible means I might save some.
I do all this for the sake of the gospel that I
may share in its blessings.
This is an important principle or two very
important principles are seen in this passage.
One is that we need to be faithful to God.
We need to be faithful to the message we've
been entrusted with.
But the other thing that we often forget is
that the Bible doesn't only provide us with
the message, but that the Bible provides us
also with the method.
God's method is to be incarnational.
God who is not a human being, God who is not a
man, whenever he communicates, and you can
study the Old Testament, whenever he
communicates, he always communicates in a
culturally relevant way.
He doesn't demand that people come up and
understand his way of thinking, his way of seeing.
He comes down to our level.
And he did this the best when he became
Emmanuel, God with us.
God is culturally relevant when it comes to communicating.
And Paul, his messenger, was culturally
relevant whenever he preached.
To be culturally relevant, we need to
appreciate the people that we're trying to communicate
We need to know something about them.
Not only what they look like, but we need to
know what their perspective of reality is.
How do they see the world?
What underlying assumptions do they think
interpret reality for them?
What is their world view?
The apostle Paul would enjoin us, as we look at
the Hispanic experience, he would enjoin
us to study, as Paul did in Athens, the
culture, so that not only are we faithful in communicating
the gospel, but that we do it in a culturally
relevant way.
My research at Fuller Theological Seminary in
the last two and a half years, almost three
and a half years now, leads me to believe that
the unique history of Latinos and Hispanics
in the United States, their unique social
cultural status in this country, gives them
a unique perspective of reality.
A lens by which they see the world, and a lens
by which they see spiritual realities.
And so my purpose in this first lecture is to
try to describe that social historical
context of Hispanics in the United States.
I'll try to answer such questions as who are
the Hispanics and Latinos that we're talking about?
How many Latinos are there in our society?
What is their makeup?
Where do they live?
And more important than that, as we close this
morning, how do they live?
And how does the way they live help them see
reality differently?
So that those of us who are interested, and I'm
impressed and I'm grateful for all of
you that are here this morning, because I know
that there is in every one of you a special
interest in this growing population in our midst.
There is a desire to communicate the gospel, to
share what you have been given with others
that you feel are missing the boat.
Let me define a couple of terms, please, as we
proceed this morning.
One of the terms that I would like to define is
the term Hispanic or Latino.
In the social science literature that I'm
familiar with and in my field, Hispanic and
Latino are terms that are used interchangeably.
Latino and Hispanic are used interchangeably to
describe those people of Latin American
descent who live in the United States of America.
Given that definition, there are no Latinos in
Mexico, there are no Hispanics in Argentina
or Central America.
Those are Latin Americans.
When we speak of Latinos or Hispanics, we're
talking about those who are of Latin American
descent or heritage that live in the United
States legally and illegally.
I am a Hispanic, I'm a Latino.
I am also a Mexican, Mexican descent Latino.
And so I want to make sure that we understand
how I'm using these terms.
When we speak of Latinos, the largest group
that we're speaking of in the United States
obviously are Latinos of Mexican descent like myself.
Preferred terms among Latinos, Hispanics in the
United States, they prefer to use the
term of their national origin to describe themselves.
So when you talk to a Cuban born Americans,
they don't describe themselves as Cuban Americans
very often.
They describe themselves as Cubans even though
they were born here, Puerto Ricans.
Born here in the United States, their preferred
term for themselves is Puerto Rican, or Rican.
And the Mexican descent Hispanics, the vast
majority of Hispanics in the United States,
they generally describe themselves in terms of
national origin even if they're third generation
like myself.
And so we describe ourselves as Mexican.
I'm Mexican, even though I'm 3rd generation
Mexican descent Latino.
In California, we often describe ourselves,
those who are of Mexican descent, as Chicanos.
I know that's not a popular term here in Texas.
But when you hear the term Chicano, if you do
hear the term Chicano, that is describing
Mexican descent Latinos in the United States.
It's not described...
If you meet somebody who's Cuban or a Puerto
Rican or Central American or South American
living here in the United States, these are all
Hispanics, these are pan-ethnic terms,
they would never describe themselves as Chicano.
That is a term used to describe the Mexican
descent Hispanic in the United States.
How many are there?
And I'm hoping we don't need to lower that
screen to be able to put some numbers up here.
But let me recommend a couple of books as I
move along because I know one of the things
that helps people that come to these
lectureships who are serious about the topics
that are
being discussed, they like to be able to be led
to certain books.
One of the best books out right now is a book
entitled, The Hispanic Challenge, Opportunities
Confronting the Church.
Actually, it sounds like the title for the
series that we're talking about in here.
Hispanic Challenge, Opportunities Confronting
the Church written by Manuel Ortiz.
And Manuel Ortiz has an important section in
here where he gives a profile of the Hispanic
population in the United States and have some
overheads that describe that population.
Let me move on.
Let me just share a couple of things with you
here though to help us understand who
the Hispanics are.
Let me see.
That'll work, I think.
There you go.
I talked about preferred labels and you can see
some numbers that he provides for us there.
Preferred labels, the vast majority of
Hispanics prefer their national origin labels.
The next most important label is the pan-ethnic label.
There is a small percentage of Hispanics that
just describe themselves as American and then others.
But let me look at this particular, let me put
this information up there for you just
for a few moments.
But one of the things that I think you're all
aware of, or I hope you are all aware
of, is that the Hispanic population in the
United States is the most rapidly growing
of any population in the U.S.
You can see that in this particular graph.
Between 1970 and 1980, according to the census,
the Hispanic population grew at a rate of 61%.
Between 1970 and 1980, the Hispanic population
grew at a rate of 61%.
In 1970, there were overall about 9 million
Hispanics in the United States, the vast majority
of those of Mexican descent.
In 1980, the census counted 14,600,000
Hispanics, a rate of 61%.
In 1990, after what is described by many as the
decade of the Hispanics, the Hispanic
population continued to grow at a rate of 53%
while the overall population grew at just
a little bit over 11%.
Well, 11% in the decade of the 70s and the
decade of the 80s, the overall U.S. population
grew at just a little bit less than 10%.
The Hispanic population grew at 53%.
It's estimated now that in the United States,
there are somewhere between 27 and 35 million Hispanics.
I just recently ran across an article in the
Los Angeles Times reporting that in the United
States, there are probably 5 million
undocumented Hispanics, 2 million of which are
in Los Angeles
or in California, 700,000 in Texas.
Texas is the state with the second largest
Hispanic population and the second largest
number of undocumented Hispanics.
It's estimated that by the year 2015, Hispanics
are expected to be the largest U.S. minority
in the United States with close to 57 million.
If they continue to grow at the rate that
they're growing, there will be close to 57
million Hispanics in the United States in less
than 20 years.
In some places, they're the overwhelming majority.
I know here in Texas, for instance, when we
lived in Puebla, Mexico, our first stop across
the border was always Laredo, Texas, and it
always seemed it was the hottest day of the
year whenever we crossed.
The border inspectors always made us unload
everything in our vehicle.
It was always one of those experiences that I...
I'm talking about this side of the border.
It was one of the worst crossings ever, always
there, and the weather didn't help.
In Laredo, 95% of the population of Laredo is
of Hispanic origin.
In El Paso, 68%, in Corpus Christi, 51%.
In Los Angeles County, where I live, 37% of LA
County is Hispanic.
That is close to four out of every 10 in the
five-county area, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino,
Los Angeles, and Ventura County, there are
close to four million Hispanics.
In Abilene, you've got what, about 25, 26,000 Hispanics.
There are neighborhoods with more Hispanics
than that in Los Angeles.
This is a neighborhood.
When we talk about Hispanics, sometimes when
you live in this part of the world, you get
a distorted idea of how many Hispanics there
really are and what Hispanics are really like,
because Hispanics who live as a numerical
minority in a place like Abilene are going
to have to adjust themselves and adapt
themselves in ways that they don't have to do
where they
live in Los Angeles, where there may be, in
certain areas, the vast majority.
There's a different experience that you're
going to have there.
Hispanics do not all eat tacos.
That should be something that's common
knowledge to many of you, and that is that not
all Hispanics
are of Mexican descent.
Not all Hispanics are Mexican, but all Mexicans
are Hispanics if they live here in the United States.
Let me share with you a pie chart that, in
vivid color, helps us understand the diversity
of the Hispanic population.
This pie chart, I've never figured out how to
work these things.
There we go.
This is the Hispanic population in the United States.
The overwhelming majority of the population of
Hispanics in the United States are of Mexican descent.
That's this particular color.
I chose the color.
I kind of like that color.
The second largest group are the Puerto Ricans,
who are primarily found in New York and New
Jersey, but finding themselves more and more in
other parts of the United States, in Chicago
as well, for instance, and in the Midwest.
The next largest group has grown, especially
since the 70s, the Central and South Americans,
with about 12%.
The Cubans, primarily situated in South Texas,
about 5% of the Hispanic population, and 8%
would be others.
Others would include, for instance, people from
the Caribbean Islands, and groups, very
unique groups, such as the Hispanos in northern
New Mexico and southern Colorado, who don't
describe themselves in any way, shape, or form
as of Mexican descent, even though they
were in this country long before the Anglos
ever came.
They describe themselves as the descendants of
the original Spanish conquistadores and
settlers of the 16th century.
They lived in isolation for several centuries.
The Hispanos would be, for instance, a group
that would describe themselves as others.
But not all Hispanics, not only are they not
all Mexicans, and that is also something that
can get away from us here in Texas and in
California, where the vast majority of Hispanics
are of Mexican descent.
In Los Angeles, for instance, and in California
in general, the numbers are even higher.
82% of all Hispanics in California are of
Mexican descent.
So you're pretty safe in California if you see
a Hispanic and you refer to them as a
Mexican, or if you refer to them as a Chicano,
you're pretty close.
But in other parts, if you're in South Texas
and you run into a Hispanic and you say, you
know, do you know of any good tacos places?
They'll probably look at you and let you know
in no uncertain terms, we're not Mexican.
And if you find yourself in New Jersey and you
want to find a place where you can get
a good combination plate, two tacos, beans, and
rice, those Puerto Ricans are probably
going to look at you and say, you're lost, buddy.
Not all Hispanics eat tacos.
And the other thing that has to be difficult
for some to understand is that not all Hispanics
are brown.
Not all Hispanics are brown.
I wish I had another pie chart to share that
with you.
Not all Hispanics are brown.
That is, there is no Latino race.
In fact, the whole question of race has been
discussed at length among those in the behavioral
sciences and natural sciences, so I won't go
into that.
But there is no such thing as a Latino race.
Not all Hispanics are brown.
When we lived in Mexico, people would come and
visit us.
And after several days there of listening to
Spanish, they would just get overwhelmed
with the language, and they would just want to
come home sometimes, turn on the television,
even if they didn't understand it, and watch
the news.
Sometimes just turn off the sound and just
watch the news or watch the novelas, the television
shows there in Mexico.
And it would never fail that those who came for
the first time watching television would
often ask me, they'd say, Dan, why do they use
all these white people on Mexican television?
Why don't they use Mexicans?
And I would say, like, who?
And they'd say, well, that person.
And I'd say, those are Mexicans.
No, no, Dan, because they assume that all
Mexicans are like Daniel Rodriguez.
They all look just like me.
Thank goodness that they do.
Thank goodness that they do or that they don't, Lou.
Mexicans come and Hispanics and Latinos come in
all colors and shades.
The vast majority are mestizos.
They're of mixed origin, of Amerindian and
Spanish origin, and mixed in different quantities,
kind of like some of you ladies cook, or some
of you men.
I don't want to be politically incorrect.
Like some of you men cook.
Some are of African, have a lot of
African-American descent.
Some are Asian.
We had some members in our congregation in Puebla.
We had one of our members, his name was Ramon
Fong-Woo, Fong-Woo. Fong-Woo?
Where do you get a name like Fong-Woo?
He was Asian.
And then, of course, there are Hispanics that
have a more, what we would describe as white
or Caucasian heritage, not to be confused,
however, with Anglo.
So among Hispanics, you're going to find
Hispanics of every shade and color.
They don't all eat tacos, and they're not all brown.
And their histories are very unique.
Their cultures and histories and social
experiences are very, very diverse.
And so to lump them into one pan-ethnic term
like Hispanic and assume there is a Hispanic
culture is deceiving.
Now among Hispanics, there's a growing notion
that there is a shared culture, there's a
shared heritage.
But that sometimes clouds the issue that we
come from very diverse backgrounds.
We are not a monolithic whole.
And yet there are certain bonds, there are
certain experiences that do bind us together.
They bind Hispanics together.
They do help us to sense a sense of unity among us.
And two of those bonds, two of the most
important bonds, obviously, are language and religion.
And religion, of course, is one of the truly
common elements among people who call themselves
Latino or Hispanic.
The vast majority, and we'll talk about this in
the next session.
The vast majority of Hispanics continue to be
Roman Catholic.
But as you will find out when you come at the
second section, if you have grown up in
a Roman Catholic family, Irish, German, or some
other American Catholic experience, and
you think, well, I was Roman Catholic, so I understand.
You don't understand.
The Hispanic Catholic experience is quite unique.
And one of the problems that the Catholic
Church is facing is that they are recognizing
that they have not been culturally sensitive to
the growing numbers of Hispanics in their numbers.
They have not been sensitive to the Hispanic experience.
And this explains the exodus that they're experiencing.
They're asking the question, where are our
Hispanic brethren going?
They're leaving their ancestral church.
Where are they going?
And why are they leaving?
And we're going to try to answer that.
Let me mention where they live.
Let me talk about where they live.
We sometimes are amazed that we still have a
stereotypical image.
Many people have the stereotypical image that
Hispanics still live out on the farm, that
the vast majority of Hispanics are still
working out in farm labor camps and that
they're rural,
when really less than 5% of all Hispanics are rural.
In some places, much more than 95% of all
Hispanics in the United States, remember,
we're talking about the Hispanic experience
here in the United States, they are urban.
They live in our cities.
There are reasons for that, which we might go
into in the next session.
They live in the cities.
And some of the cities that are listed here are
here in Texas, as you can imagine, cities
with the largest Hispanic populations, Los
Angeles, Long Beach, New York, New Jersey, Miami.
Here you've got San Antonio and Houston, in
Texas, El Paso, some of the cities with the
largest Hispanic population.
I don't think you'll find Abilene on there.
But I do know that the population here is growing.
It's growing everywhere in the United States.
Even in the deep south, in the northwest, in
the northeast, the Hispanic population
is spreading and growing in every place.
But the one thing that seems to be clear is
that they're growing in the cities.
They're growing in the cities.
The question, however, is how do they live?
How do Hispanics live?
We need to understand that.
And one of the things that is shocking to us
Hispanics is that, especially myself, I
have to be really honest, I don't represent a
typical Hispanic perspective.
I am probably more Anglo-sized than the vast
majority of Hispanics, partly because of the
education I've received, partly because I spent
the vast majority of my adult life in
a white, in an Anglo church.
So it has colored my perspective.
Students who come and go through Abilene
Christian University, Hispanic students, do not represent
your typical Hispanic experience.
The Hispanics in our small but growing,
courageous churches, all through the United
States are
Hispanic churches.
Those brethren do not represent the vast
majority of the Hispanic experience.
Well, I know the brethren at the so-and-so
Hispanic church, so I think I understand Hispanics.
You're seeing a very skewed image of the
Hispanic population.
You're looking at a population that, in many
ways and shapes and forms, has had to acculturate
and assimilate to a greater extent than those
that are not members of the church, that are
still Roman Catholics and live in our growing
urban centers.
So what do we know about Hispanics in general?
Well, several things, and a couple of these can
be seen in these particular graphs.
Hispanics are among the most poorly educated
Americans, as this graph tries to help us understand.
They are among the poorest educated Americans,
and they're the most likely Americans to live
below the poverty level in our country.
I spent most of the year, last year, writing a
document entitled The Social, Historical,
and Cultural Contexts of Mexican Americans in
Southern California.
In that document, I spent a lot of time looking
at the overall context of Hispanics in the
United States.
One of the things that my research has led me
to conclude is that Hispanics, as I've
already mentioned, including Mexican Americans,
constitute the fastest growing minority group
in the United States.
In addition, my research has led me to believe
that Chicanos have the nation's highest high
school dropout rate.
They have our nation's highest unemployment
rate, which doesn't even come close to identifying
the underemployment rate.
They have the nation's lowest medium income for
both men and women in households, and
some of this information is seen here in this
information here.
We're poorly educated in general.
Again, you're looking at someone here in front
of you who does not represent that figure,
and some of us might even resent that.
Some of us, as Hispanics, who are trying to
overcome the stereotypical underclass stereotype,
we're bothered by this information, and I don't
present this information to bother anyone.
What I try, I present this information to help
us understand that the people that we
want to share the gospel with have a unique
experience in this country, and that experience
needs to inform the way we communicate the
gospel to them.
Here's a graph that talks about the number of
families living in poverty broken down
by Subgroup, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban,
Central American, and others.
You can see the percentages in, for instance,
just looking at the Mexican descent Hispanic,
which is probably most relevant to those of us
here in Texas and in California.
In 1,970, 26% of the Hispanic population of
Mexican descent lived below the poverty level.
In 1980, that number had decreased to 20, 21%,
still way above the national average.
But in 1990, after the decade of the Hispanic,
that number jumped again, and 25% of the Hispanic
population lives below the poverty level.
What does this do to their perspective?
How do they see reality?
Not only are they poor, not only are they
poorly educated, and there are several factors
that we could point to.
One of the most important factors that
obviously we need to point to is the number of immigrants
that come in.
I've already mentioned it's the fastest growing
population in the United States, and there
are two factors that contribute to that growing number.
Number one, they have the highest birth rate of
any group in the United States.
And I'm doing my share to keep up with that stereotype.
We've got four children of our own, and we
adopted another one.
So we're way above the national average of one
point some odd children per household.
I've never seen a family with point anything children.
Maybe some of you have.
I don't know what they look like.
It must be pretty scary, depending on what
point you got.
But we have four children of our own, and that
was because during the early part of
our marriage, we didn't have a television.
Now we've got a VCR.
But we're doing our share to make sure that we
keep the Hispanic population growing in
the United States.
But not only do we have the fastest or the
largest birth rate, but the immigration from
Latin American countries into the United
States, especially since 1965 when the new immigration
laws were passed, has continued to just
escalate, especially those of us who are near
the border
of the Mexico and the United States.
We know how this number is just growing daily.
I mentioned earlier that in California, there
are over 2 million undocumented Hispanic immigrants.
The vast majority of those are of Mexican descent.
That's probably the case of the 700,000 that
live here in Texas.
The vast majority of those, I would imagine,
are also of Mexican descent.
So why is the population growing?
Well, we've got a high birth rate and immigration.
And those two figures, especially the second
immigration, is going to lower such figures
as the poverty level or raise that figure.
It's going to raise the figure of those with
poor education, because many of those who
come are coming because they're struggling.
They're economic refugees, and they're coming
here looking for a way to be able to support
their families back in Mexico or some other
part of Latin America, or to slowly but surely
bring them here or join other family members
that are here.
And so there are lots of explanations for these numbers.
But there are some other things that we need to mention.
When we talk about Hispanics, we talk about how
they live.
When we talk about how Hispanics live, there
are certain things we can't get away from.
Sometimes we don't like to think about it in
the church.
But we like to imagine that these differences
have been ironed out between us.
But again, I'm describing the experience of the
vast majority of Hispanics who are not
members of the church.
How do they live?
The vast majority of Hispanics live as
foreigners in their native land.
The vast majority of Hispanics that live here
are born here, like myself.
They were born here.
And yet their experience is that although they
were born here, they have not been made
to feel like they belong.
I remember the experience of being blown away
when I was working in Fresno, where I spent
my final teenage years, and went to community college.
I was working for a concrete company.
And I was pushing a broom out in front of this plant.
And one of these vehicles drove up with two
Anglos in it.
And then they drove up next to me.
And I was pushing the broom, and they lowered
the window.
And they spoke Spanish to me.
I didn't speak Spanish in those days.
They spoke Spanish to me.
And all I remember hearing is something to say
about, Tajeta Verde.
And I was going, what?
Is that green card?
And I looked at them.
And these blond hair guys were looking at me,
and they said something about a green card.
And I said, I'm sorry, what did you say?
And they looked at each other.
They shook their heads.
I said, oh, forget it.
And they rolled up the window.
They drove away.
And then I noticed on the side of the vehicle,
it said, immigration, nationalization.
They just assumed.
Then it hit me later on.
I thought, they thought that I was, and I'll
use their term, a wetback.
They assumed, looking at me, that I was a foreigner.
It still happens.
Depending on how I'm dressed and where I'm at,
it still happens.
I'm always a foreigner.
Some people have wondered how come so many of
the second and third and fourth generation
Hispanics in Los Angeles, for instance, were
fighting so hard against this Prop 187 and
Prop 209, these initiatives that came up last
year and the year before, having to do with
illegal immigration and services to immigrants.
And people were wondering, why are these
Hispanics, second and third generations,
Hispanics who
are hurt more than anybody else by the growing
number of immigrants, why are they defending
these immigrants?
And the reason is, when these laws get passed,
they don't just affect the immigrants.
They affect all of us who look like immigrants,
because we're always foreigners.
We're always assumed to be outsiders.
What does that do to your perspective of reality?
When you're always an outsider, you're always a
foreigner, there's always an assumption.
You cut them off on the freeway, or somebody
cuts, if you drive like me sometimes, you're
not paying attention.
And you see people in the rear-view mirror
just, why don't you go back where you came from?
Pico Rivera, Los Angeles, that's where I came from.
Wherever your mom came from, and your dad, Los
Angeles, California, that's where they
came from.
Hispanics live as foreigners in their native land.
I'd like to recommend a couple of books that I
didn't bring with me, you can probably find
them here.
Two books, well several, but let me just
mention two histories.
Working history from a Hispanic perspective
will be an eye-opening experience for anyone
working among Hispanics, anyone wanting to work
among Hispanics, or wanting to be sympathetic
to their plight in this country.
One book, and this deals primarily with the
Mexicans and Hispanics, is written by Matt
Mayer, M-E-I-E-R, and Feliciano Rivera, Mayer
and Rivera.
They wrote a book, originally in 1972, then it
was updated in 89, entitled The Chicanos,
The History of the Mexican Americans.
This is an excellent, sympathetic, and
objective history of the Mexican descent
Hispanic in
the United States.
And if you're from Texas or anywhere in the
Southwest, this is a must.
Another very good book is a book written by a
man named Kerry McWilliams.
It preceded the book by Mayer and Rivera called
North from Mexico, originally
written in 1968.
These two histories will open your eyes to the
experience of Hispanics in the United
States, and these comments that I want to make
right now are based on my findings and
these and other histories.
There are quite a few histories that have been
written, especially since the late 60s.
History is what Hispanics are most concerned
with right now, Hispanic scholars.
Trying to see history from a non-angular
perspective, rather than allowing the angle to
tell us
about our history, we're reading our history
and we're writing our own histories.
And these are two sympathetic histories that I
think are quite objective that won't be
as offensive to many of you.
If you want to read an offensive history, if
you want to read a history that represents
the radical Chicano perspective, especially the
late 60s and early 70s, that still continues
to be one of the bestsellers, you've got to
prepare your stomach for it because it's not
going to be very pleasant for many of us to
read, is a book by Rodolfo Acuna, A-C-U-N-A,
and it is entitled Occupied America, A History
of Chicanos, Occupied America.
All these books help us understand how
Hispanics live.
They live as foreigners in their native land.
They live with what some would have described,
they live with the legacy of the black legend.
I'm going to live with the black legend.
They live with the legacy of the black legend.
The black legend has nothing to do with African Americans.
The black legend is a perspective that Anglo
Americans had of those things that are Spanish
and of those things that are Catholic.
Let me just read a paragraph for you from a
paper that I wrote.
The black legend is traced back to the
Protestant Reformation and the Spanish Counter-Reformation
of the 16th century, and it's related back to
the imperial rivalry between Spain and
England in the 6th, 17th, and 18th century.
The black legend, and this goes way back before
our country, portrayed the Spanish government
as authoritarian and corrupt and decadent, and
the Spaniards, Spaniards, not Hispanics,
it portrayed Spaniards as bigoted and cruel and
greedy, tyrannical, fanatical, treacherous
and lazy, and the impact of this legend and its
impact on Mexican relations is described
in several books.
One of the best books is a book by a man named
Edward Orozco, Republican Protestantism in Aslan.
He describes this encounter between Mexican
culture and Anglo-Saxon secular humanism in
the United States and the Southwest.
What he says is, the problem with Mexico, and
again, this will bring us to the Hispanics,
the problem with Mexicans was that Mexico was
both Catholic and Spanish, and thereby
according to the best English tradition and
American tradition, the natural enemy of English-speaking
Christian peoples.
In this light, it's not difficult, I'm quoting
from Orozco here, it's not difficult to surmise
that the military conquest of Mexico's northern
provinces, which we are now occupying, in
a not too subtle sense was climactic of the
centuries-long religious conflict between
Spanish Catholicism and Anglo-Saxon Protestantism.
It did not really matter, he concludes, talking
about the black legend, it really didn't matter
that Mexicans were not Spaniards, so long as
they were Catholic and Spanish-speaking.
He says, so long as they were Catholic and
Spanish-speaking, Anglos approached Mexican
Catholics with a pre-existing hostility.
What else added to this hostility between
Anglos and Mexican descent Hispanics in particular?
Well, the black legend, the fact that they were
of Spanish descent, at least that's how
it, and we still describe them as the Spanish
Brethren, don't we, in our churches?
We've got the Spanish Brethren, there are
certain things that are hard for me to swallow,
the Spanish Brethren, Spanish-speaking
Brethren, okay, the Latino Brothers, the
Hispanic Brothers,
but we're not the Spanish Brethren.
But the problem with the Spanish Brethren is
that it reminds us that they are associated
in our minds and historically in this culture
with things Spanish and things Catholic, and
those were the natural enemies of those that
are historically Anglo and Protestant.
So we live as foreigners in our own land, we
live with the legacy of the black legend
of always being suspect because of our Spanish
heritage, our Catholic heritage.
We also live with the legacy of being a
conquered people.
Again, most people think of Hispanics as
Mexicans, all Hispanics eat tacos, and what is
our perspective
of Mexicans?
What's the legacy that Hispanics of Mexican
descent in particular live with?
We're a conquered people.
And if you read the story of the war between
Mexico and the United States, you find out
it was not that difficult of a war.
It was never in doubt.
It was kind of like our first desert storm.
Did anybody ever doubt we were going to wipe
out everybody in the desert?
Was there ever a doubt that we were going to
win the war in Desert Storm?
Those in Latin America, where we were living at
the time, it was a military game.
That's how the Third World view what we were
doing in Desert Storm.
The United States just needs to flex its
muscles and practice and see how this
technology works.
But there was never a doubt.
Was there?
Well, there was never a doubt with regard to
the war between Mexico and the United States
that opened an open hostility in 1846.
And the problem was that that war was over so
quickly, and it was really in no doubt
that in Anglo-American minds the image of the
Mexican was that there were pushovers.
They were a conquered people.
And conquered people are people that can be
exploited because to the victor go the spoils.
And so there was no problem expropriating their
lands, displacing them culturally and
socially and economically in their own native land.
So we live with the legacy of being a conquered people.
We also live with the legacy of being, as I
mentioned before, a racially mixed people.
And the vast majority of those who settled the
Southwest before and after the war with
Mexico, the vast majority of those who settled,
guess where they were from?
What part of the United States were they from?
They were from the South.
And there was a natural animosity towards mixed
racial peoples.
And when they found themselves encountering
this new Hispanic, this new Mexican-American
in the Southwest, one of the things they
noticed and despised about them was that they were
a racially mixed people.
They were a mongrel people.
Now we've outgrown a lot of these attitudes in
our society, and I'm thankful for that.
I'm thankful for those who before my generation
fought and helped to, and many Anglos helped
to allow us to become greater participants in
our society.
But nonetheless, we live.
How do we live?
We live with certain realities as Hispanics,
and that is going to taint our perspective
of reality.
We live with the lowest education levels.
We live as the most likely people to live in
poverty in this country.
We live as foreigners in our native land.
We live with the legacy of the black legend.
We live with the legacy of being a conquered
people, at least that's how we're viewed
as very passive people.
In fact, I've heard people say, they like
living poor.
They like living poor.
They're happy like that.
We live with the legacy of being a racially
mixed people.
We live on the margin of society.
I guess that's the best way to conclude this session.
Hispanics, we don't all eat tacos, we're not
all brown, but there are certain things we
all do share, depending on especially even how
we dress.
We live on the margin or on the periphery of U.S
. society.
So how is that going to color our perspective
of reality?
How is that going to influence the way we
preach the gospel?
How do you preach the gospel to people who live
on the periphery of society or who live
as Samuel Solivan Roman, a Hispanic theologian,
describes so well?
He says, the experience of Hispanics in the
United States, he's speaking of Hispanics
in general.
The experience of Hispanics is the experience
of living in the belly of the beast, of knowing
hunger in the land of good and plenty, of being
poor on the streets of gold.
This experience, this marginalized experience,
he says, provides a very different perspective
and a different set of questions about who God
is and what God is doing in the world.
In this book, a book that I could recommend to
you, it's a Catholic anthology entitled
Mestizo Christianity Theology from a Latino Perspective.
One of the things that all of these authors
argue for is to preach the gospel, and it's
defined by them very differently, both
Protestants, Evangelicals, and Catholics, but
however they
describe it, to preach the gospel, to share the
good news of Christ among Hispanics is
going to require us to not make the mistake of
the apostle Paul, who just walked into
Lystra and thought, oh, I'm going to do a
Peter, and John did, when they were in Jerusalem.
I'm just going to heal this man and watch
what's going to happen.
Same method, didn't get the same result, and
they argue that those of us who want to preach
the good news of Christ, be faithful to the
message, we need to be relevant, we need to
be contextually relevant, we need to speak to
the context.
What happens when you don't?
What happens if all you decide to do is we're
going to preach the same message?
It's the supercultural message of Christ, same message.
I heard a man, I gave a talk like this among
Hispanic ministers several months ago, here
in Texas, in fact, and I was arguing for a very
culturally relevant and culturally sensitive
approach, and he got up later on and basically
said, it's not important, preach the same
message the same way, you'll get the same
results wherever you are.
I thought, okay, that's how you feel, I don't
think that's the case, I think we'll make
the mistake.
A church has done that, a church since World
War II has done that, they've decided that
we're going to treat all of our members, we're
going to minister to them all alike.
What has happened to that church that has been
the historical ancestral church of the
vast, vast majority of Hispanics?
It was our ancestral church, it was the church
that I was baptized in, it was the church
that I received my first communion in, it was
the church that I made my first confession
in, well, confession then communion, it was the
church that I would have been married
in, it was the church that I wanted to be a
priest in as I was growing up until I realized
that priests don't get to kiss women, and I
said, wait a minute, but it was my ancestral
church, that church has not been sensitive to
the Hispanic experience, and so more than
60,000 Hispanics a year are leaving their
ancestral church because the church itself
is recognizing they have not been sensitive to
the unique social and historical and cultural
context of the Hispanic.
What can we learn from their failures, and what
can we learn from those churches that
are becoming quite adept at attracting and
assimilating Hispanics, which we'll talk about
at 11:00, what can we learn from them?
What can we learn from their mistakes and their
successes that will encourage us and
help us to be more faithful and culturally relevant?
I invite you to come back at 11:00 as we
proceed and talk about this.
We've got, I guess we don't have any time at
all, I was going to say there was some
questions, do we have a couple of minutes, is
there a question that maybe we can address
real quickly, if not I might just put it off to
11 and use that as the teaser to get you
to come back.
Yes, I'm sorry, ooh, I'll smile, yes, Lou.
Being a non-Hispanic, I've made a few attempts
to reach out to Hispanics in the United States,
and ended up with frustration, ended up with
zero, no results at all, it's because I was
not being culturally relevant.
What do you think about the non-Hispanics
trying to reach out to Hispanics in the States?
Yeah, I'm going to try to talk about all this,
because for instance, when I talk about the
Hispanic Catholic Church, or the American
Catholic Church, which is primarily Anglo,
that shares many things with us, their
worldview is quite rational rather than sensual
or effective,
we'll talk about that.
And there are some who are quite effective, who
are not Hispanics, ministering to Hispanics.
And so we'll try to address that question, too,
what does it take for a non-Hispanic
to be effective in communicating the Gospel
with Hispanics?
Primarily, however, we will be talking, I
think, trying to help Hispanics themselves.
Lots of times we just are not, we're not
sensitive, I was not sensitive.
Having been taken out of my Hispanic context
for several years when I became a Christian,
I was just, I was an expatriate.
I now became a member, a marginalized member of
the Anglo Church of Christ.
And I'm now having to come back again and
become sensitive again to my own cultural roots.
It's amazing how quickly you can lose touch
with your own roots, with your own people.
Well, thank you very much. We will be in room 112.
Yeah, 112. Gail Crow is speaking in 15 minutes.
If you have not registered for an elective
gift, I need you to come here right now.
I'll slip it to you.
Oh, okay. Thanks, Shane. All right. McLeod. McLeod.
Hey, Bro. Good to see you.
What's been up to you? Where have you been?
Where do you live now?
Well, we live in Mejia now.
Mejia. Okay, I'm driven by you. I've seen it on
the road, the sign. Yeah.
That's the food.
Hey, what did you bring me?
From right here.
From right here?
What's your name? Carlos.
Carlos Daniel Rodriguez. Great to see you.
Have you met Juan Monroy?
Yes, I have. In fact, Juan Monroy is the big
reason why I am in the ministry.
I'll have to tell you that story one day.
Will he be here, you folks?
I don't know if he's coming or not. I hope so,
but I kind of doubt it.
If he's not on the schedule, he gets so many
invitations to speak.
But Juan Antonio Monroy is a very keen person
in my ministry, in my life.
You keep saying the Cubans are in South Texas.
I know you didn't mean that.
Did I say South? I meant South Florida. Did I
say South Texas?
You said it two or three times.
Oh, well.
I'm from South Texas.
Yeah, no. South Florida.
They're about 98 percent.
Yeah. Hey there, Luke. Thank you for coming. Fantastic.
Yeah, you're so...
Too much stuff to try to get in one hour, though.
You serve so well and so well equipped. Well...
That demands respect.
Well, when you get a chance to work on it
full-time, you know, for two years, it gives
you a chance.
You should have a department at HCU and have
you there. Share it.
Hey, Bro.
Hey, I got a copy of the article they had on
you all.
Yeah? Yeah, I got it.
Hey, you know what I mean, too. Your talk is
going to be right when I'm doing it.