Caribbean Lutherans tells the story of the Lutheran church in Puerto Rico from a Caribbean perspective. Rodriguez intersperses archival research with cogent commentary and personal accounts, highlighting the power and agency of Puerto Rican and West Indian Lutherans amid the multifaceted legacy of Euro-American missionary efforts on the island. Readers may not be surprised to learn that the first Lutheran missionary in Puerto Rico was a Swedish American Lutheran; they may not be aware, however, that his welcome and success on the island were dependent on the hospitality of an Afro-Caribbean tailor from Jamaica. A winding journey of interactions among American Lutheran synods and a growing Puerto Rican church generated partnerships, tensions, and possibilities that continue to the present. Puerto Rico and neighboring islands joined the United Lutheran Church in America as the Caribbean Synod in 1952. Today, they remain part of the current Evangelical Lutheran Church in America while many other Protestant denominations on the island have formed Puerto Rican "national" churches. Rodriguez explores the continuing tensions inherent in this legacy, bringing both academic expertise and personal experience to this first comprehensive account of the Lutheran church in Puerto Rico.
Jose David Rodriguez is the Augustana Heritage Professor Emeritus of Global Mission and World Christianity and professor emeritus of systematic theology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. An ordained ELCA pastor, Rodriguez has served in congregational, teaching, and seminary administrative calls in his native Puerto Rico, in the mainland United States, and throughout Latin America.
Prologue Introduction Chapter 1 Lutheran Mission in the Caribbean Chapter 2 The Early Foundations Chapter 3 Lutherans Initiate Missionary Work in Puerto Rico Chapter 4 The Mission and its Trailblazers Chapter 5 A Mission Coming of Age Chapter 6 The Leadership of Women in the Mission Chapter 7 Findings Conclusion Epilogue Bibliography
The book is a wonderful guide for gleaning the contribution of Caribbean Lutheranism--and beyond it, of mainline Latin American Protestantism--to decolonial possibilities for living out the Christian faith. Of particular interest is the careful attention to the contribution of women: from teachers, missionaries, and lay leaders to bishops. Without glossing over its complexities and ambiguities, Rodriguez shows how Lutheranism in the Caribbean has contributed to the gospel "giving more of itself" as good news. --Dr. Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Georgia Harkness Professor of Theology, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and coauthor (with Guillermo Hansen) of Nuestra fe: Una introduccion a la teologia cristiana Jose D. Rodriguez offers a sharp historiography channeling the faith of the Lutheran church in Puerto Rico from a Caribbean standpoint. Flowing in sacred spaces like that of a Lutheran tailor, Mr. John Christopher Owen Browne, Caribbean Lutherans deepens in accounts of pastors, lay leaders, Indigenous peoples, and women whose legacy affirms agency and the active role of people's transformational involvement in the mission. This unique book is a doorway for further research contributing to academia on matters of history, mission, and Lutheran identity. --The Rev. Dr. Patricia Cuyatti Chavez, former regional secretary for Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America in the Lutheran World Federation; pastor in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; author of Hanging On and Rising Up: Renewing, Re-envisioning, and Rebuilding the Cross from the "Marginalized" This groundbreaking study of the mission of the Lutheran Church in Puerto Rico makes two significant contributions, relevant also to the study of the mission work of other Christian denominations on the island. First, it combines traditional historiographical methods with postcolonial and postmodern methods, and exhaustively examines documents and other authoritative classical sources as well as stories, music, poetry, and other art forms that depict the struggle of resistance against prejudice and cultural assimilation. In so doing, it uplifts the significant contributions that marginal populations have made to the mission of the church. The second is the theological grounding of this historical analysis: Mission work has its beginning and end in God. It is a theology of radical inclusion that brings all of us to forward justice, peace, and love. This theocentric perspective makes it clear that the purpose of mission is not church growth nor the well-being of the denomination. We are all subjects and objects of that mission whose purpose ultimately is to announce and to be a sign of the Kingdom that calls us to overcome all obstacles that impede the formation of beloved communities. --Dr. Ismael Garcia, emeritus professor of Christian ethics, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary This is the first comprehensive history of the Caribbean Synod as part of the history of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and its predecessors. In his narrative--which includes important contextual and historical connections, inspiring stories, and detailed statistics--Dr. Rodriguez turns our invisibility in our Lutheran history books and denominational life into a text that documents important dimensions of the Lutheran traditional missionary ethos and its relationship with communities at the margins. Many of the dilemmas and issues presented by Rodriguez are vivitos y coleando (alive and kicking) in our days. As we launch efforts to renew and reform our denomination, this book is a must-read to help us be a church of the cross. --The Rev. Dr. Francisco Javier Goitia-Padilla, director for Formation for Leadership, Church Community and Leadership, ELCA
