Note: Excerpt from Atando Cabos (Eerdmans 2021) as part of the book series Theological Education between the Times. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Citations have been omitted.
My five-year-old granddaughter had just lost her first baby tooth. She was excited to hear that Ratoncito Perez (Mouse Perez) would be bringing a present in exchange for her tooth. In Latin American countries, he is the equivalent of the tooth fairy, a tradition that originated in Madrid in 1894. Cecilia wanted the gift but was reluctant to give up her tooth. Instead, she wanted to put it back so that her smile could stay the same. However, behind the fallen tooth the new tooth was already apparent, growing in and overlapping with where the old one had been. In theological education we are likewise in an overlapping time, a time when the passing season meets the coming one and the new season is still not entirely apparent. The old and the new intersect.
In this book I show how the two eras of theological education are already overlapping, interrelating, and coinciding. My hope is that by recognizing the similarities and common ground in the shapes of this theological education, we might better collaborate to implement a new educational design for the already arriving season.
Theological Education’s Cabos Sueltos
When we are creating something in such a transitional, overlapping time, we are not always certain what materials and visions will fit best, and we may not have at hand what is needed. Such a time calls for experimentation. It is in this inventive interlude that we work at atando cabos sueltos (tying loose ends), ends for which we previously had no use because they seemed out of place and did not match the previous situation. For those of us who have been poor, we understand that cabos sueltos are precisely the things that we do not discard because they are very helpful for inspiring us to think creatively.
Cabos sueltos are still around when the last thing we made is already tattered and in disuse. But these materials are strong and have the right stuff for patching up and reinventing. Even while I speak of reinventing, in reality the understanding of Ecclesiastes holds true: “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). But there is always perspective that comes from our present reflections on the past, combinations of things we haven’t yet tried, and the fit of leftover ideas in different times and contexts.
Combining Conviction and Identity with Hospitality and Cooperation
My cabos sueltos are taken from a variety of sources. The first is the thread of my own theological education growing up in a Latin@ immigrant church in the city of New York. Theological education in the Latinx community is a continuum that goes from Christian education in a congregation to next-level study in a seminary. When I was fourteen, I taught fourth-grade Sunday school in this congregation. This meant that I was required to attend Bible study on Wednesday nights. After the study, Sunday school teachers would sit around the table with the pastor to discuss the theological points of the uniform lessons. The focus of the discussion was to consider the different theological points possible and to see where our preferences were. Mostly, the pastor wanted us to bring theological arguments that made sense and were biblically based.
The pastor wanted to ensure that we were not pushing any particular point. While reminding us where our American Baptist denomination stood theologically, he wanted us to let persons choose where they stood as long as they could say why from a biblical standpoint. What I did not realize at the time was that the creation of a space for theological thinking with the capacity to hold on to a diversity of views was not the norm in many other contexts. These other contexts saw indoctrination as the purpose of biblical teaching.
Our pastor modeled this type of thinking and openness to differing views in his teaching and sermons as well, thus creating a consciousness of diversity and of the multiple ways to navigate theological and cultural diversity. This was a Latin@ church where the cultural diversity included many different Latin American countries, and sometimes Spain. Persons had come not only from different countries but also from different expressions of Christianity. Because our pastor always asked where a particular view came from, we learned to identify contexts with theological and historical differences. He would often fill in missing information. This was important for how we gave consideration to our layers of diversity.
A way to express our cultural diversity was on Pan-American Day, celebrated yearly on October 12. At this celebration we wore our traditional dress and shared our histories, cultural traditions, foods, poetry, drama, music, and sometimes how we felt about having to immigrate, along with our hopes, dreams, and struggles. There were tears and many tastes at the table. We learned to say “dime más” (“tell me more”) before making a judgment about each other’s ways, which may have seemed strange at first encounter. These were diversity practices.
Our pastor held that to be Americanized was important if we were to progress while also understanding that bilingualism was a benefit. Our pastor was the Reverend Dr. Santiago Soto Fontánez, a Puerto Rican man who held a PhD from Columbia University in Spanish literature and had been a missionary and preacher to El Salvador. He was instrumental in establishing a school that is still operating in Santa Ana, sixty-four kilometers northwest of the capital city of San Salvador. Education was his forte. He was a tri-vocational pastor.
While pastoring, he taught part time at Brooklyn College and also headed up what was then the Spanish Department of the American Baptist Churches of Metropolitan New York. This part of the work included church planting and ensuring that the new pastors were well prepared for the ministry. He became influential in the teaching that would continue to develop leaders for the continued “Spanish work.” His work was so successful that from these congregations leaders were sent out to other parts of the United States to pastor and begin new congregations….
Everyone Has a Calling, So “Theological Education” and “Christian Education” Work Together
The Hispanic churches of the American Baptist denomination had a Bible institute, and it entailed very serious study. Yearly we also held a variety of workshops in different churches for learning how to do ministry – as a deacon, usher, financial secretary, trustee, teacher, prison ministry worker, hospital visitor (today it would be like chaplaincy), minister with women, and other outreach ministry work. All this was part of my theological education before even attending seminary.
In this context, theological education included Christian education. There was no real separation since everyone had a calling in the church to a particular ministry and was expected to prepare for that ministry. Such ministry included preaching, teaching, fellowship, and service to the community. All these varied opportunities are cabos sueltos that I have worked with as a theological educator.
Cabos sueltos arise in history. And so chapter 1 provides a brief history of Protestant missions and Christian education in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. This history depicts the roots of the structure of theological education today in the Latinx context. It presents the theological and structural foundations for the formats of theological education that have given shape to our present institutions. Two basic models of education are featured.
In chapter 2, I offer the theological cabos sueltos of the doctrines of the priesthood of all believers and of the misión integral (holistic mission) that together shape our understanding of church and its mission. These are the drivers of the purpose of theological education for the Latin@ church.
Chapter 3 discusses and illustrates curricular issues within the understanding of a contextual theology. It discusses and demonstrates epistemological and pedagogical matters for theological education for a globalized context.
Structure is a part of curriculum. Chapter 4 looks at interdisciplinary aspects, the diversity of theological thinking, and ecologies of education in the information age as a way of beginning to think about different perspectives and possibilities for the structure of theological education.
The fifth and final chapter of the book calls for a renewal of Reformation energies for the transformation of the church. It considers new, emerging, and surprising things to come, for cabos sueltos are sometimes new threads, assorted woods, buttons, beads, and other materials for which we need to find glues, shellacs, and paints that are not yet in our toolbox of supplies. We will need to search in new places and create fresh partnerships for learning to construct education with these newly discovered supplies.
Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, coordinator of relations with entities of theological education, Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana
