28. Caminemos Con Jesus: Toward a Hispanic/Latino Theology of Accompaniment-Roberto S. Goizueta

how does U.S. Hispanic popular Catholicism inform/show the theology of the truth/relevance of particularity of embodied people/place/culture/experience/affects-feelings to mediate the universal truth for all. The interrelationship between person to person as human praxis vs. individualism that claims on rationalism and the dominant group's truth/legibility claims even while promoting pluralism and multiculturalism. The privatisation of faith forced by the dominant liberal individualists is a haughty position to take and actually pretends to be generous/tolerant but is still asserting their own position as the right one--that everyone should follow.
What we can learn from Hispanic Christians and their popular Catholicism that involves the physical, the ordinary--clay, candle, flower, kissing of the feet--pilgrimage and processions. They live out their faith in the particular, everyday life things. Family relations is prime vs. individualism; understanding that we are connected with the past (our ancestors who may be poor and had been exiles) and the future makes us humble. There is the universal truth of God that can be seen and only can be seen through the particulars so the particular experience/culture of a marginalised group cannot be seen as a mere number to be quantified to add up to the most number (p.167) of sum.

Introduction of the book:
The author sets the context for discussion:
Who are the Hispanics? Exiles in the US, identified by the language they speak
-"Language is not merely a superficial reflection of our culture and worldview; it helps construct and shape that culture and worldview." p.12
-"For this exile and mestizo/a, however, the everyday struggle to live this 'in between' existence becomes the seedbed of liberation."

Nosotros: Community as the Birthplace of the Self: community/universal v.s. individualism
-"One cannot love the universal and supernatural if one cannot love the particular and natural..." p.49
-"Community," writes Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, "is not something added on, but a web of relationships constitutive of who we are." The assertion that personal identity is intrinsically relational, or give by others from "outside," is thus the corollary of a sacramental worldview which asserts that the identity of every concrete, particular entity is relational, or given by an Other from "outside." ...the particular is the place where and the material through which the universal is encountered. p.50
-The U.S. tradition of modern liberal individualism manifests itself in three distinct, though interrelated areas of our lives: 1) the political, 2) the religious, and 3) the economic. p.54 "Whitin the horizon of modern liberal individualism, community is understood to be a "temporary and voluntary association of separate individuals." p.55 "The assumption underlying such responses is that participation in a religious community is in no way intrinsic or essential to religious belief; one relates to God as an individual, not as part of a community." p.56
-Bellah at al. speak of the "socially unsituated self" as the foundation of U.S. liberal individualism and the arbiter of all values, from the political (who is the best candidate) to the religious and moral (which is the right religion and the moral course of action) to the economic (which is the best brand of mouthwash). Thus, not only matters of taste but also matters of truth and morality come to be decided on the basis of quantitative criteria..." p.57
-The ironic result is, not a society of unique individuals, but a society of conformists: "As Tocqueville observed, when one can no longer rely on tradition or authority, one inevitably looks to others for confirmation of one's judgements. Refusal to accept established opinion and anxious conformity tot the opinions of one's peers turn out to be two sides of the same coin." p.58
-"The sentimental notion of community as an unstructured, deinstitutionalised, face-to-face, emotionally warm, and voluntary association implies, a dichotomy between community and tradition...for modern l i, community bonds cannot extend beyond this particular time and place; insofar as, through its structures and traditions, an institution extends communal bonds beyond and between generations, it can only do so illegitimately. If community is limited by space and time, then all institutions, all tradition, and all forms of institutionalisation will necessarily be viewed as intrinsically coercive, that is, a former, dead community's attempt to impose its identity and values (by definition obsolete, since that community no longer exists) on the only real community, that voluntary community which exists here and now. We have no responsibility to the past or to the future, since neither exists nor participates in our voluntary community." p. 64
P: I'm realising again how endemic the embededness of individualism is in today's people. It's so steeped in their psyches that they do not realise their way of individualist thinking is so strong and often opposing the grace-giving, community-needing, reality of who God created us to be. Thankful for Tim Keller's sermons who help me see this in my own thinking (e.g. the work rest sermon where I saw through my deep belief about my value as a person being relied on self accomplishment/actualisation in terms of career). Seriously, I can't believe my peers who say and believe in "your personal happiness is the most important thing, values/beliefs notwithstanding".
-Dichotomy btw the particular and the universal-individualistic anthropology: Where there is no strong, constitutive sense of community, then, the r/s btw the particular (individual) and the universal (family, church, community, tradition, institution) will be viewed as intrinsically dichotomous: i.e., the particular is in no way constituted by the universal; the universal is ipso facto oppressive because it limits individual autonomy. p.64 "As Alasdair MacIntyre contends, 'the essence of individualism is not so much to emphasize the individual rather than the collective...as to frame all questions according to an ostensible antithesis between the individual and the collective.' p.65

-The anthropology implicit in U.S.Hispanic popular Catholicism: "community is understood to be fundamentally preexistent (therefore involuntary) and constitutive. Therefore, the universal is not merely the sum of the particulars; rather, the universal is mediated by the particulars." p.65
-case: an elderly Mexican woman kisses the feet of the crucified Jesus: "If this piece of wood merely 'points to' some external supernatural reality, not itself revealed in and through the wood, then to kiss the wood is to commit an act of idolatry. But, if this piece of wood, shaped into  Jesus' crucified body, is itself the particular and concrete manifestation of a universal, supernatural reality revealed in and through this object, then to kiss the wood is the make the only appropriate Christian response. ...but the disparate interpretations stem from a fundamental, anthropological and epistemological difference. --the universal (e.g., the community, or the Jesus Christ of Christian faith and tradition), and an organic worldview, which would presuppose an essential, intrinsic, or 'organic' r/s btw the particular and the universal. ..Jesus and Mary defined relationally to each other and to us. p.65
-The Latinos' depictions of Jesus implies a concrete, physical historicity and concrete, physical relationship. p.66
-A relational being: Hispanic presupposes the foundational role of relationships in defining what it means to be a human being--and what it means to be a Christian. e.g. I do not experience myself as an individual person until I am confronted by another. infant-mother. ...entails an interaction. p. 72
Community does not extinguish but enhances individuality p.75
-"In an organic anthropology, each person is not a mirror reflection but a unique refraction of the whole." p.76

Beauty or Justice? The Aesthetic Character of Human Action
-"A relational anthropology, wherein the person is viewed as intrinsically social, is thus rooted in human action, or 'praxis.' p.77
-What is the r/s between theology (our knowledge of God) and praxis (the theological articulation of that knowledge in our everyday lives/action"?
-the significance of Latin American liberation theology for understanding praxis.-the person is defined more by what he or she does than by what he or she thinks.; orthopraxis aka "correct action" as the most basic norm of Christian faith. ...vs. injustice and oppression p.78
-What is praxis?
1) modern Western understanding: praxis as instrumental action=the action of an autonomous subject upon his or her external environment, itself construed as but a passive object of the subject's actions.; technique/practicality-the value of human action or life is predicated upon its usefulness. p.80 e.g. Marx-human action->prodcution; Aristotle-all human activity whose end is internal rather than external to itself aka human intersubjective activity. Human action whose end is external to itself is called poiesis. e.g. production aka the process of doing/making doesn't have intrinsic value, only the product is the goal p.83 For Aristotle, "life is action [praxis] and not production [poiesis]. p.84 What makes human life human is precisely that it is an absolute value in itself--regardless of its productivity, usefulness, or practicality.  ...To reduce human action to social transformation is to reduce it to productive activity, which is to reduce it to technique; and to reduce human action to technique is to reduce the human person to but a passive object, a mere instrument of production. p84
The modern, post-Enlightenment emphasis on technique, or instrumental action, as the highest form of human activity: ...then all human activity will tend to be judged by the criteria of production; whether in capitalism or socialism. p.85
P: Doesn't this view of human action/life affected my view also? I thought I must be useful to God--be able to evangelise a lot--in order to be of worth. But this is antithetical to God's grace and preeminent love. This was why I found it hard to accept the saying that there is nothing more that you can do to make God love you more and nothing that you do that can make Him love you less.
1b) liberation theologians were also influenced by this view of praxis as liberating social action. p.86
Several definitions, but this one: represents "perhaps the most significant contribution of liberation theology to the church, reminding Christians that the lived commitment to social justice is not superfluous to but a precondition for authentic Christian faith. The struggle for justice is not an option for Christians, over and above their Christian belief and worship" p.88
-What is the r/s between historical praxis aka praxis-as-an-end-in-itself & liberating praxis? still ambiguous: "Is liberating theology fundamentally a reflection on human action as an end in itself (historical praxis), or on human action as an instrument of liberation (liberating praxis)? p.88
2) Praxis as aesthetics:
early 20th century Latin American philosophers emphasise the aesthetic experience as the key category for interpreting human action. Jose Vasconcelos (1882-1959): against the Comtean positivism of the day that asserted that "human beings can know only that which is verifiable through empirical scientific analysis/observation." p.89 separation between the subject-observor (external)
-Aesthetic philosophies=grounded not in pure reason/practical reason but in the mystery of aesthetic judgment. ...the special pathos of beauty  as the unifying principle aka the "emphatic fusion" between subject and object that takes place in the aesthetic experience (i.e., the experience of beauty, or a work of art), wherein the person loses himself in the experience. p.91

Ethical-political, and aesthetic character of praxis
-"As revealed in popular Catholicism, human action is 1) sacramental; 2) essentially and intrinsically communal/relational; 3) an end in itself; 4) empowering; and, therefore 5) liberating. p.103
-Beauty as revelatory: the aesthetic character of human action: people's action is mediated by physical symbols, by physical gestures/movement and processions, singing songs, and by the very physical effort exerted in preparing the church for the celebrations. Our r/s to God thus involves embodied action in the world; it is not merely a private sentiment or feeling. p.103
-"For it is in the acting, in the performing, in the participation, in the living itself that God is revealed." p.103
-The term sacrament refers not only to the revelation of God in creation, but also to the revelation of God in the person's embodied action in the world, in interaction and participation. p.103
 -Their value to the participant derives from the fact that these are not fundamentally the actions of one individual by him or herself, but actions between him or her and God, ...and the other members of the community, both living and dead. ...even in my most "private" moments, I am responsible to those communities and hence, ultimately, to the entire human and divine community, in which I necessarily participate." p.105
-"If our goal is a just society, where all human persons are valued, affirmed, and loved as ends in themselves, as genuine "others," we cannot arrive at that goal through an instrumentalisation of persons which contradicts the very goal itself. At its most basic level justice, like happiness, is not a product but a concomitant, or byproduct, of human life when that life is lived and valued as an end in itself. ...social justice and personal growth or transformation are not directly-intended 'products' of the 'work' the individual person undertakes respectively 'on' society, or 'on' himself or herself. Rather, these are but byproducts of the persons' interaction with others. In short, the only justice and the only true self-improvement or personal growth is that which is the unintended (directly, at least) consequence of the person's active love of others. This is simply another way of expressing the paradox of the cross." p.107
-"Celebration becomes possible only when we cease making a project of our lives and our world." p.107 "In sum, the achievement of freedom and justice, whether at the personal or social level, will be impossible if freedom and justice are viewed primarily as products of our efforts rather than as, fundamentally, implicit byproducts or concomitants of human lives affirmed and valued as ends in themselves. Only if and when our intersubjective r/s-as lived in our families, communities, and institutions--reflect such an affirmation will we have true freedom and justice." p.108
-"Only when we are freed from the anxiety created by the need to control others, or the need to be controlled by others, are we truly free. Thus, the highest form of aesthetic praxis becomes the act of celebration, wherein the  intrinsic value of human life as an end in itself." <-this reminds me of what Nouwen wrote in "Here and Now" about why we celebrate birthdays.
Conversely, "When human action is instrumentalised, one's 'life' becomes a problem to be solved, a plan to be carried out, or a project to be realised. ...Consequently, I become enslaved to the desired result, anxious to plan all aspects of my life so as to ensure its successful conclusion. Convinved that I am free bc I am 'in control' of my life, I am actually enslaved by my very need to control..." p.110
-Praxis always has an affective dimension. It is through this affective dimension that we can relate most intimately with others." human interaction, not billiard balls. p.110 "The sharing of any feelings, however 'negative,' implies and affirms interaction, connection, and relationship with the other person; the failure to do so implies and affirms estrangement and alienation." p.110-111
-Domestic life as human action. not just the productivity in the public sphere (marketplace/political arena).; A proper understanding of human action must, thus, embrace both public and private spheres of activity, and the intrinsic r/s btw them: Although it is often regarded as autonomous, daily life is in fact at the center of history, invading all aspects of life." p.113
-the depreciation of domestic life as praxis has resulted historically not only in the marginalization of women's experience but also in the marginalization of popular religion as a locus theologicus" p.116
-in the context of the modern Western private-public dichotomy
-The insufficiency of aesthetics : embedded in ethical-political and economic r/s too. "After all, as bodies we act and make (products) as well as feel. Human action always has an ethical-political character since--given our relational or organic anthropology--human action implies a rs between ourselves and our environment, especially other persons. ... "the intrinsic interrelationships among aesthetic action, ethical-political action, and poiesis" P: reminds me of musicology, the lecture about opera in Paris and how things affected each other-sponsorship, audience reception...
-One culture can fuse emphatically with another culture only if and when they are both already acknowledged as equal. p.126
-Culture is an attractive, alternative 'key to history,' ..to human liberation... If justice demands nothing more than an open mind, a room-full of pre-Columbian artifacts, and an 'exposure' to other perspectives, then we can achieve justice without leaving the comfort of the suburban enclosure or the ivory tower. p.127 Culture symbols and practices are always mediated by political and economic structures and r/s.
-Conclusion: Goizueta suggests that "rather than superseding the ethical-political, the aesthetic dimension of human action is mediated by the ethical-political; it is encountered and lived out within ethical-political action, as the deepest meaning and significance of the ethical-political." p.128
-"The only proper locus of aesthetics and worship is, thus, the ethical-political option for the poor. Yet the deepest significance of that option is not social transformation per se, but the celebration of everyday human life. This is why, paradoxically, it is among the poor that one will find the most vibrant and vital communities of celebration and worship." p.131

Rationality or irrationality? Modernity, Postmodernity, and the U.S. Hispanic Theologian
-"If lived human experience is inherently relational, embodied, and affective, then we cannot understand that lived experience through concepts alone. Interpersonal reality cannot be understood or known primarily through theoretical analysis, but through an aesthetic, affective, and active participation in ('fusion' with) the sacramental r/s, symbols, and rituals. p.141
-Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz: "Praxis is both intellectual enterprise as well as action; the dichotomy between intellectual activity and physical work is a fictitious one..." p.142
-The liberation of the poor implies the emergence of historically marginalised persons as full-fledged rational historical subjects. p.148
-dichotomy of theory and praxis->dichotomy of truth and meaning
-If objective, scientific methods cannot lead us to truth, then truth per se must not exist. All that we can hope for is "meaningful" experiences which, as "meaningful," are inaccessible to rational analysis and judgment; the statement, "this particular experience or theory is meaningful for me," is ipso facto incontrovertible and must be accepted at face value, since to judge it according to rational criteria would be to impose on it external, alien, and artificial categories. Truth, then, is reduced to meaning...Rational certainty is replaced by sheer indeterminancy and ambitguity, since the story which is true to my experience is not necessarily true to yours, and the work of art which is meaningful for me is not necessarily meaningful to you. p.150
-The postmodern absolutization of particularity places U.S. Hispanics, and other historically marginalised groups, in an ambiguous situation. ...Justo Gonzalez: ...in which the dominant is confused with the universal. p.151
-For Christians, the understanding of the rs btw the universal and the particular is rooted in the incarnation itself, in the "scandal of particularity" p.152
-The possibility of mutual understanding--not simply mutual empathy--is thus itself intrinsic to an organic, relational anthropology. ...implies the possibility of shared norms--mediated, always, by the particular perspectives through which they are revealed. ...mediated by praxis aka the active relationship btw particular others. Truth is not fundamentally a thing but an event. p.153
-Symbols are both the end and the source of rational understanding; in the words of Paul Ricoeur, "the symbol gives rise to thought, but thought always returns to and is informed by the symbol." Aesthetic experience not only transcends theory; it also gives birth to theoretical reflection. p.155
-Particular meaning mediates universal truth.
-Only if I affirm your own concrete particularity and uniqueness will I be able to understand how your own life and history reveal a universal truth that is also true for me. p.157
*-"When the meaning of particular experiences is not recognized as mediating universal truth--art, literature, and religion lose their ability to subvert the dominant culture because, by becoming privatized, they lose their ability to engage that culture at all." ...We experience art and religion as not only meaningful, but as also true, as having a relatively autonomous and objective reality beyond our own particular social location. p.160
-competition among particular theologies, especially Third World and feminist theologies. ...surest sign that an authentic pluralism or multiculturalism does not exist: the access to those material resources necessary for making one's voice heard remains controlled by the same dominant groups. p.166
-Whatever else a pluralist is telling you, he is also telling you that his heart is in the right place...the right place is every place and therefore nowhere at all." p.170
-A pluralistic, multicultural society is one that multiplies the number of available options (whether political, economic, religious, or cultural) without according explicit preference to any--
"I'm OK, you're OK." Implicit preference continues to be accorded, however, to the dominant culture's interpretative horizon. ...Whatever its multicultural intent, such a pluralism ironically perpetuates the violence inflicted on marginalised groups and, indeed, compounds that violence by forcing these groups to turn against each other, thereby deflecting criticism and opposition. p.171

The preferential option for the poor & the proper place of theology:
-Authentic justice ->authentic pluralism=presupposes a praxis that is genuinely intersubjective, between particular, unique others. If mutual respect and understanding presuppose a r/s of others, oppression, injustice, marginalization, and exclusion are the names we give to the denial of the particularity and otherness of certain persons, namely, the poor. Thus, as long as there are poor persons there can be no pluralism. p.173
-emerged within the Latin American culture because or their organic worldview; it could not have emerged within a worldview that pits the universal (the good of the whole) against the particular (the good of a part, e.g., the poor). Within an individualistic worldview, the scriptural command to do justice--as a necessary implication of our very humanity and creatureliness--is literally inconceivable; instead, that command will be interpreted as a mere suggestion that one autonomous individual help other autonomous individuals. Where there is no necessary connection between persons there can be no necessary ethical-political imperative to love others. p.173
-Gustavo Gutierrez argued for a scriptural basis of this historical option: God's predilection for the weak and abused of human history in the Bible, starting with Cain and Abel...This preference brings out the gratuitous or unmerited character of God's love. p.175
-Gutierrez: "God has a preferential love for the poor not because they are necessarily better than others, morally or religiously, but simply bc they are poor and living in an inhuman situation that is contrary to God's will. The ultimate basis for the privileged position of the poor is not in the poor themselves but in God, in the gratuitousness and universality of God's agapeic love." p.176
-if God is present preferentially among the poor, we can only know God if we place ourselves there also. The option for the poor is, then the most important epistemological precondition for Christian faith: to know God we must first opt for the poor. p.177 To turn a deaf ear to the cries of the poor is implicitly to identify God's voice with that of the status quo and, hence, its established power structures. To hide their suffering and struggles is thus to make faith in a transcendent God impossible." [a precondition for authentic Christian faith] p.178
-illustration: a father would help the 3 year old brother who is involved in a fight with the big sister because he is weaker and to help the older sister would be to side with the privileged and unfair. To help the younger brother is the loving/fair thing to do.
-other reflection: when the rich people keep building tall walls and install alarms for fear that the poor outside would invade and steal their abundance of money. p.178This is not recognising that we all are humans created by God and we are connected because God is love. Our ignorance of their needs is what compelled the poor to have to steal--they taking the initiative to get what they need from whoever has a lot. Why can't we go out and give them in the first place? When I think about this in this way, I suddenly am not so scared of having my valuable things stolen (except for those associated with memories that are not replaceable). Who am I to think that the things I enjoy are mine? Aren't they all gifts from God and He can will these material things to whoever He chooses to give?
-To love the poor preferentially is to make an intentional choice to be that which we already are through no choice of our own: individual persons defined by our a priori rs to others, to humanity, to the universes, and, ultimately, to the Triune (i.e., intrinsically relational) God. p.179 If to be a human person is to be intrinsically related to others, what is irrational, then, is the failure to acknowledge that reality.
-"If God can love even clay, then God can love gold and silver. ...If--and only if--God can love even the crucified criminal, then God can love the ruler." p.179
-"It is from their (the poor) perspective that the intrinsically relational character of the person is revealed. It is, paradoxically, in the faces of those persons most alienated, most abandoned, most excluded that the intrinsic bonds that unite us all show forth--as that which is denied by such injustice. That is precisely why our society continues to alienate, abandon, and exclude the poor--bc, face-to-face w/ the poor, one is forced to confront our intrinsically relational reality. ...is so threatening that those bodies must be isolated, hidden from view in barrios, ghettoes, reservations, hospitals, etc." p.182
-When we recognise the injustice of those consequences, we get our first glimpse of what true justice is. If I, as an exile, have experienced the separation from my family, ...it is bc that experience threatens, and thus evokes a truth deeper and more fundamental than that of separation, namely, the truth of community." p.182
-"Suffering shared is suffering already in retreat." p.183
-"the concreteness and particularity of human praxis"
-"the particularity of the poor is the most accurate perspective from which to view the community as a whole--and from which to "opt for" all persons." p.185
-The act of accompaniment (being with, feeling with, doing with-as equals) p.191~
-"Where the option for the poor is simply reduced to an option for social justice, the poor will inevitably be reduced to an abstract concept or a manipulable object. ...universal love is mediated by particular love, and the most particular love is familial love. p.195
-Familial relationship->gives dignity->life affirming/common personhood affirmed
-to walk with the poor--literally, physically, and spiritually (self-reflection/soul changing) as Jesus walks with them (including geographical location-the hetereogenous urban vs. the white suburbs, crossing boundaries/in between/in exile people). Together with is important-affective, aesthetic union with the poor.

30 Aug-14 Sep 2017
New York: Orbis Books, 1995