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Teaching Lutheran Confessions en español - Written by The Rev. Dr. Nelson Rivera
“Is faith our human contribution?” “What happens during Holy Communion?” “What is the meaning of ordination?” This is but a sample of questions that students asked while I was teaching the theology of the Lutheran confessional writings last fall semester. Tough crowd.
I taught Confesiones luteranas to seminarians at the Seminario Evangélico de Puerto Rico, including lay ministers of the ELCA Caribbean Synod. It was not the first time that I taught at Seminario. As a parish pastor in Puerto Rico, I taught courses on Principios denominacionales and on Vida y Pensamiento de Lutero, returning to teach a summer intensive class a few years later, all in person. However, this time it was done through video conference. The group consisted of six students residents in Puerto Rico and one in Southern Texas, all who jumped at the opportunity to study El libro de concordia in their primary language.
Those students came from diverse ways of life. Among them were a school teacher, a parish administrator, a fiction writer and poet, a lawyer, an accountant, and a non-profit fund-raiser. A few are congregational leaders. Among them, an LGBTQ couple, still in awe because of their welcoming among Lutherans, a joy shared now with others as well.
Lutheranism in the Caribbean Synod, which comprises of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, has a distinctive theological flavor: “un saber con sabor,” as Gustavo Gutiérrez would say. There, tradition walks hand in hand with innovation. Social and economic challenges demand creativity in ministry. Lutheran churches engage and respond to both popular Catholicism, majority in the population, and the realities of conservative Evangelical outgrowth in their midst.
“What is the Lutheran witness today?” “How do we respond to social and political crisis while confessing Christ in word and deed?” Throughout the whole semester the student engagement was strong, and the questions kept coming. Their investment in learning was a direct consequence of their commitment to the Church. Moreover, they love the people. Beyond the clichés and inertia that affect others, this group conveyed a healthy enthusiasm for confessional theology and the tasks of the Church’s ministry.
I saw how for these students Lutheranism is not only contextual but existential. Faith is their call to act freely: freedom to love, to serve, to proclaim, to become what they believe God is calling them to be; in brief, a liberating faith. They told me so. They experience the gladness of ministering to others without the imposed expectations and constraints of the past.
