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Notes
1 The Presbyterian Church (USA), byname PC(USA), is a US Protestant denomination formed on June 10, 1983, in the merger of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA (headquartered in New York City) and the Presbyterian Church in the United States (headquartered in Atlanta). See: Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Presbyterian Church (USA),” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Presbyterian-Church-USA.
2 I put the word “Americans” in quotation marks, because America consists of three continents and several countries, yet people of the USA call themselves “Americans” allegedly because the name of the country ends with the word “America.” Growing up in Puerto Rico, I knew people of the USA in the Spanish word “Estado-Unidenses.”
3 Pablo E. Rojas Banuchi, “Los Bíblicos (1860-1898),” in Didáskalos, domingo 22 de mayo de 2011, http://didskalosteologaparaformarycapacitar.blogspot.com/2011/05/los-biblicos-1860-1898.html. My translation.
4 Rojas Banuchi, “Los Bíblicos.”
5 Rojas Banuchi, “Los Bíblicos.”
6 Rojas Banuchi, “Los Bíblicos.”
7 Rojas Banuchi, “Los Bíblicos.”
8 Rojas Banuchi, “Los Bíblicos.”
9 Rojas Banuchi, “Los Bíblicos.”
10 Rojas Banuchi, “Los Bíblicos.”
11 Graeme S. Mount, “The Presbyterian Church in the USA and American Rule in Puerto Rico, 1898–1917,” Journal of Presbyterian History (1962–1985) 57, no. 1 (1979): 51, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23327939.
12 David Staniunas, “PHS in Puerto Rico,” in Presbyterian Historical Society: The National Archives of the PC(USA), September 18, 2018, https://www.history.pcusa.org/blog/2018/09/phs-puerto-rico.
13 José Roberto Colón Rodríguez, Nuestras raíces en la historia, vol. IV (1998), 14.
14 “The Presbyterian Church (USA) organizes its many congregations into presbyteries and then into synods. Presbyteries are the district governing bodies which are made up of various congregations. Each presbytery also belongs to a regional governing body, known as a synod. Synods act as a form of administration between presbyteries and the General Assembly. There are currently sixteen Synods in the PC(USA).” Presbyterian Historical Society: The National Archives of the PC(USA), April 30, 2014, https://www.history.pcusa.org/blog/2014/04/synods-pcusa.
15 Luis Oliveri, “Primeros himnarios Puertorriqueños,” in Encyclopedia PR, March 30, 2016, https://enciclopediapr.org/content/primeros-himnarios-puertorriquenos/. My translation.
16 José Roberto Colón Rodríguez, Nuestras raíces en la historia: El Tren del Tiempo, vol. XVII (2013): 40.
17 Pablo Fernández Badillo, “Al caer la lluvia resurge con verdor” Hymnary, https://hymnary.org/text/al_caer_la_lluvia_resurge_con_verdor.
18 Pablo Fernández Badillo, “Alabanza (al caer la lluvia),” recorded in 2002 by Iglesia Evangélica Unida de Bayamón, Puerto Rico, http://smitty.home.montereybay.com/alabanza.html.
19 “Elsie Zala,” The San Diego Union Tribune, January 22, 2023, https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/sandiegouniontribune/name/elsie-zala-obituary?id=38718017.
20 Pablo Fernández Badillo, “Nourished by the rainfall, the earth can come alive,” Church Hymnary, no. 138, https://music.churchofscotland.org.uk/hymn/138-nourished-by-the-rainfall.
21 Oliveri leaves out of his entry the content of the previous theology that he is implicitly referencing. Similarly, the content of the theology imported by the colonizers to PR is beyond the scope of this essay. It suffices to establish that there is form and content in the liturgy and hymnody that colonizers bring wherever they go. It is reasonable to assume that the theology responds to the context in which the liturgies were developed, and the hymns were written. This section of the essay, however, focuses on the cultural forms imported by colonizers and resisted by some Puerto Ricans. For those seeking to engage the theology of the colonizers see “Hymns Old and New Through the Postcolonial Gaze,” in The Edge of God: New Liturgical Texts and Contexts in Conversation, ed. Stephen Burns and Michael Jagessar (London: Epworth Press, 2009), 50–66; Becca Whitla, Liberation, (De)Coloniality, and Liturgical Practices: Flipping the Song Bird (London: Palgrave, 2021). The journal Liturgy also contains a number of issues that speak to this. See Keun-Joo Christine Pae, “We are Asian and Asian-American Women: Generation X: A Postcolonial Feminist Liturgy in North America,” Liturgy 23, no. 1 (2008): 65–9; Richard McCarron, “Kingdom Play? Striving Against Racism Through Worship in a Postcolonial Mode,” Liturgy 29, no. 3 (2014): 47–54; Michael N. Jagessar, “Decolonial Challenges and Opportunities,” Liturgy 37, no. 4 (2022): 28–34.
22 Oliveri, “Primeros.”
23 Anscar Chupungco, Liturgical Inculturation: Sacramentals, Religiosity, and Catechesis (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), 37.
24 Michael N. Jagessar and Stephen Burns, Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives (Sheffield: Equinox, 2011), 11.
25 Pablo A. Jiménez, “Preaching God’s Fiesta: Toward a Postcolonial Homiletic” (lecture, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL, 5 March 2014), YouTube, 41:58, https://youtu.be/I6WmVu357_s?si=jumyJKosNXoCNr-t.
26 Frank A. Thomas, They Like to Never Quit Praisin’ God: The Role of Celebration in Preaching (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2013).
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Lis Valle-Ruiz
Lis Valle-Ruiz is assistant professor of homiletics and worship and Director of Community Worship Life at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois, US.