In the scene from “The Little Mermaid” when Ariel meets Ursula, Ariel wants legs because she has fallen in love with a human, Eric. Ursula wants Ariel’s voice because of greed.
The scene reminds me of Puerto Rico, my beloved home.
Puerto Rico has experienced two imperial dominions— Spain for 405 years and the United States of America for 126 years and counting. Both dominions exercise control under the guise of “discipleship.” Not discipleship with the goal being spiritual growth, but that oppressively demands how they should grow.
There I see the intrusive and complex trade between Ariel and Ursula, one that occurs through a spell. If Ursula had been an underwater witch from the 1960s, she would have sung “I Put a Spell on You” by Nina Simone. And the definitive line from the song would have been, “And now you are mine.”
In Puerto Rico, the spell was the epistemological, religious and political belief that these “nativos” did not know God or anything about life and thus needed to be baptized and become Christians— or at least, a particular kind of Christian.
Spells are intended to bring to life whatever the sorcerer wants. In Spain, they wanted our gold, and in the U.S., they wanted our labor.
In both cases, they wanted a tropical backyard. The spell worked.
For Jesus, the idea of discipleship was to find and form disciples from around the world. Bonhoeffer called it “costly grace,” where we follow Jesus towards the high cost of the gospel for the sake of life. Elizabeth Conde-Frazier affirms that discipleship shapes our values and ethics to promote God’s kingdom around us.
But the sad reality is that the idea of discipleship was used to form Puerto Ricans as image bearers of the empire instead of vessels of grace.
In “The Little Mermaid,” the phrase “you must become human” is deep and complex in meaning. Ursula is telling Ariel that she needs to be something other than who she was created to be.
In the case of colonialism, people are forced to become something they aren’t, shattering Jesus’ offering of abundant life.
True, gospel-centered abundant life can only be lived out of each person’s unique context, advancing the kingdom. Discipleship is the eternal and internal process of forming people to be like Jesus.
“You have to become human” implies that we aren’t already human and that our Puerto Rican self isn’t enough.
In the name of “evangelism,” the Christian religious tradition was brought to the natives’ attention to formalize and organize a new life. Discipleship was a requirement rather than an encounter with Christ. Yet after almost 70 years of being formed by the ideology of statehood, statehood has not been attained.
Why? Because when colonialism is the essence of your discipleship, lifestyle, economy, policy and general social structure, you sell your voice for a spell to work. “You have to become human” because who you are isn’t enough.
The most notable song from “The Little Mermaid” is “Part of Your World.” It is a wish and a dream. Ariel transforms her crush on Eric and forms a vision of her future.
The “crush” on statehood has disabled the Puerto Rican voice and enabled a temporal voice that echoes the empire. In the process, the church has played a particular role in our wanting to be part of that world.
The North American church model for Puerto Rican churches is “el pan nuestro de cada día” (our daily bread). It is a mindset of constant growth, which can be positive. It has given us a framework, networking spaces, theological education, opportunities, latine ministries, grants, and collaborative movements.
But it also hinders progress. Since the dream of being part of “that” world involves constant comparison, some churches and ministers want to look, talk, design, educate, minister, and preach like Northamerican churches instead of being Puerto Rican, contextual, and disciple as Puerto Rican Christians.
Losing our voice can lead the Puerto Rican church to advance imperialism rather than listen to the gospel needs in their neighborhoods.
The educational theorist Jack Mezirow affirms that transformation begins by acknowledging the disorienting dilemmas, fostering a meaning-making process leading to transformation.
Transforming our context will require us to identify what is causing a setback in the development of people, culture, society and the place of the gospel in la puertorriqueñidad.
Transformation will begin when Puerto Ricans discern and decide, within their sociopolitical and religious reality, how to renew their “spiritual and religious experience”, as Dr. Luis Rivera Pagán would address in his essay “Teología Profética de Justicia y Paz” (Prophetic Theology of Justice and Peace) with a theological and pastoral liberating practice that needs to be defined by freedom, sovereignty and autonomy.
Transformation from invasion means proclaiming the development of the Puerto Rican identity in religion, spirituality, church and ministry. Within this proclamation moving “out of invasion” is moving towards clarity, equality, gospel-centered justice and affirming an opportunity for the local.
As a Christian education pastor, I must address the need to develop spiritual formation experiences, curriculums, and projects that embrace our people’s experiences. Thinking and developing theologically about our contexts ignites the Spirit’s work.
Reframing the image of “The Little Mermaid” in this context is to value our voice enough to ignore temporal spells. These spells include the concept of statehood, IVU tax, the Financial Oversight and Management Board and PROMESA Act, privatization of the government, Law 60, which is an exoneration law for foreign investors and the list goes on.
A theology of the local would be to secure local talent, companies, the University of Puerto Rico, funding, artists, and agriculture to promote the development of the puertorican people with the God-given identity of the puertorican people.
Discipling from la puertorriqueñidad will require several approaches:
- “Yo soy boricua, pa’ que tu lo sepas“- Creating Christian curriculums that foster a puertorican perspective and interpretation of the gospel.
- “Yo soy como el coquí“- Defining the theological process and ministry vision from the puertorican context.
- “Güiro y maraca“- Developing liturgies and educational projects informed by our culture.
- “100 x 35“—Promoting church revitalization within our socioeconomic and political reality. (“100×35” refers to the amount of space, in nautical miles, Puerto Rico occupies.)
- “Pa’ tras ni pa’ coger impulso“- Designing new approaches for caring, preaching, and teaching.
Discipleship can be a good source for critical reflections of our faith in action. It can lead to our questioning and longing to be “part of that world,” when we are always invited to a different God-given reality.
Discipleship can affirm a theopolitical identity, as in Puerto Rico. It can also provide pedagogical insights on how to continue worshiping Dios with our identity.
Discipleship can lead us beyond colonial spells that turn us into someone else’s idea of “human.” Discipleship will help to affirm the struggle of looking into ourselves with God’s eyes and move forward to a future that will amplify our own voice.
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