This reflection was published in Columbia Theological Seminary’s Vantage Magazine (Summer 2020). I wrote it after returning from a contextual education course in Cuba.
A member of my Committee on Preparation for Ministry asks me each time I meet with them, “How is your relationship with Jesus these days?” It is a question that sends me into a panic. After spending the last three years in an academic setting, the question is not one I think about often. My inclination is to say, “Um, we’re on pretty good terms?”
In January, I had the privilege of being a part of Columbia’s first Explorations group to visit Cuba. We spent thirteen days in the country, bouncing back and forth between Havana and Matanzas with a day in Varadero. Matanzas Evangelical Theological Seminary hosted our stay, creating a full itinerary for us. We gathered with renowned theologians and faithful lay-leaders, saw spectacular landscapes and local art, and, of course, ate delicious Cuban food. We had challenging conversations with our hosts and within our group, trying to better understand the impacts of the Cuban revolution, the Special Period (economic crisis of the 1990s), and the relationship between the United States and Cuba. These conversations continued as we returned to Decatur when our group had a reunion where we shared the individual post-trip research we had done on a topic that interested us. Being a person who feels tied to the Reformed faith, I chose to research the Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba’s 1977 Confession of Faith.
In 1974, the Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba (PRCC) commissioned a group of pastors and other leaders in the denomination to write a confession of faith. A year after the implementation of a new Cuban constitution, the PRCC adopted the 1977 Confession of Faith. This confession was the first new confession of faith to come out of a national denomination in a socialist country. The document gives a unique glimpse into what it means for the Presbyterians of Cuba to be the Church embracing socialism, using not just Marxist language, but language of the Gospel to support their stance.
I am inspired by the faith demonstrated in the confession of the Presbyterians of Cuba as it is clearly centered in Christ. Their relationship with Christ is made as crystal clear as the Caribbean waters that surround the island with an opening statement of, “The Church believes in God because it believes in the human being, and believes in the human being because it believes in Jesus Christ, the ‘Son of God,’ Our Older Brother.” For Cuban Presbyterians in the 1970s, their relationship with Christ the Older Brother called them to “place the human being in the center of [the Church’s] interest and concern.” Being in Christ meant living into sacrificial and solidary love with one another and the socialist revolution carried ideologies that they firmly believed could benefit the Church’s mission. The socialist revolution in Cuba “inaugurated a series of values in human relations that [made] it possible for the whole modern technical-scientific development to be at the service for the full dignity of the human being.”
The belief in the Cuban Church’s responsibility to be an active part of secular society is also evident in the confession of faith. This mentality, which was most popularly explored by the Reverend Sergio Arce, was relatively new for Cuban Christians at the time. Atheist state or not, it is the Church’s responsibility to be in the public sphere, living into our Brother Christ’s call to acts of solidarity to promote human dignity.
The Reverend Dora Arce Valentín, Rev. Arce’s daughter, met with us during our stay in Cuba and briefly mentioned this statement of faith and its criticisms for having Marxist language. “Every confession is based in a certain ideology,” she responded. It is too easy for someone from the United States to read the statement of faith and raise their eyebrows while referencing the knowledge we now have in the year 2020 of what the last 40 years have been like in Cuba. The confession of faith contains language that might cause American Christians to squirm or, in my case, laugh out of discomfort. There are sharp declarations of the Cuban Presbyterians’ view of capitalism, and it is not positive. Regardless, the uneasiness we might face does not give us permission to disregard it and shield our eyes from this profound testimony by our siblings in Christ.
How is my relationship with Christ? In a presidential election year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, in a season of deep unknowns, I am clinging to Christ these days. I embrace the PRCC’s affirmation that “the Church’s faithfulness to Jesus Christ ties it to its Lord’s historic commitment, a commitment of human redemption through sacrificial, solidary, and unconditional love for the human being.” We ought to follow the example of the Cuban Presbyterians in tying ourselves to Christ, serving one another in love for the sake of all humankind.
Rev. Natalie Wolf 