Finding Salvation On The Mean Streets

At the age of 12, Harold J. Recinos was homeless on the streets of New York City, abandoned by destitute immigrant parents. Dropping out of junior high school to focus all his attention on survival, he begged for money, wore the same clothing for months and lived in abandoned urban tenements, public parks and parked Greyhound passenger buses.

Harold J. Recinos, Perkins School of Theology

“My answer to rejection and the pitiful existence of street life was to become a street-grown heroin addict. I was one of the youngest junkies in the neighborhood. Shooting dope made it easier to eat food from restaurant garbage dumpsters,” he recalls.

Now a professor of church and society in Perkins School of Theology, Recinos contends that those same mean streets of the South Bronx, which he calls “a tough and crucified place,” shaped his understanding of God and later defined his approach to teaching and research as a theologian.

After four years of living on the streets of New York, Los Angeles and Puerto Rico, he met a Presbyterian minister, who took him into his home and family in the New York City area. They helped him to overcome heroin addiction and to return to school.

The minister also introduced Recinos to A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation by Gustavo Gutiérrez, a book that greatly influenced his approach to the ministry. He enrolled in the College of Wooster (Ohio), his mentor’s alma mater, and later earned a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary, a Doctor of Ministry from New York Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from American University. He was ordained in The United Methodist Church in 1986 and later served pastorates working with the homeless in New York City, Central American and African refugees, and youth gangs in Washington, D.C. He also was a professor for 14 years at Wesley Theological Seminary on the campus of American University, where he developed and directed programs for student pastors and urban ministries.

Recinos says his hard-scrabble experiences motivate his research on race, ethnicity and the effects of religion on marginalized groups in the United States; he has published numerous articles and books on the topics. He also calls upon mainline Christian churches to broaden their thinking about evangelism among the poor, particularly Latinos in the United States. In Good News From the Barrio: Prophetic Witness for the Church (Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), he writes, “By intentionally understanding and welcoming people of different cultural backgrounds into the local church, Christians undergo the transformation necessary to proclaim the gospel of a community-commanding God.”

I woke up this morning feeling sick about America
and picked up the telephone to call the equal opportunity
office in the nation’s capital responsible for writing us out
of history. America why do you hang a threat over our heads like daily bread
and keep us in the shadows cooking, cleaning, and caring for your children?
– From “Suspects” by Harold J. Recinos

Recinos infuses the theology in his books with his own poetry, a writing activity he developed years ago as a way “to remember growing up at the edges of society and the barrio’s forgotten people,” he says. As a graduate student in New York City, Recinos was befriended by the late Nuyorican poet/writer Miguel Piñero, who established the Nuyorican Poets Café in Lower Manhattan and encouraged the budding writer.

An excerpt from “Suspects,” a poem in Good News From the Barrio, reflects his efforts to capture the Latino experience and contribution to U.S. society: “I woke up this morning feeling sick about America / and picked up the telephone to call the equal opportunity / office in the nation’s capital responsible for writing us out / of history. America why do you hang a threat over our heads like daily bread / and keep us in the shadows cooking, cleaning, and caring for your children?”

His latest research is on how young people, particularly those in poor urban settings, interpret their social reality and produce their own forms of culture. Recinos is looking at the music, films, art and literature embraced by ethnic young people as a form of theological and political discourse among them. More specifically, he writes about rap and hip-hop cultures, which originated in the South Bronx, knowing that they have been subjected to fierce criticism from many parts of society and argued about in U.S. Senate hearings. “I think something good comes from rap music, and what deserves our attention are the existential concerns and material conditions expressed in this popular musical genre, which in part provides a voice of social criticism to young people,” he says.

To help his Perkins Theology students better understand the diverse society they will serve, Recinos encourages them to minister in inner-city communities in this country and to accompany him to minister to the poor in places like El Salvador.

D. Anthony Everett, a fourth-year M.Div. student in the Urban Ministry Certification program in Perkins, says that Recinos has helped “this African American man to better interpret the dialogue between the African and Latino/a worlds through theological discourse. It is further a delight to know that my professor is an avid martial artist and is willing to reach beyond the world of a traditional European-influenced theological perspective to see the significance in African, Asian and Latino views in theology. I aspire to be as generous in spirit and genuine in character as he.”

Recinos says that when his students “leave my courses with a clearer understanding of cultural diversity and a concern to act contrary to the conventions of a divided world, I find a reason to celebrate. It is my hope students will provide the church with the leadership that will deliver society to a more hopeful future.”

– Susan White