Burro Spirituality

The title of this book makes reference to the burro, Spanish for donkey, in the biblical account of Balaam's Donkey. Enticed by the lure of a better quality of life, Balaam, the prophet of God, sets out to compromise God's word, thereby misrepresenting Him. While on the road, the donkey he is riding comes to a stop when he sees the Angel of the Lord standing in the prophet's way with his sword drawn. Thinking the donkey is just being stubborn, Balaam starts beating him. The donkey asks why he is being beaten, considering he has only ever been faithful in his service to him and only has his best interest at hand. Balaam finally comes to his senses when he himself sees the Angel of the Lord.

I also served the church and its pastors in menial tasks faithfully for 25 years. But, my personal study of the Book of Romans in the context of my own struggle with identity common to the Mexican-American experience has given me insight into the impact culture has on faith and has helped me to identify and distinguish the pure gospel of Jesus Christ distilled from the ideologies of American Cultural Christianity. The book serves to reach out to the church and warn her of the dangers of misrepresenting the will of God by using the bible as support text for the purpose of establishing its notions of the kingdom of God relative to earthly, temporal, self-serving, and self-justifying agendas. This book urges the church to return to the eternal implications of faith alone in the finished work of the cross of Christ alone and let God determine how that plays out in this lifetime. Much like Balaam's donkey experienced, I also anticipate being misunderstood and suffering repercussions from the church and its leaders. But, just as Christ and the apostles gave their lives for the church, I also am prepared to make that sacrifice.

I particularly want to encourage those of us in the church of Hispanic descent and all ethnic groups not to be lured by health, wealth and prosperity doctrines or attempt to leverage a social gospel for the acquisition of political clout. My prayer is that all of us, in common, would experience our identity as having been crucified and risen with Christ here on earth, as it will be in heaven. That is God's calling on our lives and represents the literal manifestation of church. As an extension, the book is offered to anyone outside of the church in order that they may have at least been given the opportunity to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ based on its own merit.

Church doctrine limits the scope of sin to the more obvious examples of self-destructive life dominating behavioral patterns. The gospel is then reduced to a manageable system of behavioral modification. So, we're justified because we don't cuss, drink or chew or hang out with those who do. This book takes a more profound examination of the concept of sin as being our self-centered pre-occupation apart from the influence of God's Spirit and articulates the characteristics of sin as being the devices we employ in order to accomplish our self-serving agendas. This continuous self-centered orientation we call human nature is a characteristic all humanity shares in common and a condition from which we all need to be saved.

Raised in the barrio in the 50's and 60's in the Catholic faith, Bob lived a typical Mexican-American, bilingual and bicultural border town experience. Classic Mexican and American traditions and values gave way to New Age influences in the 70's, leading to a decade of drug and alcohol dependency. After a personal "Road to Damascus" experience in the early 80's, Bob became a "born-again" Christian at the tail end of the Jesus movement and the beginning of what would become the very politically driven conservative Evangelical right whose ideology he adopted. But, his personal study of Deuteronomy 30:6 along with the Book of Romans proved pivotal in redefining and personalizing his identity in Jesus Christ as distinguished from the world of American Cultural Christianity.