A touchstone of my South Texas youth was the church, as it is the case for many in this region of often deep faith.

But in my case it wasn’t the Catholic Church. I grew up Baptist, from the time I was about five to 15, a faithful Baptist was I, tagging along with my Mom and brothers to Sunday school and listening to the good reverend lay down the gospel every week. In the style and culture of where I grew up, the church I attended reflected my faith at that point, and my community as well.

My church was the Primera Iglesia Bautista,  a Rio Grande Valley church where the kids spoke mostly in English and all of the adults spoke in Spanish. Sunday school for the youth was delivered in English. The Rev’s weekly sermon was all Spanish, all of the time, no translations needed.  The kids understood every word of it while peeking glances at the wall clock, hoping the Rev. Rodriguez could finish in time before the Cowboys kicked off.

The church’s historical roots came a generation or two before mine when Mexican-American community leaders of their faith knew they needed their own church for their own people. Anglo Baptists had their church. The Mexican-Americans needed one of their own, knowing while the Anglos of that day wouldn’t exactly turn them away, they wouldn’t exactly welcome them either.  

So the Primeria Iglesia Bautistas of their day started up, mostly in the first half of the 20th Century as the Valley became a Mexican-American beacon for immigrants from the south and north and west, (with my mother’s family coming here right after World War II to escape the harshness of West Texas cultural views, among other things).

 These churches became ingrained in our communities, in our neighborhoods, in our families. As a kid, I looked at the elders of my little Baptist church as surrogate mothers, fathers and grandparents. My youthful peers and I carried absolute respect for them, whether it was la senora Perez or el hermano Ramos, they looked out for us, gave us a pat on the head or a warm embrace. It was unthinkable to show any grain of disrespect to them.

Same went for the preacher. I recall him being on the young side for having such responsiblities and bringing spirtual guidance over adults that were often a generation older than he was, but he made up for it in firmness and certitude. The Rev. Rodriguez could bring it on the pulpit. Often starting in gentle tones, his sermons would rise to a crescendo with an open Bible to his hand, yelling out the gospel and lashing out at sinners. There were more than a few times when I was sure his fierce eyes had caught mine, looking at the clock in seeing how close we were getting to the Cowboy game. Talk about serious guilt trips.

On more than a few occasions, the reverend’s words of passion would jolt me. It was fire and damnation stuff, the God is angry type of sermons that would make a kid wonder if he was headed for the fires of hell later in the week. I would bring this up to my mother now and then, wondering if maybe the preacher was laying it on too thick.

“That’s his job,” she would say. “He’s suppose to say those things to make us think.”

I thought back to my preacher with the recent flap about Barack Obama’s pastor. My Baptist pastor never lashed out at America the way Obama’s rev did, as has been shown endlessly on Fox News, so they can remind all of their conservative viewers just how scary it would be to have a black president. But my guy did say some pretty strong stuff in his own right. And in the hallways and corridors of my church, I didn’t always over hear the nicest of things from adults about the Anglos across town who were praising Jesus in a bigger and nicer church.

But we didn’t quit the church - and didn’t quit the preacher either. Like African-American churches, my iglesia bautista  served its purpose, bounding together faith with community, spirtuality with the culture of our families. Barack Obama wouldn’t disown his pastor or his church even if he vehemently disagreed with some of the things he heard. Same goes here. I would never disown the church of my youth or the reverend who would thunder things that to this day I find to be over the top. But it was my church, my community, my little slice of America.

“We’ve had pastors I haven’t agreed with, but I didn’t stop going to church,” said Deborah Parish, 57, of Fayetteville, N.C., in an interview with NBC after the Obama-pastor flap broke. “I’m not going for the pastor. I’m going for the soul.”

The Rev. Rodriguez looked out for my soul, and as he would say, condemn the sin and love the sinner.

Joaquin Tijerina, Official Chisme Blogger