1. How and why did Santería first take root in Cuba?

Miguel De La Torre: Santería originated when the Yoruba people were brought from Africa to colonial Cuba as slaves and forced to adopt Catholicism. They immediately recognized the parallels existing between their traditional beliefs and the ones newly imposed on them. Both religions consisted of a high god who conceived, created, and continued to sustain all that exists. Additionally, both religions consisted of a host of intermediaries operating between the supreme God and the believers. Catholics called these intermediaries saints, while Africans called them orishas. In order to continue worshiping their African gods under the constraints of slavery, they masked their deities behind the ‘faces’ of Catholic saints, identifying specific orishas with specific saints. These gods, now manifested as Catholic saints, were recognized as the powerbrokers between the most high God and humanity.

Catholic Cuba was more conducive to preserving the faith of the orishas than was the Protestant United States. Unlike the United States, which relied on breeding their slaves, it was more cost-effective for Cubans to import replacements for those slaves worked to death. Additionally, a greater number of slaves were made available to Cuba during the nineteenth century, due mostly to the Owu and Egba civil wars and the final 1840 conquest of Oyo by the Fulani, who were members of the Muslim faith. This latter forced migration of Africans to Cuba ensured a better opportunity to preserve the orisha traditions. As late as the 1930s former slaves were still alive, remembering the religious rituals and customs of their birthplace, and transmitting that knowledge to the next generation. Hence the African culture did not diminish as rapidly as it did in the States, where the African heritage was more and more diluted and lost with each ensuring generation of slaves under Anglo rule.

Santería is comprised of an Iberian Christianity shaped by the Counterreformation and Spanish folk Catholicism, blended together with African orisha worship as it was practiced by the Yoruba of Nigeria and later modified by nineteenth-century Kardecan spiritualism, which originated in France and was became popular in the Caribbean. But while the roots of Santería can be found in Africa's earth-centered religion, in Roman Catholic Spain, and in European spiritism, it is neither African nor European. Christianity, when embraced under the context of colonialism and/or slavery, has the ability create a space in which the indigenous beliefs of oppressed groups can resist annihilation. And while many elements of Santería can be found in the religious expression of Europe and Africa, it formed and developed along its own trajectory.

2. Why is Santería growing?

Miguel De La Torre: Santería's main purpose is to assist the individual, regardless of their religious background or affiliation, to live in harmony with their assigned destiny. Hence it begins with the believer's problems, for the problem is an obstacle preventing the individual from reaching their full potential. Unlike Western religions whose starting point is an almighty, all-knowing God, Santería's point of origin is a frail, hurting person. ‘Where there is no human, there is no divinity,’ states a Yoruba proverb. The individual is the starting point of the religion, responsible for any and all actions taken — actions which produce positive or negative consequences. The basic mission of Santería is to help with the normal, everyday trials and tribulations of ordinary life, including basic problems dealing with health, love, or money. To address these physical problems, the believer turns to the spiritual world for answers and solutions.

If, after this initial problem was solved, the seeker continued to seek guidance, then, little by little, the Santería priest or priestess helps them begin to understand the powers residing behind the Catholic masks. For example, the concept of the Catholic saint Our Lady of Ransom would recede as the seeker gradually began to learn about the African orisha Obatalá. With time, the seeker would come to appreciate the image of Our Lady of Ransom as an important symbol to ease the transition into a new faith, but an image that did not maintain its usefulness in seekers' lives as they began to direct their worship toward Obatalá. In reality, they would eventually know, Our Lady of Ransom had nothing to do with resolving the seeker's first problem. But only the seeker who has matured in faith is at a level to understand better the dynamics of the spiritual realm.

This process of transition may take years, if not decades. A person who grows up Catholic and converts to Santería in adulthood, even to the point of becoming a priest or priestess, might never make the full transition from Catholicism to Santería. Such a person's worldview may be so grounded in the Catholic faith that it is impossible to distinguish between Our Lady of Ransom and Obatalá.

As the faith system of a marginalized people, under persecution throughout its history, Santería has always been an underground religion in Cuba and the United States. Only recently has it become recognized as a legitimate religion. On June 11, 1992, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the followers of Santería had a constitutional right to sacrifice animals in connection with their rituals. Although it is impossible to document the exact number of orisha worshipers, some scholars estimate that about one hundred million are identified with the religion of Santería in the Americas, of which anywhere between half a million to five million are located in the United States. If this is true, there may be more practitioners of Santería than of some of the mainline U.S. Protestant denominations. Of course, given the lack of central organization of the religion, this number could be substantially higher or lower.

3. Why is Santería so misunderstood?

Miguel De La Torre: To many in the United States' Euroamerican culture, Santería is perceived as a dangerous cult, an occult religion composed largely of sorcery and magic. Consider, for example, these remarks by Alden Tarte, a Miami lawyer who in 1987 represented a group of homeowners who wanted to shut down a Santería church in their neighborhood: ‘Santería is not a religion. It is a throwback to dark ages. It is a cannibalistic, voodoo-like sect which attracts the worst elements of society, people who mutilate animals in a crude and most inhumane manner.’

The French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu contends that ‘sorcery’ and ‘magic’ are names imposed upon the religions of those existing on the margins of society in order to disqualify them. Those who do this naming, of course, use the legitimating term ‘religion’ to refer to their own brand of sorcery and magic. For many within mainstream American society, Santería fits clearly into the former category. Yet all religions have rituals and procedures that appear normal to those within the faith but strange and foreign to those outside it. To the oppressed and marginalized who are in danger of losing their identity to that of a larger mainstream culture, mainstream religious expressions like Christianity may appear exotic if not downright threatening. Much depends on the social upbringing and physical location of the one gazing at the other's religion.

4. What are some important differences between Santería and Christianity?

Miguel De La Torre: A first-time visit to a Santería worship festival might reveal many statues of Catholic saints with candles before them as worshipers pray to the saints in Spanish. African elements may also be seen, like an African-style statue behind the door, or African-style bead necklaces around worshipers' necks, leading the casual observer to dismiss these peculiarities as some form of syncretism. For this reason, many Catholic priests who are aware of the faith see their role as correcting followers of Santería regarding their doctrinal errors so that they can reenter the official faith of the Church. Others voice harsher criticism, claiming Santería adulterates the true (mostly white) form of Catholicism. For evangelical Protestants, especially Pentecostals, Santería is a demonic cult, a form of sorcery — opposite of all that is Christian.

I believe Santería can best be understood as a different religion from Christianity, not a distorted variation of it. As a new cultural reality, can it be faithful to the Christian tradition of the Gospels as reflected in the community of Christian believers? Robert Schreiter, writing to a Catholic and liberal Protestant audience from a missionary background, provides five criteria for distinguishing Christian identity. These criteria, when taken together, are helpful in attempting to determine whether a given faith is ‘Christian.’ For a religious expression to be Christian it must first adhere to a ‘hierarchy of truth’ in which the role of Jesus as the definitive revelation of God's salvific presence in history is primary. Second, what is expressed in the faith community through worship, prayer and sacrament must express the presence of God. Third, the actions of the community must reflect a credible Christian essence. Fourth, the openness of the faith community to the judgment of other Christian churches must exist. And finally, the challenge from the faith community to other Christian churches must be present. While an argument can be made that Santería meets the second, third, and fifth criteria of Schreiter's paradigm, it would be difficult to maintain such a position for the first and fourth. The absence of Jesus playing a central role within Santería's cosmology and the arcane nature of the religion prevent it from being defined as a Christian religion. Indeed, even if it met four or five of Schreiter's requirements, it seems doubtful that a Christian designation is necessary for Santería. The faith has reached sufficient maturity to discard any syncretistic label. Such a label may have originally been helpful in elucidating Santería's genesis, but it hinders understanding it as a present-day religion. Santería expresses a worldview on its own terms.

For this reason, priests and priestesses of Santería, Catholic priests, and Protestant ministers all agree on one thing: one cannot be a Christian and a follower of Santería. They are two different religions. The idea that Santería is a syncretistic blend of Christianity and African religion is a misunderstanding, perpetuated in large part by scholars and interviewers relying too strongly on the testimonies of new believers lacking in religious depth or maturity. Santería is neither ‘confused‘ in its beliefs, nor the product of confused imagery. Priests and priestesses of the faith have always recognized the difference between their own religion and Catholicism.

5. What can Christians learn from Santería?

Miguel De La Torre: Western Christians can learn much from Santería. Three such concepts are: 1) to have a greater respect for the forces of nature, 2) to have a keener awareness of the spiritual realm, and 3) to place a greater emphasis on the importance of community.

The first concept Eurocentric Christianity can learn from Santería is the importance of nature. In a very real sense, Santería is a terrestrial religion, firmly rooted in the earth. While Western religions tend to emphasize a heavenly place, or stress the placement of the stars and planets to determine the course of human events, Santería is shaped and formed by earth-centered forces of nature. The religion teaches that the earth provides all that is needed to live a full and abundant life. Like the oceans are able to support and sustain all life that exists in its waters, so too is the earth able to support and sustain all life that exists on its land. This abundance becomes evident as we learn to live in harmony with nature. Shortages occur when we attempt to impose our own will upon the fair and natural distribution of nature's resources according to the needs of the people.

The second concept to consider is the importance played by the spiritual realm. Normatively speaking, Eurocentric Christianity places its emphasis on the ‘rational’ — a consequence of the modernity project. Correct doctrine becomes central the Christian faith. In the worldview of Santería, the physical and the spiritual worlds influence and affect each other. There is no rigid dichotomy between the two as exists within most mainline Christian doctrine. A physical illness may be the result of a spiritual misalignment; just as easily a spiritual predicament may be the outcome of incorrect or neglected actions. In either case, Santería attempts to reestablish the proper balance between the physical and the spiritual, thus restoring the believer to a state of wholeness.

The final concept to consider is the over-reliance of the Euroamerican culture on individualism which fosters at times a faith centered more on personal piety rather than communal responsibility. Santería moves away from an individualist faith by binding together like-minded individuals for the betterment of the whole. In times of crises and tragedies, or festivities and celebration, Santería functions to create community which can provide assistance or companionship. During times of persecution, Santería can serve and empower a people to survive the adversity they face.

6. How did growing up in Santería affect your faith — both as a child and now?

Miguel De La Torre: I grew up as a believer in Santería, in a home where both parents ministered to the needs of our faith community. Memories of streams of people visiting our modest apartment to consult the saints about the problems they were facing remain vivid in my mind. These individuals were mostly marginalized people, Latinos and Latinas, mainly Cubans, struggling to survive in the United States. They were Catholics, Protestants, and followers of the orishas. They came to our home expecting miracles to occur. My family and I followed the precepts of the orishas; paradoxically, I also went to Blessed Sacrament, a Catholic elementary school in Queens, New York. I took my first Catholic communion, participated in weekly confession, and was confirmed at Blessed Sacrament Church, even though at night, crowds would visit our apartment to consult the gods.

There was never any confusion in my mind, in my parents' minds, or in their congregants' minds as to the difference between what was done at the Irish church down the street and what was done in our apartment. From an early age, my parents explained that the rituals we participated in could not be revealed to the priest or the nuns because they were ‘confused’ about how God works, and if they found out that we had el conocimiento (the knowledge), I would be expelled from the school. When I asked what we were, they would reply without hesitating, as if by rote: ‘We are apostolic Roman Catholics, but we believe in our own way.’

Those of us raised in this spiritual environment survived the alienation of living in a new country because of the shared sacred space created by the tension existing between Christianity and Santería. For my family and myself, Santería became a source of comfort, community, and empowerment for those who, like us, were refugees navigating the difficulties and struggles of trying to survive and adapt to exilic life. While there was no confusion among those of us practicing Santería concerning the difference between us and the priests and nuns, still an ambiguous religiosity developed, fusing the elements of these diverse traditions in order to resist what was perceived to be the danger of assimilating into the dominant Euroamerican ethos.

As a young adult I converted to Christianity, attended seminary, and served as pastor for a Southern Baptist congregation. With the zeal of a new convert I rejected the faith of my family. But as an older Christian, I begin a reexamination of my family's faith. My goal and purpose is to discover how the faith of my childhood shaped and formed my present day faith and identity. I seek to discover the cultural significance of Santería in my religious views today.

7. How important is it to look at faith from a "native" perspective?

Miguel De La Torre: Usually scholars attempt to describe the faith of other peoples from their own perspective, one often radically different from that of the believers in terms of race, class, and so on. When this happens, even though the facts reported might be correct, the subject religion becomes an illusionary construct, often more grounded in the assumptions of the scholar than in the sociopolitical reality of the believers. This occurs when scholars attempt to superimpose their ideas of what a people, usually considered primitive, are supposed to believe based on how they practice their faith. All too often, the religion as a way of life is ignored.

If we want to understand Santería on its own terms, then we must reject any description of the religion that attempts to elucidate it only through its doctrines or beliefs. Santería is a faith system that does not consider itself prophetic, that is, as directly mandated by God. As such, it does not promulgate the type of revelatory claims made by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. While these traditional religions are as a rule slow to change their rituals or modify their beliefs (although this does occur through the reinterpretation of sacred texts), Santería unapologetically discards doctrines and rituals that cease to be relevant while absorbing new beliefs or even new gods that can enhance the lives of its followers. Unlike Western religions, Santería is an amorphous and practical religion that promises immediate, tangible power in dealing with life's hardships, power that is manifested in a variety of ways depending on the believer's situation. The focus is not on understanding the sacred forces like the orishas; rather, it is concerned with how these universal forces can be used for the betterment of humans. As a way of being and living, Santería, formed as a spiritual response to oppressive structures like slavery, developed into a symbol of protest. If we attempt to explain Santería only in terms of doctrine, we reduce the religion to a view of life, when in fact it is a way of life. This way of life has become a response against the societal forces bent on destroying the culture of the believers — a form of survival by way of cultural resistance.

Regardless of how academics attempt to describe, codify, and define Santería, in a very real sense, it exists beyond the explication of scholars. Santería must be understood by way of the everyday. Among Western religions, reality is commonly understood as two different worlds, one supernatural and ruled by metaphysical deities, and the other natural and ruled by the laws of science. Differences between sacred and secular, holy and profane, are emphasized. In the minds of the followers of Santería, such distinctions do not exist. All daily events are extraordinary and ordinary, miraculous and mundane. The common and the mystical are simultaneously normative within the life of the believer.