Theology in the Raw - What (actually) Is Liberation Theology? Dr. Jules Martinez

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Dr. Jules Martinez-Olivieri is a theologian, practitioner, and author focusing on the intersection of social, pastoral, and systematic theology. Jules holds an MDiv and PHD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has taught in Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Perú, and the United States seminaries and universities. Martínez's ecclesial experiences include pastoral ministry, church planting, and community development. He is author of A Visible Witness: Christology, Liberation and Participation (Fortress). In this conversation, Jules gives a solid and thoughtful overview of liberation theology. What it is. What it isn't. The historical roots. The intersection between theology and economic theory. Why do many forms of liberation theology have Marxist leanings and are anti-capitalistic? Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology. Rob. My guest today is the one and only Dr. Jules Martinez, Olivia, Eddie, man. I can't believe I got that right. Uh, he's a theologian practitioner and author focusing on the intersection of social pastoral and systematic theology. He's got an M. Div and a PhD from Trinity evangelical divinity school has taught in Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Peru, and the United States, States, several different seminaries and universities, including North Park Seminary. Oh, where else did he teach? He taught at Ted's, Trinity, even Jungle Divinity School and several other schools.

He brings his ecclesial experience, including pastoral ministry, church planning and community development to bear on his scholarship. And he is the author of the book, A Vis witness, Christology, liberation and participation in this con and this podcast conversation. I brought Jules on to talk, to help us understand what is liberation theology. He is an expert in this area. And I absolutely enjoyed this really engaging conversation. This dude is brilliant and he's able to bring together

many different disciplines in a way that's both clear and compelling. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Dr. Jules Martinez-Olivieri. ["Dreams of a New World"] Jules, so we hung out about a month ago in Denver. I've known about you from a distance and finally got a chance to hang out unexpectedly. We're in this small room with a bunch of pastors together and also like, Hey, you're like the jewels. That was loads of fun, man. But we

just got going. Okay. So just for our, like we were just started to get in immediately talking all kinds of theology, politics. And quickly I learned that you, you have, I kind of, I mean, if I could say like an expert in liberation theology, and I've always, you know, growing up, you hear about these things from a distance and you always have this kind of like perception of what that is out there. You know, for me, it was like all millennialism out there, egalitarian out there. Okay. Kind of everything was out there, you know, but what, what are the boogeyman things was, you know, liberation theology, the, just kind of like massively distorted kind of view

of reading the Bible, that's super liberal Marxist and all this stuff. But then as I've dabbled just in talking to people with the year, I think I might, I don't know. I think maybe a little bit more to it than that. So I was stoked to talk to you, somebody who is evangelical, went to, you know, Trinity evangelical divinity school and yet, you know, has studied liberation theology. So, so let's just start what, one-on-one, what is liberation theology? And I'm sure there's probably a lot of diversity even within that kind of framework, but give us, give us an intro to it. Yeah, sure. So it is important to know that I grew up in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean,

and that provides me a kind of a live experience and location where we find some of the discussions in the North. By the North, I mean United States, Canada, kind of Western Europe, and then Latin America. We are right there because of our socio-political context at the very middle of the discussion. So I grew up knowing and with the language of Jesus is my savior, Jesus is the king, Jesus is the sanctifier, Christian mission and alliance, so it's a holiness tradition, et cetera. So growing up, I grew up with certain sensibilities towards theologies that were done in Latin America and then theologies that were done in the North. So by the time I'm doing former scholarship, my approach doesn't carry some of the baggage that theological movements and discussions in the United States carry. I say that because

when we talk about liberation theology, we carry a lot of contextual baggage into the discussion. The concerns, the fears, the criticisms, or even the observations that are done in one latitude are not the same as the observations that might be done in another latitude of the world. So liberation theology is not one mode of doing theology, but it's actually a theological movement that crosses denominational and tradition lines. So, you can find that among Roman Catholics, among Protestants, among evangelicals. And by evangelical, I need to clarify that when the vocabulary of evangelical is used in the United States is different than what is used in Latin America. There are convergences, for example,

when we say in Latin America, Evangelico, or Evangelico, we converge with the North in terms of the solace of the Reformation, for example. So the solace of the Reformation, the priority of a devotional personal life, the priority of having a kind of a mission orientation, where you preach the gospel for conversion for the growth of the church, where there is an expectation that there is a before and an after. Yes, those elements are there. The centrality of Scripture, the centrality

of the work of Christ. That emphasis, that is right there. The centrality of scripture, the centrality of the work of Christ, that emphasis, that is right there. But evangelicals in Latin America do not necessarily share the political conservatism that is done in the North. And the battles between fundamentalism and liberalism, from which evangelicalism basically emerged in the United States. So that in itself provides a different sensibility to the movement. So being evangelical in Latin America, okay, yeah, that makes sense actually. It allows for different political viewpoints that might not be accepted in a traditional United States evangelical context.

Yeah. In the United States, you have a certain political culture of evangelicalism that identifies more or less with one political party because of the two-party political system here. But in Latin America, there is no two-party political system here. But in Latin America, there is no two-party political system in the majority of the countries. In order for one political party to win, for example, in Guatemala, there has to be a coalition of multiple parties to see who can get there, and deals, and all kinds of negotiations and diplomacy has to be met. So when we think about liberation theology is not one thing that looks the same,

it is more of a movement that yes, emerges from Roman Catholic quarters and priests and base communities, impoverished communities that were trying to read scripture and making sense of it in light of very specific, inhumane, impoverished, warren-torn context. Those concerns were also shared by emerging Protestant communities. And we're talking here about the 1960s.

Okay. I was going to ask you if there's a historical general starting point to what we would now call liberation. So the 1960s are key for that. You might remember that the 1960s are key for a lot of people and a lot of regions. In the United States, the 1960s, we have the Civil Rights Movement.

And we're still in the Cold War. Right. So the Cold War, after the Second World War, and then all the way through the end of the Berlin Wall, you have this conflict between the new world order of the emerging nations that emerge victorious and the losers, right? You have the superpower, the United States, and then you have the other claims to superpower, basically, the Soviet Union. And they have two economic systems. One is proposing global capitalism, the other is proposing global socialism. One is proposing liberal democracy and the other is proposing a socialist one party democracies, which are basically totalitarian regimes,

so Russia and China. So those discussions, they filter down into theological discussions. So when evangelicals and Protestants, classical Protestants and Roman Catholics in Latin America in the late 60s are talking about how to do theology, what we have is theologians and church leaders in the North looking at what's happening in Latin America and trying to discern what is Orthodox and not Orthodox, not only based on doctrinal issues, but it is based on how can you are, how are you associated with what's happening politically in the Cold War? Were most liberation theologians or movements within liberation theology, would they be more anti-capitalism? And I wonder, and if that's true, would that be connected with

colonialism? Like I'm just thinking of like, um, Guatemala 1954, when the United States helped overthrow a democratically elected leader in one of its many us back regime changes. It was dev it was, it was terrible on the economy. Like, and it was a, the leader they overthrew was trying to Institute reforms, economic reforms in Guatemala. That was basically throwing off the yoke of an American back company that were the American company that the United fruit company that was just, I mean, basically taking loads of money and just funneling. I mean, it was horrible. It was totally oppressed, oppressive. And I could, so I can imagine that the perception of the populace was here's this capitalistic colonial country that is oppressing us. We have a leader trying to fight back. He gets

overthrown by the, so it's kind of like a double whammy of it's like a double slap in the face from colonialism, which is associated with capitalism. So whatever you think about capitalism in this instance, it would be perceived as intertwined with oppression, right? I mean, I don't want to correct me if I'm wrong along the way. So different, different expressions of capitalism, globalizing capitalism that was emerging in the 1960s, were very tied to imperialism. And the way in which the United States wanted to establish its absolute homogenous power in the Americas by getting it rid of any kind of communism or socialist discourse. Remember Cuba is there in the Caribbean as a kind of a signpost of the Soviet power and potential influence. The Cuban revolution is happening. You have

all these elements happening, revolutionary movements that are against imperialism, but the option to imperialism is to seek the help of the enemy of my enemy, you know, is my friend of the Soviet power. Now, in order to make sense of what was happening financially and the kind of imperialism that was perceived from the United States happening in Latin America, including the support of certain dictatorships and things like that, you have theologians who are talking with sociologists and they're saying the only way that we can, that theology can speak to these matters

on a liberating mode that is seeking those conditions that will foster human dignity and will fight corruption. And the only whole relationship of our countries with the superpower is to adopt a frame of a theoretical framework that would allow us to critique the structures of capitalism. And what was a theoretical framework? Well, Marxism. So Marxist theory and its economic orientation became an analytical tool to critique forms of capitalism, despite Marxism being philosophically,

explicitly against the Christian religion or religiosity in general, because it sees it as promoting submission to reality instead of transformation to reality. So many theologians will say, putting submission to reality instead of transformation to reality. So many theologians will say, okay, how do we analyze reality in order to speak to it theologically? We need the help of the social sciences in the same way that philosophy was the handmaiden

of theology in medieval theology, Christian theology, then sociology should allow us to read reality, because we're not only trying to change the condition of the impoverished masses of the world, the mercy, works of mercy, or charity, we're trying to change the very structures, the logics, the economic conditions and political structures that perpetuate those conditions. And at that moment in the 60s and 70s, they thought, well, the closest thing to a strong critique of these structures will be Marxism. You can imagine how that came through or came across evangelical theologians here in the United States. Because the gag reflect is that's atheism, that's left socialism, and socialism equals devil. Whereas implicitly, capitalism, the emerging capitalism in the 60s equals the will of God

and human flourishing. So the logic of persecution here, you remember that in the United States, there were all kinds of FBI investigations against any kind of revolutionary movement. In the United States, you have James Cone in the 60s emerging with Black theology of liberation. And even MLK and others were accused of being communist and socialist because they found some kind of analytical way of making sense or critique, you know, capitalism, et cetera. And they saw how the very structures that were trying to surpass racism, segregation, et cetera, were built

upon logic of economic privilege to some and oppression to others. Now, liberation theologians, obviously, they did not adopt the atheism that was built on some of the presuppositions of Marxism. They will actually critique it explicitly. They will identify the limits of Marx's theoretical analysis of capitalism, but they thought what is the alternative? Capitalist theory does not allow us, they thought, to critique the system from within. Because the system is absolutely self-referential and it justifies itself. So if you have the first generation of theologians, Gustavo Gutierrez, who published, you know, a liberation theology in 1973. James Cone published his black theology

a few years before. And so, Gustavo Gutierrez is a Peruvian indigenous Quechua priest. And in Brazil, you have Rubem Alves from the Presbyterian tradition, publishing his dissertation done in Princeton around the same dates. And that dissertation was entitled, A Theology of Human Hope, even though originally he wrote in it that it was a theology of human liberation. So you have different forms, different traditions trying to make sense of the sufferings, political, economic, and social that were happening in Latin America, and pointing fingers to some of the sufferings, political, economic, and social that were happening in Latin America, and pointing fingers to some of the structure of evils that they thought that the imperialism the United States had was committing. So you see that there is already at the ministry

level, you find lots of theologians who identify as evangelical criticizing the emerging liberation theology in Latin America as unorthodox. Now, the concern, I see the concern, of course, the problem is that the majority of these liberation theologians, Gustavo Utiere, nobody can call him unorthodox. If by orthodoxy, we mean that they confess the importance of the Council of Nicaea, for example, the Council of Chalcedon, you know, kind of the first seven ecumenical councils, doctrine of the Trinity, Christology, humanity and divinity, the neumatology, doctrine of the church, you know, the restoration of all things. I mean, they affirmed it as classical Roman Catholics, and yet they were saying when the Christian discourse, Christian theology speaks to the world and doesn't take the concerns of the

impoverished masses who are dying literally of the consequences of all kinds of policies, it becomes an irrelevant discourse. And even if it is orthodox, it becomes idolatrous because it becomes self-referential despite of what's happening in the world. So there you go with the modifier liberation theology, a mode of doing theology in which the oppressions experienced in the world, whether it is by class, politics, imperialism, racism, gender, sexual violence, all kinds of oppressions, are coordinated in a way that we're looking at them and saying, all Christian doctrines should be

capable of addressing those issues in a critical way in order to foster and encourage Christian praxis. Pete So, there's nothing, I mean, so theologically, it's orthodox. Is there anything in the general theology of, and again, I'm sure there's diversity of thought, but Is there anything in the general theology of, and I'm sure, again, I'm sure there's diversity of thought, but is there anything that stands out on a strictly theological level that would be, say, more liberal? I mean, maybe it's, yeah, I don't know. Is there- Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So following the influence of some political theologians in Europe, some of the liberation theologians like Gutierrez and Sobrino, they went to Europe to have their PhDs. They were in dialogue

and in tension with some of the political theologians like Jürgen Moltmann, for example. So the immediate concern was whether a focus on the experience of liberation embedded in historical processes, whether that focus did not disseminate divine transcendence and the transcendent aspect of the faith that is in favor of imminent action. What is happening right now, there is so much focus on the historicity of action that it loses focus on the transcendent elements of the kingdom of god if we're going to talk about the reign of god in history. Okay, so the kingdom of god is both now and not yet. Would they maybe emphasize one might even say overemphasize the now where justice. Yes, so they were. the now where justice, justice is all right here. And now rather than longing, lamenting the evil in the world now, hoping, waiting for God to return that kind of eschological focus might have been less emphasis emphasize, but

that doesn't strike me as I wouldn't call that liberal. I mean, that's, that's, uh, I mean, a lot of American charismatics would have the same kind of like kingdom now. The fact that they would. Yeah. The fact that they would. So what happened was that you have some liberation theologians that would say that the kingdom of God is supposed to be an utopia, achievable via human action. This utopia is, in the ministry of Jesus, is given to the disciples, to Jesus and Jesus himself, as a way of establishing a new kind of society whereby the political and the social and the economic is eradicated from the very structures

that promote evil. The thing is that you have some liberation theologians that will say that the kingdom of God is not a transcendent future reality. It's only something that we can achieve now. So that issue put them, first of all, at odds with Roman Catholic theology too. A second issue was that the emphasis on Jesus' humanity was seen by many a Roman Catholic, particularly people like John Sobrino, who was the main Christologist in the 1980s and 90s. The concern was that the emphasis of the humanity of Jesus and human practice was so strong

that it became a threat to affirming his divinity, his transcendent mysterious aspect. So somehow, that somehow calcid on me. The confession of human, the mystery of the unity between humanity and divinity in Jesus, in the one person of Jesus, was threatened. And Jesus Sobrino and Leonardo de Boff, who was a Brazilian, they received notifications from the Roman Catholic Magisterium and that meant warning letters and censorship

that they should shut up until their positions are clarified. There was a lot of back and forth, particularly in the 90s with these notifications. Many Protestants and evangelicals in the North say, you see our concerns, even the Roman Catholics are condemning these liberation delusions. They were not excommunicated. There was more a request to clarify that they don't actually do affirm Calcedon, et cetera.

And Sabrina will say, yeah, no, I do affirm it, but we are at the limit of language here. And so much has been written about that. I don't feel compelled to write more about it. So that was their defense. Hey, Franz, can I be honest with you about something? I really don't like sharing my faith. I don't. It makes me nervous.

I get all sweaty and anxious and I feel like I'm just going to turn people away from Christianity if I open my mouth. This is why I was super nervous to read Preston Perry's new book, How to Tell the Truth, but I'm so glad that I did. Preston, the other Preston, he's so passionate about sharing his faith and he's really good at it, but he doesn't shame people or make people feel guilty if evangelism doesn't come naturally. Instead, in his book, How to Tell the Truth, Preston talks about all the mistakes he's made over the years,

and then offers some really super helpful tips on how to share your faith effectively. Like, he tells us to lead with genuine curiosity about the other person. Don't just jump in and try to win an argument, embody the love of Christ toward the person to show that you care more about them than simply showing them how wrong they are. So if you want to become a better evangelist,

or even if you don't want to, the fact is you probably do need to, I highly, highly recommend reading Preston Perry's new book, How to Tell the Truth, because sharing our faith is not about winning arguments, it's about winning hearts. Hey friends, if theology in Iran has blessed or challenged you in any significant way, would you consider supporting the show financially?

You can do so through Patreon at patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. All the information is in the show notes. You can support the show for as little as five bucks a month. And in doing so, you get access to all kinds of different premium content. And most of all, you just get access to the theology in the raw community. We have all kinds of awesome chats and messages back and forth. And it just, it means the world to us that you support the show as the show has grown. So have all the expenses and all the work that goes into pulling it off. So again, if you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash

theology raw. And I just want to thank my, uh, the people that are already supporting the show. Thank you so much for keeping this show not only going, but also thriving. So, patreon.com forward slash theologyinirac. So, really on paper, they affirmed Chalcedon. They just emphasized the humanity of Jesus as that aspect of Christ kind of really fit into their overall theology of liberation. So wasn't it? The main liberation theologians, you can find all the liberation theologians that, let me give you three movements. One movement is the liberation theologians who want to work within the Christian tradition, within a broad, broadly confessional orthodoxy and then reframe every doctrine to see what's

the liberating potential. The second movement are those that are moving towards the fringes of Christianity. They want to keep using kind of a Christian terminology, but they feel they work more at the ecumenical, more pluralistic, inter-tradition way in which you can...they don't feel that they are compelled to hold to Christian orthodoxy per se, but they want to still speak about Jesus, God, Spirit, Church, and a future utopia that you might call the eschatological future. And then you have a third movement of liberation theologians who consider themselves post-Christian. They don't feel any obligation at all to identify as Christians, but they work with more ecumenical, religious, pluralistic categories. And there might be post-Christian or they might be just working with Jewish liberation

theology, a Palestinian liberation theology, an Islamic liberation theology. So they will take some intuitions and they take them to other traditions. The first and major liberation theologians that I've mentioned, Gustavo Tierra, Sobrino, which they're all still alive, they consider themselves Christians at the first and second level. They're working from within the tradition. They don't consider themselves post-Christians. Even though you can make the argument that some of their intuitions, because it's so historical, so imminent, that their criticism or traditional doctrines that might end up in a post-Christian position, well, you can

make that argument, but it's not necessarily how they self-identify. That's helpful. So those three different, it sounds like the third one, they would almost prioritize liberation over anything. They might utilize the Christian tradition in as much as it serves their liberation causes. The second one seems kind of in between a little bit. And then the first one, what you said is a found that that's the, those are the primary kind of fathers or gurus of liberation theology as a whole would be very much in Orthodox Christianity.

Yeah. I mean, and, and the thing is that their language. So, so you have Leonardo who wrote Trinity in society. And this is one of the first proposals to move strongly towards a social model of the Trinity after Moltmann, et cetera. But Boff is a panentheist too. So he will call it also Christian panentheism in the same way that Moltmann called his Trinitarianism Christian panentheism. But what it saw, so I, I'm, I'm just, whenever I hear terms like that, I just immediately just say, well, explain what you mean by that. Cause some people can be so turned off by terms or that's Marxist or this is, you know, to this day and age, that's woke or whatever, you know, it's like, Oh, well, what do you tell me what you mean? Because I would imagine

panentheism can be defined various ways. I mean, is it just saying God is all in all? You know, you have scriptural language that in and of itself, somebody could take in that direction, I think. Maybe unpack what panentheism can and doesn't, can and couldn't mean. Can and couldn't. Yes. So, when you think about Hinduism, for example, the word pantheism comes to mind.

Pan meaning all or holy and theism meaning God. So, God is all. That is, everything that exists is undifferentiated from divinity. Everything is divine. There is no one subject that we can call God as the creator. There is no creator creation. So that's clearly not. That's yeah, that's really not right. Um, but then you have panentheism. So which is got in everything through everything in a way in which even though there might be a slight creator-creation distinction, somehow in the being of God, creation is part of God's being

in a way that affects everything that God is. So there are different forms of this. Some people talk about process theism. God is even saying that the world evolves and changes, God evolves and changes. For Gerard Moltmann, it was a way of him trying to not separate the world from the being of God and the sufferings of the world from the love of God in light of how do we do theology after Oswich, right, after the horrors of genocide. So part of his solution is to see that the world's pains are within God's being. And he gets there Christologically via Jesus. His focus is on the cross, the abandonment,

etc., and how God assumes to God's self the suffering of the world, so that suffering is embedded within the being of God. And that's one way in which you can answer the theodicy question, where was God in the middle of genocide? Well, and Multman's no joke of a theolo, just in case people, I've only dabbled very briefly, but I, I Richard Bacom is probably my favorite new Testament scholar. And he's a huge Montmont fan. I mean, he, you know, what's what Montmont's book God crucified or crucified God, whatever. Yeah. Bult crucified God. So Bacom wrote God crucified and kind of took his theology in a certain direction. But yeah, that, that I, for me, this a real

like not non-negotiable would be maintaining a strong creator creation distinction. But the, the way you are unpacked, like still wanting a high view of God still deeply, deeply involved to the extent of suffering with creation. I'm just thinking of several passages that, that, that, that passages that tie those together. The suffering of the world isn't often some distant quarter from God's existence, you know. So, I appreciate kind of where they're trying to maybe emphasize something, even if they might go a little further than I would. I don't know. But yeah, what do you think? You're the theologian, how should we

think through this? So, so, so, so Moldman will say, hey, you know, I'm not collapsing the identity of the Creator with the creation, that will be another religion. But we have to say that mysteriously creation, the created order, the experience of reality as we know it is not outside of the being of God, if God is to be involved with it. He will critique and he will say in his mind, if we want to maintain some kind of ontological distinction between the being of God and the being or the structures of the world, the ontology of the world, he will say, that sounds more to me like Greek mythology.

That's a Hellenistic impulse. He will go back to the hard neck. You have this criticism that many Christian views of God were influenced strongly by some philosophical categories from Greek philosophy, immutability, the God is the unmoved mover. Yeah, I never was into that. There's a lot of good responses to that, but I'm just saying that Moldman goes through that line. And then in Latin America, you have Leonardo Buff saying the Trinity is a society. So in a social model of the Trinity, and our societies in the world should emulate the equality and mutual indwelling and mutual integrity of the person should emulate it. That's the core of the liberationist movement is the emulation of God's being for the world. Interesting.

Uh, so, so they want to anchor the liberation movement, uh, its values in the very being of God. So that's why, um, then Leonardo will appeal to the doctrine of God, answering his critics that somehow, uh, the liberation intuition is only historical and doesn't care about ontology or transcendence. So that's his way of responding to that. That's helpful. And yeah, so obviously there's a lot of sophisticated lines of theological reflection here that we can get lost in the weeds in. I want to come back to, this is again, I'm going way back, back in time in my own journey, where it kind of one of the critiques of liberation theology that

I just remember kind of being in the air of my Christian tradition is, you know, it's the liberation theology is all about like material justice, you know, economic restoration, all this stuff that's like maybe good, but where is quote unquote spiritual salvation, you know, getting people saved forgiveness of sins, right? With God, you know where I, and I, you know, I think people would say, well that that's gone too far, right? To where it's like, people don't care about just saving souls and God's going to burn this creation anyway. So there just seems to be some reactions and counter reactions here. But, but if we found that kind of sweet, I hate the word balance,

but like that, that, that, that holistic maybe vision where it is a both and we're figurative of sins being right with God is a huge value of the gospel obviously, but so is a huge value of the gospel, obviously, but so is addressing injustices in the world and seeing structures of evil and pursuing justice and dismantling structures of evil. So it's both and. Would the, I guess maybe the forerunners, the fathers of liberation theology, would they see that both and or in your opinion, do they go too far in the kind of materialistic? Yeah. I think that he, the work of Gustavo Udiereski, and I think he responds well to this. So for example, I'm going to, I'm going to read, I'm just going to quote him, you know, when he's talking about sin, for example, and this is in his book of liberation theology, he says, sin is not only an impediment to salvation in the afterlife, insofar that

it constitutes a break with God, but sin is also a historical reality. It is a breach of communion with persons with each other. It is a turning in of individuals on themselves, which manifests itself in a multifaceted withdrawal from others, he says. And because sin is a personal and social intra-historical reality that is part of our daily lives as human beings, it is above all an obstacle to everyone's life. And he goes on to say, Sin, therefore, is regarded as a social and historical fact, the absence

of fellowship and love amongst persons, a breach of friendship with God and other persons, and a personal fracture with everything that exists. Sin is most evident, he will say, is most evident in oppressive structures. The root of a situation of injustice and exploitation lies in the structures that perpetuate those. Therefore, sin, in his words, demands a radical liberation that is both personal and collective. I mean, I... Sounds beautiful, man.

I'm trying to find something wrong with that. Yeah, yeah, but... Yeah. And then he goes and he says, the work of Christ is a new creation. In this sense, Paul speaks of a new creation. He cites Galatians and Corinthians and Romans and he goes all over. So this is fairly orthodox. But in his focus and liberation theologians, they will strongly focus on the structural dimensions of sin. And often, it is hard to find in some of their works, the personal dimension that originates,

that is at the core of, well, we are the human beings that produce these systems. What is the aspect of conversion? Where does conversion here lie? Where is the gospel that is preached towards repentance? They will say, yes, yes, we all need to repent. But the focus is so much on the structures that the criticism comes for some writers, not necessarily for Gutierrez, because he's very explicit, but for example, for Sorino and Buff, but what is conversion?

I mean, what is personal moral sin? And they will, they will nod to it and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but much has been written on that. Why, why should I keep writing on that? And remember, they are Roman Catholics too. So they depend also, or they assume a notion of a baptized continent. So in Roman Catholicism, the theology of baptism, you were baptized, uh, original sin is eradicated from your life. And now you are part of the church, the visible church. Um, so I don't need to be preaching to you conversion within the logic of Roman Catholicism, uh, because you were baptized.

Right. Okay. Uh, I mean, the whole point about like emphasizing something, we all do that, dude. I mean, I mean, just to pick any kind of movement or anybody, like if you're super into like pro life and that's your thing, like people could say, yeah, but what about all the dark side of say the Republican party or what about the military industrial complex or, or people that are more focused on like American foreign policy. And that's their passion. It's like, yeah, but what about pro life? Like, I agree with that, but there's people fighting that bad or, you know, a new Testament professors. Don't you care about the old test? Well, yeah, but then my focus is on the new test. But

anytime you focus on one thing, which almost every human is going to have one thing that they get really passionate about, that doesn't mean they don't care about the other things. It just means they're trying to emphasize something they see has been neglected maybe in the Christian world that they are living in, in that particular time. Is that fair? I mean, yeah, for sure. For sure. Now, I don't want to also, you know, probably the main distinction here is that, so why am I not a liberation theologian in that sense? First of all, I'm not Roman Catholic. And I think that the core of this is that I'm a Protestant. And the classical distinctions

between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are still there, whether it's the view of grace and nature, the sacraments, the view of justification and sanctification, the view of the hierarchy between scripture, tradition, reason, et cetera. We have all kinds of distinctions, and they're there. But there is also the issue that because of my Protestant instincts, I want to be more explicit that at the core of societal change is conversion. That is, we don't have, this is a posture of faith, we don't have the sufficient capacity to battle our own ideologies in such a way that we can simply battle to change the structure of oppression. And because of my doctrine of sin, I doubt that even if we change the structural oppression, that we would not end up duplicating the oppressions with other structures.

I mean, it's kind of, it's not kind of the, the, uh, I wish I had my buddy, ed Yuzinski here to correct me on my analysis of Marxism, which I know basically nothing about. And he knows everything about, isn't that kind of, so let me speak freely. You, you correct me or whatever you like, like, isn't that the kind of folly of Marxism? Like, I mean, when we see Marxism actually at work, you end up having the same kind of elite and non-elite, the people, the top oppressing the lower, like, has it hasn't full blown Marxism led to the death of millions and millions of innocent people? I mean, so whatever the system, when you have sinful humans at the top, it's the ring of power, right? If I could hold the ring of power, I will use it for good. It's like, no, use the, anybody grasped that

ring of power is going to end up using it for evil. And so whatever the root issue isn't necessarily the economic structure, although you can say one's worse than the other, what you know, but like, yeah, I don't know. Or like when, you know, in the case of Marxism, of course, uh, you, it was married though. This is not a logical necessity to totalitarian regimes. So there is no, I don't think that there is a logical necessity in that. It's correlation, not causation. The Marxist ideology doesn't cause that. But every time it is it every time is it is there is there example of a Marxist regime when Marxism did win the day that led to a lot more peace and justice and Well, well, Marxism was was married with philosophical materialism. And then you have to add a system

of government because Marxism is not a system of government. It's an economic theory, particularly. That offers why criticism to make a sense of why is it that society is organized at the level of classes. So at the core of that is economic organization, which economic organization, economists will say is about human relations. Human relations is about exchange. So the powers that are established in those exchanges, Marxism

will say, you see, that kind of power needs to be held by the proletariat, right? The people. Now, whether that is actually what's happening, and you have other examples of totalitarian regimes adopting that, that's something else. But many liberation delusions who were on the first wave of Marxism or they go to a neo-Marxist modified versions of it, they don't want a Marxist state. What they're thinking is socialist democracies. And when you're thinking is socialist democracies. And when you're thinking about socialist democracies, at least right now, first of all, it's utopian. They're not necessarily fully, fully social democracies, but you have social democracy

structures within Western Europe. All the countries that we like to visit on vacation. So they have structures that are social democracies features. The same issue is tied also with capitalism. Does capitalism necessarily has a system in which in order to produce capital, it has to impoverish, it has to have a class of poor people. Is it embedded in the system that you have to have people on the top and people at the bottom?

Then how do you maintain the system? Well, you need the political structures to maintain that kind of economic flow so that the ones in the bottom produce the large amounts so that the ones in the top can subsist in a way that there is the increase of capital. But you have different forms of capitalism. You have an idealistic form that says, you know, with the capital and all the classes working, there is an uplift of everyone. But governments, in order to establish in other parts of the world the kind of global capitalism that they want, then you need political domination in order to do that.

And political domination for many theologian sociologists is, what do you do that via imperial logic? This episode is brought to you by Mitopure by Timeline. Timeline is a Swiss-based life science company and is a global leader in Urolithian A research. Okay, so I've recently been learning about Urolithium A. Urolithium A is a powerful postbiotic that is nearly impossible to get just from your diet alone. Mitopure is the first product to offer a precise dose of Urolithium A to upgrade your mitochondrial function, increase cellular energy, and improve muscle strength and endurance. One way to think about

Mitopure is that they are little like Pac-Men for you JetXers, Pac-Men in your cells, chomping up the damaged mitochondria that makes you feel old and tired and recycling it into new healthy ones. According to Timeline, taking two soft gels a day for two months results in significant improvements in your cellular energy, muscle strength and endurance. After four months of taking Mitopure,

you'll feel yourself getting stronger, recovering faster after a workout and experiencing less inflammation. Now, Timeline is offering a 10% off discount of your first order of Mitopure. If you go to timeline.com forward slash theology and use the code theology. You'll get 10% off your order.

That's timeline, T-I-M-E-L-I-N-E dot com forward slash theology to take advantage of this offer. Go check it out. Hey friends, my book, Exiles, the Church in the Shadow of Empire is out now. I am so excited and a bit nervous about the release of this book. This is a topic I've been thinking about for many, many years and finally put pen to paper to write out all my thoughts. Specifically, I'm addressing the question what is a Christian political identity? As members of Christ's global, multi-ethnic, upside-down kingdom scattered across the nations, how should

we as members of that kingdom think through and interact with the various nations that we are living under? So the book is basically a biblical theology of a Christian political identity. We look at the nation of Israel, we look at the exile of Israel, we look at several parts of the New Testament,

the life and teaching of Jesus, several passages in the book of Acts, the letters of Paul, do a deep dive into 1 Peter in the book of Acts, the letters of Paul, do a deep dive into 1 Peter and the book of Revelation, and then explore some contemporary points of application. So I would highly encourage you to check out my book, Exiles, and would love to hear what you think. Whether you hate the book, love it, or still think it through it, I would love to hear

what you think by dropping a review on Amazon or, I don't know, post a blog, just, you know, rip it to shreds. I don't know, post a blog, just, you know, ripping it to shreds. I don't really care. I would love for you to just wrestle with this really important topic in this really volatile political season that we're living in. The problem was that Marxism was adopted by totalitarianly minded totalitarian regimes. So that's what the main problem was, not necessarily in the economic system.

It's not like the economic system intrinsically leads to totalitarianism. It's just that these totalitarian regimes that were reacting against capitalism adopted Marxism. And same thing, like the problem might not be necessarily the economic theory of capitalism, but the kinds of imperialistic nations that have adopted that. Would that be an accurate summary of what you're saying? Yeah. That will be the perception of many liberation theologians that will say also, yeah, we were too naive in thinking that an analysis of class was sufficient to explain via theory of dependence of the imperial powers and the majority world,

or colonized, etc. And that's why now you have post-colonial and decolonial theories of framework that are hybrids, that they're trying to account, provide an account that is not strictly economical, but that it, that it goes to every level of what they identify as domination. Because you have economical domination, imperial, militaristic, philosophical, cultural, et cetera. Um, and they're saying, yeah, it's more complex than what we thought. Cause so, okay. I would, you've been summarizing a lot of stuff as the good theologian that you are, but you're sure you also have opinions. As you think through theology, economics,

politics, what kind of system do you think for lack of better terms, maybe best represents kind of what Christian should be supportive of in the world or, or yeah, I'm not sure that's the best way to frame it, but what do you, what do you, what's your thought on all this? Like, so, so this is an area in which I don't have a strong conviction. Uh, I, I, it's easier to say what I don't want to see, uh, that what I want to see. But if I were to put it positively, I think that hybrid systems in which liberal democracies

have economies that have regulated forms of capitalism with social democracy intuitions is probably the best we can do at the moment. People can criticize some of the policies of universal healthcare, high taxes in Europe, et cetera, but the quality of life and the level of empowerment is something that we need to keep an eye on. If my social democracy or my strictly overall capitalism does not have the capacity to include the people who have been historically marginalized economically, financially, et cetera, then there is something wrong

with the system, deeply wrong. So I think that system should have the flexibility embedded with them in order to modify that. That's why some people will talk about humanistic capitalism. Because they're trying to get away from the raw, savage impressions of it, giving some models, right? One of the things I, with capitalism, I, I, again, this is not my, I did dabble it in kind of a theology of economics. This is probably like 10, 12 years ago. I just got on this kick of really, and I really started as my, my, I, as I was teaching the old Testament, I just saw there's so much in the old Testament of economics. And you start talking about

the year of Jubilee and the, and the seven year, you know, Sabbath. And there's so much in the old Testament of economics. And you start talking about the year of Jubilee and the, and the seven year, you know, Sabbath. And there's so many things in the old Testament that have to do with God's land and economics. And I was like, man, this seems to be pretty pervasive. So I don't know. I got on this kick and then started dabbling in like modern economic theory, but nothing more than dabbled. But I, I, is it true that pure capitalism will thrive? The greedier people are like is, is greed a fuel to the engine of capitalism? And if that's true, I just see that as profoundly problematic from a basic Christian perspective, but maybe that's an overly simplistic view of it. Sure, sure. But it is one of the criticisms from social democratic theory and even from

some forms of Marxism that philosophically, capitalism is dependent on greed, on the notion of wanting more. Some people will say, well, greed is also an engine of innovation because I'm not sure that that has to be like that. I'm just saying like if I, as a citizen in a capitalistic country, like spent, like I get a paycheck and I'm spending, like I'm buying, I'm buying a new car, I'm buying stuff. I'm just, rather than, you know, giving money to those in need or saving for them, I'm just spending money. I'm not sure that that buying, I'm buying a new car, I'm buying stuff. I'm just, rather than, you know, giving money to those in need or saving for the future, spending wisely, like maybe not even greed, but even like just a consumeristic mentality. Like, like around

the holidays, I don't know how many billions of dollars Americans spends around Christmas and you just get sick to your stomach like, or black Friday and stuff. But it's great. But it's great for the economy. It's built on spending. Yeah, of course. The system is built on spending, particularly in the United States. If consumer spending is down, the economy suffers, right? It's built, one of the pillars is spending for sure. Right. The solution, you know, as a theologian, I'm concerned with the kinds of virtues and vices that our political and economic systems might encourage.

And I often say that if the criticism of some of the liberation theologians who saw in Marxism a way to criticize capitalism, and if the criticism is that that system is atheistic and therefore will infect the whole theological system, then we have to be then open to the criticism that whereas Marxism is atheist, capitalism is polytheist and it requires devotion to multiple gods. It's a pragmatic polytheism. Capitalism is not interest in you having a criticism of religion, whatever. It doesn't matter. What it wants is that you have multiple devotion, whether they're religious or not, as long as the system keeps working.

It is weird that a lot of people talk about the economy as an entity. Wall Street behaves. We anthropomorphize the economy and the flow of goods in a society. The economy did not like that. You know, well, people don't like stuff. It's not the economy, but the people that move the economy. So even though I don't have like a strong opinion in terms of what, have like a strong opinion in terms of what if there is an economic system that is biblical and you know by biblical you know you you might say well something that somehow it is

incongruence or consistency or does not contradict great or persistent patterns of testimony and scripture in regards to something. Then my criteria is more at the human level, more pragmatic than that, than that which fosters human flourishing for everyone. That which disencouraged the creation of structures that corrupt human beings, particularly the majority who are suffering, they are not theoretical signposts. The majority of people are in poverty and for many different reasons. But we created these systems. We think about the war right now in different parts of the world, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Hamas, the Middle, the Palestinians are suffering horrific loss,

and you have Sudan and you have other places. Anyways, what liberation theologians will say is that we need to pay extreme attention. Our discourse, uh, legitimates de facto or explicitly, uh, systems of government, systems of economics, et cetera, that still equally affect the majority of the people. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. I see an, in at least the old, it's hard cause the old Testament has its economic system was steeped in an ancient near Eastern agrarian context for a specific mono ethnic nation, you know? So there, there is a, a historical context that's important, but you do see certain principles like hard work is valued. You know, I mean, they were in a grand context. They were working 10, 12 hours a

day, six days a week. And it was expected that any able bodied person, um, would be doing that. And if you weren't doing that, that was considered sin. You also have people that fell upon hard times. The rest of the, like, you know, or even like elderly widows, orphans, people with disabilities that couldn't physically like, you know, or even like elderly, widows, orphans, people with disabilities that couldn't physically work, you know, it was expected that those who could work would provide for those people in, in, in genuine need. You also had lots of checks on runaway wealth. I mean, the every year, you know, well, the Jubilee is a famous one after 50 years

of land goes back to the original was a client family clan or something, just in case, just in case, you know, somebody was really successful was starting to gobble up more and more land. Like there were checks and balances on that. Um, and yet there was relative, there was equality, but it wasn't, um, sameness. Like, you know, there were people that had more than others and that was seen as kind of the natural part, part of life. So yeah, you know, yeah, I don't think it fits any. I mean, I always thought there's elements of capitalism, elements of democratic socialism that you can see at work is my, yeah, my best understanding. Are there, are there some, as you've read and interacted with liberation theologians,

have they helped you see certain passages or themes of scripture in helpful ways? Like how, you know, usually when there's somebody emphasizing something, they kind of open up part of scripture that you're like, oh, I didn't, man, I didn't really appreciate this theme, this passage, this, you know this theological emphases. Yeah. I think, when I was in seminary, I often say that Latin American theology in general of the both liberationist and evangelical style saved my faith. Really? Particularly because the notion of sin and salvation are key for me here, or were key, and I kept writing about this. So this notion that sin, there's so much concentration of sin, of this subjective alienation

against God's law, God's will, et cetera, that separates me from my neighbor, is key for evangelical theology in the North, right? This is determined. But what I lost was how that subjective alienation of breaking the law has inevitable structural communal manifestations in the way that we do life in general, in everything that we create. So that's where this is one of the great contributions of liberation theologians. The structural dimension of salvation is inevitable to any account of the doctrine of sin because the patterns of salvation in the Old Testament, for example, it was God saved Israel from potential genocide in, let's say, the narrative accounts. This was

not salvation in their hearts. This was salvation from socio-political cultural conditions. However, the call was so that they could worship the Lord freely that goes to their heart, to their soul. So that dimension of the structural dimension of salvation, salvation from structures to not only personal sin or the evil one. I do disagree with some of the major liberation theologians that demythologize the work of the enemy of God. the the the the me tossing scripture and by me because i'm using ncs louis way right it is this is a great account. The me tell the scripture is that are. Our struggles have an intangible spiritual dimension to. dimension too. And that spiritual dimension is dimension of the enemy of the soul. So the Hassatan, et cetera, the Diabolos, the principalities and powers.

Are those all symbols for like economic structures and justices in the world? They would say those aren't really talking about spiritual evil where you're saying that is certainly it. Maybe it's a both. So I would say that there is a fluctuation of both, but many liberation theologians, they think that they need to demythologize that part of scripture so that it strictly refers, it's a metaphorical way to refer to the powers of the world that are seen, measured, et cetera. So I disagree with that. And there it becomes my Protestant evangelical slash charismatic vein. And, you know, I often say that I'm a reformed, kind of a Presbyterian, Presby-Costal. Okay. We don't have a lot of those up here, I don't think. Maybe that's a Puerto Rican thing.

So human seeing as personal, but also as communal consolidation of evil. I need to emphasize both. And I often miss that the original religion should move more in that direction. Now, it's not that they don't believe in it. Many don't, but some of the key people like Sobrino and Gutierrez, they do. It's just that they don't feel compelled, and they have to elaborate on that. And the level of salvation. I think the scripture has different ways of talking about salvation, many, many metaphors. You have the words of redemption and reconciliation and liberation

and illumination and sanctification and deification. There are all these biblical theological terms and theological terms that come, but the conceptual content will be an overcoming of subjective and collective evil bondage to death, a moving towards human flourishing in light of communion with the Creator and the rest of creation. An experience of being recreated so that reality is fully imminent and transcendent, new creation. And that salvation will bring ultimate restoration of all things and ultimate joy in the triune God. I need for my own sake as a theologian, I affirm all of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

But I know that that's where some liberation theologians will not go all the way. Why? Because the three levels that I, the three movements that I explained before, some are working within orthodoxyy trying to reform from within others are already within kind of the fringes of Christianity. They want to keep doing you using the language, but in a more generic inter pluralistic way and others, they just feel that they're both Christians. My work

concentrate on the first year. That's helpful. Well, Jules, thank you so much for being a guest on theology, draw and navigating such a complex array of issues that intersect with each intersect with each other. I found your disanalysis so incredibly clear. So thank you for that. Yeah. Where can people find you and your work? Yeah. So if you want to read more about this, you can check out my book by Fortress Press, A Visible Witness, Christology, Liberation, and Participation. A Visible Witness, Christology, Liberation, and Participation. And it's only $9.99 on Kindle right now. On Kindle right now is a deal.

The hard copy is $90 bucks. So this is... Oh, no, no, forget about the hard copy. So go to Kindle and getaraford999. And you can follow me on Twitter. Dr. Jules Martinez, DR, Jules Martinez, all consecutive. And yeah. Cool. Well, many blessings, brother. God bless. It's been a joy to be here. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.