The Liberation Theology Podcast

John Dominic Crossan and Michael Okinczyc-Cruz join the show to discuss their recently published book "Jesus and Justice: Organizing for God's Reign on Earth Then and Now." Who is Jesus? What characterizes Jesus' way of community organizing? What can one learn about Jesus and the Reign of God movement by looking at Jesus' historical context? The Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership https:...

Br. Ken Homan, SJ, joins David to discuss their recently published article, "Community Organizing and the Call of the King." Article: https://www.pdcnet.org/jcathsoc/content/jcathsoc_2024_0021_0002_0307_0324 Spiritual Exercise: https://www.academia.edu/126445163/The_Call_of_the_King_Exercise_from_Community_Organizing_and_the_Call_of_the_King_ Music: "Los molinos" by Adam Drake and Tom Jenkins "Azu...

Faiz Abimanyu Wiguna recounts the life of the philosopher, activist, and mystic Simone Weil. He presents his thesis, which offers a liberationist perspective on the rosary through Simone Weil's practice of attention.

What led Faiz Abimanyu Wiguna to liberationist Catholicism? Faiz tells his story as well as that of politics and religion in Indonesia. Music: "Los molinos" by Adam Drake and Tom Jenkins Obtained via subscription to Audio Network

On this bonus episode, the Liberation Theology Podcast partners with the Word in Black and Red Podcast. It's a co-released introduction to liberation theology. We discuss the meaning of liberation theology, its varieties, its methods, some key concepts, and several misconceptions. The Word in Black and Red: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-word-in-black-and-red/id1682991552 Music: "Los mo...

To what extent and how was Jesus' message political? David discusses Juan Hernández Pico's response to this question. Then, David interviews the education professor James D. Kirylo, who has written a recent book, The Catholic Teacher , with significant influences from liberation theology and critical pedagogy. Resources: No sea así entre ustedes by Juan Hernández Pico https://archive.org/details/n...

Liberation theology constitutes not only a rupture from Church tradition but also a creative development of this tradition. David investigates the ways that Latin American liberation theologians draw support from, and sometimes critique, the Church Fathers. Resources: Mysterium liberationis https://www.orbisbooks.com/mysterium-liberationis.html La foi en Jésus-Christ by Jon Sobrino https://www.edi...

Pedro Trigo, SJ, helps us answer three key questions about creation and the material world. How to believe in a God of life in a situation marked by death? How to live with God when it is demanded of us to bear the mark of the beast? What is the relationship between humanity and nature? Resources: Mysterium liberationis https://www.orbisbooks.com/mysterium-liberationis.html Music: "Los molinos" by...

Ecumenical theologian and author Stephen D. Morrison joins David to discuss common objections to liberation theology and to present a patristic, anti-capitalist Christianity. Isn’t Christianity about a change of heart and a personal relationship with God? Why turn religion into economics and politics? It’s true that early Christians abolished private property and shared their possessions, but this...

Laurel Marshall Potter and David Inczauskis present, critique, and share personal intercultural experiences related to the content of Paulo Suess'  Mysterium Liberationis  chapter on inculturation. How have the Catholic sacraments been abused in the process of Latin America's colonization? To what extent can we arrive at an understanding of Jesus' culture and relate it to today's cultural milieu?...

Revolutionary force does not emerge from a blank slate, from a level playing field. It is a response to systemic injustice, to repression, to a state of affairs that kills, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Drawing from Juan Hernández Pico's ML chapter, David looks at the historical, biblical, and ecclesial sources of a liberationist approach to violence. To conclude, David presents a few key p...

Dr. Michael E. Lee joins the podcast for the first time to discuss Ignacio Ellacuría's essay "The Crucified People" in Mysterium Liberationis . The discussion covers the story of Prof. Lee's engagement with Ellacuría; the relationship among the crucifixion of contemporary people in Latin America, the crucifixion of Jesus, and salvation; the debate surrounding this landmark text; and Ellacuría's us...

María Soledad del Villar Tagle returns to speak about some of the European roots of Gutiérrez' liberation theology in the French nouvelle théologie movement. David shares the varied responses of two German theologians, Moltmann and Metz, to liberation theology, and concludes with a positive assessment of the compatibility of Catholicism and socialism as well as a refutation of the alleged natural...

The Spanish-to-English translator of St. Oscar Romero's diary, Dr. Irene B. Hodgson of Xavier University, joins David to discuss the archbishop's inspirational life and his understanding of his role as an ordained minister. Then, David presents three theses on ministry in the church based on José María Castillo's chapter in "Mysterium Liberationis." Main texts: A Shepherd's Diary by Oscar Romero,...

David presents and assesses three perspectives on the relation between ideology and Christianity from the French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, the German theologian Karl Rahner, SJ, and the Spanish-born Salvadoran philosopher and theologian Ignacio Ellacuría, SJ. Main texts: "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (1970) by Louis Althusser https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/alt...

What exactly is ideology? How does liberation theology respond to critics who claim that liberation theology itself is ideological? And how does liberation theology engage with the prominent ideologies of our day? Main text: Mysterium liberationis https://www.orbisbooks.com/mysterium-liberationis.html Secondary texts: Composer un monde en commun: Une théologie politique de l'anthropocène by Gaël G...

Jesuit scholar and priest Anthony Lusvardi introduces the sacraments as the ecclesial preservation of the embodied graces of Jesus' earthly presence and as the primary way that most Catholics engage with God and the Church. David interprets Víctor Codina's chapter on the sacraments, situates them within the project of the reign of God, and describes the sense in which liturgy should be "ugly and s...

Though many consider "evangelization" to be converting others to Christianity, in liberation theology, "evangelization" means more than sharing a creed: it means bringing glad tidings to the poor--as Jesus himself defined it. It means seeing the suffering of the oppressed, feeling compassion, and acting smartly to alleviate their present pain as well as uprooting the unjust systemic factors that p...

John Thiede, SJ, joins David to discuss liberation Christology. How have liberation theologians thought about Christ, and what difference does a liberationist understanding of Christ make in Latin America? Texts: Mysterium liberationis https://www.orbisbooks.com/mysterium-liberationis.html Remembering Oscar Romero and the Martyrs of El Salvador: A Cloud of Witnesses by John Thiede, SJ https://www....

Leonardo Boff shows how the Trinity serves as a model for a just society and how heresies against the Trinity reflect and reinforce various kinds of social oppression. David shares highlights from an interview with Chema Tojeira, SJ, on Nayib Bukele and El Salvador's crypto-financialization. Texts: Mysterium liberationis https://www.orbisbooks.com/mysterium-liberationis.html " El Salvador’s presid...

God is not a single person but a community of three equal persons. So, as the Orthodox socialists of Russia would say, "The Trinity should be our social program." We examine the first half of Leonardo Boff's essay on the Trinity alongside commentary by Ismael Moreno, SJ, on the presidential victory of the social democrat Xiomara Castro in Honduras. Texts: Mysterium liberationis https://www.orbisbo...

Why did the Salvadoran military assassinate Ignacio Ellacuría, SJ, and his companions on Nov. 16, 1989? Ellacuría openly and emphatically emphasized this subversive dimension of the Christian faith. He claimed that Latin America is searching for “revolutionary change rather than reformist change” and that Christianity exhibits a “subversive dynamism,” which, though running the risk of Marxist co-o...

We return to "Mysterium Liberationis" and interpret Juan Luis Segundo SJ's essay "Revelation, Faith, Signs of the Times." Despite the order of the elements in the title, historically speaking, humans face the signs of the times, bet with faith on a way of addressing them, and come to understand this way as revelation (or not) according to its fruits. David shares two personal narratives to illustr...

Guest María Soledad del Villar Tagle and David discuss the church from the intersecting angles of feminism, liberation, Chile, personal experience, and clerical sexual abuse. Sole's work: Academia.edu https://bc.academia.edu/Mar%C3%ADaSoledadDelVillarTagle Las asistentes sociales de la Vicaría de la Solidaridad https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Mar%C3%ADa-Soledad-Del-Villar-Tagle/dp/9563571509 Mujeres I...

David and Marcus discuss Sobrino's essay "The Central Position of the Reign of God in Liberation Theology." How do we define the Reign of God? What are its biblical and historical parameters? Text: Mysterium liberationis https://www.orbisbooks.com/mysterium-liberationis.html Music: "Los molinos" by Adam Drake and Tom Jenkins "Azure Sky" by Terry Devine-King and Adam Drake Obtained via subscription...