Speaker 1 0:00

Well, not Christian, I'm all about the kindness and the love and the compassion, or at least trying like hell. It's been a trying past the air, especially recently. So

Speaker 2 0:31

[inaudible] [inaudible].

Speaker 1 1:09

Oh, right. Comrades. Welcome to North Bay. I was about to say our old name, but that's not what it is anymore. Today we have a really interesting guests and you know, somebody who has this area of expertise. I've been trying to get onto the podcast. Basically since we started. It is surprisingly difficult to get someone who both knows about these things and actually wants to talk about them. Most people are pretty quiet about, um, Christian socialism basically. Uh, before we get in too far too deep, uh, let's go ahead and introduce ourselves. I am of course type erase, Caracas sorts.

Speaker 3 1:49

Uh, Cami, Ned Flanders,

Speaker 1 1:52

which yeah. Uh, another example of one of my favorite Twitter handles. Yeah. And, um, you know, I think a lot of people, a lot of socialists and Marxists tend to have kind of an aversion to religion. But from, you know, from what I can see in some basic reading, that kind of stuff, the sort of a style of like lefty Christianity, Liberation Theology, Christian socialism, like this goes back quite a long way. It's like we were talking about 15th century here for the modern movement and even if you want to go all the way back to the original sort of, uh, Christian communes in the Roman Empire. So I kind of want you to, to start on that and sort of give people a brief history lesson.

Speaker 3 2:43

Well, excellent. What people commonly know as liberation theology, it's tied to the Catholic Church movement. They're the ones who sort of popularized this notion, but it extends way beyond the Catholic and way beyond the, the context and setting that it arose from. Uh, a big part of the origins of the modern liberation theology movement comes from a Latin America in the 1960s, seventies and eighties. As you know, the, there was a big push for socialist movements in Latin America, left wing political movements, slip, aeration movements, and this met a lot of opposition. But, uh, it was sort of picked up by the Catholic church at that time specifically. Uh, some of the Jesuit priests, they took up this, this notion of liberation theology and the preferential option for the poor. One of our main figures, I mean from that movement would be a Dominican priests. Guzzi Edos. He, he wrote a book on Liberation Theology, uh, at the time and sort of outlined the, the, the main ideas of this intersection of Marxism left wing political movements and Christianity. And it got picked up by a lot of the people in that, in that region. But of course the political climate at the time it met some heavy resistance. And so, uh, there was, uh, quite a bit of conflict. Um, actually the, the Catholic Church officially sort of, uh, denounced liberation theology, but they like the preferential option for the poor, but they did not like the link of Jesus Christ to class struggle as it was explicitly outlined in Liberation Theology. Um,

Speaker 4 4:42

for those who are listening who are not familiar with liberation theology, could you, could you give a brief overview of what it wants to good. Shanna is described in, in his work.

Speaker 3 4:56

Yeah. So classically what, what you would, would, people are familiar with theology as a sort of philosophical endeavor. Um, and it's, it's, it's typically removed from the sort of experiences that people have on their day to day lives. And so in the way that Marxism tries to provide a material analysis of social conditions, Liberation Theology tries to do is bring this material analysis and a perspective of the lived experiences of people living in poverty and I'm under oppression. And they start from that context and starting from the actual lived experience of people, they base their theology from there. And that's how this movement is, is a rather radical revolutionary in my opinion. It's very different than a lot of what people consider the traditional church position, which is supporting systems power. I think there's, um, you had mentioned earlier the sort of antagonism between left wing movements and Christianity. And this goes back quite a ways, uh, even in the Soviet Union and the Bolshevik revolution. Lenin wasn't particularly like against the church per se, but he did recognize that the church was, was siding with SARS, Russia. And he recognized that the ruling class was using the church as a means to pursue their interests and, and spread their ideology. And so early in after the Bolshevik revolution, you had, um, some thinkers came up with, there was one text, I believe it's called the abcs of communism, was published in the Soviet Union. And it, they break down, it was, it was sort of like an elementary textbook of bullshit state ideology. And they bring up the issue of religion and they explicitly say that religion and communism are incompatible. Now this is from their experience they had experienced in the church siding with the ruling class. So this is why historically Marxists have kind of been opposed to the church. Now we can also look at the church and its historical roots. Going back to the beginning, it was a radical revolutionary movement and Movement for the poor. But of course it got appropriated by the Roman Empire, by Constantine. And in getting appropriated, it became more of a religion for the ruling class. And its been used in that way for most of history. So most people have this tendency to see the church as a vehicle or a tool for the ruling class to spread their ideology. But what liberation theology is trying to do is to get back to the roots of what it actually is, is a a revolutionary movement. It started in the midst of imperial oppression. You know what? Christianity itself, the Gospel, the Ministry of Jesus Christ was occurred under colonial rule by the Roman empire. And the people, the subjects of the Roman Empire were poor. They were subjugated, they were marginalized. This is, this is not a religion for the ruling class that not at all. And in fact most of what you see in the Gospel is Christ speaking out against the ruling class and against really institutions.

Speaker 1 8:37

Right. And in the early ministries, you would essentially have what are functionally Christian communes, who would be operating within, you know, some of the most destitute areas of the empire where they would essentially give up, give up their worldly possessions to the commune in order to operate these as a communal resources and providing free food and free housing, free healthcare, free education for people as a means of not just, you know, doing charitable works, but you know, really as a means of building up people, uh, you know, building up the, the power of the oppressed people to defend and sustain themselves. And it wasn't until, yeah, it wasn't until you saw the Roman empire really subsume the, these churches into the state apparatus that, you know, that really got taken away. But, and I'll, and I want to also give the church, it's do a, at least in, in some way, because like when you're talking about, for instance, the Anglican Church of England in the early days of capitalism, because the church had so much land, they, and they were so powerful and they saw it as part of their mission to essentially be the welfare state. It wasn't until you had the Malthusian reaction where they talked about populations as, you know, these, uh, inherently self eating things that you had to let people suffer and die in order to allow capitalism to go, which, you know, that's what capitalism does. That's what it needs. It was really the, the church should, that, uh, prevented people from falling to the, the absolute, most wretched condition they could. The, the church really was the welfare state back then. So I think even even in its institutional forms, the church still maintained some of that Ministry of Christ and charitable charitable works.

Speaker 3 10:50

Yes, absolutely. And so, I mean, I would say w w, w what I would like to really communicate and get across is that this, this antagonism between leftwing liberation movements and the church, it's a historical artifact that is a result of certain events, but it's by no means inherent to the theology of Christianity. And I don't, I don't think that there is any real conflict on myself personally. I consider myself a student of marks and a Christian first and foremost, and I don't see any, any conflict with that. If anything, Marxisms is a histological tool to allow me to study a society and see how can I serve people, how can I love my neighbor? How can I help and uplift those who are most in need? That is the calling of Christians. And I think that the two actually quite well, but of course in political climates there's, there's going to be resistance to, to these, to actually coming together because when they do come together, you have a very powerful, powerful force. I think liberation theology is very, very powerful in terms of its potential for radical revolutionary change. And I think that's why it had such a strong resistance in the early church and the Roman Empire. The, these were very peaceful, uh, activists and the Romans, the Romans were, were killing them in, in very brutal, brutal A's trying to stomp out this, this movement. And when you saw a resurgence of this liberation theology in Latin America, it's the same thing happened. The state forces came in and crushed them. I mean, they had, unfortunately the head of the El Salvador forces came in and murdered the Jesuits and they had the funding and the backing of the United States. I mean, it's all the imperial powers at the time. We're going to do whatever they could have stopped this movement from igniting. And I think that for radicals and revolutionary session to give us a bit of pause to say, you know, there, there's something here, there, there's, there's something powerful and in here in this potential for liberating change.

Speaker 1 13:19

Yeah. And I think that, I think one of the main keys to why it is so powerfully revolutionary I think is that it provides a moral story that I think is really missing in a lot of the post enlightenment is socialists thinking it. They do a lot of the sort of like how would it work? Practicality talking about marks and, and how he describes the inherent contradictions of capitalism. And there are some good stories in that, but you know, it doesn't, it's not as compelling of a moral story and stories are how you get people to get people to accept an idea to begin with. You, you bring them in with stories and you keep them there with facts and figures and statistics. But it's a story that grabs people. Correct.

Speaker 3 14:13

And so I think that's been this, this reminded me of of sort of how they've tried to, I would say the, uh, the ruling class in and imperial powers. I've tried to a d radicalize Christ and try to water down his narrative. And it's been a street because if you, if you are an authentic reading of, of what occurred there is, is quite radical. I mean, you have a person who was born in, uh, in, in, in poverty and abject poverty, born in a stable, and this is, this is

Speaker 5 14:49

sure.

Speaker 3 14:50

And then please ministry going us specifically to rural communities. He, that he had, he was going out and finding a fisherman and he was going out and finding people on the countryside.

Speaker 1 15:01

One of the, I think one of the fun questions, so I'd like to ask Christians is, so was Christ a revolutionary communist?

Speaker 3 15:12

Let's cry. So revolutionary comedy as well. Um, I would say, um, he was not a member of the party. I was standing, you know, there's that. But in, in what, in what he was doing and what he was preaching and what he was actually a telling his followers to do. You could say it, the, the, the actions speak louder than any of the labels he was telling people, you know, you, you need to, if you're going to follow me, give up all your possessions and that kind of thing. You know, you have to be ready to do that. He was telling the rich that, you know, it's harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Then for cal, the pass through the eye of a needle or these are criticisms of the wealthy. He was speaking against the, the, the Pharisees or the, the priest class of a society. And so was he a communist? Well, let's see. I mean, I would say, let's look at what, what did he do? He, first and foremost, he took the needs of the people and he treated them as, as sacred. The needs of the people were sacred. So he goes out and he's, the first thing that he's doing is he's feeding people. You know, he's, he's actually the, the, the interactions that he's, he's healing people. So he's addressing their material needs and these are the, the everyday struggles of the people were having a, under the Roman empire. A lot of people want to depoliticize Christ and they want to say that, you know, Christianity is only about spiritual fulfillment but, but let's, I mean if you look at what the Gospel actually says, I mean he was out there feeding people when he was telling his followers to feed, people was telling as far as to help the poor. It was a specific injunctions to help the poor,

Speaker 1 16:58

you know, and the also saying that a starving man cannot steal that if a starving man comes to your farm and takes what he needs, that is not theft. It is Mauro because you have and he does not. And therefore it is incumbent upon you and morally to, to share what you have with him.

Speaker 4 17:20

When in the past or probably in the future, people say to me, well, I feel like I'm not doing enough. Like, I'm, I'm doing this and I'm doing that, but I feel like it's not enough. I quite frequently end up going to the widow's mite because it tends to fit slightly better in a tweet from each according to according to their ability. But that's pretty kind of in my mind, synonymous. Like you give what you can, you don't shame for not having the ability to give more than they can.

Speaker 1 17:54

Do you happen to know what that is off the top of your head or widow's mite? No, but I can pull it up for you. Okay.

Speaker 4 18:01

It's, um, that she just put in two coins and Jesus says, you know, the, she gave all that she had. Yes. Rather than shaming her because she didn't give as much as the rich people were giving when she couldn't because she didn't have that much.

Speaker 3 18:19

I think you're exactly correct on that. There was a lot of, um, it was an emphasis on, um, how much people were giving in terms of, uh, especially, uh, taxation and charitable charitable works. Um, the way the society was structured, people were expected to pay up sort of tax to the temple and the temple paid attacks to the Roman empire. So the sort of main stream idea was that you know, how much you're giving that you know, is reflecting on how much your help pious you are, whatever. And it exactly right. He explained that no, it's not about so much the, the, the amount, but it's from your position where you're at. Um, how much are you getting from what you're able to, and it's from, from each according to his need. I think it's a concise way to explain that parable.

Speaker 1 19:10

Yeah. I actually brought it up here. So, uh, the quote is depending on which translation you're looking at, yeah, depending on, I'm not sure exactly which translation that says, but he sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents, calling his disciples to himself. He said to them, Amen. I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to this, to the treasury for they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she from her poverty has contributed to all, she had her whole livelihood.

Speaker 4 19:49

Yeah. Don't go for the King James Translation. It's a bit more difficult to pass

Speaker 1 19:58

as is, as is often the case when I run into biblical passages.

Speaker 4 20:03

Okay.

Speaker 1 20:03

I'm sure that's not a coincidence. Um, but yeah, so I think that's a pretty good place to leave people with a basic sense of history. Sort of where this comes from and you touched a little bit on the liberation theology movements of the 60s and the 70s and in Latin America. Maybe if you could bring that a little bit more into the modern day, what has been going on recently and if you could maybe touch upon the, the current pope who was a Jesuit from Argentina, I think. And it really, it the way that he speaks and the way that he criticizes the, the current systemic issues. It like, he definitely

Speaker 6 20:48

comes from this deep tradition of this, the radical Jesuits and Liberation Theology of Latin America.

Speaker 3 20:56

Yeah, absolutely. As Pope Francis. I mean he is, he is a, and I'll say this from the outset, like I personally, I'm not a Catholic, but, um, I love Pope Francis. I think he's doing wonderful, wonderful work. I think Pope Francis is doing, it's fantastic what he's doing because he's, she's really trying to bring focus to the needs of the people needs, the poor, uh, specifically people who are excluded and marginalized. And that's, that's, it's a different position than the previous two popes had taken the pen. And again, it, it, it, it comes from their experience. And even Pope John Paul, the second was who was, was the one who officially denounced liberation theology, but he had his experience with the battling the communist regimes and, uh, Poland that inform Pope John Paul's position very heavily. Um, he came out of, of a tradition where he felt that he was being religiously persecuted. So, but Pope Francis, you know, on the other side comes from Latin America where the people who were being religiously persecuted, we're being persecuted by right wingers, by Kenzie counterrevolutionary militias. Oh, I'll a little bit more on, on Pope Francis. He didn't necessarily want to take a political stance, but he did appreciate this preferential option for the poor. And uh, I think that he is much more uh, aware of the real issues that liberation theology brings to light in terms of the needs of the people cause he lived that experienced, of course, the, the, the, the hierarchy of the Catholic church basically said, you know, we're going to officially say that this is not part of our church doctrine. The Catholic Church wanted to keep the aspects of helping the poor preferential option for the poor. But there was a, a certain reluctance to connect Jesus to the class struggle that is occurring. And you saw there was immediate resistance coming from the United States. They put pressure on the Vatican as well. And, and there was a lot of pushback to keep this from spreading. Now, if you look at outside of the Catholic church, you have Protestant movements such as black liberation theology. And in the United States, this is an area where you don't have church hierarchy to cause any sort of backlash or obstacles. Black Liberation Theology is, is, is the same central thesis that we're gonna start from the material conditions and the lived experiences of the people and from their suffering, we're going to build us theology that's speaks to the community. Um, so that there's a big, uh, strong movement in America, in, uh, African American churches and, and Hispanic churches. You'll see a lot of these sort of ministries that are focused on social justice and social activism.

Speaker 1 24:18

And so it can you maybe go into more of the sort of like recent history in the United States of the real two big strains of Christianity here, where there was, you know, the, the one that black liberation theology came out of, and then why it is that in America, Christianity is so closely tied to this really ugly corporate right wing libertarianism.

Speaker 3 24:48

All right? Okay. So when we look at the, the church in America and we're looking at a black liberation theology, for example, I would point to, um, uh, James cone is very, um, brilliant theologian who spoke about the link between Christ's suffering on the cross and the suffering of African Americans in America on the lynching tree. And he essentially says that the lived experience of people of Color in the United States is, reflects what you see in the scriptures, crying out as a, a voice for justice for an oppressed people. You look to the history of, of the Israelites, they came out of slavery and they came through multiple periods of, of, of oppression, um, and imperial rule. And so this really speaks to people of color in America who have also have an experience of, of subjugation oppression, and even slavery. If you, if you look at the spectacle of, of lynching, uh, what occurred to Emmett till this is this is what, what the Romans were doing. This is what, this is what the cruise, this is what the cross is. The crucifixion was about the Roman Empire, knew very well that this was a means of spectacle, of, of enforcing state power through terror. And there was a Roman historian. Ah, okay. It was a quintillion Roman historian said, whenever we crucify the guilty, the most crowded roads are chosen or the most people can see and be moved by this fear for relate not so much retribution acid. They're exemplary effect. And this is something we use. Like Michel Foucault wrote about this and discipline and punish the way in which a state apparatus uses, uh, spectacles of torture and execution to maintain their power and control. This was done by the Romans. And this was also done in America by white supremacists. And it was done for 400 years up until recently. I mean, this is an ongoing thing that occurred. People living in the south are aware of, of lynching trees. Unfortunately, it's, it's, it's a, it's a gruesome reality of American, uh, southern life. But that's our history, you know, and, and coming to terms with that, I would use a quote from James Cone or he speaks about Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel can represent the experience of white and black Americans. In the book of Genesis, it says that the angels blood spoke to God. It cried out from, from the ground. And the Lord said to Cain, what if you'd done to your brothers? And I think this is, this is a calling that I think Christian White Christians need to come to terms with. What have you done to your brothers? What, what has been done historically to people of color in this country? And I think Black Liberation Theology really pushes the forefront this, the suffering and the injustice that that occurred.

Speaker 1 28:29

Both sides of white supremacy, the oppressed, black and Hispanic and uh, indigenous peoples as well. Maybe not indigenous peoples, but you know, the, the white supremacist themselves and many of the people that they were oppressing, we're both Christians, right?

Speaker 3 28:50

Yeah. So I mean, not extensively. I mean, they, they, they would, they would, they would hold up, you know, they would argue that they were Christians and they want to justify their oppression by using a scriptures. But what the scriptures aloud the, the oppressed to do is to find a sort of, of they're able to keep, maintain their humanity, um, in the face of, of, of that, uh, even if, if they were being abused, even if there being subjugated, they were able to find some dimension of you can, you can hurt me only so much, but I still have my soul. You know, I still have my spirit. This dimension of my spiritual life is an accessible to the oppressor. And from the point of view of the Oppressed, the Gospel speaks highly of those who are being hurt. A fair reading of the Gospel would say that God is on the side of the oppressed. It got us on the side of, of the poor that was on the side of the people who are, who are being hurt. There were being, who are being mistreated.

Speaker 1 29:59

So do you think that the, the kind of Christianity that most people in America who either are or are not Christians, are familiar with comes out of this kind of, uh, in your opinion, like misreading of scriptures to, to speak of, uh, material wealth and individualism and, and, um, that kind of thing like that, that's really where this, this comes from.

Speaker 3 30:27

Absolutely. I mean, there's a long tradition. I mean, this is something that, I mean, Mark's describes us clearly that church religious structures are going to be used by the ruling class to push their ideology. And so yeah, you absolutely, you'd have the ruling class has, is always going to support and prop up a certain theology that is friendly to state power friendly too to capital. And you see this a lot in sort of main stream, a popular Christian movements, Prosperity Gospels type of thing that you'd, people like Joel Osteen. Yes, yes. Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. Then there were the, the, they're focused on, on, uh, getting yours, you know, all of this prayer and donating money, donating money. You're going to get your own prosperity. You keep donating money. You're going to get more wealth and this is all this focus on, on, on self and it's I think completely antithetical to what, what the Gospel actually is, which is about a loving thy neighbor, helping others, serving others. That is the core message of the Gospel is to serve others and to help others. And uh, unfortunately conservative political forces have hijacked the church and they've used this to win votes. And this, this is a, I believe Thomas Frank wrote about this and when his book, what's the matter with Kansas trying to speak to, you know, why is it that this area that we used to be a hotbed for for socialists activity and working class populism became such a reactionary right wing conservative movement. He explains that essentially the Republican Party and figured out that they could garner votes by sticking to certain key, I would say moral social issues that frankly that are or are not the key focus of, of of the Bible or not the key focus of the gospel. So you, you get, you get religious conservatives focusing on things like gay marriage, focusing on things like bathroom laws, stuff like that. It's absolutely ridiculous. The, they have this up, this obscene focus on these, these small social issues while ignoring the, the tragedy that is neo liberalism of just destroying the working class is showing poor, uh, the, the people all across the country. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's obscene.

Speaker 1 33:14

Well and I haven't read that particular work, but I think a big part of why that is as successful as it is, because you know, obviously you need to go back to the material context to understand these kind of cultural and societal movements is that much in the same way that the church in England, uh, and the, you know, 18th and early 19th century was the welfare state and was where people went to get comfort and have community that that is very similar to, not similar, but you can see kind of parallels with the way that the church is in many rural areas where you have these, uh, you know, you've had capital come in and you know, absolutely decimate communities and alienates people from their traditional communities. But the church still remains and the church for Maine's a force of where you go to meet people, the church remains the core of a community. And if you as a left wing movement, tried to come in with an atheist message and say, abandon the church because it's abandoned you economically, you're missing that really important communal context.

Speaker 3 34:41

Absolutely. Yes. I, and I think if we're looking at this, I mean for, for, for left wingers, for Marxists, for progressive's, if, if you're trying to build a revolutionary movement, radical movement, you have to recognize that the church is, is such a central important part of people's lives. In the communities working class people there, their faith is a big part of her lives and the church tends to be the sort of nexus for, for outreach, community outreach, fellowship,

Speaker 1 35:17

you charity, the church feeds a lot of people who don't have any other place to eat.

Speaker 3 35:23

Yeah, absolutely. I think that if you're going to go out and try to say we want to engage, uh, the working class, we want to sort of radicalized the working class. You're going to have to take into consideration their, their religious convictions. You're going to have to take into consideration there the community structure and, and who is it that has been being their needs. And as you said that the church has been the one serving the poor in these communities. So coming, uh, having a sort of anti religious approach I think is very detrimental to the left. I think that is harmful to the left. I think there is plenty of places where we can be critical, absolutely critical of, of what people, ostensibly Christian religious people have done. But this wholesale rejection of religion I think is, is, is harmful to a revolutionary movements.

Speaker 1 36:27

And, and I think that this is why people like Chris Hedges and Cornell West are so important in the modern context. And you know why, um, the reverend Dr. King was so important in his, because, you know, we'll take it or not Christianity for a lot of leftists, Christianity is deeply, deeply embedded into our culture. Um, even those of us who are not Christian really have a deep connection to Christianity in a way that I think a lot of people sort of overlook it. Can you speak a little bit about what they are currently doing and kind of the state of, uh, the, the Christian left in this country? Is there a resurgence? Is it sort of waning? How do you see it right now?

Speaker 3 37:19

No. Well, about those two seniors, I mean, I absolutely love Cornell West and Chris Hedges. I mean, they are spectacular. Uh, Chris Hedges, he's written marvelous criticisms of liberal capitalism is his books.

Speaker 7 37:35

Hello,

Speaker 3 37:36

empire of illusion and the death of the liberal class of absolutely fantastic. And he, he comes from a place of training in the ministry, trained at Harvard School. Definity I believe. Yes. Yes. And I would say, well, you know, like myself sort of, he rejects the sort of popularized mainstream corporatize religion and, and tries to seek out what is authentic in the gospels about how are we going to serve the people, how are we going to serve those in need? Um, the, the least amongst us as Christ said, same thing. Cornell West is, he does fantastic work. He, he, he's been out there, I think recently he was out in the Charlottesville and engaged with the white supremacist movement that was out there. Thankfully the Antifa was there to, uh, protect clergy members, including Cornell West. And I think that was a wonderful moment of convergence of the left and the church.

Speaker 4 38:42

I've been kind of biting my tongue. Um, well actually if you've been watching a video inviting the inside of my mouth, but that same thing because it took about Pope Francis as being liberation theologist and, and you know that good work, but the Catholic Church and probably about 80, 90% of Christianity in the, in the u s is fervently anti gay and as marginalized people, how do you avoid having liberation theology be the equivalent to the person who says we have to take a class first analysis? Anything else is divisive.

Speaker 3 39:29

I think that that is a common, um, I think stumbling block for people. I think that people in the LGBT community have often found themselves at odds with members of the religious groups. And unfortunately people who, who claim to be Christians are often out there spreading hate and division and, and, and it's, it's a real, it's tragic. I mean for me, a little share something about myself. I mean growing up I was around a lot of evangelical fundamentalists, church movements and I immediately as a child was rejecting what I was seeing there because first and foremost, what I saw was homophobia. Hearing people in the church being hateful and homophobic. I immediately in core venues like, you know, this is wrong, this is not in line with what the Gospel says. But also, I mean just myself personally, it just tell, I mean something. This is not right. So that's, that was the first thing that pushed me away from the church when I was younger and I agree that there needs to be a strong movement of progressive within the church. Christians who are going to stand up and defend LGBT people and, and the the queer community. I don't find a lot of, of areas of conflict there personally. What I often get is people are going to say, you know, what about, you know, specifically, you know, issues of, of marriage or gender or this or that sort. For me, what Christianity teaches me is that I need to reach out and treat others with kindness and love and especially, especially people who are marginalized, people who are oppressed, people who have been downtrodden, DePaul treated unfairly. And in my experience living in the south, it was seeing people in the LGBT community. We're were the marginalized. There were the people who were being ostracized. And so for me as a Christian, they are the ones who I need to be going out and reaching out to with love and with kindness and with generosity and with and with acceptance. And we should be absolutely embracing the LGBT community that can, there should not be any position of judgment either. And then there's, that's the feeling I think that a lot of people have is that if you're going to a religious community, you're going to be ostracized. And judge, unfortunately something that some people might want to be judgmental, but that's not what's in the scriptures. A Biblical reading basically tells us that every single person is in sin. And so none of us have any place to judge anyone else for anything. And we don't have, I have no position. I have no place to judge anybody else. I have. No, I don't, I don't have that right. I don't have that place. So it's, it's absurd. It's not even a question for me to be going around and telling other people how they need to be cracking their lives or they need to be living their lives right or wrong based on my reading of the Bible or whatever. That's not my place. I don't have that right. You know, my focus is my own sense, my own sanctification, and then how am I going to help and treat my neighbors, my my peers? How am I going to help them to, to be liberated and in the spiritual sense and also in, in every sense of emotional, mental. I think Liberation Theology ultimately speaks to toll type of liberation where we have to look at all of the needs of the person. But that really, I mean unfortunately it saddens me that there's such an issue in terms of the moment I, I don't, I don't think that it has to be that way. I think that it's going to take people who are progressive and willing to say, you know, this person, it doesn't matter if you want to call them a center, whatever this person is, my brother, this person's license, this person is, is, I love that. That's, that's what being a Christian is about and labeling somebody as actions, whatever our sins are is ridiculous. There's a, there's a, a funny sort of a joke. You go back to the, uh, from the Simpsons where the reverend says, you know, have you actually read this thing? You know, pretty much everything going to the bathroom as a sin. Like everything's the same. The idea is that, you know, all of our hands are dirty. Look, there's no, there's none of that. Have any place to judge.

Speaker 1 44:18

Nobody is perfect and do not judge the Mo in another's. I, while you have a beam in your own or judge not lest ye be judged or let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I mean, it's a, it's a pretty recurring theme.

Speaker 3 44:37

Yes. If you, if you take that seriously, then there, then there was no place for a person to be going out and condemning somebody for this or that particular sin that as they see it, it's ridiculous. I strongly condemn anyone who calls himself a Christian who wants to go out and spread hatred or, or homophobia or any of that that's antithetical to the message of the Gospel. It's antithetical to the Bible. It's, it's, it's terrible. Um, I see that a lot and that's something that resonated with me since I was, since I was a child. Honestly. Do you have any other questions?

Speaker 1 45:14

So I just kind of want to sort of just open it up to you. So whenever it is that, that you want to get across to people that maybe they, they should know or the things that they should be looking for in terms of if they are a Christian, how can, how they can be a Christian leftist or if they are an atheist, um, you know, how to interact with the Christian left community.

Speaker 3 45:40

Yeah. Well, so for, for people who are, who are leftists but are not Christians, I think that what I would say is just to, to be mindful of the importance of the text of the Bible. And if you really want to reach Christians, it's not, it's not too hard because if you, if you look in the Bible, I mean, you're going to find scripture after scripture x that's uplifting, the poor and, and, and I think, uh, okay, so one of the questions I wanted to address was for Christians, what's the appeal of, of, of Marxism? Like why should you, why should we study Marx? Um, there's a lot of prejudice against reading marks, but I'm going to tell you that if you got to get over that, nothing scary. There's nothing spooky. There's nothing terrible and marked what Marx is reading. It's a very scientific analysis of social systems. Mark's is basically is, is, uh, going through and analyzing how capitalism functions, how it works. And if you're a Christian and you want to serve the poor and then it's, it's incumbent upon you to understand how society functions and uh, essentially, uh, how poverty functions. Um, if you want to address the issue of poverty, you want to address the needs of the people, then a systematic understanding of, of capitalism is necessary. And I think Marxism is the Akita to do that. I don't think there's anything necessarily antichristian in Marxism. You could say Marxism is a materialist ideology, but in that's correct. But it's a tool. It's the tool. It's a scientific tool that's, that's the point of Marxism. It's, it's supposed to be used as a scientific tool to, uh, understand social phenomenon. So there's no reason that a Christian can't pick up Marxism, just like a Christian could pick up any other science. So if a Christian can pick up any other science and study it, they can also pick up Marxism and study how society functions, how economies function. And that's going to really aluminate how we can address the needs of the poor.

Speaker 4 48:08

You say this, there's nothing spooky and in Mark's smoke, cause that's all external.

Speaker 1 48:14

No, there's a specter of communism, but I know

Speaker 3 48:20

other than that, there's, there's nothing too spooky. Yeah.

Speaker 4 48:24

Right. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show and, uh, being, being an illuminating guest.

Speaker 1 48:33

Yeah, absolutely. As you're measure the scripts, I, uh, that was really bad type for freely. Thanks. Uh, yeah. So if people want to, um, learn more or find any of your works work and they work in, they do that.

Speaker 3 48:56

Um, for myself personally.

Speaker 1 48:58

Yeah. For you personally, if you publish or write anywhere or if you just want to throw out your Twitter handle,

Speaker 3 49:06

mine would be a commie Flanders. But, um, if you want to learn about liberation theology, what I'm going to say is, uh, James Cone, fantastic writer, uh, Oldbury Hendrix. He writes a wonderful, wonderful book on politics of Jesus. He actually, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's titled the politics of Jesus by Oh, Barry, uh, Hendrix and it's, it's a fantastic text. Um, there's plenty of, uh, uh, of, of, of authors and stuff I could recommend, but I think those two really, really go far. Cool.

Speaker 1 49:43

And if you want to find either of us on Twitter, you can find myself at Checka informant

Speaker 4 49:49

and you can find me at commune, all sauce.

Speaker 1 49:52

And our third host who is here in spirit but not physically, is at r, r r r, n. And one of these days I'm going to get him to choose something better. But until then, uh, that's where Aaron resides on Twitter. So with that, um, I really want to thank you again for the, the really interesting conversation about something that I think a lot of leftists sort of ignore and, you know, thank you for coming on and, and speaking with us.

Speaker 3 50:22

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 8 50:24

Right. And be in solidarity comrades.

Speaker 9 51:01

Yeah.