Good News from Latin America: Christian Reflections on Suffering and Crisis

My readers may or may not know that some friends and I began publishing the Journal of Latin American Theology: Christian Reflections from the Latino South back in 2006. With two issues per year, the Journal has become one of the most important voices of Latin American Christian thinking in the English-speaking world. I have the privilege of being the General Editor of the Journal and I believe this issue is one of the very best. It deals with bringing God’s love to those who live in the midst of suffering, trauma and crisis. For those who are interested, here are the contents.

The Journal of Latin American Theology Volume 18:2

Disease and Healing: The Bible and Today’s World by Edesio Sánchez Cetina

Living from the Resurrection Narrative in the Midst of Speculation and Death by Fabio Salguero Fagoaga

An Interdisciplinary Approach for Supporting Women Displaced by Violence and Affected by COVID-19 by Mary Luz Reyes Bejarano

Pandemic, Trauma, and Lament: A Psycho-Theological and Pastoral Approach to Caregiving and Companioning by Daniel S. Schipani

Keys to Post-Traumatic Coping in the Life of Paul of Tarsus by Luis Cruz-Villalobos

Justice vs. Righteousness: A Contextualized Analysis of “tsedeq” in the KJV (English) and RVR (Spanish) by Esteban M. Voth

Sustaining the Momentum of Theological Education by Dieumeme Noëlliste

Film Review – Waaki by Victor Masayesva by Samuel Lagunas

Book Review – Las huellas del reino de Dios: perspectivas teológicas en América Latina (1970–2000) by Martín Ocaña Flores

Book Review – The Lord Roars: Recovering the Prophetic Voice for Today by M. Daniel Carroll R.

Book Review – Los Profetas: The Prophetic Role of Hispanic Churches in America, ed. Daniel F. Flores

Book Review – Introducción a la teología del Nuevo Mundo by Oscar García-Johnson

Theopoetry – “De las cosas sencillas / Of the Simple Things” by Luis Cruz-Villalobos

Available via Amazon and the ATLA theological data bank.

Mary’s Magnificat was neither Meek nor Mild

The Christmas season is when we emphasize the birth of Jesus. Of course, his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph, are highlighted for their actions of faith. The popular notion is that Mary was so meek and mild that she would never rock the boat nor challenge the status quo. Wrong! She was a courageous champion of social change. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Mary sang out her mighty message of social transformation:

“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever,  just as he promised our ancestors.” (Luke 1:46-55)

Jesus set in motion this non-violent revolution by what he preached and practiced in his life, death, and resurrection. He urged a radical love for our neighbors…and for our enemies. God continues this social change through simple human beings who follow the Lord’s leading in filling the hungry and lifting up the humble.  Some examples come to mind: St. Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa. May this Christmas season be filled with a renewed commitment to advancing God’s love… on earth as it is in heaven.

Genocide against Israel is Evil…and so is Genocide against the Gazans

On October 7, Hamas attacked Israel and killed over a thousand Israelis and took over a hundred hostages. In response, Israel launched air attacks upon Gaza and, as a result, over ten thousand Palestinians have been killed. Israel also restricted food and water supplies in Gaza, and many additional thousands have died. Hamas is guilty of genocide…and so is Netanyahu’s administration. Both halves of the previous sentence are true and must be affirmed.

In our polarized society, we must apply the same ethical standards to both sides. We must no longer be like sports fans whose favorite team is never guilty of rule violations and whose opponents are never right. International laws that prohibit the targeting of civilians apply to friends and foes alike. If we don’t apply these criteria to all, we are guilty of hypocrisy. The tragic result is that anti-Semitism and anti-Palestinianism have skyrocketed in our country and around the world.

I add my voice to the call for an immediate ceasefire with the following goals:

  1. Hostages on both sides be exchanged.
  2. Humanitarian aid flow into Gaza.
  3. Reasonable Israelis and thoughtful Palestinians sit down together and acknowledge their own guilt.
  4. Both sides sketch out the first steps to achieve a just peace for all involved.
  5. Nations around the world overcome their own interests and biases in order to stimulate and accompany this process of seeking a just peace.

Why do White Evangelicals prefer Trump when they have Better Options?

Why do White Evangelicals Prefer Trump when they Have Better Options?

In the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, approximately 80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. Since then, they have remained some of Trump’s strongest supporters. This is somewhat strange, because his life runs contrary to evangelicals’ most cherished virtues. This must be unpacked a bit. Evangelicals are a subsection of Protestant Christianity which claim that their lives are guided by Biblical principles. Although this is somewhat true at an individual level (honest, hard-working, dedicated to their family, etc.), this is not accurate at a political level. Numerous surveys reveal that fewer than 15% of evangelicals have their political positions shaped by Scripture on important issues of our day (immigration, foreign policy, environment, health care, etc.). Their most important political concern has been to reduce the number of abortions taking place. Since Reagan, Republican presidential candidates have promised to re-shape the Supreme Court with enough conservative justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. During his presidency, Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Court, and as a result, Roe was overturned, and the legal status of abortion has been returned to the states.

Although Trump lost the 2020 election, he is running again and is way ahead of his Republican rivals: Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy. My question for white evangelicals is the following: Why do you continue to support Trump when his lifestyle runs contrary to core Christian values and you have better options? Here is a small sample of his character flaws.

  1. Trump is a racist. He began his campaign in 2015 by declaring that Mexicans were drug pushers, criminals, and rapists. In 2018 he called African countries, plus Haiti and El Salvador “shithole” countries.
  2. Trump is a womanizer and treats women as objects. In his Access Hollywood tape, Trump affirmed “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
  3. He is a bully. In his rallies, he demeans others based on their physical handicaps, their looks, etc. instead of using reasonable, logical arguments.
  4. He is a compulsive liar. On the day of his inauguration, he lied about the size of the crowd, then told hundreds of significant lies during his presidency, including the allegation that he won the 2020 election. You can google “Trump and lies” for a long list with evidence.
  5. He is narcissistic. His demands for “loyalty” required people to violate the Constitution and their conscience. For those who violated their religious convictions, they have brought shame and disrepute to their faith.
  6. His vanity has led him to make false predictions. He predicted that under his leadership, Republicans would win so many elections, they would “get tired of winning”. That turned out to be false. Republicans lost the 2018 midterm election, the 2020 presidential election, and the special election in Georgia. They underperformed in 2022. Republicans are, in fact, tired of losing with Trump.
  7. His many crimes have led him to be charged with 91 counts in federal courts. It is likely that he will be found guilty of some felonies by the time of the election in November, 2024.

I know people who refuse to acknowledge any of these defects. This was understandable during the heat of the 2016 and 2020 elections, but is totally unreasonable today. There are better options: Haley, DeSantis, and Christie. They are fallen human beings (just like me). They have their own defects (just like me). They probably have skeletons in their closets (just like me). I have significant disagreements with each of them and some of their policies. Nevertheless, they all have been governors and have experience in constitutional positions of leadership. Each of them has a basic minimum integrity as public servants. Each of them would be a better option than Trump.

For further reading, I suggest the new book by Tim Alberta: The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory. American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.

Violence Begets More Violence

A week ago, Hamas viciously attacked Israel with missiles and ruthless kidnappings. This attack took the Israeli government by surprise, but Israel then responded by bombing Gaza. These mutual attacks have been bloody. Thousands of people have already been killed and more than a hundred people are being held hostage by Hamas. It is understandable that Israel wants to get revenge and they are poised to launch a massive ground assault in Gaza. Although this is understandable, it is also immoral and shortsighted. Their announced goal is to permanently rid Gaza of Hamas leadership. It is a flawed plan for the following reasons:

  1. Hamas leaders are probably hidden away in underground tunnels throughout Gaza, making it difficult to capture or kill them. In this pursuit of Hamas leadership, a ground assault will become prolonged and will lead to the death of many Gazan civilians.
  2. In addition, the Israeli government is cutting off food, water, and electricity to the 2.5 million civilians who live in Gaza. This is already producing a humanitarian crisis of gigantic proportions and the death of numerous innocent people.
  3. Although Israel currently has the empathy and support of much of the world community, that will soon evaporate if large numbers of civilians lose their lives.
  4. A ground assault will lead to the death of the hostages, not their liberation.
  5. Neither the Israelis nor the United States have proposed a viable exit strategy. When will enough of the Hamas leadership be destroyed for Israel to claim victory? How many civilians will have died?

Positive actions do exist and should be pursued:

  1. A ceasefire should be implemented immediately which would permit humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
  2. The U.S. should lean on Egypt to open their border crossing into Gaza to permit refugees to escape.
  3. Neutral countries should step up to mediate and promote a long-lasting peace that would lead to the removal of Hamas leadership and would promote a two state solution and self-government for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Continued “justified” violence is not the answer. It would only lead to more senseless violence.

Is Affirmative Action “Racist”?

Is Affirmative Action “racist”?

Conservative media commentators frequently label Affirmative Action as “racist”. I understand why they want to do this. They are applying a word that has a negative connotation to a policy they don’t like. Nevertheless, that label is neither accurate nor helpful. Racism is essentially defined as “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group”. The important words are prejudice, discrimination, and antagonism. Affirmative action policies did distinguish Afro-Americans from other races, but was it was designed to help level the playing field for black Americans, not to implement prejudice against them. Applicants from other ethnicities were at a relative disadvantage, but it was usually minor. This was an unintentional consequence and is sometimes known as collateral damage.

It is helpful to look at collateral damage in similar situations. Whenever an organization gives a benefit to a certain category of people, those not in that category are at a relative disadvantage, but this is not necessarily “wrong”. For example, many restaurants give a “Senior Citizen” discount to customers who have reached a certain age (usually 62 or 65). Younger customers pay more than senior citizens for the exact same meal, but we don’t denounhce this preference based on age as “age-ist”.

Many people acknowledge “financial need” as a valid criterion for considering educational scholarships. As a result, richer students pay more than students with financial aid scholarships for the same education. Should we label this collateral damage based on financial need as “classist”? Few would do so.

There might be valid reasons for opposing affirmative action, such as trying to demonstrate with evidence that the playing field has now become level. But just labeling it as racist is not accurate nor useful. May we use language in ways that enable good communication and not distort it.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”

So states the Good Book in Isaiah 5:20. The prophet Isaiah pronounced God’s judgment on those religious and political leaders who misrepresented God and distorted the Lord’s teaching on moral issues. To be sure, there are some ethical challenges that are “gray areas” in which right and wrong are not clearly discerned. On these issues sincere people might disagree.

Nevertheless, there are other topics where positions are clearly right or wrong and attempts by leaders to blur these distinctions do indeed deserve God’s judgment and our repudiation. One such issue is taking place before our eyes in Florida. On Wednesday, that state’s Board of Education approved a new curriculum for the teaching of Afro-American history, including slavery in the United States. Instructions for teaching this history to middle schoolers is that students learn how slaves developed skills which could be applied “for their personal benefit”.

I hope my readers would agree that slavery in the United States was horrific. Thousands upon thousands of Africans died in the voyage across the Atlantic. Many more died due to the hard labor and harsh conditions of slavery itself. Black families were torn apart. We fought a long, bloody civil war to rid ourselves of this evil institution. Although some slave owners were not as bad as others, they all benefited from the involuntary labor of the slaves. (Some of my ancestors owned slaves, and therefore, I benefited indirectly from that slave labor). Although many slaves were resilient and endured horrific slavery with God’s help, this does not soften the evil of slavery itself.

The obvious results (and probable purpose) of Florida’s educational curriculum and guidelines are to distort our history and put a benevolent aura upon a sinful system. This is calling evil good and deserves our repudiation. I call upon Florida’s Board of Education to rewrite their guidelines to make their history curriculum more in line with what truly happened.

Revisiting Affirmative Action: The Starting Point is Still Not the Same for Everyone

Last week I wrote “The Supreme Court: What Happened to Conservatives and Freedom?” on my blog in which I lamented the Supreme Court decision overturnng Affirmative Action and its negative decrease in freedom for private universities.

Several people responded and asked me questions about my post. I decided to write a follow up piece to further explain my reasoning.

Racial discrimination (the use of race or skin color to distinguish people) has generally been practiced in the United States to benefit some (usually white people) at the expense of others (people of color, especially African Americans). Centuries of slavery, Jim Crow laws, exclusion from elections, gerrymandering, “separate but equal” practices in education, exclusion from benefits of the G.I. Bill, Redlining, etc. have had horrible consequences for people of color. People like me (I am a white male of the upper middle class) have an unfair advantage in the race of life. We don’t all start at the same place.   Through no effort on my part, I began the race far ahead of many others.

Racial quotas and affirmative action were a different kind of racial discrimination. They used the race factor to partially offset the horrific consequences of historical racism in our country. They partially compensated for the sins of our past. They partially narrowed the gap at the starting point. They partially leveled the playing field. People of color have made significant gains in education, earnings, political life, etc., but I still have an unfair advantage.

The overturning of Affirmative Action by the Supreme Court last month essentially claimed that racial equality has already been achieved in our nation, that the starting point is the same for all people. This disregard for history and reality is blindness at best and probably contains some hypocrisy as well.

“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it” claimed Chief Justice writing for the majority position. He was arguing that we should be “color blind”. Nevertheless, he wasn’t being totally truthful, because federally funded military academies (such as West Point and the Air Force Academy) are permitted to continue considering race in admissions decisions. The reason? A vague statement that military academies may have “potentially distinct interests”. Military leaders argue that our nation needs officers who have educational experience in racially diverse settings. Business and political leaders make similar arguments.

My God is not “color blind”. Neither should we be “color blind”. We should acknowledge how racial distinctions have been used in the past to widen the gap.  Let us acknowledge racial distinctions now to narrow that gap. The soul-searching question for me, and for those like me, is whether we want to let go of our unfair advantages.

The Supreme Court: What Happened to Conservatives and Freedom?

Yesterday the Supreme Court issued a ruling that essentially overturned Affirmative Action. Universities and colleges, both public and private, can no longer use race as a criterion for admission purposes. In the last 24 hours, much has been said and written in favor and against the decision. Nevertheless, there has not been much commentary regarding the ruling and its relationship to freedom. This is somewhat strange because it was the six conservative justices who united to overturn Affirmative Action. Conservatives claim to enhance freedom. They usually rail against the intromission of big government in the affairs of its citizens. They have violated their convictions with this decision.

During my teaching career, I have taught at various institutions of higher education. Two of those schools are Wheaton College and Whitworth University. Both are private schools, and both believe that greater diversity (economic, racial, and social) in their student body and faculty leads to better education. (Wheaton College had strong abolition values at its beginning and has included African American students since the mid nineteenth century.) Now, both schools are formally prohibited from seeking racial diversity on their campuses. Their institutional freedom has been curtailed. The ruling unnecessarily reduces freedom. On this particular aspect of institutional freedom of action, most people agree that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court got it wrong.

Memorial Day and our Unjust Wars: Let’s be Honest

This might not be a popular blog, but I submit it to your conscience. This past weekend, our country celebrated the national holiday of Memorial Day in which we honor those soldiers who gave their lives in our nation’s wars. Republicans and Democrats generally agree regarding the honoring of veterans, but both sides are failing the integrity test. Let me explain.

Our country, like most nations around the world, affirms that we practice Just War Theory (JWT). We claim that we will not go to war unless the basic four criteria of JWT are met (just cause, just intent, last resort, legitimate authorization). We also affirm that we will wage war according to JWT principles, like civilian immunity. What should we do when we fail to meet JWT conditions? An honest analysis shows that most of our wars have not been just. (See the book “The Wars of America: Christian Views”, edited by Ronald Wells, for such an analysis of each of our major wars). Our typical response is to slide down the slippery slope of excuses, alibis, or rationalizations. We avoid talking about our moral failures or we try to change the rules in midstream.

Let´s take the war in Iraq as an example. We spent twenty years, the lives of thousands of soldiers, over 100,000 civilian Iraqi deaths, and $1.7 trillion dollars for a war that was not justified. Allegedly, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and had a close relationship with al-Qaeda. He was a terrible tyrant, but no weapons of mass destruction were ever found nor evidence of communication with al-Qaeda. The war was never authorized, neither by the U.S. Congress nor by the United Nations. The highly respected Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, made the case for war at the UN Security Council. The UN correctly did not approve the request, citing the lack of credible evidence. Being a man of integrity, General Powell later acknowledged his deep regret for having been used as an instrument to disseminate false information that led to a war with over 100,000 deaths, mostly civilians.

How should we remember unjust wars? Only a cheap, false patriotism would celebrate these wars. We would do well to learn from the ancient Israelites who confessed their sins on their annual Day of Atonement. We must learn to hold accountable our officials who gloss over their actions as “good intentions”. Good intentions are not enough. If Just War Theory is to be accepted as a valid national policy, we the people need to demand that our leaders do not take us into deadly wars that are not justified. My faith tradition teaches that if we deny our sins, we are liars and we deceive themselves. But if we confess our sins, we can find forgiveness. Unjust war involves the cheapening of human life. Our society has the highest gun violence in the world which points to a similar devaluing of lives. Let’s acknowledge our mistakes and find healing for our nation.

Further reading: “When War is Unjust” by John Howard Yoder and “Terrorism and the War in Iraq” that I wrote together with Rene Padilla.