of pollos and theology

"We were just talking and all of a sudden we heard the sound of chickens," Leah explained. "So we looked around and sure enough, there they were on the floor in the front of our microbus."

That of course was too good a photo opp to pass up. I've seen a lot of animals in unexpected places in Nicaragua, but this one was right up there. The most interesting thing is how calm the 4-5 of them were, just quietly enjoying the ride across town as we took the students to the Baptist Seminary for a class on liberation theology. It sounds kinda strange, I admit--what in the world do the Baptists have to do with leftist ideas like that?

But, actually, the Baptist Seminary here is and was the hub of higher theological education in Nicaragua. Today, it's still the only one that isn't only for denominational church preparation. And during the 60s and 70s its entire teaching methodology took on the form developed by Latin American lib theologians, for which they got a lot of flack from some of the more conservative wings of their own denomination as well as other Christians.

A lot has changed since the 1970s, of course. Liberation theology has basically slipped into the history books, other than a few small communities and practitioners. But what our guest speaker, a pastor and faculty member at the seminary shared with us, is that the heart of liberation theology for him was always about a certain way of looking at the world around us, listening to the reality that surrounds us, and reading the Bible with a profound interest in what light it would shed on how to respond to those realities, especially to the suffering of others.

"I could preach a sermon this week about how the dead in Christ will rise first," Pastor G reflected, "and make the people feel better about being hungry and dying sooner to be with Christ sooner...but that's not what it's about. It's about what we do about hunger. It's about justice."

He went on to describe how he saw threads of commonality running through Jesus' message to the religous of his time, the message of the Reformers in the 1500s, and the cries of liberation theology advocates in the 1960s-70s. "In one way or another, they were also speaking truth to power," Pastor G shared. Reminding people of God's truth, our true access to Him, His compassion, His outrage over the plight of the poor.

He admitted that he felt many liberation theologians lost their way by separating Christian ethics from political/social action, but defended others like Archbishop Romero in El Salvador who was killed for "simply daring to call upon the governing authorities to stop the violence against the people."

We still need voices like that today. We still need to look at the Scriptures and look at our reality and speak truth to power. Even it means losing our lives. I wonder if we truly believe that nowadays. I wonder if we truly believe what Jesus himself said.

“Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”