(00:00:00) I've been asked to speak here in your series about the new religious (00:00:06) movements as they make themselves felt in (00:00:09) America. And I want to introduce also tonight some remarks about a subject. I've been observing and studying rather closely in the last three or four months namely the new (00:00:23) liberation theology movements in Latin America. I've just come within the last week from living and teaching for four months in Mexico. I was in Puebla during the visit of Pope John Paul II and the meeting of the Roman Catholic Bishops of Latin America there in early February and I think I begin to see (00:00:49) some important relationships between these two seemingly disparate but important religious movements. It seems odd in a way to be talking in 1979 about a Renaissance of (00:01:06) religion in this world, which some of us perhaps a little too hastily dismissed as secular not too many years ago (00:01:15) who would have foreseen 10 or 15 years ago the enormous Resurgence (00:01:22) around the world of Islam. The most startling evidence of which was where the recent events in Iran (00:01:32) who would have thought (00:01:33) that a man holding the chair of Saint Peter a Polish Cardinal could receive the largest and most enthusiastic welcome of any visitor in the history of Mexico, which is supposed to be an anti-clerical (00:01:49) estate. Not too long ago after 52 years of official anti-religious policy in the Soviet Union Alexander solzhenitsyn came to Harvard and I heard him talk about the rich Orthodox (00:02:08) Christian sources of his spirituality and his critical perspective (00:02:15) and here in the United States. We find a kind of resurgence which is not always to the liking of people involved in religious in Liberal religion a new Resurgence of Evangelical and charismatic religious movements. What does it all mean is it? Is it possible to look at this these Tendencies around the world and to say anything (00:02:39) consecutive or consistent about all of them or any of them? (00:02:46) I want to try to reduce this entire. (00:02:51) Series this melange of different religious movements (00:02:57) from the point of view of a theologian into to of what I think are the most important and challenging theological movements (00:03:05) in our time and I want to (00:03:07) call them. dialogical (00:03:09) theology and Liberation theology (00:03:14) biological (00:03:16) dialogical Theology and Liberation theology and I'll say a little bit about each of these just to (00:03:22) identify them. Those of us who are Professionals in the field of theology who are paid to (00:03:31) think and to write and to do what everyone enjoys doing all the time, which is to argue and reflect about religion. It's a Wonderful profession really (00:03:42) those of us who do this have noticed that in the last 10 or 15 years perhaps 20 years a very (00:03:48) important change has occurred in the context within which we do our (00:03:53) theologizing it is no longer possible for me. For example as a Christian Theologian to complete all of the (00:04:02) work of the building of a theological edifice with the are carefully with the doctrine of God and of the church and of history and of Christ all well in place (00:04:13) and then having completed that whole structure to look around for somebody to have a conversation with or an argument with from another religious tradition. And perhaps to have to go across the ocean or across the world to do that. What has happened? Is that the pluralism of religions which used to be a globally distributed pluralism of religions has in the last 15 or 20 years become something on our own turf (00:04:44) on our own back porch. I was reminded of this very forcibly a few years ago. In fact, so forcibly that I was motivated to write a book called Turning East about all this (00:05:00) one, very peaceful Sunday afternoon when I was simply perusing the Sunday newspaper and a knock came at the door of our house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My children went to the door and reported that there were some people there dressed in rather odd costumes. And since it (00:05:16) wasn't Halloween they were they were confused about who they were. I went to the door. They turned out to be members of the Hare Krishna sect. They were selling Publications not doing too. Well so far on the Block that I lived on but I don't I don't I'm not sure that they knew whose door they were knocking on when they locked on mine, but they hit the jackpot as least as far as selling (00:05:41) booklets and having a good discussion. Because we invited them in all three of them. We had a long discussion in which I tried to find out from them what it was that would lead three Young (00:05:54) Americans. Who seemed to me to be very typical and and not in any way having undergone brainwashing or some kind of forced conversion? What would lead three young people like this to (00:06:07) leave behind whatever traditional religion or non-religion they once had and to enter into a the full participation in a movement, which seemed the seems the most of us so strange. So foreboding as I talk with them, it turned out interestingly enough that one of them had been raised as a Roman Catholic in South Boston. (00:06:31) What have been raised as a presbyterian and one had been raised Jewish? They didn't really know that about each other by the way until I press them (00:06:41) but suddenly here I had a an ecumenical (00:06:44) movement in (00:06:46) Safran. In Saffron robes in my front room, and I knew that something was up. And when they left leaving behind one of (00:06:58) their copies of the bhagavad-gita for which I paid by the way. My children began to look through the the bhagavad-gita this particular Hindu (00:07:10) scripture and ask me about the (00:07:12) pictures the pictures of Krishna and of Radha (00:07:16) and it suddenly struck me that when I was 11 or 12 or however old (00:07:20) they were at the time 13 growing up in Malvern, Pennsylvania. (00:07:24) I had never heard of Krishna or Radha or (00:07:28) Hinduism or Hare Krishna (00:07:30) movement or anything the most bizarre religion to us seem to be the methodists who were four blocks away and who sang with a little bit too much (00:07:40) Gusto for those of us in our more traditional and straight Baptist Church. (00:07:48) No, no the whole (00:07:51) the the reality of religious pluralism in the world is no longer something exotic or (00:07:58) esoteric from now on (00:08:01) religious pluralism is something that will be there in our (00:08:03) midst Buddhism is not any longer a an Asian religion Buddhism is now also (00:08:12) an American religion for (00:08:13) two years in 1976 and 77. I taught (00:08:18) at The naropa Institute in Boulder, (00:08:21) Colorado the largest Buddhist (00:08:24) study center in (00:08:25) America with (00:08:25) 2,000 Young Americans enrolled in that school. I was teaching the one course on Christianity all they're all the others were courses on Buddhism what his history but his practice art philosophy we can no longer think of these religious movements as (00:08:44) extraneous. So that we are doing our theology now in the presence up. The other in the presence of other people who do (00:08:55) not share all of our premises in our presuppositions. This is true for any theologian. We live in a pluralistic and dialogical situation and that has to influence our (00:09:07) theology. So the way it has begun to influence us where I teach at Harvard Divinity (00:09:12) School, which is still basically a Protestant Christian Divinity School the oldest one in the country, by the way, (00:09:19) is that as we study for example, the Old Testament or the New Testament instead of studying them in an isolated manner we study them as they compared (00:09:31) to the basic scriptures of other world religions. (00:09:36) And as we talk about the doctrine of God and Christianity, we talked about it in (00:09:40) comparison to understandings of God and other religious (00:09:43) traditions. This is not to reduce everything to some common denominators some pabulum, which wouldn't be interesting or tasty to anyone rather. It is to recognize that the context of theological Endeavor of the intellectual (00:09:59) task of theologizing has been radically changed (00:10:02) and No longer to do a possible simply to do our work to finish the theological construction. And then (00:10:09) to enter into (00:10:11) dialogue dialogue is part of the (00:10:14) process of construction itself. And I think will be from now (00:10:18) on that is not only true of Christianity. (00:10:20) By the way. (00:10:21) We live in the first time in world history in which the major all of the major religions of the world now (00:10:28) are all of which of course are changing and developing as they always have the other (00:10:33) world religions are changing with reference to their conversation with Christianity (00:10:38) and with Judaism and with the with the other religions. (00:10:44) One of the most interesting things about Islam which is not been mentioned in in the rash of (00:10:49) recent literature about Islam that we've seen in popular magazines and so on is that (00:10:56) not too many years ago 25 years ago. There was virtually no literature written by any Islamic (00:11:03) scholar on Christianity. I know this because I have a friend who's a scholar in this field who was keeping a bibliography and told me that (00:11:12) 15 years ago. You could put on one piece of paper. (00:11:17) All of the eight or nine articles written by all of the Muslim Scholars about any aspect of Christianity. There just wasn't any interest in the (00:11:27) subject. Now there are whole bibliographies of Articles (00:11:34) manuscripts of (00:11:35) monographs books (00:11:36) by Islamic scholars exploring Christianity and thinking through their faith tradition with reference to what for them is another tradition. (00:11:48) Now, this is a very exciting Enterprise. I think it's a rich and interesting (00:11:52) time to be working on theology. I was not trained for this. I was trained in the rather classical fashion in which most Christian theologians are trained with one or two courses along the line and comparative religion. I have had to (00:12:09) be retrained (00:12:11) rather painfully in recent years (00:12:14) to work in this manner, but I think the kind of world we live in requires (00:12:18) that this is the way we do theology. Now (00:12:21) that we understand our own faith whether that faith (00:12:24) is Christianity or one of the others with constant reference to how we are perceived. By those whose faith is (00:12:32) different how we perceive them with an (00:12:36) effort to to (00:12:37) cut through the misperceptions the prejudices and the stereotypes again not so that the whole thing is reduced and the differences are forgotten far from it. But so that we know what the difference is really (00:12:50) are and where the human dialogue can proceed (00:12:56) now, that's one (00:12:59) the dialogical what I call dialogical theology. Actually, the name was invented by Professor Heinrich art of Switzerland, but I borrow his term freely. (00:13:12) The other direction which interests me and I think most of us have heard (00:13:17) something here about here is what is currently called liberation (00:13:22) theology. Perhaps the most outstanding exponents of liberation (00:13:27) theology come from the continent of Latin America. We have the Apolo buff Gustavo Gutierrez, Juan Luis Segundo (00:13:38) a whole new generation of theologians coming from a continent which had been totally overlooked and (00:13:47) neglected as far as the Christian theological. Enterprise is concerned. I can't imagine 20 years ago when I was beginning to teach and to think about theology. (00:14:00) I can't imagine anyone suggesting that the newest and freshest and most vigorous theological movement to come in (00:14:06) the in the 1970s would come from Latin America. (00:14:10) Latin America was thought of as the least possible candidate for anything interesting a (00:14:15) theologically was seen to be kind of the morass of superstition residual piety of residual Mary illogical pietism pilgrimages amulets and all the rest sort of resist the Grim results of the black Legend certainly not a place in which any kind of creative theology would come but it has (00:14:39) come (00:14:40) And I can assure you (00:14:43) that during the next 5 10 15 or 20 years perhaps longer All theologians European. North American liberal conservative Catholic Protestant will have to deal with the enormous Vitality of this movement. And to describe it is really not too difficult. It's a rediscovery (00:15:07) as they would put it of the fact (00:15:09) that in the biblical tradition. God reveals himself to be (00:15:14) on the side of the (00:15:16) poor. (00:15:19) That God's Transcendence and gods universality is revealed as the one who is partial to and on always on the side of those who are weak (00:15:30) exploited and brokenhearted and (00:15:34) therefore the church and the theological Enterprise does its work in this context now see they're not talking about a pluralistic religious (00:15:45) context in Latin America. They're talking about a continent in which most people (00:15:50) are poor and most people are exploited. (00:15:54) And hungry (00:15:55) and a continent in which most of those poor hungry exploited people are also Catholic Christians. It's this combination of being Christian and being poor being oppressed, (00:16:07) which is created the atmosphere out of which liberation theology has has grown. (00:16:16) now I want to (00:16:20) excuse me. I let me say one more thing about Liberation theology, which is that. (00:16:27) The whole Liberation (00:16:27) theology movement which has come to our attention in North America in the last five or ten years (00:16:33) became the central focus of the debate. (00:16:36) When the Roman Catholic Bishops met in Puebla in Mexico. And when the pope (00:16:42) came the pope was it was mistakenly reported early in his visit to have said to have (00:16:49) condemned Liberation theology. He never actually did that. In fact before he (00:16:53) left Mexico. He was beginning to sound very much like a Liberation Theologian himself doesn't take long (00:17:01) when one exposes oneself to the conditions of the poor in a Latin American country to make the kind of statements that Pope John Paul II made the most important one of which was that the (00:17:13) poverty in Latin America is not merely an individual accident or a transitional phase. It is a structural form of poverty. People are poor there because people are rich somewhere else and therefore only some kind of (00:17:29) structural change will deal with the with the poverty of that continent. (00:17:35) and now (00:17:40) the (00:17:42) the foundation which supports this (00:17:44) lecture lectureship on which I'm here in your fair City without my suitcase this (00:17:51) evening was given in part 4 lectures having to do with liberal religion. Knife, I am a little uncomfortable with the term liberal (00:18:04) to describe myself. I've never thought of myself really as a liberal (00:18:08) theologian. But I want to for a moment. Look at Liberation theology. For the problem. It poses to liberals religious liberals. And that's a political (00:18:24) liberals. This is a Unitarian Church that we're meeting in here. So I suppose there are some of you who understand what I'm talking (00:18:30) about. When I when I read the responses of religious liberals to Liberation theology, they are very (00:18:39) puzzled about what to do with this. They're puzzled on two counts. (00:18:44) First of all, the theology sounds very conservative. Even reactionary (00:18:51) to to good liberal (00:18:53) unitarians here are people who are talking about God who is active in history who reveals himself in Jesus Christ who is still powerfully active in history who is on the side of the poor and all of that? They're all the questions about which endless discussion groups go on in Liberal churches don't seem to occur to these people. It sounds like very conservative theology. Now it's not conservative in the ecclesial sense of Catholic theology. (00:19:25) That is although the pope was welcomed (00:19:28) and honored my suspicion was that in Latin America? Most people really really didn't understand (00:19:35) exactly what the Pope's role with reference to the whole church was (00:19:38) he was a (00:19:39) powerful religious figure who was there to bless the people in fact, I had my class that I was teaching in, Mexico. Interview people in Mexico after the Pope's visit and ask them how they felt about it. Most people felt it was just wonderful (00:19:56) when you ask them what the pope said hardly anybody knew anything that he (00:20:00) didn't remember a word that he said, (00:20:03) but they were very impressed at this religious. Figure would come the whole way across the ocean as they said to bless our (00:20:09) people. (00:20:12) now so Liberation theology is is conservative or at least it sounds (00:20:19) conservative to most liberals. It is conservative in that sense. Although Ecclesia, logically. (00:20:26) It's probably not all the Vatican would hope for Politically oddly enough to many liberals Liberation theology sounds entirely too radical to revolutionary. I hear people who are talking about (00:20:47) the overthrow of dictatorial regimes if necessary by forcible means who who (00:20:59) have as one of their principal Hero's father Camilo Torres (00:21:03) who in 1965 joined a group of gorillas in Columbia and was killed by the Army and is surely the most popular hero of Catholic activists in Latin America today. (00:21:21) So for most American political and religious liberals for whom Democratic procedures and parliamentary processes (00:21:29) are the way to change the (00:21:32) politics of Latin American Catholic left revolutionaries sounds dangerous. sounds like something that they (00:21:42) are suspicious of take for example the small country of Nicaragua. Today, which is suffering under a military dictatorship. In which (00:21:57) seven priests have been killed (00:21:59) since January of this year in which the (00:22:03) the only spokesman who is a who has the courage or perhaps the safety to speak out against the (00:22:09) regime is Bishop Oscar Romero. Excuse me, I'd I see Nicaragua. This is I'm talking about the El Salvador El Salvador. Also all the countries of Latin America of Central America are pretty much the same situation. Now, this is El Salvador where the seven priests have been killed and where the bishop (00:22:33) has become the principal (00:22:34) spokesman for the forces opposing the military dictatorship (00:22:41) including the people who are opposing it by force of arms, no doubt about that. I think there's no denying it. And I attended a meeting in Puebla in which the general of the Jesuit order father. Obey was asked by a (00:22:56) group of journalists, whether he approved of the (00:22:59) fact that there were places in Latin America in which Jesuit priests were encouraging people actually to take up arms (00:23:08) against repressive regimes that he approve of that. He was in he was on the spot. There was a public press conference and (00:23:16) he pointed out to them that in the traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. It is allowable and in fact (00:23:26) Permissible (00:23:28) to turn to violence when all other (00:23:32) means have been exhausted. (00:23:36) Now he did not (00:23:37) specify which countries are under which conditions he was a he avoided making any kind of particular indictments, but he reminded the reminded the journalists of that fact and this is certainly something which is going on. (00:23:53) So religious liberals (00:23:55) do have a problem with Liberation theology. And one can understand (00:24:01) why. Now let me let me just say a (00:24:07) few words a few more words about this and about the possible relationship between these two movements and then I'll stop in the moment unless you let you ask questions. (00:24:19) For Gustavo (00:24:20) Gutierrez who is perhaps the most articulate spokesman of Liberation theology? (00:24:26) The whole thing amounts to reading the Bible from the (00:24:30) point of view of the poor. (00:24:34) What would it be like to read the Old Testament and the New Testament (00:24:39) from the point of view of those who are on the underside of History? (00:24:47) And the method which has been used (00:24:48) by a lot of Liberation (00:24:49) theologians is exactly that simply to go to people who are poor. Who are disinherited to tell them the stories of the Old Testament in the New Testament and to ask them what these stories mean to them without overloading the stories with the traditional baggage of scholarly interpretation to see what it means to the people as it were the people for whom it was originally (00:25:15) written namely the poor. (00:25:19) Now. This has led to a series of remarkable books about Jesus Christ from a Latin American perspective about the the history of Israel. About church history, for example, it's become clearer and clearer as this research proceeds that Jesus selected as those with whom he identified himself selected those who were poor. The and this is this has resulted from new sociological Research into just who the prostitutes (00:25:58) were. For example in Jesus time (00:26:01) just who the tax collectors were. Jesus seemed to have a propensity for tax collectors and prostitutes. (00:26:11) I'm always delighted that he put them both in the often in the same phrase. I think (00:26:15) that's one of the nicest (00:26:17) pairings we have in the New Testament (00:26:20) and I've heard a lot of sermons about this. She perhaps you have to and they're generally fairly (00:26:24) moralistic that all the prostitutes are obviously immoral people Jesus favored them just to show that he was also loved Sinners and all the (00:26:31) rest. That's possible another more persuasive interpretation. Is that prostitutes in the time of Jesus were the poorest of the poor there were the young girls of the poorest families who had to be (00:26:44) sold or rented into prostitution to so the families could avoid starvation and the most recent studies of prostitution in the time of the New Testament substantiates that (00:26:58) so Jesus didn't have any sort of warm sentimental (00:27:01) connection with prostitutes out of some reversed reversal of moralism. (00:27:07) According to this evidence. He talked about the prostitutes being the first to enter the kingdom of God because they were poor exploited ripped off by the system. The tax collectors are a slightly different problem, but it now turns out that the tax collectors with whom Jesus associated with the lowest level of peripheral marginal workers. Who work for the upper tax tax collectors the in jobs, that would be a little like the jobs that you we have now (00:27:40) collecting money at the toll bridges or at the traffic or parking lot sir. There's no (00:27:48) words people who had the most marginal kind of work in the society. Now, what does it mean that Jesus selected the poor and announced that his kingdom was coming. First of all to the poor that in fact, his message was good news for the poor but bad news for the rich. (00:28:06) This is the discovery, which this is the question, which the The Liberation theologians are putting (00:28:12) to us. And it's it's caused me (00:28:18) to go back and to reread (00:28:20) text after text which I had thought I had already (00:28:25) worked my way through reading it from this from this perspective (00:28:30) still. This is not the reduction of Jesus into some kind of first century social worker or gorilla. It is rather seeing Jesus in the full orb of one who is the Liberator of all people from all that oppresses sin death and oppression. So in a sense, it is a combination of a very Orthodox Catholic theology Catholic (00:28:58) here in the small with a small c (00:29:00) and a very radical form of (00:29:02) politics and is for that reason difficult for many of us on two counts. (00:29:11) Now the other main difference is the one that I found most (00:29:14) difficult about Liberation theology. That is not the case with the dialogical theology (00:29:22) is that the Liberation theologians insist their interlocutor (00:29:27) is different. That is the (00:29:29) audience. For whom they are working the people whom they hope will read their books respond to their articles are different than the ones for whom theologians normally write and normally work. They claim that our problem has most academic theologians is that we write mainly for middle-class academic people (00:29:53) the people who read our articles we read their articles, we review their books. They review our books. (00:30:01) And the whole thing remains in a fairly small and (00:30:03) very tidy Little World in which the disputes can (00:30:06) become rancorous but there are always in the family Liberation theologians claim that the vocation of the Theologian is different. The Theologian the Christian Theologian is supposed to be the person who helps the poor (00:30:22) to understand and articulate and act on their faith. (00:30:27) So that the audience the interlocutor of theology is no longer the academic world. It (00:30:32) becomes the world of the outcasts the Brokenhearted the rejects the losers (00:30:40) so that for middle-class North American and European theology. The question has tended to be for many years. What can I still believe? How can I be a Christian? How can I deal with the problem of science with Miracles with life after death with the existence of God given all the intellectual challenges and problems? Perhaps the book which best sums up this whole challenge the whole (00:31:10) program of modern academic theology in Europe. And in the United States is the book by Hans Kung to be a Christian. being a Christian in which he deals in I think a brilliant way from a Catholic Christian Perspective (00:31:27) with all of these challenges and they come up all the time (00:31:31) the origin of the universe the origin of Life the size of the universe all these things (00:31:38) for The Liberation Theologian, (00:31:40) however, (00:31:42) This question is not the (00:31:43) primary question. The primary question (00:31:46) is How can I exist? Who will (00:31:53) defend me? (00:31:58) The intellectual problems which is salt most of us as middle-class educated people do not occur (00:32:04) to most of the constituency of the Liberation theologians. And therefore they don't deal with those issues very much. As Gutierrez puts it it's not the question of being or not being a Christian. It's the question of being or not being. Of eating or not eating of existing or not existing which is a more basic question. (00:32:31) Now I want to add one sentence before I conclude about the (00:32:35) possible relationship between these two Fields. I've just come back from these two movements. I've just come back from a whole year of being on sabbatical leave from Harvard. And I decided to spend the first semester dealing with the problem of religious pluralism. As a Christian Theologian and the second semester dealing with the problem of Liberation theology the challenge of liberation theology. (00:33:03) So I spent the first semester going around the (00:33:06) world. Especially wanted to be in two (00:33:10) places. I selected. I (00:33:12) selected them with it with the with the kind of crazy logic I decided I wanted to study Islam in Iran this past fall which was a particularly sagacious kind of choice. (00:33:23) I almost didn't make it out (00:33:26) of her on and I could still be there studying it I suppose in one of the prisons. that was not a particularly four-sided choice. (00:33:39) However, I did spend some time in Iran and some time (00:33:41) in India and some time in Japan. In part because I wanted to study the three major alternatives to the judeo Christian tradition Islam Hinduism and Buddhism in countries in which they are still powerful and expressive and culture for me (00:34:04) that I wanted to spend the second semester in Latin (00:34:06) America because I believe that's the place in which Liberation theology is best articulated and most vigorous now I come home and I have literally just come home week ago. (00:34:18) With the question of what these two movements mean to each other. And that's my agenda for (00:34:28) the next year's I believe and it's a confusing one and in some ways overwhelming. (00:34:37) because the tools that one (00:34:40) needs the scholarly tools to attack this either one of these movements are would be formidable and to try to work with both of them are the relationship between the two would be even more so, however, I do believe. The Liberation (00:34:57) theologians need to hear more than they do (00:35:01) about the challenge of religious pluralism. See there isn't any religious pluralism in Latin America (00:35:08) as one of my friends said in Latin America, everybody is a Catholic even the Protestants. That's true in a way. It's a continent which has been so so suffused with catholic christian culture (00:35:23) that the question of religious pluralism is really not a live not a live one in most places. (00:35:30) But I think it has to be raised. And I'm (00:35:35) happy to see that that Latin American theologians are now beginning to get in touch with Asian theologians and African theologians. One of the things I introduced to my students to down there were some text by Asian and African theologians. (00:35:50) However, I think that the people who are so caught up with the dialogical (00:35:54) theology. This includes a lot of my colleagues at Harvard (00:35:59) have to be have to recognize that one can go on forever comparing and contrasting without ever getting to the question (00:36:09) of what any one of these religious movements can (00:36:12) do. to help us (00:36:16) exist And I mean exist very very emphatically and factually there because I think the challenge. For all of these religious movements struck me, especially when I visited Japan and with a group of Buddhists visited the site of the dropping of the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Is that the one thing all of the religious movements of the world most have to contribute now is some way in which we can avoid self annihilation. Even before we can be liberated we have to avoid annihilation. (00:37:00) Now I've said a lot of things and maybe some of them have caught your attention. (00:37:05) Maybe I've tried to say a little too much in Too Short a time, I think. (00:37:12) For those of us who are interested in watching and (00:37:15) participating in the religious the life of the the intellectual love of God, which is what we like to think of the theology is the intellectual of God. That's what Thomas Aquinas called it. (00:37:29) These two movements will be movements which (00:37:33) will necessarily engage our attention and in challenge our interest in the decade to come (00:37:39) doing theology in the presence of the (00:37:42) other. What are the other is the (00:37:45) is the Infidel the (00:37:47) Pagan or what are the other is the poor the Brokenhearted the loser? Thank you very much for listening. And that's all I have to say the moment. (00:38:00) Yeah, it's spreading and in part because (00:38:04) the the base the social base for liberation. Theology in Latin America is a (00:38:09) whole new (00:38:11) grass roots Revival of Catholic Christianity in a in a kind of lay directed congregational form. If I may use that very Protestant phraseology, they're called (00:38:24) comunidades de las comunidades the (00:38:27) Vasa communities of the base, which really means (00:38:30) congregations which are not dependent on (00:38:32) the hierarchy for everything that they do and everything. They think about they are locally (00:38:36) organized often led by laypeople (00:38:39) very frequently by women, by the way, because women are excluded from Priestly leadership. (00:38:45) And they tend they tend to be forms of Church Life emphasizing celebration Eucharist study (00:38:54) discussion and action. And out of these communities The Liberation theology has grown. It isn't that liberation theology was created in sort of sent down really happened. The other way happened with the engagement of Christians in this case Catholic Christians in political action in Latin America, and then thinking about it and then creating a new theology want to one of the most vigorously disputed questions at Puebla was what to do (00:39:28) about these community. That is they lasa you can imagine there are some Bishops who were not Hello not ecstatic about all of (00:39:35) this developing and they wanted some Bishops even came to Puebla determine that there was going to be a condemnation of these communities. They Vasa other Bishops came saying No, this is the best thing that has ever happened in our country. It's a real Revival of the faith. So this was hotly contested and finally the the the (00:39:57) Little document (00:39:58) Puebla which is which is official now for all of Latin America affirms these base communities as and as a legitimate form of Catholic Church Life this these are really the the channels through which this whole thing is moving.