<div>"Tom Hansen has made it possible to listen or read all my commentaries at <SPAN id=lw_1174279768_0 style="BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; BORDER-BOTTOM: #0066cc 1px dashed">www.NickGier.com</SPAN>." Nick Gier</div> <div> </div> <div>Nick,</div> <div> </div> <div>Are you sure the internet is big enough to hold all your commentaries? </div> <div> </div> <div>Best,</div> <div> </div> <div>DJA<BR><BR><B><I>Nicholas Gier <ngier@uidaho.edu></I></B> wrote:</div> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Greetings:<BR><BR>This is my radio commentary for next week. Tom Hansen has made it<BR>possible to listen or read all my commentaries at www.NickGier.com.<BR><BR>Wish I were there for the anti-war rally.<BR><BR>Nick Gier<BR><BR><BR>THE SAD PERSECUTION OF FATHER JON SOBRINO<BR><BR>Most people believe that the Inquisition is now only an embarrassment in<BR>the Catholic
Church’s dark past. Execution and torture, some of the<BR>same techniques now revived by the Bush administration, are no longer<BR>practiced, but the careers of sincere Catholic leaders are still being<BR>ruined, and the psychological effects will linger for the rest of their<BR>lives. <BR><BR>Father Jon Sobrino, a leading liberation theologian in El Salvador, has<BR>learned that he is being punished for “errors in his teaching and<BR>writings.” It is said the church fathers are especially concerned that<BR>Sobrino may not believe in Christ’s divinity. <BR><BR>Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI, began<BR>investigating Sobrino back in 2001. Ratzinger was head of the<BR>Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which means, in plain<BR>English, that he was the Grand Inquisitor in charge of rooting out<BR>heretics. Ratzinger has always been a staunch opponent to liberation<BR>theology, one that focuses on the economic problems of the poor, rather<BR>than
correct doctrine, the enforcement of which has always been the<BR>Inquisitor’s job.<BR><BR>Fernando Saenz Lacalle, the Archbishop of San Salvador, was the one to<BR>announce the charges against Sobrino. A member of Opus Dei, the<BR>reactionary Catholic group made famous by The Davinci Code, was once a<BR>head priest for the Salvadoran military, which has been implicated in<BR>the murder of nuns and priests, most notably Archbishop Oscar Romero,<BR>who was assassinated in 1980.<BR><BR>At that time the Reagan administration fully supported the Salvadoran<BR>military’s campaign against leftist insurgents. UN Ambassador Jeanne<BR>Kirkpatrick claimed that the Catholic sisters who were tortured and<BR>killed were not really nuns, and Alexander Hague, Reagan's Secretary of<BR>State, branded them as leftist sympathizers who got what they deserved. <BR><BR>In the 1980s I was teaching a course on contemporary theology that<BR>included a unit on liberation theology. In addition to
studying the<BR>works of Sobrino, we also read the Brazilian Leonardo Boff and the<BR>Columbian Gustavo Gutierrez.<BR><BR>All three of these thinkers were accused of being Marxists and of<BR>supporting violent revolution. But American conservative John Richard<BR>Neuhaus defended Gutierrez against this charge, and Boff, once banned<BR>from teaching, declared that he was an orthodox Christian, although he<BR>“thanked God for Marx's analysis of the mechanism of oppression.”<BR><BR>Looking back at the notes for that course, I am amazed at how little<BR>progress liberation theology has made in the intervening years. <BR>Conservative Christians still claim that the Bible supports free market<BR>economics, even though the early church practiced economic communism<BR>(Acts 2:44-45). This was not just a temporary emergency policy because<BR>200 years later the Christian theologian Tertullian explained "we hold<BR>everything in common except our wives."<BR><BR>Free market reforms
in Latin America, following Chile’s model, have had<BR>limited success, and governments that have tried these policies have<BR>been turned out of office. The Chilean Socialist Party that the Nixon<BR>administration tried to crush is now back in power, and Michelle<BR>Bachelet, whose father was killed by the U.S. backed Pinochet<BR>dictatorship, is now the new Socialist Prime Minister.<BR><BR>Liberation theology is not just about economic oppression; it is also<BR>about equal rights for women, people of color, gays, and lesbians. It<BR>is also about the right to be free from militarism and violent living<BR>conditions, and the liberation of all life from pollution and the<BR>effects of global warming.<BR><BR>The need for progressive religious leaders and political action on their<BR>part is greater than ever. One good example is evangelical minister Jim<BR>Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, which just sponsored a<BR>rally against the war in Iraq in Washington,
D. C. The National<BR>Association of Evangelicals has also just passed a policy that supports<BR>efforts to reduce global warming.<BR><BR>There are those who will say that neither liberals nor conservatives<BR>should mix religion and politics. But in a free society we simply cannot<BR>ban religious speech simply because it is part of a political campaign.<BR>Furthermore, people do not establish a state religion by simply<BR>expressing their religious views.<BR><BR>A liberal democracy allows open discussion and debate, and religious<BR>people do not have to check their values and beliefs at the door. All<BR>ideas are tested in the arena of public justification, where reasoned<BR>argument and judicial review are the norms. Furthermore,<BR>anti-abortionists, for example, have every right to use the peaceful<BR>tactics of civil disobedience, which worked so well for Mahatma Gandhi<BR>and Martin Luther King.<BR><BR>The reason why Gandhi and King were not criticized for
injecting<BR>religion into politics is because their message was religiously and<BR>culturally inclusive. The Religious Right usually divides and excludes,<BR>while Gandhi and King’s focus on basic human dignity and universal human<BR>rights are embraced by nearly everyone. That should not be surprising<BR>because they were or have become the basis for secular laws. <BR><BR>Finally, my research on the origins of religious violence has shown that<BR>those religions that focus on practice rather than doctrine are much<BR>less violent that those who insist on punishing people because of<BR>trivial disputes about doctrine.<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>=======================================================<BR>List services made available by First Step Internet, <BR>serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <BR>http://www.fsr.net <BR>mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>=======================================================<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><p> 
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