question 5: someliberation theologians understand christ as liberator,while the Vatican worries that this term understates some aspects of salvation as it has been traditionally understood. how is your understanding of Christ's cross and resurrection being affected by what you see around you? what vision of Jesus did you bring with you? is it harder to believe in a Jesus who offers a personal relationship of faith to everyone? In what sense does Jesus save or liberate us? what does it mean to believe in or follow Jesus?

response:

Jesus this question is multifaceted! I never understood the commandment about taking the lord’s name in vain..what does that mean anyways? I guess I’m probably going to hell because I say Jesus Christ a lot out of habit: like the other day when I got stuck on the 105 and couldn’t get off. After I missed my stop and descended a good ten minutes in bus passing by all the normal stops where people were waiting to board because the bus was too lleno to accommodate more people and so it just kept going- it took me twenty minutes to walk back up that hill and I almost didn’t make it off the second time either because someone stepped on and was holding my shoe hostage until I shoved them with both hands and jumped off the moving piece of shit box of metal as it rattled away likewise I rattled off all the swear words I knew and continued to mutter under my breath until the walk helped me get over it and I arrived at work not hating Nicaragua anymore. I guess I was trying to keep it light with that story but alas I have to say something deeper about JC.

First of all how can you understate salvation? I’ve hear LT criticized for emphasizing the humanity of Christ over his divinity but if you ask me that makes more sense anyways to see him as human first. Like Yamil said the other day, what good is a theology that doesn’t affect your life; JC was about radically changing the social norms and the life of el pueblo here on earth in this lifetime with his cross and if anything the danger lies in thinking of him as anything less than fully human and relegating his freaking challenging radical message to the spiritual or post-mortem realm. I guess my vision of JC is this humble, amazing, creative, super intelligent, charming, personable, approachable, relatable, kindhearted, spiritual, compassionate, aesthetically pleasing, confident man- all the best of humanity in this one guy. It’s funny because I can remember a point in my life where I was so incredibly self-righteous and hypocritical, my theology was precisely that-all about a personal relationship with Jesus but who the hell was I talking about? It’s hard to explain without feeling myself offending people or stepping on toes but since this is my reflection I feel the need to be honest and I guess sometimes it comes off as harsh.

I’ve started by realizing that at one point I was in that place myself but I find myself increasingly suspicious of people who use the term personal relationship with Jesus because one of the main things I’ve learned from Latin America is the importance of community and the view of salvation as something that was always meant for the collective, not the individual. While I have no doubts that God loves each and every one of his creations I don’t believe in praying for a parking spot as my mother and I have argued about or asking God for something like good luck on a test. Maybe if I’m really desperate I’ll cave in and say a quick prayer to calm the nerves but my heart’s not in it sincerely asking for a miracle to rearrange the bubbles on the scantron sheet. But the point is I don’t think this great mystery who is greater than great and larger than our minds can contain fits into our own personal pocket and it seems absurd to pray for an open parking spot. At the same time I believe God is closer to us than water is to a fish and that Jesus’ example of calling God abba is very relevant indeed. I’m guess what I’m not saying is that one shouldn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus but that I get freaked out if you keep talking about it and pushing it down people’s throats because who exactly is it that you’re talking about? I guess it comes off as the opposite of humble and it makes me question what vision of Jesus that person is walking around with and many times to my horror it’s not the Jesus I recognize but a twisted creation of someone’s own needs and desires. Even the Nazis had their God right?

So how is my understanding of Christ’s cross and resurrection being affected here? It’s flipping heavy. Some days it seems impossible to keep taking those steps and you stop for a second and ask yourself ‘what the hell am I doing here?’ Why did I choose this, why am I carrying around this enormous weight when I could just as easily drop it or pass it to someone else? I guess the biggest crosses here have been bearing the weight of our privilege, our government’s foreign policy both in the past and present, our participation in an oppressive system, the lack of protest or struggle for change, just having to sit and know that I’m a jackass and I cannot change the past. So to summarize, my vision of Jesus is constantly growing and changing but I cannot think of a better place for this to happen than the third world, if you’re really searching I think that’s where you find Christ-in the people who are closest to him by their very nature. Gracias a dios is more than just a phrase here, it’s a way of life just as this ‘savior’ of ours was a poor son carpenter.

Question 6: by now, you've hard a great deal about the role of the churches in Nicaragua. it is difficult not to be discouraged when hearing some of this history. one wishes for more Oscar Romeros, but there seem to be fewer saints of this sort in the church of Nicaragua. how is this experience affecting your understanding of yourself as a Catholic or Christian? are the churches responding to people's needs as they ought to today? if not, why not? what does it mean to bind yourself to a church while recognizing its inadequacies? is there a point at which such binding becomes impossible?

So being here in Nicaragua I’ve learned quite a bit about evangelical churches, including but not limited to Jehovah’s witnesses and my campo mom who attended the evangelical church instead of the catholic one in La Reina. The evangelical churches continue to grow while the Catholic Church shrinks each year especially among the youth. I was shocked to learn that Nacho, a friend from the base community of catorce de septiembre, attended an evangelical church in addition to the catholic cbc. In reality, it’s not uncommon for people to attend more than one church and at least one of them is Pentecostal if not all. It’s very hard for me to grasp what the appeal of these churches is exactly but here is a list of possible reasons we’ve either heard or come up with: attending the service is like a vacation from reality-no thinking, enthusiasm, music, no struggling, entertainment; it fills the need for community more than the catholic church; participation/everyone has a voice/it doesn’t matter your social economic status; women join in hopes of getting their husbands to join and follow the strict moral code-mainly stop drinking alcohol or stop abusing them; more emotion, charismaticism; the theology explains poverty to some degree, offers wealth in exchange for faith; the classic exchange for suffering now, salvation and riches in the future. Having conversations with people here like Don Leonardo and hearing him say things were better under Somoza, that the Sandinistas are to blame for rising prices of food and oil for all the social ills of the country and that Nicaragua is so poor because of the corruption of the government as well as the sins of the people. What kind of God is that? The God who condones a brutal dictatorship and punishes people with unreal poverty for the sake of their sinfulness or the corruption in their own lives and the lives of their leadership? For me, it’s very hard to grasp or understand this kind of belief.

As for the Catholic Church here I feel like when I answer people’s questions about what religion I follow especially after I explain we’re studying theology I saw much more than I intend when I answer “catolica”. It’s a weird contradiction because there are priests like Romero and Joe Mulligan and Rafael but for the most part the Catholic Church and it’s hierarchy are oppressive and on the side of the powers, not the poor. So what does it mean to work from within for change? At this point in my life I’m saying screw the system and as much as people try to justify staying in it and not leaving (I’ve had a couple conversations with Ryan about this) I’m not convinced I’m wrong. I see the point to a certain degree-Romero was an archbishop and never resigned the post although I’d argue he transformed it and essentially cut all ties to the hierarchy. But for the most part the majority of my heroes- Che, Paul Farmer, Ana Manganaro, and last but not least JC – they fucked the system in their own individual ways. I swear a lot more when I’m here sorry if that’s offensive but I feel the need to emphasize things and a well placed cuss word seems to do that.

The other piece is that I feel many of these structures are too far gone to be redeemed without total destruction in order to rise from the ashes. Jesus didn’t speak of renovating the Jewish faith or Israel’s relationship to Rome or the poor to the rich but he was all about total inversion and sometimes we soften edges that are meant to remain sharp. It’s easier to live that way. So is there a point at which binding becomes impossible? Yes. And if we haven’t reached it yet we’re certainly close in my opinion. I don’t ever see the Catholic Church changing enough, taking enough of a stand to be authentic to Jesus’ message; rather I see the possibility for small groups of committed people to start living like another world is possible-a phrase I’ve heard several times down here-and through them start a movement to change. And although I want to really have hope and while I have to believe it’s possible some days I lament for what a fucked up world we’re living in, days that we go to la Chureca or days when I meet teenagers pregnant with their fourth or fifth kid and without a husband it steals some of your idealism.

Question 7

So there haven’t been any real revelations or things I didn’t already know way down deep or in the back of my head-thing like I probably shouldn’t shop at Wal-Mart, that I need to stop buying clothes or at least be aware of the maquila situation, no more pizza hut or dominos, I would say that I won’t ever drink coca cola again but let’s be realistic here-I’ll cut back. Organic café from now on; there are all these ideas that I’ve always know were good and had reasons but without experiencing them or meeting with the women from the maquila or visiting the café plantations I had no concrete reasons like I do now. I also feel the need to share my experiences and not in the sense of this is what I did and saw although obviously that is part of it but that through these experiences I’ve seen realities and learned truths that others need to learn through me to come to very concrete lifestyle/ consumerist changes. So yes I need to learn more about politics but at the same time I have always been pessimistic about the possibility for changes to come from the top down, to me there is almost no hope that I can put in the political system even if ojala Barack wins.

Yes I need to live more simply in terms of pretty much everything in my life-how I spend money, what I wear, which businesses or labels I choose to support economically, how I spend my free time, etc, etc. The best and most challenging thing is to know how little you really need in this life and then to not only internalize that but see it being lived out and from a very powerful theology that challenges you in ways that make you want to puke at all you have and question just exactly why you have it or why you aren’t letting it go. I can’t remember his name right now but the pastor at CIETS who’d left the catholic seminary something Ruiz, I will never forget his words that day and what an example he was living with his life. It’s so simple and yet it’s so incredibly hard! Quizas more so in the US to separate yourself from the system and drop off the grid. I feel like I’m always waiting for some magical moment in the future to change things around in my life and start living out my principles-it’s always getting pushed off but by being here it reaffirms that the time is right now and that life is short what the heck are we doing with our days and how can we be wasting them away when you’ve walked in the footsteps of people who live in garbage dump or seen these intense problems and realities and really experienced them. So what am I going to do with the rest of my life? First off I’m gonna try my darndest to live simply and radically and not be sucked back into the consumerist nonsense of the United States of America.

Secondly I will continue to reflect on these experiences and these realities in the developing world that only heighten my desire to go to medical school and to get done pronto to start working and I mean sweating and bleeding to change things from the bottom up. I can’t surrender to hopelessness but rather the need to dream that another world is possible and the only way I know how to work for that kind of change is to live an example and throw myself into the service of others and I mean really sacrifice to see that hope reflected in others’ eyes. So if I do come back to Nicaragua and to Latin America it won’t be for quite some time-after med school and paying off loans- but I refuse to entrap myself in this idea that I need to work to buy a house and a car and support a family when my motivation has always lied in following my passion and being a free spirit and I can’t imagine dying without seeing the rest or at least majority of the world. So in regards to one of the last questions I continue to write my theology with each day I wake up in the morning and I try to keep in mind that the unexamined life is not worth living because some days it’s just easier to walk around numb but that’s the biggest sell-out of all.