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We often assume that radicalism emerges from radical texts.  Someone reads the text and becomes a radical.  But sometimes it grows from experience and the fact that a efforts at moderate reform are blocked by resistant forces.  

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This is part I of a two part talk.  Part I deals with the political background to Liberation Theology, especially the role of US involvement in Central America as a radicalizing force. 

Part II deals with stories about people, particularly Archbishop Romero, who was assassinated during mass, and Che Guevara, and how they were transformed by circumstances from moderates to radicals.  

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Orville Hubbard:  His Life and Career

This is based on a zoom talk I did with Community Conversations, a social activist group associated with Littlefield Presbyterian Church of Dearborn, Michigan in May of 2021.  It is a broad discussion of the life and career of Orville Hubbard, for 36 years the creative but extremely controversial mayor of Dearborn.  I think Hubbard was one of the most unique political figures in  20th century America. 

Because the audience had many Dearborn people, they were good at asking questions based on their experiences.  I knew several of these people so we had brief exchanges of greetings.  I edited those out.  If you notice a jump, that may be the reason. 

David Good wrote the definitive biography of Orville Hubbard, based partially on extensive interviews with the mayor.  His book is Orvie: The Dictator of Dearborn.  Thanks, Dave.  I borrowed some of your anecdotes for this talk. 

In the two thousand and tens, the issue of statues became a central battle ground in the struggle over racism.  Why were there so many statues of people who had devoted their military careers to destroying the union and perpetuating slavery?  And why was there a statue of Orville Hubbard in front of the city hall?  I discuss my own evolving thinking on this issue, and the controversy over the Hubbard statue. 

For a thoughtful discussion of statues Mitch Landrieu is a good source.  He was the mayor of New Orleans.  He had a statue of Robert E. Lee in the middle of his town square.  Given that Robert E. Lee had never visited New Orleans it was not clear why the statue was there.  Its presence also  caused some distress to Black residents.  Landrieu wrote a thoughtful book, In the shadow of Statues, describing the controversy over those statues and how he managed to remove it. 

Terms used:  Southend (a small, isolated neighborhood in Dearborn near the enormous Ford Rouge Plant;  the  Ambassador Bridge connects Detroit with Windsor, Canada;  Camp Dearborn is  about 40 miles west of Dearborn. Dearborn people go there in the summer.   

Note that there is another Hubbard podcast focusing on an interview with him and on his reputation as America’s “Meanest Man” in race relations. 

The music TakingStock was written by G. Kevin Dewey.  Thanks, Kevin. 

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Populorum Progressio, Pope Paul VI, 1967

This was a class lecture, delivered in late 2020.  (Sorry for the occasional distractions)  It focuses upon one of the most significant of the papal encyclicals, one that engaged the concept of liberation theology.  Paul VI considered himself a Third World Pope, someone whose responsibilities stretched far beyond the Catholic world.  

This is an extremely deep, very intellectual encyclical.  It would be good if you would download the encyclical and have it in front of you as a reference as you listen.   
If we use the word “radical” to mean “going to the roots of a problem” then this document is radical.   It is also very sympathetic to the uprisings in Central America at the time. 

Pay special attention to the Three New Teachings, i.e., things the pope is saying that pushes church teachings beyond what it had been before. 

This was released in 1967 on Easter weekend.  The pope read it to an assembled crowd of cardinals and other church leaders.  

If you have listened to the podcast on Rerum Novarum, these two go together well, but are quite different. 

Some terms you will encounter

Just War

St. Thomas, St. Augustine

Colonialism and imperialism

Finance capital, the international imperialism of money, economic dictatorship

Liberalism as an ideology of capitalism 

Two Realms/ Two Plains

Ecclesiastical 

Vocation

Humanae Vitae, an encyclical

Natural law

Just wage and just trade agreements

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Back in 2019 I was asked by the Jewish News of Detroit to write some thoughts on whether Anti-Zionism was a form of Anti-Semitism.  President Macron of France had said that it was.  This was an allegation often used to attack and possibly discredit critics of Israel.  

But what do those terms even mean?  My approach as a professor is to make sure there are clear definitions of controversial terms before we can discuss the topic.  My draft essay (which the Jewish News chose NOT to publish) took that approach.   I suspect for some people clarification is not a friendly act. 

By the way, there are two terms that often converge but are quite different.  I did not separate them sufficiently in my talk, and these are two terms that DO require clarification.  Deicide is the belief that "the Jews" were collectively responsible for the execution of Jesus and that the responsibility for that crime rests upon the Jewish people  today.  The Catholic Church renounced this view during the Vatican II conference (on which there is a separate podcast).  The Blood Libel is the belief that Jews require the blood of a Christian child for their religious rituals.  When Israel is accused of being indifferent to human life in their bombing campaigns, or of being guilty of war crimes, their defenders often say these criticisms are a blood libel.  Ariel Sharon used this term when he defended himself from  accusations that he was involved in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres.   There is also a podcast on this topic (The Kahan Commission Report). 

I hope you find these reflections interesting 

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This was a class lecture.  It discusses Father Gustavo Gutierrez and the concept of liberation theology.  Most theology comes down from above, from theologians, from universities, from popes.  Liberation Theology grows from the bottom up.    The structure of society is essential to understanding this way of thinking.  Injustice, inequality, historic structures dating back to colonial times hundreds of years ago. 

There will be several lectures in this series.  For those wanting to understand a different way of thinking about theology, this series is not only fascinating but extremely informative (if I do say so myself). 

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Background to the Ukraine War of 2022

Back in 2008 there was a crisis in Ukraine.  It led to the separation of two regions from Ukraine, and the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula.  I convened a Faculty Forum on the event, asking my knowledgeable colleagues to help us understand the issues.  I delivered some thoughts of my own on the American role and the American interests.  This talk is based on my comments at the time, and how they relate to what is happening now.  There is also updating to the current situation.  

I wrote this podcast on February 23, 2022 in the afternoon.  My plan was to record and post it later that evening, but events intervened. By the time I was ready to follow through, the Russian military had initiated its attack on Ukraine.   I added a few supplementary comments the morning of February 24 as the world was trying to figure out what was going on.  I posted on Facebook a simple statement:  “Now we understand how the world felt when we invaded Iraq.”  

Two glitches

First, there was a lack of clarity at the point when I explained that NATO was founded with an anti-Russian clause in it but this clause had now been removed.  It sounded as if I had said “Not removed.” 

Second,  twice I mention the wonderful journal Foreign Affairs, but called it Foreign Policy.  Foreign Policy is also a good journal but it is not the same as Foreign Affairs. 

Some names: 

              Adam Rapacki

              Yanukovich

              Zelinski

              Samuel Huntington

              George F. Kennan

              General Giap

              John Mearsheimer 

Some Terms or places

              Maiden Square

              Donets, Luhansk, Donbas

              Abkhazia and South Osettia

              Kiev

Curious Factoid:  Maiden Square in Kiev uses a borrowed word from Arabic.  Maiden is the same as Medina, the important place in western Saudi Arabia.  Medina means city. 

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Liberation Theology was strong in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s.  It was mostly Catholic, and was concentrated in Latin America, but there were variants of it in South Africa and in the  American Black Community, especially in the Detroit area.  James C. Cone is a name that stands out.  Those interested in an excellent discussion might look at Faith in the City by Angela D. Dillard.  

I read extensively in this topic and even met some liberation theologians.  This is my summary of their major teachings and themes.  

This is Part I of a two part presentation.  The next podcast will focus upon Populorum Progressio (The Progress of People), the astonishing 1987 encyclical by Paul VI.  

This was a class zoom lecture during the pandemic.  Welcome to class. 

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This is for lovers, for aspiring lovers, and for those who (to quote an old song) gambled for love in the moonlight,  but lost. 

And if you want a longer love story, check out When Ron Met Jane, an earlier podcast.  

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On February 1, 2022 Whoopi Goldberg got a two week suspension from The View, the early morning women’s talk show that she hosts.  It occurred because of things she said about the Holocaust, race, and Jews as a category. 

This is a really complex issue.  Anything in America involving “race” gets hot very quickly.  We can’t even agree upon what the word “race” means.  And when we move on to "racism" it becomes an explosive quagmire very quickly.   

This is my effort to discuss the complexities of this topic.  

I discussed some definitions of race.  In case those zipped past, I include them here. 

International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, 1969: 

“any distinction, exclusion restriction of preference based o race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.” 

UNESCO definition of racism, 1978

1. Any theory which involves the claim that racial or ethnic groups are inherently superior or inferior, thus implying that some would be entitled to dominate or eliminate others, presumed to be inferior, or which bases value judgements on racial differentiation, has no scientific foundation and is contrary to the moral and ethical principles of humanity. 

2. Racism includes racist ideologies, prejudiced attitudes, discriminatory behaviour, structural arrangements and institutionalized practices resulting in racial inequality as well as the fallacious notion that discriminatory relations between groups are morally and scientifically justifiable; it is reflected in discriminatory provisions in legislation or regulations and discriminatory practices as well as in anti-social beliefs and acts; it hinders the development of its victims, perverts those who practise it, divides nations internally, impedes international co-operation and gives rise to political tensions between peoples; it is contrary to the fundamental principles of international law and, consequently, seriously disturbs international peace and security. 3. Racial prejudice, historically linked with inequalities in power, reinforced by economic and social differences between individuals and groups, and still seeking today to justify such inequalities, is totally without justification.

ADL:  Three definitions over time. 

Before July 2020,’the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics…the hatred of one person by another — or the belief that another person is less than human — because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person.” 

 July, 2020: “the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people” 

 Post-Whoopi definition: “Racism occurs when individuals or institutions show more favorable evaluation or treatment of an individual or group based on race or ethnicity.” 

 And the Kenya word for a white person is Mzungu.