@liberationtheology
Liberation theology is a movement within various religious traditions that emphasizes the importance of social justice and the rights of the poor and oppressed. It teaches that faith should actively address and transform social inequality.
Liberation theology got countered in Central America by a nearly billion dollar State Dept operation to fund reactionary Protestant missionaries, and still has survived because it refused to cede the public sphere. I think exiting politics is the last thing the religious left should do.
Art Laffin of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker writes about the illegality and immorality of the current military action taking place against Iran.
I will never not find it ironic that my time attending a right-wing Christian college is what led to me realizing that I was queer, and also played a part towards me becoming a socialist
It was the same for me as you know; I think being confronted with the ugliness at the core of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity compared to what the bible actually says makes it impossible to maintain the cognitive dissonance, both theologically and politically
Jesus does not need to be "brought" to Iran as though He is absent there.
Jesus is already there, and he is being bombed by American evangelicals and evil white nationalists.
Freedom
Marx: Envisioned radical democracy where workers regain control over time and labor.
Authoritarians: Suppressed dissent, banned unions, mandated centralized elite power.
US Stereotype: Individualism and Marxism are mutually exclusive; any community effort is a step toward gulag.
🧵7/7
Tactics
Marx: Viewed revolution as necessary, often forceful, but prioritized democratic action.
Authoritarians: Utilized terror, secret police, and purges to eliminate internal enemies.
US Stereotype: Marxism is a projection of far-right desire for thought control and cancel culture.
🧵6/7
Property
Marx: Abolish "private property" (factories/land used for profit), not personal belongings.
Authoritarians: A party elite (nomenklatura) controlled all resources, replacing the old bosses.
US Stereotype: The government will take your house, car, and personal items.
🧵5/7
Global vs. National
Marx: Workers have no country; the revolution must be global and international.
Authoritarians: "Socialism in One Country" (Stalin) prioritized national power over global unity.
US Stereotype: A monolithic foreign threat directed by a single enemy capital.
🧵4/7
The State
Marx: The state is temporary and will eventually "wither away" into a classless society.
Authoritarians: Created an all-powerful, permanent government to control every aspect of life.
US Stereotype: Marxism is synonymous with "big government" and total loss of rights.
🧵3/7
The Revolution
Marx: A mass movement led by the urban working class in industrial nations.
Authoritarians: Led by a small elite "vanguard party" (Lenin/Stalin) or rural peasants (Mao).
US Stereotype: A top-down conspiracy by intellectuals to infiltrate society.
🧵2/7
Marxism is often misunderstood because of how it changed over time. Let’s break down the differences between Marx’s original theories, the authoritarian regimes that followed, and common American stereotypes.
🧵1/7
4b. Woke Beliefs: Derived from the Black vernacular term "stay woke" (awareness of racial prejudice) but evolved into a broader academic and cultural movement influenced by 20th-century European philosophy.
🧵9/9
4. Historical Origins:
4a. Liberation Theology: Emerged in the mid-20th century within the Catholic and Protestant churches in Latin America (e.g., Gustavo Gutiérrez) and later among Black theologians in the U.S. (e.g., James Cone).
🧵8/9
3b. Woke Beliefs: Frequently shifts focus from individual moral failing to systemic "privilege" and historical complicity. Critics suggest it lacks a clear mechanism for forgiveness or atonement, focusing instead on ongoing activism and deconstruction.
🧵7/9
3. Concept of Sin and Redemption:
3a. Liberation Theology: Often views sin through a collective lens (social sin) but remains grounded in a religious framework seeking liberation as a part of the Gospel message.
🧵6/9
2b. Woke Beliefs: Primarily focuses on identity-based oppression, including race, gender, and sexual orientation (e.g., Critical Race Theory and LGBTQ+ rights).
🧵5/9
2. Primary Focus:
2a. Liberation Theology: Historically focused on economic class struggle and poverty, particularly in Latin America, sometimes using Marxist and Biblical tools for social analysis.
🧵4/9
1b. Woke Beliefs: Often based on secular Critical Theory and postmodernism, which analyze society through the lens of power structures and systemic oppression. While "woke Christianity" exists, critics argue it often prioritizes cultural enlightenment over traditional biblical authority.
🧵3/9
Key Differences
1. Theological Foundation:
1a. Christian Liberation Theology: Rooted in the Bible, it interprets the Gospel through the lived experiences of the poor and oppressed. It emphasizes God's "preferential option for the poor" and seeks to unite faith with sociopolitical action.
🧵2/9
While both "woke" beliefs and liberation theology center on social justice and the dismantling of oppression, they differ significantly in their origins, primary focuses, and theological frameworks.
🧵1/9
Christianity does not exist.
There are completely separate, distinct, and incompatible religions that call themselves Christian.
And none of them are "Biblical."
10. But more realistically, much of the New Testament is a retcon. It's future Christians rewriting the past to conform to their knowledge of subsequent events -- and to their prejudices and their mistaken belief in an imminent messiah.
9. Jesus's confrontation with Temple money changers was (if it happened at all) a dispute with a sacred institution (sacrifice) and its administration, and a Jewish disagreement over what constitutes institutional integration with empire and aristocracy.
www.myjewishlearning.com/article/lets...
8. Translation problems made this worse. In John especially, the Greek term ioudaios is often rendered as “the Jews,” even though in many contexts it can mean “Judeans” or refer more narrowly to particular authorities.
www.bibleodyssey.org/articles/jew...
7. Once Christianity increasingly defined itself as separate from Judaism, readers stopped hearing accusations of "Pharisee hypocrisy" as intramural exaggeration and started hearing it as a factual description of Pharisees as such.
www.fromthedesk.org/misunderstan...
6. Later Christians' false beliefs about the Pharisees originate partly from projection and partly from falsely seeing the first Christians as distinct from other Jews.
www.bibleodyssey.org/podcast-gall...
5. The story of Barabbas has often been used to suggest that "the Jews" chose violence over Jesus. Historically, that is far too neat. It turns a contested Passion narrative into a smear against an entire people.
www.thetorah.com/article/did-...
www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewi...
4. The New Testament can make it sound like Jewish leadership spoke with one voice against Jesus. But historically, Jewish society was diverse: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, priests, common people, and others disagreed with one another constantly.
www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewi...
3b. Lawrence Schiffman notes that the earliest Gospel traditions present disputes with Pharisees and some priests, but later redaction broadens this into polemics against “the Jews” and Judaism more generally.
www.myjewishlearning.com/article/how-...