Welcome to Deep Roots, the podcast from Oak Hill
College, where we try to have conversations about
theology and ministry. My name's Johnny. I'm
a direct engagement here at Oak Hill. I'm also
an elder of a church, an FIC church up in Oxfordshire.
With me is Luke Foster, our tutor in doctrine
and church history. Now, Luke, you've done your
previous study and research around Gustavo Gutierrez
and liberation theology. I've not heard many
of those words together before. Help me and help
us as we kind of listen in. What is liberation
theology? And maybe first, it'd be great just
to hear a bit of your story, your history of
how you got looking into it. Well, yeah, let
me just begin with my journey into it, because
I have to say, before about 10 years ago, this
wasn't an area that I was particularly familiar
with, didn't know my way around. Ten years ago,
my family and I, we were in Chile serving with
the Anglican Church there. I was teaching at
a small Bible college that sought to train Christians
for leadership in Chile, but also in other countries
in and around South America. We were there from
2015. And at the time, I was wanting to understand
more of the Roman Catholic context that many
of our students would be going and serving in.
So as I was trying to... understand more of that
situation, of that kind of theological, but also
cultural context, found myself doing a lot of
reading. And I can actually picture one moment
when I was stood on the underground, sort of
squeezed on the underground, trying to do a bit
of reading and flicking through and just thinking
to myself, actually, do you know what? It's so
much easier to think and understand when you're
writing. So I wonder if I could put together
a research project to help me learn about this.
So in many ways... My entrance into this topic
came from wanting to serve and work with the
students that I was teaching in Chile. And is
it right, you grew up overseas as well and kind
of engaged with the Roman Catholic Church a little
bit? Yeah, so that is part of the way God writes
our stories. really to end up to be again in
a Roman Catholic context, because I grew up in
the Philippines, which is quite interesting in
so many ways, a wonderful place to be. But it's
quite distinctive in that it is the only inverted
commas Christian country in Asia in that sense,
that it is a country, whereas many of the other
countries would have maybe Muslim traditions
or other kind of religious traditions. The Philippines,
because of its history. The Roman Catholic Church
has been very central to its political and cultural
identity. And one of the sort of really formative
moments in my childhood was seeing a, probably
I think one of the most important political events
that you've never heard of. It was the People
Power Revolution in 1986 in the Philippines when
the president, the dictator that had been ruling
the country for 20 years was overthrown in a
peaceful revolution. And it was this extraordinary
moment where the dictator had... called the army
to stand with him, called the troops onto the
street. And the response was led by the Catholic
Church, that the church then... called people
into the streets, not to protest, but to pray.
And on our way through the center of the city
is this kind of main thoroughfare, multi -lane
highway. And we would go down it kind of every
week, actually on our way to church. And you
would see this brick wall all along the side
of this highway that had a hole in it. And that
hole was from the place where the tanks, as they
were rolling towards the crowds, turned aside.
crunch through the wall instead of killing people
in front of them. And that was the moment when
the tanks turned aside from these groups of people
praying, being led by nuns, being led by priests,
standing in front of those soldiers and the Lord
working by his grace. to bring peaceful change
to that country. And it was quite like impactful
as a kid, just as a kind of, you know, later
on in primary school, just thinking about that
and thinking about here is a God who's involved
in our world. Now, interestingly, that place
that was this sort of scene of confrontation
that later got redeveloped and it became a massive
shopping mall over which an enormous giant statue
of Mary was built. And so at the same time, as
I'm then growing up and thinking back on that,
you think, okay, the Lord's been at work, but
how do I make sense of the way other people are
making sense of this? So obviously I want to
give thanks for this. I think it's great that
people didn't die, that there wasn't violence
and bloodshed in the way there could have been.
But this is now being understood as somehow the
blessing from Mary. This is being understood
as the work of these priests. How do I process
that? How do I work that through? Having that
sort of there, I guess, in the soil, in the background,
coming to Chile, reading about the Roman Catholic
Church there, and one of the very distinctive
contributions of the Roman Catholic Church in
South America has been a development of a kind
of political and socially attuned theology. And
kind of if I could kind of pick up that tension
that I felt in my teenage years, there's a way
in which that tension then is felt. As I'm engaging
with these topics, because on the one hand, of
course, we believe in our sovereign God, the
Lord Jesus, who is king of kings, who is at work
in history. But as I read of the way other people
reflect on that, as the way I read of the other
people tell the story of that, what do I do with
that? How do I understand that? So that led you
to look at this guy, particularly Gustavo Gutierrez.
Tell us a bit about the world he was writing
into, just a bit of who he was and kind of what
is his main kind of thing he was writing into.
Okay, so Gustavo Gutierrez was a Peruvian priest.
He died two years ago. And he is a particularly
interesting person to reflect on because in some
ways he offers a microcosm of not just liberation
theology he's thought of, and we'll talk more
about what that is in a bit, I guess. But he
is sort of not just as like this godfather of
liberation theology. Some of the really people
will talk about him as the founder of it, the
real voice of it. But also, I think in him, you
learn a lot. He is a fascinating entry into understanding
the 20th century Roman Catholic Church as a whole.
So he becomes expressive of. dynamics and movements
within the Roman Catholic Church as a whole.
So Gutierrez was born in 1928. He grew up very
poor. And actually, in his early years, he was
stricken by an illness that bound him to a wheelchair.
And as he got older, that carried with him initially
into an interest in medicine. And he was able
to study medicine at university with a particular
focus on psychology. But through his involvement
with students and and seeking to care for and
help the poor, his more political involvement,
he actually led him into wanting to pursue a
vocation in the priesthood. So then he became
a Roman Catholic priest precisely at the time
when the Roman Catholic Church itself was going
through this desire to... reimagine what its
theology and mission looks like, particularly
after the Second World War. So in 1962, we have
the Second Vatican Council that sought to...
hiccup really where the first Vatican Council
in the 19th century, in the 1800s, towards the
end of the 19th century, where that left off.
And in many ways, it was felt the first Vatican
Council was an attempt to respond to liberalism,
to the marginalization of the church by really
kind of digging in and doubling down. has established
much of what we really think of and what many
of our stereotypes might be about Roman Catholicism
might really have been formed by Vatican I. That's
really this strong affirmation, for example,
of papal authority. When you get to Vatican II,
since then, you've had the trauma of Europe being
convulsed by these two world wars. You've had
the massive global spread of Christianity. And
so the Pope at the time... Sort of threw open
the curtains of his papal palace and said, let
the fresh air come in. And he said, this is what
we're doing in this new, this second Vatican
Council, that we're going to throw open the curtains,
throw open the windows and let the fresh air
of what God is doing now into the church. This
sense that Vatican I left the church brittle
and we now knew this new expression of Catholicism.
in a contemporary age. And after Vatican II,
the different churches, the bishops from different
eras were saying, okay, take these reflections
and apply them in your context. And so after
Vatican II ended in 1965, the bishops in South
America met for a conference in Medellin in Colombia
in order to see what this looks like. in our
context. And central to what they saw in their
context was here is a Christian, and let's put
that in quotes, but that's the self -understanding.
Here's a Christian continent, the Christian continent,
and the most Christian continent in many ways.
And it is also one in which we see huge amounts
of poverty and oppression. This is a time when
you've got the country's... being caught in the
vice grip of the two great superpowers of communism
on the one hand, the inverted commas West or
America on the other hand, and countries being
sort of crushed between those two powers and
South America really feeling that. So you've
got these dictatorships, established people facing
oppression. And so when the Catholic Church seeks
to apply their teaching in their context, it
takes shape within this context of poverty, and
suffering, and oppression. And Gutierrez was
one of the leaders into speaking of what that
theology should look like in that situation.
It's really helpful just to understand the context.
And we're going to get to it a little bit later,
trying to think through how do we reflect and
learn on those more modern developments in theology.
Tell us a bit, kind of give us maybe your, it's
not an elevator pitch, you're not pitching it
for us, but kind of your summary of liberation
theology, which comes out of this kind of...
This context, this culture? Yeah. So what I think
I want to preface my pitch, as it were, by saying,
first of all, I think one can very easily look
at sort of some headline points. So you might
have heard of liberation theology. You might
just hear that word liberation and straight away
make some assumptions. You'd be like, I've talked
about oppression. I've talked about the poor.
We're using this word liberation. That means
it's basically like a social gospel. That means
it's about political action. That means it's
about... caring for the poor. Now, all those
sorts of things will be involved, but actually
there's something far more fundamental and you
only engage with it appropriately as you engage
with it at that more fundamental level. And I
often see people either rejecting or actually
taking on board what they feel. our attractive
elements and not realizing some of the undercurrents
that might be flowing with those things. So the
way to sum it up is that... Gustavo Gutierrez
sought to respond to the context he was in in
this way. He said, look, Bonhoeffer said after
the Second World War in Europe, he said, look,
we need to think of how we speak of God in a
world that has come of age. How do we speak of
God in a world that has come of age? There is
this increase of science. There is this suspicion
of authority. There's this sense in which humanity
has come to age in a way we need to speak. of
God in a way that can speak to this sort of developed
intellectual Western man. And Gutierrez said,
no, that's not our challenge. That's not the
challenge. This is not how to speak of God in
a world come of age. This is how to speak of
God in a world that is inhuman. How to tell non
-people that they are children of God. And that's
quite a fascinating idea. How do you tell someone
who has been taught and discipled by a culture
that says you are nothing? How do you tell someone?
who has had their life shaping them as a non
-person, that actually they're a loved child
of God. And I think that is a very powerful and
resonant question. And actually, I wonder whether
that is a question that we can hear still in
a way that's relevant, in a way that I wonder
if Bonhoeffer's question... We can hear the naivety
of it already, that actually that world that
seemed to have come of age, we've already seen
that crumble and collapse, that what was thought
of as coming of age was a coming of age in the
way an adolescent thinks, that they're sort of
independent and able to do things on their own.
We can see for the folly that it is. Whereas
Gutierrez's question, here is a world in which
people don't know what it is to be a person.
How can I tell you that God is Father if you
don't even know? that you're a human? And I think
that is a really helpful question. Naturally,
a lot of what I do in my book is trying to hear
that question, but then question his answer,
as it were, saying there are some, this is really
valuable questions that you're raising, but the
shape of the answer becomes unstable and unsatisfactory.
Can you unpack that a little bit? What is his
answer? How does he answer that question of how
can God be farther in a world that is inhumane?
Is that the question? That's his question. How
do we speak of that? And his answer will take
the shape of the... in some ways he speaks within
the Roman Catholic language that he's been given.
So it's unsurprising. So we can sort of hear
theologically, and I think this is interesting,
as you do theological reflection, as you hear
different people, sometimes we need to recognize
that people are, they might, the theme might
be a theme that we both know, but the way that
you're taught, so it might be Trinity, it might
be incarnation, it might be this question of
how you speak, how you proclaim the gospel in
a context. So we can understand that question.
But then I need to recognize that the way that
they're answering it takes shape within a different
language. And we both know, like, you know, I
know that you speak other languages and I had
to learn Spanish when I was in Chile. There's
a sense in which there are never these point
for point correspondences, that actually you've
got to get yourself into this whole other mindset.
And one of the things that Vatican II was, the
language that emerges from Vatican II, was sort
of thinking. Okay, we want to see how the world
around us relates to God's work of salvation.
And in many ways, that is one of the most fundamental
questions of all of theology is how can this
creature come into relationship with the creator?
And sometimes that's expressed as, okay, for
those who can't see anything, I'm putting my
two hands on top of each other, that sometimes
people think of that as two stories that you've
got to go elevated from the bottom story up into
the top story. Other times that has been thought
of as sort of two hands alongside each other
that God's work sort of contributes to and speaks
to the world around us. Or goes hand in hand.
Whereas what Vatican II was seeing was almost
the two being dissolved into each other. Trying
to sort of dissolve this difference between what
it is to be creature and who God is to be creator.
Just seeing him suffuse and enter into and involved
into every part of our world. And so Gutierrez's
answer to that is understanding the presence
of Jesus as he is expressed. in the world around
us and particularly in the poor. So within a
Roman Catholic theological framework, again,
if we think of how nature and grace relate, what
we see is that God's, particularly coming after
Vatican II, that God's grace as it were soaks
into every corner of creation. We can think of
it this way. It's a sort of continuity with their
view of what the church is. As I look at the
church within a Roman Catholic framework, I am
looking there at the body of Christ in a very
real sense. that is beyond what we would say
as reformed Protestants. So obviously we would
be saying that as the bride of Christ, we are
covenantally bound to Christ and therefore his
body in the same way that a bride is one body
with her husband. But for a Roman Catholic church,
if I'm wanting to see where the body of Jesus
is, I look to the church itself, that the incarnation
continues is sort of now. A Roman Catholic would
be tearing their hair out at this language, but
just for the sake of time, just crudely, the
incarnation is dissolved into the church. And
so what Gutierrez says, he picks up on that dynamic
and says, yes, just as we see Christ in the church,
and just as church is this expression of therefore
what God is doing in the world, actually, when
I look at the poor, I see in them. who the church
truly is and what Christ truly is doing. That
there is a way in which I meet Christ in the
church, yes, but most acutely and specifically
in the poor. So it's a bit like the way in the
sacraments. For a Roman Catholic, there is a
way in which that bread and that wine carry with
them the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. And
Gutierrez applies that then to the poor, that
basically the poor become a sacrament in that
way. They don't just remind me or picture to
me of God's love. But actually, if I want to
encounter Christ, look at the church. If you
want to encounter Christ in the church, go to
the sacraments. And then you can add what Gutierrez
says is. Church, sacraments, but I won't do any
of that if I'm not encountering Christ in the
poor. So as much, and we could talk for hours
and pick it apart and try and understand it,
but to try and maybe simplify or just help us
try and apply this as we listen in, like you
said, we're listening in the majority, I'm assuming
listening in would be this kind of reformed Protestant
background. What are some of the key... things
which which you've taken or we can take which
you've gone nervous so we need it we need to
really hear there which we don't have well aware
we're sitting in a relatively probably middle
class context as well so it's just that kind
of lens on it in the uk um what can we learn
in here here and where where were some of your
your queries and your concerns so you're going
ah i think we need to reflect on that Maybe ending
it with similar conclusions, but in different
ways, maybe, I don't know. Yeah, so this might
be a little bit scattergun, but I think mainly
I would say, I think the most valuable thing
to hear from Gutierrez is the question he asks.
And then the other thing to learn is the resources
that we have in our tradition that would help
us to actually have a more robust answer to...
to the question that Gutierrez raises. So I think
that question of how do you speak of God as Father
to a world that isn't human, I think, like I
said, I think it is very resonant and it's very
important that actually Gutierrez helps us to
see, to be attentive to the, how do I put it,
the creational, or put it this way, the common
grace soil into which... God's word comes. And
I think for us, within our reformed tradition,
we've got a lot of resources to think about the
relation between common grace and God's gospel
work of saving grace that I think we could dig
into. But I think that question helps us to be
attentive to that. And I think we all actually
intuitively have a feel for why it would make
sense to ask that question, that actually we
intuitively know what it's like. I don't know,
like you will have had this, you will have had
this as you're preaching and you mentioned God
as a loving father and you look out at a congregation
and you see someone and you know that inside
they're wincing and for them that is not good
news. You know, you speak of the gospel as this
beautiful love story of this marriage of the
son seeking out his bride. And you look there
and you see someone who was or longed to be married
and you know for whom that is a painful picture
to hear. And so we know what it's like for people's
lives to almost, I don't know, for want of a
better way to put it, make it harder for them
to hear those gospel truths. And the way you
need to come alongside them in those moments
to help them. change the gospel in that. You're
not reshaping the gospel because of that, but
instead you're recognizing that the way God has
made us, he has made that gospel truth to be
planted into a certain creational soil. And part
of the brokenness of creation and part of the
pain of sin is that it makes it harder for us
to hear that gospel in those ways. So when we
have that brokenness. So I think that is a great
attention. Something that's really... important
for us to hear and a really valuable question
for us to continue to reflect on. Some of the
problems I think... I think one of the reasons
why Gutierrez struggles to give a satisfactory
to me answer to this is because his answer takes
shape within a Roman Catholic context, within
a Roman Catholic theological paradigm that I
think gets precisely that relationship of nature
and grace wrong. And it's particularly that point
at which Gutierrez... tries to build his theology,
calls for his theology to be built on the reality
of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus. He says,
look, in the Lord Jesus, we see the truth of
God. God has come to us in Jesus. He has shown
us what kind of God he is, this God of this free,
gracious, generous love. But he then, as he reflects
and applies the incarnation, having seen the
reality of the incarnation as it were historically,
As we move into God's ongoing work, that incarnation
then becomes dissolved into the life of the church.
So actually having begun and sought to rest his
theology on the person of Jesus, that person
of Jesus then becomes dissolved into the life
of the church. In fact, his Christology can't
bear the weight that his theology seeks to rest
on it because we lose sight of the Lord Jesus
as he talks about resurrection. It is no longer
the physical, specific, distinctive body of Jesus
who's resurrected. As he looks particularly at
the ascension, it is no longer the distinctive,
specific, physical body of Jesus who is ascended.
The resurrection and ascension become expressed
in terms of the life, ongoing life of the church,
ongoing work of God in history. So at the very
point at which we need to fix our eyes on the
Lord Jesus. He actually disappears from view.
And actually a theology that begins based on
incarnation loses that very concreteness that
it sought to be based on. And I think one of
the distinctives of reformed theology has been
seeking to hold on to. And in fact, many of us
would, you know, when we think, what's the distinctive
of being Protestant? You might think, oh, it's
the Bible. It has stuff to do with the mass.
It has stuff to do with priests. You know, in
a general sense, those might be things. But actually,
those things emerged. because of Christology.
Actually, we need the Bible because Jesus is
not dissolved into the church from whom I can
hear these truths. He's this other person. Just
like you're sat here across from me, I need to
stop from, and I'm sorry that I keep talking,
I need to stop and listen to you. I can't just
have an idea of you. I need to listen to you.
So the Protestant conviction of Scripture came
from a Protestant conviction of the Lord Jesus,
the incarnate one, who continues to bear our
human flesh today. So I need to listen to him
today. In the same way, theology of, let's say,
the sacraments, Jesus doesn't dissolve himself
into bread and wine because he has a human body.
He has a human body to this day in heaven. And
so will the sacraments both express his presence?
Yes, but the kind of presence that is appropriate
to his ascended absence. And so for us within
a reformed tradition, we would seek to answer
the questions that Gutierrez raises actually
with a stronger theology of the incarnation.
In some ways, we want to say we can hear his
call to look to the incarnate Jesus and the God
we know in the incarnate Jesus. But I feel we
can do that more consistently and in a way that
I think actually then becomes even more challenging
than was possible within the framework that Gutierrez
is sort of bound by within his Roman Catholic
post -Vatican II theological frameworks. If you're
enjoying this episode with Luke, you can join
him for a six -week book club this January looking
at a book on the beatific vision. Luke, tell
us 15 seconds why this would be worth someone's
time. Well, we're going to be looking at a book
called To Gaze Upon God. And the beatific vision
is simply a theological phrase for the promise
that we hear throughout scripture. This promise
that God's people will be able to see him and
enjoy him is what Moses longed for on the mountain.
It's what the disciples glimpsed. the transfiguration.
It's what Jesus promises to his people, to the
pure in heart, that they will see God. And this
book is a chance for us to reflect really on
what that means, what that means theologically,
but most of all, what that means pastorally and
devotionally, for us to be able to enjoy that
great promise that God has held out to us, to
see him in the face of the Lord Jesus in the
proclamation of the gospel. Great. Luke, and
if you're a podcast listener, you can get 25
% off. Just use the code DEEPROOTS. Head to our
website, book onto this or another short course
today. I think one of the key lessons I'm learning
as I listen in is the importance of understanding
our own traditions really well, understanding
other traditions with grace, with kindness and
looking for the... the best in them and understanding
them properly, not just kind of sort of little
stereotypes of, I think this, I think this, I
think this. There's so much, and people may be
listening, kind of going, this aspect of Gutierrez,
this aspect here, as in the, I could be ashamed
to plug for your book here. Read Luke's book.
He talks more about it there. Or if you really
want that, let us know. But I think what would
be really interesting would be just to reflect
a little bit on how we, as those who are leaders
in different contexts within kind of church,
parish, whatever it might be, So how helpful
do you think it is in general for us to be engaging
outside of our theological traditions? And if
it is helpful, which I think you're content it
would be, you've done your work on that, how
can we do that really wisely? Yeah, so I think
the greater the confidence we have in our theological
frameworks, the more those can be enriched by
listening. to other voices. And I think the least
productive conversations and reflections I've
heard on Gutierrez, to just take you there, are
people who either, who basically respond in a
piecemeal way, and take on a piecemeal way, either
get overexcited and take it all on board, or
sort of double down and reject it. And I think
actually both of those fail to understand the
riches of the Protestant reform tradition from
which they come. Because actually, I think we
do have robust resources to answer the question
that Gutierrez puts to us. So we don't need to
do this piecemeal sense of like, this is something
we've never heard. It may be something we've
never heard, but that might be because we haven't
been listening. But nor do we need to double
down and somehow create this sort of false binary
that just simply isn't there. How do we do it
wisely? I think it's sort of like you've been
mentioning. We need to be... be attentive to
the frameworks within which theological views
take shape. And I think we need to do that all
the way through. I think there's a danger in
which we sort of flatten out theological statements
and not see them as expressed within... particular
languages or within particular accents that actually,
as I engage with, you know, I don't know, with
a reformed tradition or if with a Baptist tradition
or whatever it might be, just understanding what
is the whole biblical theology? What is the systematic
theology? What is the whole self -understanding
within which this makes sense? So entering into
that so that you can engage with it, because
only if you're listening carefully can you then
really to critique helpfully and learn in a way
that's fruitful. One of the ways I think about
it in my, that I talk about it in my book is
using this example of being a third culture kid.
I mean, I don't know if you've heard this term.
I know, I think, you know, you're a third culture
kid. I am a third culture kid, you are. I'm a
grown up in that context. But let's assume others
don't know what it is. Yeah, well, it's that,
it's a way of describing someone who grows up
in a culture that's that so like I grew up overseas
as a missionary kid. I was in the Philippines.
I didn't belong. I was by no means, I was very
clearly not Filipino. I didn't belong there in
that sense. It felt home to me, but I didn't
belong there. But neither did I belong in my,
as it were, my like home inverted commas culture.
I certainly didn't feel English. You know, I
came back to England, I had an American accent.
I didn't know the TV shows that people were watching.
And so you don't belong to your original culture
as it were. You don't belong to the one in which
you are. So you belong to this sort of third
culture. And I sort of frame the book as an expression
of a kind of third culture theology, by which
I mean, here I am. I'm not pretending to be Roman
Catholic. I can't leave aside my convictions
that I'm bringing to this. But actually, as a
third culture kid, what you find yourself doing,
I could see things in the Philippines that maybe
Filipinos didn't. And actually, I was able to
appreciate things and see things in England that
maybe, my cousins or family or friends in the
UK couldn't, that it gives you that ability to
maybe stand back and stereotypically, I'm not
claiming this for myself, but other third culture
kids seem kind of quite good at stepping back
from the culture they're in, having a little
bit of a distance from it. I don't know if that's
been your experience, that you can feel that.
And at times that disconnection can be, or that
little step back can be very, very... helpful.
And I think that is what we can do. We can do
that as we look at historical theology. We step
back. I mean, famously, it's what C .S. Lewis
wrote when he was speaking, inviting people to
read Athanasius' book on the incarnation, saying
we can feel that sort of breeze of the centuries,
that it's not because they're right, always right.
It's simply because... It's simply the fact that
they are talking in different ways, answering
different questions to the questions we might
have in the ways that we might talk. And I think
there's a way in which, whether it's looking
at historical theology or whether it's looking
at theology from a very different context, if
we step in and learn that language, as it were,
well, that will help us then speak our language.
in a way that is more alert and that is more
attentive. Like I say, I feel Gutierrez asked
a really helpful question, but I don't think
that his language, as it were, allows him to
give a satisfactory answer. But I feel having
entered and learned that language, I'm then able
to reflect and think through my language, my
context, in a way that's a lot richer and more
fruitful. I think it's just really helpful. It's
a challenge. It takes time as well. You can't...
It's not something you... Like any listening.
Like any listening, it takes time and effort.
It's an expression of love and it's a discipline
of grace. And that in itself, taking time to
listen is a valuable thing to do. Gutierrez,
he... I think you quoted at one point, he calls
for theology to be rooted where the pulse of
history is beating at that moment. I found that
quite striking because it often maybe feels,
and this will be me caricaturing slightly, but
in kind of evangelical circles in the UK, maybe
particularly Reformed Protestant ones, whatever
traditional ones talk about, we end up talking
about the Reformation a lot and we talk about
the Puritans a lot. what place is there to look
at more modern theology? Like Gutierrez, he died
two years ago. There's that kind of sense. They
often say, don't they, we people have been dead
200 years, but Gutierrez has been dead two years
and you've learned lots from him. What would
you kind of say to that? Is that a fair critique
that a lot of the curriculum you'd find in sort
of Bible college and things would be going way
further back? I'm sure there's wisdom in that
as well, but how can we, And should we be looking
at more kind of modern theology and debates going
on as well? Yeah, I think part of what Gutierrez
is doing when he talks about theology taking
place at this beating heart of history, part
of that, let's remember, comes from this expectation
that there is a sense in which the unfolding
of human history is an encounter with the incarnate
Jesus. So part of that beating pulse is I'm feeling
the pulse of Jesus in this. So it becomes incredibly
important within that tradition. Within his tradition.
Now, so this is precisely the way that someone
could say, oh, see, You know, we need to hold
the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in another
hand. And, you know, obviously I can see what
people mean by that. But once again, I'd say
something very similar in the same way that I
would say that Gutierrez helps us to hear a question
to which we might need to look elsewhere to find
a satisfactory answer. There's the same way that,
sure, the best preachers will be those who spend
time talking to people. And the best pastors
with people. are those who spend time on their
preaching. So actually, I serve people well by
setting aside time and giving time to God's Word
so I can feed them from the pulpit Sunday by
Sunday. But actually, I won't do that well. unless
i'm coming alongside them and listening to them
day by day so the danger with talking about um
with maybe the way couture's frames or even the
newspaper and the bible in two hands actually
we we tend to think of them as um Somehow, two
things that both are equal ingredients or equal
participants in this single process. Instead,
I think it's sort of like more of a breathing
out and a breathing in process. Time with people,
understanding people, and anybody who's involved
in pastoral ministry will know this, that actually
I will speak to people better as I'm spending
time in my study and preparing God's word to
be preached, and I will preach better as I'm
spending time with people. But that sort of just...
Picking up on that one kind of quote that you
mentioned. In terms of thinking about, yeah,
theologians from the past, I think I definitely
want to wave a flag for that. So I think that
there's a way in which the further back we go,
time has a great editorial function. that there's
a way in which some of the least helpful insights
that we can get on current affairs can be from
Twitter. And actually some of the best insights
on current affairs you can get will be in a hundred
years time when a book's written about it. And
that actually that's when you have the insight,
that's when you have the breadth, that's when
you have the perspective. And it's a bit of a
trivial example, but I think that is what happens
a little bit with theology, that there is this
filtering, this editorial effect. of the centuries
that happens. And alongside that, I think it
always slightly pains me when people talk about
our Protestant tradition having an underdeveloped
political theology or... or not having a sensitivity
to practical application and things like that.
Actually, you know, our reformed tradition was
forged in the midst of political violence and
persecution. That actually these guys we are
reading, you know, you can open Calvin's Institute
and they feel like this sort of kind of just
dropped out of an ivory tower or something. But
here's a man who has to flee for his life. You
know, here's a man who's writing to Christians.
He is seeking to equip pastors who face martyrdom.
You know, that is what these texts. And if you
think in our own context that the Reformed theology
being forged by people, if you read the Westminster
Confession, these are people who've just had
to work out whether or not it's okay to kill
a king. You know, these are people who've really
had to wrestle with. what it is to live as a
Christian today. So I think just because as you
look at those, these people might not make explicit
mentions of some of the political discipleship,
day -by -day social issues. Let's not just assume.
slightly patronizingly, that sort of chronological
snobbery. You guys haven't thought about these
things. Actually, maybe they did, and maybe we're
just not noticing it. So I think there's a lot
of resources there to be drawn from. Why do we
spend time on 20th century theology? And I think
it is valuable too. I think it is because what's
being said today in the academy will be said
tomorrow in the Bible colleges and the day after
that in churches. And that can be a very valuable
thing. That can be quite a dangerous thing. And
I think one of the reasons why you might not
have heard of Gustavo Gutierrez is not because
he's become passe. I think it's because he's
soaked into the bloodstream. And I think a lot
of what liberation theology does and the way
it does it has actually soaked into the system.
And I think we see this in the Roman Catholic
Church in the 1980s. Gustavo Gutierrez was condemned
by the Roman Catholic Church. But then steadily,
and then particularly with Pope Francis, as he
became less controversial, and actually as he
became talked about less, it's because it soaked
into the bloodstream a little bit more. And I
think we find that in many churches and in many
of the ways that people talk about. the social
and political and discipleship implications of
the gospel. I think some people find themselves
talking in a way that has been inflected by that
Roman Catholic accent without realizing it. And
so I think there is this importance of hearing
what theologians are saying today just so we
can be attentive to maybe ways that things have
soaked into our bloodstream without realizing
it. but so that we can be attentive and alert
to, like I said, not just what's being said in
the academy today, what will be said in the Bible
colleges tomorrow, and what will be preached
and lived and heard in churches the day after
that. And I think that is something that we need
to take great care of. And I think if you're
responsible for pastoring people, and all of
us are responsible for preaching the gospel to
ourselves. we need just to be attentive we need
to have any tools we can to give us that alertness
to say hey this gospel i'm preaching be it to
others or be it just to me um am i preaching
it with the right accent as it were is this really
shaped by scripture could it be shaped more by
scripture or are there some other voices that
have soaked into the way i'm expressing this
in a way that might make it harder for me to
hear that those words of god in scripture lots
for us to think about um but really help thank
you so much luke thanks for your time thanks
for yeah helping us just answer me helping me
particularly answer some of these questions um
like i said just a bit earlier this may have
flagged different questions different conversations
topics which if you're listening in you want
us to look at great let us know if you go luke
i'd want a whole episode on that then um i'm
sure we can We can work that out. But hopefully
this has been helpful to listen to, to kind of
reflect on how do we learn from other traditions,
how do we do that wisely and well, the benefit
of modern theology, but not kind of throwing
out things in the past. So thank you for listening
in. It's been great to be with you. We do these
every few weeks or so. You can find out more
about Oak Hill at oakhill .ac .uk or nowadays,
you just Google, don't you? And you can find
out more about all that's going on, the different
programs we've got, different short courses we've
got going on. And as I said, do get in touch
with any questions. You can reach out on social
media. You can email communications at oakhill
.ac .uk. But thank you for joining us, listening
in on this conversation as we just try and wrestle
with these topics of sort of theology, but really
trying to apply it to ministry, apply it to,
as Luke just said, pretty powerfully then um
about preaching to ourselves that preaching teaching
to others in whatever context it may be um so
hopefully this has helped edified you in some
way but thanks for joining us it's been great
to be with you we'll see you again soon