Mural in the Arcatao community, Chalatenango, El Salvador, reflecting what happened at Rio Sumpul in 1980
When Glenn Beck mentioned Liberation Theology around minute 12.20 of this Fox News video (which I came across courtesy of @Jay_Rosenberg), I literally sat up straighter in my chair, downsized the other 6 tabs I had open, hit rewind, turned up the volume and listened. And I felt really unsettled.
The amount of time I normally give to Beck and the Tea Baggers is the time it takes to hit delete on an email. You know the ones… they are usually full of misinformation and have a lot of all capital letters, bright red size 64 font, and tell me to fear Obama, Mexicans, Muslim takeovers and universal healthcare.
But Beck’s coloring of Liberation Theology in this video clip “Liberation Theology and the Political Perversion of Christianity” and his take on social justice make me really angry.
In the Liberation Theology clip, Beck paints this vision of people who follow liberation theology. “These are people who, besides blowing stuff up, were also having a sexual revolution, trying to smash monogamy. This isn’t about God to them in any shape or form.”
He talks with Anthony Bradley, a ‘Black Liberation Theology Expert’ from the Acton Institute. Bradley says “One of the odd interpretations of Marxist thought and theology happened in central and south America, right in the church. And it was really the fantastic work of the current pope, who actually rooted out liberation theology from that region.”
Yes, right. Fantastic rooting out. Just fantastic, Bradley.
I’m not a Christian or a Marxist, but I lived and worked in El Salvador in the 90s. That’s right. El Salvador, one of the Central American countries where Liberation Theology was at its strongest.
Here’s what ‘rooting out liberation theology’ meant in El Salvador.
Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero's famous words
It meant assassinating Archbishop Romero in 1980.
“Romero was shot on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass at a small chapel located in a hospital called “La Divina Providencia”, one day after a sermon where he had called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians, to obey God’s higher order and to stop carrying out the government’s repression and violations of basic human rights. According to an audio-recording of the Mass, he was shot while elevating the chalice at the end of the Eucharistic rite. When he was shot, his blood spilled over the altar along with the sacramental wine.” (Wikipedia)
And assassinating the 6 Jesuit Priests from the University of Central America, cutting open their heads and strewing their brains around the yard.
“Before the end of darkness on the morning of Nov. 16, with unspeakable and barbaric cruelty, armed men burst into the Jesuit residence at the University of Central America in San Salvador and shot six Jesuit priests to death. At the same time, the community’s cook and her daughter were murdered in their beds. According to reliable reports, several of the priests, my brothers, had their brains torn from their heads.” (Washington Post, Nov 19, 1989)
And beating, raping and murdering 4 Maryknoll sisters.
“In December 1980, Jean Donovan and three nuns joined the more than 75,000 people who were killed in the Salvadoran Civil War. In the afternoon of December 2, Donovan and Dorothy Kazel picked up two Maryknoll missionary sisters, Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, from the airport after the pair arrived from attending a Maryknoll conference in Managua, Nicaragua. They were under surveillance by a National Guardsman at the time, who phoned his commander for orders. Acting on orders from their commander, five National Guard members changed into plainclothes and continued to stake out the airport. The five members of the National Guard of El Salvador, out of uniform, stopped the vehicle they were driving after they left the airport in San Salvador. Donovan and the three sisters were taken to a relatively isolated spot where they were beaten, raped, and murdered by the soldiers.
The [1993] U.N.-sponsored report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador concluded that the abductions were planned in advance and the men responsible had carried out the murders on orders from above. It further stated that the head of the National Guard and two officers assigned to investigate the case had concealed the facts to harm the judicial process. The murder of the women, along with attempts by the Salvadoran military and some American officials to cover it up, generated a grass-roots opposition in the U.S., as well as ignited intense debate over the Administration’s policy in El Salvador. In 1984, the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The Truth Commission noted that this was the first time in Salvadoran history that a judge had found a member of the military guilty of assassination. ” (Wikipedia)”
Rooting out liberation theology meant massacring almost 800 peasants in El Mozote in Morazan
“In a small rectangular plot among the overgrown ruins of a village here, a team of forensic archeologists has opened a window on El Salvador’s nightmarish past. Nearly 11 years after American-trained soldiers were said to have torn through El Mozote and surrounding hamlets on a rampage in which at least 794 people were killed, the bones have emerged as stark evidence that the claims of peasant survivors and the reports of a couple of American journalists were true.” (New York Times, 1992)
and another 300 people at Rio Sumpul, on the border with Honduras
“On 14 May 1980, units of Military Detachment No. 1, the National Guard and the paramilitary Organización Nacional Democrática (ORDEN) deliberately killed at least 300 non-combatants, including women and children, who were trying to flee to Honduras across the Sumpul river beside the hamlet of Las Aradas, Department of Chalatenango. The massacre was made possible by the cooperation of the Honduran armed forces, who prevented the Salvadorian villagers from landing on the other side.” (UN Truth Commission Report, 1993)
It meant assassinating, disappearing and torturing thousands who belonged to Christian Base Communities. And that was just in El Salvador.
Rev. James Martin in his Huffington Post article explains why he follows liberation theology. I encourage you to read his full post:
“Liberation theology is easy to be against. For one thing, most people don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. It’s also easier to ignore the concerns of the poor, particularly overseas, than it is to actually get to know them as individuals who make a claim on us. There are also plenty of overheated websites that facilely link it to Marxism. My response to that last critique is to read the Gospels and count how many times Jesus tells us that we should help the poor and even be poor. In the Gospel of Matthew, he tells us that the ones who will enter the Kingdom of heaven are those who help “the least of my brothers and sisters,” i.e., the poor. After that, read the Acts of the Apostles, especially the part about the apostles “sharing everything in common.” Then let me know if helping the poor is communist or simply Christian….
It’s hard to ignore the fact that Jesus chose to be born poor; he worked as what many scholars now say was not simply a carpenter, but what could be called a day laborer; he spent his days and nights with the poor; he and his disciples lived with few if any possessions; he advocated tirelessly for the poor in a time when poverty was considered to be a curse; he consistently placed the poor in his parables over and above the rich; and he died an utterly poor man, with only a single seamless garment to his name. Jesus lived and died as a poor man. Why is this so hard for modern-day Christians to see? Liberation theology is not Marxism disguised as religion. It is Christianity presented in all its disturbing fullness.”
So, Glenn Beck. Really. Really?
Let me get this straight. The people above are or were about “blowing stuff up, sexual revolutions and trying to smash monogamy.” And this is “not about God to them in any way shape or form” so they need to be “rooted out”?
Glenn Beck, you make me sick.
Update: posts I like on this topic:
Roger Ebert in Chicago Sun Times: Put Up or Shut Up.
Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone: Tea Party Rocks Primaries
Timothy Egan in New York Times: Building a Nation of Know Nothings
Other El Salvador related posts on Wait… What?
It’s not a black and white photo
The real story involves anti-social entrepreneurs and anthropology
Wait... What? 
Thanks so incredibly much for this. I’ve wanted to express the same things after reading about his attacks on liberation theology but couldn’t muster the energy.
Liberation theology, especially from El Salvador, changed my life and was a major academic focus for me in college. In various forms (eco-feminist, queer, etc.) continue to inform my professional and personal lives on a daily (hourly?) basis.
I’m hoping that one of these days I can get back to El Salvador and complete some research I started in college about the apparent marginalization of women’s voices in mainstream liberation theological discourse and the impact on reproductive health care access. If it ever happens, I’ll send you and Glenn Beck both a copy!
Glad I could write it for you :). It just struck a nerve and I couldn’t stand it! Would love to read your paper if you ever write it….
[…] I wanted to say but couldn’t find the energy for: Glenn Beck, you make me sick. Here’s an excerpt, but read the whole thing: The amount of time I normally give to Beck and […]
Dare I actually admit to being both Christian and Conservative (at least fiscally)? Yet somehow the people who really make me sick are always Christians and Conservatives. I’ll avoid my own politics here, and just say that I was extremely moved by this post. At some point you have to think Beck will talk himself back into obscurity, but it is rather remarkable how long the flock will stick to its leader. I find it incredibly frustrating that my relationship with Jesus somehow affiliates me all the fear mongers in America, who I could not agree with any less. If it’s not Muslims, it’s homosexuals, liberals, immigrants or Marxists. When I read the gospel, the only people who Jesus ever seemed to be concerned with were the church leaders.
Anyway, I just wanted to give you a very sincere thank you for posting this and sharing the incredible work of these martyrs.
Thanks for reading and thanks for your comment. I really appreciate it. I wish intelligent, non-hateful Conservative (at least fiscally) Christians like you were in the spotlight and taking leadership roles instead of people like Beck!
Hear hear Linda – great post. I think the fact that Beck could say something like that is truly frightening. And also quite revealing of what might happen if he and his ilk were handed unchecked power in the US.
Hi Linda,
Thanks for such a great post! The sad thing about this guy is his level of ignorance and lack of humility to believe he has all the answers.
The good thing is that he made you and many others sick, which led you to thinking, writing and sharing this insightful arguments.
Cheers
@terence and @soledad – thanks for your comments. I’m really frightened by Beck too, and it blows my mind that someone like him can gain any kind of support. Linda
this is an excellent example on how to take someone out of context. Maybe if you watched Glenn Becks actual episode, instead of listening “in the time it takes to delete an email” to cast judgements and summarizations you wouldnt be so long winded. Glenn beck was specificly talking about the Weather Underground of the 60s and their extreamist take on Liberation Theology. The WU DID blow things up (Willliam Ayers, Jeff Jones etc who are now all advisors to the Obama admin), and they were having a “sexual revolution” as pointed out in their manifesto-He was discussing the motivations behind this organization and Liberation theo. as part of their motivation. so that specific quote that got you “so angry” was NOT casting ALL Liberation Theologists as “people who blow up stuff”. He disagrees with it, sure, but does not insinuate that all who adhere to that ideology are some sort of terrorist
I am sorry if this comes off rude, but there Beck says in no uncertain terms that the kind of acts committed by the Weather Underground are a part of liberation theology. From the same show:
“OK. So they excuse it because this country has committed genocide or violence against the oppressed. So you can use any means to stop us. OK. This is how they and the Black Panthers and others who follow this line of thinking can eventually find themselves rationalizing the killing of babies, because they’ve convinced themselves that you are either a victim or you are the oppressor.
And there is no difference. There is no in-between here. You must take a stand. You are a victim or oppressor. And that’s exactly how you get crazies like this one that we showed you a couple of days ago.
[Shortly after]
The Black Panthers and anyone who subscribes to Liberation Theology are perverting the message of Christianity and it goes straight to evil. It is the same way radical Islamists pervert the message of Islam.”
He says clearly that Liberation Theology is one that provides a distinct choice between oppressed and oppressor and considers it to be a perversion of Christianity.
So, I respectfully disagree with you. Beck clearly is saying, not even suggesting, that Liberation Theology leads to extreme actions.
It is also important to note that rhetorically, Beck will save his most extreme claims and statements to be concluded by his audience. He will pair two ideas, side by side, so that the conclusion he wants will be made by the audience but he does not have to spell out directly himself. In this case, he discusses the extreme actions of the WU, says they followed Liberation Theology and then said LT is an extreme form of Christianity that compels its believers to pick sides in some great battle. He unquestionably wants his audience to think that Liberation Theology is a belief that breeds violence.
Tom, thanks for your comment. It doesn’t sound rude at all. I had the same impression as you.
Thanks for your comment Erica. I started the post by saying that this is about the first time I’ve listened to Beck for longer than it takes to skim and delete an email.
When I write a blog post, I link any quote to the full post where I’ve taken the summary from. It’s all there for you to read, and that’s fine if you make your own conclusions about what Beck means.
Here is another quote from the same link I posted. You can read the full transcript for yourself at the link:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,596703,00.html
“The Black Panthers and anyone who subscribes to Liberation Theology are perverting the message of Christianity and it goes straight to evil.”
Anyway, the quote that got me most angry was Bradley. And Beck makes me sick for promoting that kind of thinking.
Thanks Linda for clarifying what I also found to be horrifying remarks on Liberation Theology by Glen Beck et al. Once again, your comments strike home. Prior to my 1st exit out of the U.S. to El Salvador in 2003, I read as much as I could research prior to my departure. In El Salvador my NGO hosts responded to my request to visit the Cathedral where Rev. Romero is encrypted. It was a stunning visit for me to finally escape my life-long visits to history via books and to stand in the actual locales.
As we left the Cathedral, standing on the steps where the women and children were gunned down, a staff member began telling me about, as a ten year old girl, she was barricaded behind the walls of the Mercado Centro as she heard those gunshots ring out. She then told me how she heard the remaining women pounding on the walls to escape the soldiers. Oscar Romero’s passionate speech of “why are you killing your own people? to the tall, well fed attendees at the service was Liberation theology at its best. Thanks again, Linda….
Dave, thanks as always for your kind and insightful comments.
God never said you had to be poor to love him.
There are a lot of things God never said…. just sayin’.
I want to thank you for writing this. You have conveyed with passion conviction what needs to be said.
you’re welcome!
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