August 25, 2024 • 27 mins
Rev Dr Miguel A. De La Torre is a Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. He has held prominent roles, including President of the Society of Christian Ethics (2012) and Executive Officer for the Society of Race, Ethnicity and Religion (2012-2017). A distinguished Fulbright scholar and international lecturer, he is renowned for his advocacy of ethics of place, leading immersion classes in locations like Cuba, Guatemala, and the Mexico/U.S. border. His extensive speaking engagements include the Chautauqua Institute and the Parliament of World Religions. He has been honoured with several national book awards and is a frequent speaker on the intersection of religion with race, class, gender, and sexuality. In 2020, he received the Excellence in Teaching Award, and in 2021, the Martin E. Marty Public Understanding of Religion Award from the American Academy of Religion, making him the first scholar to receive both prestigious awards and the first Latinx to be honoured.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Real Conversation, Real Connection, It's Real Life with John Cowan
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Speaker 2 (00:33):
Today. Welcome to real Life. I think you're going to
find my guest tonight interesting. His story has been impacted
by both for Deel Castro and SpongeBob's Forquarepants. Now New
Zealand does sometimes look of amazement of our friends in
the United States, and our first instinct is to like them,
but often they baffle us in the way they do
things up there. So maybe our guests tonight can help
(00:55):
as we get to know him, maybe we'll understand America
a bit better too. Welcome doctor Michuel di la Torre.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Thank you glad to be here and what brings you here.
I was invited to give a at the University of Oakland,
which I did Friday night, and I decided to say
a few up the days to enjoy your beautiful city.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Oh, I'm glad you did. And you're an ethicist. What
is an ethicist?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I'm a social ethicist. So what I do is that
I look at society. I look at culture. I look
at religion and I try to understand the structures of
oppression and how society and religion are used to oppress people.
And then the next step is to try to find
praxis or that means actions that could lead people towards liberation,
(01:40):
towards non oppressive way of being.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Right now, you've written more books than I've read. I
reckon about forty one books, forty eight, but who's county eight? Yes,
I thought, well, you know, I did the counter at
about lunchtime today, and I think you could have written
another book or two by this afternoon. I mean, that's incredible.
And six of one national awards, right, which is amazing
(02:03):
because a lot of the stuff you write is probably
stuff people don't want to hear.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yes, I'm always surprised when people actually read what I wrote.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
It.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I always fascinating it because I really just write for myself.
That's how I think, and that's how I come to
my own conclusions.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
One of these people that think through your fingertips with
a keyboard, Absolutely right. And you do get a pushback
because you've got a message that's it's meant to stir
people up, isn't it. You've got what you like to.
You want to stir society up. I don't know about activist.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I don't think I like to. I think it just happens.
And yes, I have gotten a lot of pushback, sometimes
death threats. I mean it really, Oh yes, they get scary.
Sometimes several times I've gotten death threats because of the
things I've written.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Wow. Okay, So would it be fair to say that
you're a Christian urging both Christians and on Christians to
act like christ It.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Would be fair to say that I have chosen to
be a Christian, and I want to emphasize that I've
chosen this. It's a decision that I've made. But in
using the term Christianity, it's a it's a different way
of being Christian than the eule Centric way of being Christian.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You're acentric unpacked that for us of course.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
In other words, Christianity as we know it is really
impacted and constructed and designed by European philosophy, and that
philosophy includes colonialism and includes white supremacy. I reject that Christianity.
So when I say I'm a Christian, I want to
be clear I am not in favor of your center Christianity.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Okay, but you're an America now, and you're in America
surrounded by this Christian Christianity. In fact, it's it's more
than just a religion there, it's the culture it.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Is and I reject that also. And to be clear,
when you say I'm an American, I'm an American because
I was born in Cuba, and Cuba is in the Americas.
You know, the United States likes to take the name
of an entire hemisphere for itself. But no, again, when
I say you're center of Christianity, I'm also specifically talking
(04:21):
about how that Christianity has manifested itself within the United States,
which has become a white nationalist Christianity that has absolutely
nothing to do with Jesus Christ, the message of the Gospel,
the Biblical tax And is that still.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Holding true even though Christianity is waning in North America?
I mean, early sixties, ninety percent of Americans would have
claimed to have been, you know, church going, Bible believing Christians.
And now it's probably I don't know a fract, well
about sixty percent I think I saw, and possibly for
(05:01):
But also as well as that, you've got Muslims and
other people there and people of both faith. Is even
though it's become and more diverse culture, is that predominant
whites of prevacist style Christianity still in yes, Sintans, does
it still have the upper hand.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
So so two things on that. Number one, I'm not
quite sure Christianity ever existed in the United States. Any faith,
I mean, any faith tradition that genesized the indigenous people,
that enslaves the African people, that invades the country south
of its borders to steal its natural resources and cheap labor,
cannot really be christian I mean, I don't know what
(05:41):
I mean. This is colonialism. I'm not quite sure it's Christianity.
And that's what I'm saying. It's much together. So when
we're saying that that Christianity is reigning, I say Amen,
al Lujah and praise be to the Lord, because that
type of Christianity needs to die. So that's the That's
the first thing that I would I would probably push
(06:02):
back on that that this is not really unities have
never been a Christian nation. And and second, is this
Christianity there's this this white supremacist, nationalist Christianity dying. I
would argue that you don't have to be a Christian
to be a white nationalist Christian. You have Jewish Christians
(06:24):
and Muslim Christians and atheist Christians and agnostic Christians in.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Must be faulty. So I'm getting I must be spinning
because it's feeling a bit but dizzy at the moment.
How can I how can you have these combinations that
you're talking about if they're not actually Christian? Why are
you calling them white Christians? Because Christianity has nothing to
do with faith. It's an ideology of white supremacy in
the United States. And that's why I'm saying, you don't
(06:52):
have to have faith in this Christian message to be
part of this white Christian nationalism. Are you saying that
the sort of the the white nationalism is even deeper
than their faith and they're just using the their their
Christian label to validate it in some way?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Absolutely, Then there was the white the white nationalism has
put on this facade of Christianity since the foundation of
the nation, so that you don't have to believe in
this gospel message to be a white Christian nationalist.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Now, I've met loads of Americans over the years, and
generally almost exclusively They've been lovely people. Only it's only
on Mass that I don't really understand what they're up to.
The individual Americans that I've met over the many years
have been lovely, and many of them have been Christians,
and to a band, to a woman, every one of
them would deny. Our church doesn't teach that, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
And quite frankly, when I started going to a Christian
church in my teens, they were lovely people. They invited
me to lunch, they would take care of me if
I was sick. But they also taught me to hate
gay people. So as lovely as they are, they taught
me to be homophobic. They taught me to be racist.
(08:14):
But they're lovely people.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Oh wow, okay, all right now you mentioned already that
you were born in Cuba.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Right, and.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
That was something to do with Castro, Yes, it did.
I mean the fact that you lived.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, I was born literally two months before the revolution,
three months before the evolution. I was born in October.
To revolution was in January fifty nine. I think I
just dated myself and my parents left about a year
later because my father was part of the Badista government
and we lived in some of the were slums, of
New York City as refugees and undocumented immigrants. I was
(08:53):
an undocumented immigrant for an alien, I don't think any
alien is illegal. Basically, no human being is illegal. They
may not have documentation. But in the United States, I
don't know about New Zealand states. They we like to
use the term illegal to criminalize a group of people,
(09:14):
to make them sound more dangerous. So basically I was undocumented.
I was never illegal.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
No, okay, but you were at risk of being deported.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
I lived on the rescu of being deportment. In fact,
I received deportation papers after six months that I was
in the United States, demanding that I leave.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
You're probably a very dangerous toddler. For the dangerous.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
The government had a lot to fear from being at
that time.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It's a two years old, and so that that influences
your attitude to immigrants and people that find themselves having
to escape and live in another land, to be.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
A refugee, to be an immigrant for when nobody wants
to leave the country that they were born in. I
would have loved to have stayed in Cuba in my life.
No one wants to leave their country. So to be
an immigrant or a refugee is to never have a
place to call home, never a place where you fit in.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So so that's.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Part of who I am, that's part of my DNA
and I and I feel a certain empathy for those
today who find themselves lost between two countries.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Right, we were talking before about Christians, and I'm just
amazed at it. I mean, it's very convenient to put
people into boxes. You've got so many boxes. I don't
know what where to start. I mean, your parents were
priests in a religion I've never even heard of before.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yes, we were practitioners as Sundadia. In fact, one of
the I once wanted an articles that saying I'm a
Roman Catholic Protestant, sunt dead.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Or deal with it?
Speaker 3 (11:02):
And what I mean is in the year of centric
way of thinking, you're either one thing or another. Yeah,
you eat a a Protestant of a Catholic.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
In the Caribbean, we Caribbean folks hold on to different
traditions that may be in contradiction, but we hold on
to them within our lives because as Migad no Muna
the philosopher would say, to be human is to be contradictory.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Right, Okay, so you don't cling to labels too much.
Even though you what you were trained. You you were
what baptized as a Catholic and went to a Catholic school.
You had your parents were priests in this other religion.
You converted into a Baptist church, you became a Baptist minister.
Now you're in.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Look there's a lot of story here, folks. We're going
to have to unpack a lot more about this man's life.
If you've just tuned in, My guest deny tonight is
professor doctor doctor. Because I think you've got a couple
of PhDs, we'll say doctor doctor Miguel di la Torre,
and we'll be back with him just after his break.
This is Newstalks.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
They'd be intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life
on news talk.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Zippy, welcome back to real life.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
My guess tonight is doctor Mihil de la Torre. And
Hayes chosen the song that I'm sure you'll recognize the tune,
but what's the story behind what we're listening to.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
This particular song is a video as well. It's called
Playing for Change and they recorded this song by with
Cubans all over the world. So you have somebody playing
the trumpet in Japan, somebody playing the congos in Miami,
somebody playing the piano in Cuba and Havana, and they
played this whole song in the hopes of bringing the
(13:03):
Cuban people together because we've been divided now for over
sixty years.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, okay, well it's a it's a lovely piece of music.
But also the idea behind the way it's being produced
is it's part of your dream.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
It's part of my dream. And also the person who
wrote the lyrics, these are lyrics that were written back
in the late nineteen hundreds, was by my intellectual mentor,
Jose Marti, and it's his words and his writings are
so foundational to my thinking that I even have one
(13:37):
of his quotes tattooed on my arm.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
It's incredible, but a skin out. I just saw a
glimpse of it before. And what's it'? What does it
actually say on your arm?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
It says moody day the I will die with my
face to the sun.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Right, Okay, well I have that's not too soon. But illy,
what's it mean? What do you what do you take
that to mean?
Speaker 3 (13:58):
It means that I have lived my life in such
a way that I could die on a shame facing
the sun. Right, Okay, inter of fact, the verse before
is school, don't put me in the darkness to die
like a trader. I am good, and because I am good,
I will die with my face to the sun.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
You're an ethicist, You're looking at how society acts, and
I strike you're also being a Christian minister. But I
get the impression that the way people act is more
important to you than actually just believing the right stuff.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I could care less what people believe. It's orthodoxy, correct
doctrine is unimportant to me. What's important to me is
authoproxis correct action, because the correct action, whatever you do,
is what leads to what you actually believe.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Now, we've got Christians all through history looking at the
same Holy Book and drawing from it behaviors that are
so different, right, and so how what does your ethics
look like?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
And that's their problem. They begin with the truth and
for them it's this Holy Book and based on that
they what actions they're going to take.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Isn't that what Christian ethics is? No, it should be
the well, that's what it has I should all fell
in here that my guest is vigorously shaking his head.
I mean, this is historically what it's been, but this
is why it's been so wrong and has caused so
much oppression and so much misery around the world. You
need to begin with the action it was, start feeding
the hungry, and then as you feed the hungry, you
(15:31):
could look at this Holy Book and then find what
you believe in it. But surely doing it that way
means you can start with any action and look back
to your Holy Book. In fact, that's what I suspect
that a lot of these people have done. That made
the Bible like a raw sharking blot where they can think,
what would I like to do, and now I'll find
some justification in the Bible for doing it.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
But see what you're what you're presenting is what do I,
the individual want to do. One of the parts of
this ethics it has to be done within community, and
in the community is what hopefully keeps the group in
you know, honest, because if I start saying I want
to be doing this, then someone else would say, no,
(16:13):
that's going.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
To not work.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
And before we say, well, can a community go ahead
and do horrible things? The community has to be radically diverse,
like the community.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Now you're latinos a Hispanic. I'm not too sure what
the right adjective is, but is that part of is
that thinking come more from that part of the world
as well, because we tend to think in the waste
more individually things.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Right, and the hyperindividualism of Eurocentric thought is something that
I reject totally because with that individualism, I could justify
anything that my mind can think of. It has to
be communal, it has to be from the people. And well,
if you have so many people, how do you know
who's right. We have what we call the epistemological privilege
(17:00):
of the oppress, and that sounds fancy, but what it
means is that people who are the most oppressed have
a better grasp of reality then people who are privileged
by society. So I need to listen to the voices
of the most marginalized to really find out what's going on.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Okay, don't people rather hear someone who's standing out next
to a president, someone who's preaching at a prayer, breakfast
in the White House or something like that, rather than
someone who is on the age of society.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I believe if you definitely are in favor of white
Christian nationalism. Then yes, definitely the person praying next to
the presidentally you. But I'm saying if I mean then
the president, the person speaking next to the Prime Minister
at prayer breakfast is probably the perfect person to listen to.
But I would rather listen to the most marginalized members
(17:53):
of society because they're the ones to have a better
understanding of who God is than anyone with a PhD
or two PhDs.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Right now, you're an academic now in the university context,
but a lot of these ideas came to you as
you're working in a community.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Absolutely, basically, I cannot do the work I'm doing if
I'm not rooted within a community that is teaching me
what actually is going on. I think the pots being
marginalized well, in my contacts in the United States, definitely
the undocumented, Definitely African Americans, Definitely, the queer community.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
These are the.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
People that are the most depressed. I always say, if
you want to know what God looks like, you know,
God is the black, undocumented, transgender woman. That who God is,
whoever is the most oppressed by society, That is divinity
among us.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Okay, all right, so I can understand why people look
at it awkward feelings and push back on what you're
saying because that's not a comfortable message. Because what is
the message then? If that's the message, that's where you
get your saucier message. What is the message then to
the rest of the world. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
If I get my if the source of my thinking
is from these marginalized communities, then the message that goes
out to the world is highly revolutionary and is dangerous
because it's threatens the very power and privilege of those
who have become accustomed to their power and privilege.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
You're thinking, heys put you in odds of people. And
one of the interesting stories I read about you is
that you got into a staush with the founder of
Focus on the Family, James Dobson, over SpongeBob SquarePants. He
was busy warning kids that is that SpongeBob is gay
or something like that. What was what's the story I'm packing?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah, in the nutshell, I was teaching at a college
in Michigan, and when bush w got elected president, Dobson
wrote this, gave a speech about the dangers of SpongeBob
and making our children gay and at the time, I
(20:08):
was writing the notorious for the local ragsheet in this
little tiny town, So I would just satirical peace, thanking
Dobson for protecting us from the sexual orientation of a
starfish and a sponge. Unbeknownst to me, the person who
basically financed Focus on the Family was the major contributor
(20:30):
to the college I was teaching.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So you ended up packing your bags.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
So Dobson wrote an article thanking God that his students
then were studied under me, and the next thing I know,
I was looking for a new job.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
You don't touch that's a yeah. So this is the
thing that you're living in a world where this is
the dominant culture. And are you hopeful? Do you have
a hope that things are going to change?
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Absolutely not. Neoliberalism, global climate changes. It's so pervasive that
I do not believe these things will be overcome, Not
in my time. Okay, the situation is hopeless. And I
think what hope does is that it provides a peace
(21:20):
of mind that lulls us into domesticating ourselves so that
we do not take action.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
See, this is one of the things that puzzles me
about people that are supporting Trump. I mean, the majority
of white Evangelicals but for Trump. But the amazing thing
is so the Blacks and Asians and uh and and
people like that. And I just can't understand that. But
he is and that can you understand it?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Not just why the evangelical majority of white Catholics, majority
of white mainline Protestants. You know, the majority of Christians
have been supporting Trump, which is why I reject that Christianity.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
H okay, But why are the why do black people,
why do Hispanic people want? Why do why do people
vote for him?
Speaker 3 (22:09):
For the same reason that I was a Republican and
ran for office as a Republican. You did, Oh yeah,
I ran for office in the state of Florida as
the most conservative Republican. I called myself Mike. And the
idea is, I've my mind is so colonized at that
time that I wanted to assimilate into whiteness so that
(22:29):
I could have the privileges that whiteness has to offer.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
So colonization doesn't take over land as much as it
takes over brains.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
The colonization of the mind is more insidious than the
conversation of the land, because if you could control the
minds of those who were marginalized, then they will gladly
give you the land. The colonization of my mind meant
that I saw myself through the eyes of my oppressor.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
That's amazing. So to go from that to where you
are now? And did you have some Damascus road epithety
or is it just a gradual realization?
Speaker 4 (23:10):
How did that?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, it was a bit, well, it was a bit gradual,
just real fast. I mentioned that I was a Southern Baptist.
I became a Southern Baptist. I converted to Southern Baptists,
to which is my most conservative, right wing religious in
the United States. And in doing so, I went ahead
and and try to assimilate. So when I went to
(23:32):
become a minister, you know, conservative minister, I stumbled into
a library and I pulled every book that had a
Latin name, not knowing who some of these authors from
Latin American were, who were liberation theologians, and that led
to my conversion.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Well, Miguel, I'd love to be able to just go
out and have a word of producer and carry on
talking with you for the rest of the evening, but
I'm afraid our time is up. We've got time for
the I mean, could I just recommend people track down
his books. He's got forty eight of them to pick from.
I think you probably do a lot of study. McGill
(24:06):
Dila torre spelt to t O R R E. I'm
sure you can track them down on Amazon and whatever.
But we're going out on another song. What are we
listening to?
Speaker 3 (24:15):
This is a song that my wife composed. She's a
Latino jazz composer and she's finishing her doctorate an ethel musicology.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
All right, so this is your wife plays.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
At Dabo d'oteaux and this particular song is called gigno
but with a swing.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
It's been an absolute pleasure of talking with you.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I'm John Cowen. This is real life. Looking forward to
being back with you next Sunday night.
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Speaker 2 (00:33):
Today. Welcome to real Life. I think you're going to
find my guest tonight interesting. His story has been impacted
by both for Deel Castro and SpongeBob's Forquarepants. Now New
Zealand does sometimes look of amazement of our friends in
the United States, and our first instinct is to like them,
but often they baffle us in the way they do
things up there. So maybe our guests tonight can help
(00:55):
as we get to know him, maybe we'll understand America
a bit better too. Welcome doctor Michuel di la Torre.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Thank you glad to be here and what brings you here.
I was invited to give a at the University of Oakland,
which I did Friday night, and I decided to say
a few up the days to enjoy your beautiful city.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Oh, I'm glad you did. And you're an ethicist. What
is an ethicist?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I'm a social ethicist. So what I do is that
I look at society. I look at culture. I look
at religion and I try to understand the structures of
oppression and how society and religion are used to oppress people.
And then the next step is to try to find
praxis or that means actions that could lead people towards liberation,
(01:40):
towards non oppressive way of being.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Right now, you've written more books than I've read. I
reckon about forty one books, forty eight, but who's county eight? Yes,
I thought, well, you know, I did the counter at
about lunchtime today, and I think you could have written
another book or two by this afternoon. I mean, that's incredible.
And six of one national awards, right, which is amazing
(02:03):
because a lot of the stuff you write is probably
stuff people don't want to hear.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yes, I'm always surprised when people actually read what I wrote.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
It.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I always fascinating it because I really just write for myself.
That's how I think, and that's how I come to
my own conclusions.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
One of these people that think through your fingertips with
a keyboard, Absolutely right. And you do get a pushback
because you've got a message that's it's meant to stir
people up, isn't it. You've got what you like to.
You want to stir society up. I don't know about activist.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I don't think I like to. I think it just happens.
And yes, I have gotten a lot of pushback, sometimes
death threats. I mean it really, Oh yes, they get scary.
Sometimes several times I've gotten death threats because of the
things I've written.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Wow. Okay, So would it be fair to say that
you're a Christian urging both Christians and on Christians to
act like christ It.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Would be fair to say that I have chosen to
be a Christian, and I want to emphasize that I've
chosen this. It's a decision that I've made. But in
using the term Christianity, it's a it's a different way
of being Christian than the eule Centric way of being Christian.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You're acentric unpacked that for us of course.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
In other words, Christianity as we know it is really
impacted and constructed and designed by European philosophy, and that
philosophy includes colonialism and includes white supremacy. I reject that Christianity.
So when I say I'm a Christian, I want to
be clear I am not in favor of your center Christianity.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Okay, but you're an America now, and you're in America
surrounded by this Christian Christianity. In fact, it's it's more
than just a religion there, it's the culture it.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Is and I reject that also. And to be clear,
when you say I'm an American, I'm an American because
I was born in Cuba, and Cuba is in the Americas.
You know, the United States likes to take the name
of an entire hemisphere for itself. But no, again, when
I say you're center of Christianity, I'm also specifically talking
(04:21):
about how that Christianity has manifested itself within the United States,
which has become a white nationalist Christianity that has absolutely
nothing to do with Jesus Christ, the message of the Gospel,
the Biblical tax And is that still.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Holding true even though Christianity is waning in North America?
I mean, early sixties, ninety percent of Americans would have
claimed to have been, you know, church going, Bible believing Christians.
And now it's probably I don't know a fract, well
about sixty percent I think I saw, and possibly for
(05:01):
But also as well as that, you've got Muslims and
other people there and people of both faith. Is even
though it's become and more diverse culture, is that predominant
whites of prevacist style Christianity still in yes, Sintans, does
it still have the upper hand.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
So so two things on that. Number one, I'm not
quite sure Christianity ever existed in the United States. Any faith,
I mean, any faith tradition that genesized the indigenous people,
that enslaves the African people, that invades the country south
of its borders to steal its natural resources and cheap labor,
cannot really be christian I mean, I don't know what
(05:41):
I mean. This is colonialism. I'm not quite sure it's Christianity.
And that's what I'm saying. It's much together. So when
we're saying that that Christianity is reigning, I say Amen,
al Lujah and praise be to the Lord, because that
type of Christianity needs to die. So that's the That's
the first thing that I would I would probably push
(06:02):
back on that that this is not really unities have
never been a Christian nation. And and second, is this
Christianity there's this this white supremacist, nationalist Christianity dying. I
would argue that you don't have to be a Christian
to be a white nationalist Christian. You have Jewish Christians
(06:24):
and Muslim Christians and atheist Christians and agnostic Christians in.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Must be faulty. So I'm getting I must be spinning
because it's feeling a bit but dizzy at the moment.
How can I how can you have these combinations that
you're talking about if they're not actually Christian? Why are
you calling them white Christians? Because Christianity has nothing to
do with faith. It's an ideology of white supremacy in
the United States. And that's why I'm saying, you don't
(06:52):
have to have faith in this Christian message to be
part of this white Christian nationalism. Are you saying that
the sort of the the white nationalism is even deeper
than their faith and they're just using the their their
Christian label to validate it in some way?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Absolutely, Then there was the white the white nationalism has
put on this facade of Christianity since the foundation of
the nation, so that you don't have to believe in
this gospel message to be a white Christian nationalist.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Now, I've met loads of Americans over the years, and
generally almost exclusively They've been lovely people. Only it's only
on Mass that I don't really understand what they're up to.
The individual Americans that I've met over the many years
have been lovely, and many of them have been Christians,
and to a band, to a woman, every one of
them would deny. Our church doesn't teach that, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
And quite frankly, when I started going to a Christian
church in my teens, they were lovely people. They invited
me to lunch, they would take care of me if
I was sick. But they also taught me to hate
gay people. So as lovely as they are, they taught
me to be homophobic. They taught me to be racist.
(08:14):
But they're lovely people.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Oh wow, okay, all right now you mentioned already that
you were born in Cuba.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Right, and.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
That was something to do with Castro, Yes, it did.
I mean the fact that you lived.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, I was born literally two months before the revolution,
three months before the evolution. I was born in October.
To revolution was in January fifty nine. I think I
just dated myself and my parents left about a year
later because my father was part of the Badista government
and we lived in some of the were slums, of
New York City as refugees and undocumented immigrants. I was
(08:53):
an undocumented immigrant for an alien, I don't think any
alien is illegal. Basically, no human being is illegal. They
may not have documentation. But in the United States, I
don't know about New Zealand states. They we like to
use the term illegal to criminalize a group of people,
(09:14):
to make them sound more dangerous. So basically I was undocumented.
I was never illegal.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
No, okay, but you were at risk of being deported.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
I lived on the rescu of being deportment. In fact,
I received deportation papers after six months that I was
in the United States, demanding that I leave.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
You're probably a very dangerous toddler. For the dangerous.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
The government had a lot to fear from being at
that time.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It's a two years old, and so that that influences
your attitude to immigrants and people that find themselves having
to escape and live in another land, to be.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
A refugee, to be an immigrant for when nobody wants
to leave the country that they were born in. I
would have loved to have stayed in Cuba in my life.
No one wants to leave their country. So to be
an immigrant or a refugee is to never have a
place to call home, never a place where you fit in.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So so that's.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Part of who I am, that's part of my DNA
and I and I feel a certain empathy for those
today who find themselves lost between two countries.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Right, we were talking before about Christians, and I'm just
amazed at it. I mean, it's very convenient to put
people into boxes. You've got so many boxes. I don't
know what where to start. I mean, your parents were
priests in a religion I've never even heard of before.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yes, we were practitioners as Sundadia. In fact, one of
the I once wanted an articles that saying I'm a
Roman Catholic Protestant, sunt dead.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Or deal with it?
Speaker 3 (11:02):
And what I mean is in the year of centric
way of thinking, you're either one thing or another. Yeah,
you eat a a Protestant of a Catholic.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
In the Caribbean, we Caribbean folks hold on to different
traditions that may be in contradiction, but we hold on
to them within our lives because as Migad no Muna
the philosopher would say, to be human is to be contradictory.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Right, Okay, so you don't cling to labels too much.
Even though you what you were trained. You you were
what baptized as a Catholic and went to a Catholic school.
You had your parents were priests in this other religion.
You converted into a Baptist church, you became a Baptist minister.
Now you're in.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Look there's a lot of story here, folks. We're going
to have to unpack a lot more about this man's life.
If you've just tuned in, My guest deny tonight is
professor doctor doctor. Because I think you've got a couple
of PhDs, we'll say doctor doctor Miguel di la Torre,
and we'll be back with him just after his break.
This is Newstalks.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
They'd be intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life
on news talk.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Zippy, welcome back to real life.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
My guess tonight is doctor Mihil de la Torre. And
Hayes chosen the song that I'm sure you'll recognize the tune,
but what's the story behind what we're listening to.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
This particular song is a video as well. It's called
Playing for Change and they recorded this song by with
Cubans all over the world. So you have somebody playing
the trumpet in Japan, somebody playing the congos in Miami,
somebody playing the piano in Cuba and Havana, and they
played this whole song in the hopes of bringing the
(13:03):
Cuban people together because we've been divided now for over
sixty years.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, okay, well it's a it's a lovely piece of music.
But also the idea behind the way it's being produced
is it's part of your dream.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
It's part of my dream. And also the person who
wrote the lyrics, these are lyrics that were written back
in the late nineteen hundreds, was by my intellectual mentor,
Jose Marti, and it's his words and his writings are
so foundational to my thinking that I even have one
(13:37):
of his quotes tattooed on my arm.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
It's incredible, but a skin out. I just saw a
glimpse of it before. And what's it'? What does it
actually say on your arm?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
It says moody day the I will die with my
face to the sun.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Right, Okay, well I have that's not too soon. But illy,
what's it mean? What do you what do you take
that to mean?
Speaker 3 (13:58):
It means that I have lived my life in such
a way that I could die on a shame facing
the sun. Right, Okay, inter of fact, the verse before
is school, don't put me in the darkness to die
like a trader. I am good, and because I am good,
I will die with my face to the sun.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
You're an ethicist, You're looking at how society acts, and
I strike you're also being a Christian minister. But I
get the impression that the way people act is more
important to you than actually just believing the right stuff.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I could care less what people believe. It's orthodoxy, correct
doctrine is unimportant to me. What's important to me is
authoproxis correct action, because the correct action, whatever you do,
is what leads to what you actually believe.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Now, we've got Christians all through history looking at the
same Holy Book and drawing from it behaviors that are
so different, right, and so how what does your ethics
look like?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
And that's their problem. They begin with the truth and
for them it's this Holy Book and based on that
they what actions they're going to take.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Isn't that what Christian ethics is? No, it should be
the well, that's what it has I should all fell
in here that my guest is vigorously shaking his head.
I mean, this is historically what it's been, but this
is why it's been so wrong and has caused so
much oppression and so much misery around the world. You
need to begin with the action it was, start feeding
the hungry, and then as you feed the hungry, you
(15:31):
could look at this Holy Book and then find what
you believe in it. But surely doing it that way
means you can start with any action and look back
to your Holy Book. In fact, that's what I suspect
that a lot of these people have done. That made
the Bible like a raw sharking blot where they can think,
what would I like to do, and now I'll find
some justification in the Bible for doing it.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
But see what you're what you're presenting is what do I,
the individual want to do. One of the parts of
this ethics it has to be done within community, and
in the community is what hopefully keeps the group in
you know, honest, because if I start saying I want
to be doing this, then someone else would say, no,
(16:13):
that's going.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
To not work.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
And before we say, well, can a community go ahead
and do horrible things? The community has to be radically diverse,
like the community.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Now you're latinos a Hispanic. I'm not too sure what
the right adjective is, but is that part of is
that thinking come more from that part of the world
as well, because we tend to think in the waste
more individually things.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Right, and the hyperindividualism of Eurocentric thought is something that
I reject totally because with that individualism, I could justify
anything that my mind can think of. It has to
be communal, it has to be from the people. And well,
if you have so many people, how do you know
who's right. We have what we call the epistemological privilege
(17:00):
of the oppress, and that sounds fancy, but what it
means is that people who are the most oppressed have
a better grasp of reality then people who are privileged
by society. So I need to listen to the voices
of the most marginalized to really find out what's going on.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Okay, don't people rather hear someone who's standing out next
to a president, someone who's preaching at a prayer, breakfast
in the White House or something like that, rather than
someone who is on the age of society.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I believe if you definitely are in favor of white
Christian nationalism. Then yes, definitely the person praying next to
the presidentally you. But I'm saying if I mean then
the president, the person speaking next to the Prime Minister
at prayer breakfast is probably the perfect person to listen to.
But I would rather listen to the most marginalized members
(17:53):
of society because they're the ones to have a better
understanding of who God is than anyone with a PhD
or two PhDs.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Right now, you're an academic now in the university context,
but a lot of these ideas came to you as
you're working in a community.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Absolutely, basically, I cannot do the work I'm doing if
I'm not rooted within a community that is teaching me
what actually is going on. I think the pots being
marginalized well, in my contacts in the United States, definitely
the undocumented, Definitely African Americans, Definitely, the queer community.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
These are the.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
People that are the most depressed. I always say, if
you want to know what God looks like, you know,
God is the black, undocumented, transgender woman. That who God is,
whoever is the most oppressed by society, That is divinity
among us.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Okay, all right, so I can understand why people look
at it awkward feelings and push back on what you're
saying because that's not a comfortable message. Because what is
the message then? If that's the message, that's where you
get your saucier message. What is the message then to
the rest of the world. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
If I get my if the source of my thinking
is from these marginalized communities, then the message that goes
out to the world is highly revolutionary and is dangerous
because it's threatens the very power and privilege of those
who have become accustomed to their power and privilege.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
You're thinking, heys put you in odds of people. And
one of the interesting stories I read about you is
that you got into a staush with the founder of
Focus on the Family, James Dobson, over SpongeBob SquarePants. He
was busy warning kids that is that SpongeBob is gay
or something like that. What was what's the story I'm packing?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah, in the nutshell, I was teaching at a college
in Michigan, and when bush w got elected president, Dobson
wrote this, gave a speech about the dangers of SpongeBob
and making our children gay and at the time, I
(20:08):
was writing the notorious for the local ragsheet in this
little tiny town, So I would just satirical peace, thanking
Dobson for protecting us from the sexual orientation of a
starfish and a sponge. Unbeknownst to me, the person who
basically financed Focus on the Family was the major contributor
(20:30):
to the college I was teaching.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So you ended up packing your bags.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
So Dobson wrote an article thanking God that his students
then were studied under me, and the next thing I know,
I was looking for a new job.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
You don't touch that's a yeah. So this is the
thing that you're living in a world where this is
the dominant culture. And are you hopeful? Do you have
a hope that things are going to change?
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Absolutely not. Neoliberalism, global climate changes. It's so pervasive that
I do not believe these things will be overcome, Not
in my time. Okay, the situation is hopeless. And I
think what hope does is that it provides a peace
(21:20):
of mind that lulls us into domesticating ourselves so that
we do not take action.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
See, this is one of the things that puzzles me
about people that are supporting Trump. I mean, the majority
of white Evangelicals but for Trump. But the amazing thing
is so the Blacks and Asians and uh and and
people like that. And I just can't understand that. But
he is and that can you understand it?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Not just why the evangelical majority of white Catholics, majority
of white mainline Protestants. You know, the majority of Christians
have been supporting Trump, which is why I reject that Christianity.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
H okay, But why are the why do black people,
why do Hispanic people want? Why do why do people
vote for him?
Speaker 3 (22:09):
For the same reason that I was a Republican and
ran for office as a Republican. You did, Oh yeah,
I ran for office in the state of Florida as
the most conservative Republican. I called myself Mike. And the
idea is, I've my mind is so colonized at that
time that I wanted to assimilate into whiteness so that
(22:29):
I could have the privileges that whiteness has to offer.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
So colonization doesn't take over land as much as it
takes over brains.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
The colonization of the mind is more insidious than the
conversation of the land, because if you could control the
minds of those who were marginalized, then they will gladly
give you the land. The colonization of my mind meant
that I saw myself through the eyes of my oppressor.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
That's amazing. So to go from that to where you
are now? And did you have some Damascus road epithety
or is it just a gradual realization?
Speaker 4 (23:10):
How did that?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, it was a bit, well, it was a bit gradual,
just real fast. I mentioned that I was a Southern Baptist.
I became a Southern Baptist. I converted to Southern Baptists,
to which is my most conservative, right wing religious in
the United States. And in doing so, I went ahead
and and try to assimilate. So when I went to
(23:32):
become a minister, you know, conservative minister, I stumbled into
a library and I pulled every book that had a
Latin name, not knowing who some of these authors from
Latin American were, who were liberation theologians, and that led
to my conversion.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Well, Miguel, I'd love to be able to just go
out and have a word of producer and carry on
talking with you for the rest of the evening, but
I'm afraid our time is up. We've got time for
the I mean, could I just recommend people track down
his books. He's got forty eight of them to pick from.
I think you probably do a lot of study. McGill
(24:06):
Dila torre spelt to t O R R E. I'm
sure you can track them down on Amazon and whatever.
But we're going out on another song. What are we
listening to?
Speaker 3 (24:15):
This is a song that my wife composed. She's a
Latino jazz composer and she's finishing her doctorate an ethel musicology.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
All right, so this is your wife plays.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
At Dabo d'oteaux and this particular song is called gigno
but with a swing.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
It's been an absolute pleasure of talking with you.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I'm John Cowen. This is real life. Looking forward to
being back with you next Sunday night.
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