Elective affinities between Sandinismo (as socialist idea) and liberation theology in the Nicaraguan Revolution

Introduction

In a January 30th article entitled “The Biblical Values of Ocasio-Cortez’s Democratic Socialism,” published in Soujourners, an online journal, a connection between religion (more specifically Christianity) and progressive politics was made. The main message of the article was that “Democratic Socialism and the Bible … share a vision of what constitutes a fair and just society” (Hendricks 2019). Several months after, an August 5th article entitled “Not So Menacing: What Catholics (Still) Don’t Understand about Communists,” published in America, a Catholic Magazine, a similar argument is made, which included the recognition, among others, that “Communism has provided one of the few sustainable oppositions to capitalism, a global political order responsible for the ongoing suffering of millions. It is that suffering … and not the secret plot of atheism … that motivates communists” (Dettloff 2019, 27).

This connection between Christianity and progressive politics is not new, although it is often misrecognized, especially in the present context of conservative Christian politics in the US. The potential of this connection, you could say, is now dormant; but perhaps the present cultural and socio-political crisis we find ourselves in—climate change denial, increased wealth disparity, the rise of the political right, and class, gender, and racial discord—will prove an opportunity for its reemergence. That is, of course, another topic for discussion. Today, as the title of my article suggests, I am focusing outside the US, on Nicaragua, and on a different historical context, the 1970s and 1980s, when Nicaragua experienced Revolution, in an effort to explore this connection.

Christian revolutionaries in Nicaragua

The Nicaraguan Revolution may be considered an undermined, defeated, and betrayed experiment, notwithstanding the efforts of thousands of its religious and secular activists. The revolution was undermined and defeated by external forces and betrayed and defeated by internal ones. In the 1980s, US imperialism undermined the young revolution through its support and financing of the Contra War and the 1990 elections. Following the defeat of the Sandinista government in the 1990 elections, the revolution was also betrayed by the neo-liberal regimes that followed, including the present one under the administration of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Such a betrayal was often embodied in the actions of Sandinista party members. Many of the leaders of the Sandinista party progressively embraced what David Close (2004, 1–16) refers to as “electoral caudillismo,” a duopoly of the political system secured by the Sandinista and Liberal parties following the Chamorro presidency (1990–96). Electoral caudillismo, it may be argued, has turned into the authoritarian government of Ortega and Murillo. Despite such a lamentable turn of events, to this day Nicaragua stands as a reminder of the promise of revolution and the power of religion in the revolutionary politics of a secular, if underdeveloped, nation. To revisit this latter connection between religion and revolutionary politics, I start with a quote by Ernesto Cardenal and consider other testimonials from Christian revolutionaries in Nicaragua as a point of departure. I evaluate the meaning of liberation theology and socialism. I then explore the affinities between socialism and Christianity and elaborate on its connection to the Nicaraguan Revolution. I also draw a parallel between St. Paul’s transformative conversion and radical politics as a way to explore the meaning of the new (Sandinista) men and women birthed in the 1980s.

In response to an inquiry about Marxism posed by Teófilo Cabestrero, a Spanish priest and author, Farther Ernesto Cardenal, a Nicaraguan priest, poet, practitioner of liberation theology, and at the time Minister of Culture during Sandinista rule in the 1980s, states, “It was the gospel of Jesus Christ that made a Marxist of me … I am a Marxist who believes in God, follows Christ, and is a revolutionary for the sake of his kingdom” (Cabestrero 1983, 32). This is a rather provocative assertion, especially because the gospel and Marxism, one can persuasively argue, are often considered anathema to each other. Why? For one, most Marxists often discount the insurgent potential of religion in progressive politics. They treat religion as an ideology of domination, although some Marxists recognize its utopian (Ernst Bloch), political (Lucien Goldmann, Antonio Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg, and E P Thompson), and mythical potential (José Carlos Mariátegui and Georges Sorel). Nevertheless, many Marxists would insist that religion conceals the true nature of economic and social conditions. They would also insist on how it legitimizes class exploitation and oppression.

Yet, in Nicaragua many Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) cadres, who were first Christian activists, understand religion in radical terms (Baltodano 2010; Cabestrero 1983, 1986; Gould 1990; Hodges 1986; Kruijt 2008; Randall 1985).Such is the case, among many others, for Edgar García, Mónica Baltodano, Joaquín Cuadra, Reinaldo Antonio Tefel, María del Socorro Gutiérrez de Barreto, Vidaluz Meneses, and Humberto Solís (Cabestrero 1986, 49; Kruijt 2008, 42; Randall 1983, 154–56; Cabestrero 1986, 58). To this list, we may add other religious figures, Frs. Fernando Cardenal (brother of Ernesto Cardenal) and Fr. Miguel d’Escoto, respectively Director of the National Literacy Campaign and Foreign Minister during the 1980s (Cabestrero 1983). To all of these figures, secular and spiritual alike, their involvement in the war of liberation and the revolution was consistent with their traditional Christian upbringing. Their Christian values, they all insist, predisposed them to commit themselves to both the war of liberation in the 1970s and the revolution in the 1980s. Fr. Miguel d’Escoto, for example, conveys the following about his involvement in the war of liberation:

Taking part in the struggle was a most profound religious experience for me. To work everyday side by side with persons who were ready to give their lives in battle for their brothers and sisters … [this drew] us close to our Lord, to his cross, to his resurrection. I have never celebrated the Eucharist more meaningfully than when I celebrated it with my fellow freedom fighters … For me the whole war was a great Eucharist, because, in all my comrades there was this disposition to give all, to give their lives … I had to follow the example of … the good Samaritan. I ha[d] to do this, out of fidelity to Christ and love for my people—which aren’t different things. They’re one thing—one faith, one love, one cross. (Cabestrero 1983, 113–115)

On liberation theology

What is liberation theology? Liberation theology, to begin with is a prophetic expression of the Christian tradition that emerges in the middle of the twentieth century as an indigenous movement from below, with roots predating and inclusive of theological developments in the Vatican II council (1962–65) and the Episcopal conference in Medellín, Columbia (1968). Like Christian socialism in the West and the US, it breaks with conventional church approaches to “social problems.” It breaks with accepted modes of theological apprehension and expression. Theology from this perspective is a “creative act” that emerges from the lived reality of its practitioners rather than “the simple petrification of a tradition” (Martínez Andrade 2019, 186). It is “a theology which does not stop with reflecting on the world, but rather tries to be part of the process through which the world is transformed” (Gutiérrez 1973, 15). Liberation theology is a theology that seeks to liberate theology itself (Segundo 1971). According to Eduardo Mendieta, many Latin American theologians consider liberation theology the second Reformation in Christianity (2013, 3015). This type of theology is defined by a preferential option for the poor, a new hermeneutical/exegetical principle through which to access the Gospels. Those who subscribe to it—cleric and non-cleric alike—understand that theology, as practice and doctrine, is not neutral. Liberation theology raises critical questions about the connection theology has to socio-political conditions. Latin American philosopher, historian, and liberation theologian, Enrique Dussel, recognizes it as a third world perspective, defined by the following critical questions:

A theology of the Third World has to have in mind this historical situation [of sociopolitical conditions]. It has to ask: ‘What role has the Church been playing in this process in every phase and situation? How do Christians react to the phenomenon of the Western invasion of other lands? What was the prevalent theology? How is Christian theology related to the continued daily exploitation of the world? What does it give towards the construction of a just society? What contribution does the Church give to the liberation of oppressed people that have long suffered due to sexist, racist and classist domination? (Dussel 1977, 256)

An expression of liberation Christianity, based on radical religious and spiritual notions, liberation theology is a critical response—a projection of humanity’s self-preservation drive—to (post)colonial conditions in Latin America. It is a theological expression and challenge to colonial and capitalist power and the Christian legacy of “16th-century religious ideological racism” in the region from which the latter two conditions emerged as mechanisms of domination (Martínez Andrade, 2019; Grosfoguel 2015, 185–206). It is a challenge to the legacy of ego conquiro—established in the violent context of Spanish-Portuguese colonization—the self-concept that operates as the understructure from which our modern self-concept ego cognito emerges and assumes ontological status (Dussel 1996). ² Liberation theology, as such, is a theology of resistance (CEAS 1970, 81). It is also a theology of transformational social change that has inspired past and present anti-colonial, revolutionary, and resistance movements that have struggled and have continued to struggle to liberate the poor—the economically marginalized, people of color, women (and more recently mother nature)—against the devastating and destructive legacy of merchant (colonial), industrial, and global capitalism in the region (Martínez Andrade 2015, 2019). ³

From the liberation theology perspective, the kingdom of heaven is not other-worldly but rather this-worldly, requiring “the total transfiguration of th[e] world, free[ing it] from all that alienates human beings, free[ing it] from pain, sin, divisions, and death” (Boff 1978, 49). Liberation theology has empowered and inspired subaltern subjects and their political allies to “find meaning in the life of Jesus” and emulate his messianic mission “to liberate the poor and the oppressed” (Gallo 1990, 281). Ultimately, liberation theology is “to love and to work for the salvation of one’s neighbor,” to promote “the gospel imperatives of love and evangelization” (Smith 2002, 70).

Philosophical and theological caveats aside, liberation theology seeks to unburdened humanity from capitalism and its various manifestations of power. Liberation theologians identify capitalism as an inherently evil, immoral, and unjust economic system that is at the root of human divisiveness and many of the social problems people face in their daily lives (CELAM 1978). As a pensamiento-otro, it “is diametrically opposed to the values of capitalism: surplus value, accumulation as the only end, appetite and thirst for profit, obsession with progress … The idea ‘God of life’, [a] characteristic [position] of [liberation] theologians, [moreover,] goes against the idols (Mammon, total market, invisible hand, wealth) of capitalist Modernity” (Martínez Andrade 2019, 261). Capitalism, according to this theological perspective, perpetuates differential inequality and in so doing preserves death, hunger, illness, and poverty, the necessary sacrifices for an idolatrous economic system. The region’s integration into the global economy, for instance, has meant the further impoverishment of its people. The actual number of poor people in the region increased by 84 million from 136 million to 220 million in the period between 1980 and 2002 (Robinson 2008). ⁴ This has created an ontological condition where human dignity at the economic, social, and political levels has been denied. Global capital by its very nature is inimical to the free development of human capacities/creativity for the poor majority. As such, liberation theology “proclaim[s] it a Christian responsibility to denounce material poverty, to live in solidarity with the oppressed,” and to actively work to transcend capitalism (Sawchuk 1997, 44). It calls on the Catholic laity to improve the conditions of the poor majority as a matter of moral “obligation” (Miranda 2004, 69). And it works toward their liberation from exploitative and exclusionary conditions in society based on the principles of equality, communitarianism (or “brotherly love”), social justice, and peace (or liberation from turmoil) (Roelofs 1988, 554–559). ⁵ Ultimately, liberation theology is/stands for the critique/condemnation of capitalist modernity (Martínez Andrade 2017). It presents itself as a theology in the service of the oppressed and as an alternative perspective that calls for a more humane social existence. Liberation theology is the opposite of the “opium of the masses.” As a pensamiento-otro, it challenges the sacralization of the capitalist order in the region.

On socialism

What is socialism? According to Marxist socialist scholar Paul Sweezy (1995, 500), at the most fundamental level, socialism is “the negation of capitalism,” that is, the repudiation of the profit motive and profit maximization, conditions of class exploitation, and of vast disparities on wealth, resources, and opportunities. Capital in a very crucial and definitive sense is “the negation of life” (Martínez Andrade 2015). Sweezy and others derive the notion of negation from Marx and Engels, whose works highlight the dehumanizing and degrading effects of capitalism. Marx himself refers to this negation of life as the degradation of the worker and nature:

Accumulation of wealth at one pole is … at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital. (Marx 1984, 604)

The capitalization—which is to say, commodification and objectification—of mother nature and human beings, in the end, means their annihilation. All for the sake of profit. Marx also calls for the need to move beyond the “negation of life” in order to create conditions in society conducive to the self-realization of individuals and the systemic revitalization of community. This systemic transformation that “negation” stands for, moreover, requires “genuine ‘human emancipation,’ that is, the radical reconstruction of socio-economic life and supersession of the separation between the private and public realms of society and among humans based on the egoistic pursuit of strictly individual gain” (Elliott 1987, 4). Marx conveys the meaning of this fundamental transformation in the 1844 Economic and Philosophical manuscripts:

Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being—a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. This communism … is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man—the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution. (Marx quoted in Elliott 1987, 4)

Marxist socialist scholar Erik Olin Wright provides us with a more recent and more precise definition of socialism in Envisioning Real Utopias. At a fundamental level, he proposes that socialism is “emancipatory politics” rooted in “democratic egalitarian values” (Wright 2010, 7). Socialism represents the primacy of social power, the degree to which ordinary citizens in civil society are empowered to shape the nature, use, and control of economic activity and resource allocation. Socialism, he further notes, is “a terrain for working for social and political justice” (368). By social justice he means broadly equal access to social and material resources so that all members of society may have the opportunity to thrive, work towards achieving their creative potential, and “make the choices which matter to them” that present economic, social, and political inequalities capitalist societies block (51). By political justice he means the subordination of economic power and state power to social power, the power of the citizenry. There is, of course, no “guarantee for realizing” socialism (on account of the unintended consequences of social action and organization), no “unitary institutional model” through which it can be realized—he identifies for us seven potential pathways—and its (potential) realization is no guarantee that all social injustices will be resolved. Yet, socialism is one significant socio-political vehicle of human emancipation, if only because it stands for transcending capitalism (368). In transcending capitalism, “the possibilities for realizing radical democratic egalitarian conceptions of social and political justice” are expanded (367). Why transcend capitalism? Briefly put, capitalism “obstructs the realization of both social justice and political justice” (366). Additionally, it prevents the eradication of material inequalities, restricts individual freedom, undermines democracy, impairs community, lends itself to militarism, reinforces consumerism, subverts Enlightenment values, and destroys mother nature (Wright 2010).

In addition to challenging and aiming to change society, socialism also entails expanding our notions of what is possible and moving beyond and cultivating alternatives to the “beliefs, ideas, values … dispositions, habits, tastes, [and] skills” that make the social reproduction of capitalism possible (Wright 2010, 283–84). To put it in Gramscian terms, moving towards a socialist mode of existence requires an alternative hegemony, that is, the development, promotion, and strategic diffusion of an historical alternative based on a new conception of the world; predicated on “alternative” values and challenges to the normative view that capitalism is the only viable politico-economic arrangement available to humanity. ⁶ The socio-structural transformation of society, that is, requires a transformation in subjectivity. It also requires praxis, “the creative willingness of people to participate in making a better world, learning from the inevitable mistakes, and vigorously defending the advances that are made” (370). In the end, socialism is a political response to the social ills capitalism produces; and a political solution to clear and present dangers.

What is socialism to liberation theologians? To liberation theologians, socialism is more appropriately understood as democratic socialism, by which they mean a system that aims to create equality (at economic, political, gender, social, and racial levels) based on principles of social justice and fraternity. Socialism is a system that promotes Christian unity, harmony between nations, and world peace. And a system that is based on the redistribution of resources and the prioritization of the common good. In the words of Gustavo Gutiérrez, one of the first proponents of this type of theology, socialism is a mode of production

oriented towards a society in which persons can begin to live freely and humanly … [can] create[] the conditions for a socialized production of wealth, [and can work to eliminate] …the private acquisition of excessive wealth. (Gutiérrez 1973, 30)

Commonalities between liberation theology and socialism

What do socialism and religion (liberation theology) share in common? Before elaborating on the answer to this question, it is important to keep in mind that these cultural frameworks are not one and the same thing. Although they share some features in common, they also have some differences, chief among them the degree to which human agency assumes a central position in the interpretation of socio-historical events. From a traditional Christian perspective, God is only at the center of human history, a proposition that is anathema to the human-centered protagonism found in narratives of socialism. Liberation theology, however, breaks with such traditional interpretation, given its focus on liberation as a human-based process that plays a role in both the transformation and constitution of alternate social orders. From this radical Christian perspective:

The question of Christian humanism depends largely on the concept of humanism to which it refers … The basis of humanism [is] expressed in the following principle: man is invested with a certain axiological absoluteness, in the sense that he may never be reduced to means, but always be treated as an end … Now this principle lies at the heart of Christianity: being the history of salvation, it is totally ordered towards enabling man—every man—to fulfil himself as an end … If by liberty we mean the full realization of man as an end and the overcoming of all that stands in between historical man and his ideal fulfillment, then Christianity becomes a vast liberating movement … Christianity rejects … as alienating, any kind of relationship in which man is reduced … to the status of means—whether in relation to society or in relation to God himself … Just as the overcoming of alienation between men does not consist in the destruction of one by the other, but in the transformation of the relationship, so it is between man and God. (Girardi 1968, 77–78)

Liberation theologian José Porfirio Miranda’s take on the relationship between religion and socialism (Marxism, to be more precise) is more provocative. Based on extensive theological exegesis he has determined that the primary and predominant message of Christianity, as found in the content of its religious texts, is one that calls for the establishment of communism (Miranda 1974; 1980a; 1980b). Anomalies do exist, but these do not undermine its prevalent import: class differences and the various conditions, forms of oppression, and practices that maintain it should never get in the way of the Golden Rule, “Love your neighbor as you would love yourself” (Mark 12:31). From this perspective, “Marxism is a mere episode in the history of the communist project” (Miranda 1980a, 2).Christianity, he insists, is and started communism out of the recognition “that a society in which there are rich and poor is intrinsically immoral, since it implies perforce the latter’s exploitation by the former” (58–59). Significantly, Christianity is inherently revolutionary. It calls on Christians to challenge rulers who perpetuate class oppression. These subversive messages—notwithstanding the willful misrepresentations of Church officials and mistranslations of the Gospels—can be found in the old and new testaments as well as the Apocrypha. Acts 2: 44–45, for example, conveys the need for resource distribution: “All whose faith had drawn them together held everything in common: they would sell their property and possessions and make a general distribution as the need of each required” (Miranda 1980a, v). ⁹ Profit is a sin, according to Proverbs 15:27 and Ecclesiastics (Apocrypha) 27:1-2. Proverbs 15:27 conveys “He who profits illicitly troubles his own house.” Ecclesiasticus 27:1-2 imparts: “For the sake of profit, many have sinned; the one who tries to grow rich, turns away his gaze. Stuck tight between two stones, between sale and purchase, sin is wedged” (Miranda 1980a, 53). ¹⁰ Jeremiah 5:27-28 reveals the fraudulent nature of wealth: “Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and rich; they have grown fat and sleek. They know no bounds in deeds of evil; they judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy.” A proper translation of Psalms 37:14 reveals the injustice of the rich, who plunder without integrity: “The wicked [rich] draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright.” Wealth inequality is repudiated by the Gospels. This is most noticeably the case in the condemnation of the rich (e.g., Luke 1:53, Luke 6:24-26, Mark 10:25, and Luke 16:28) and the elevation of the poor (e.g., Luke 6:20-22, Luke 16:22, 25). Fraud and domination are recognized in Psalms 55:11 as central features of urban markets: “Oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace.” ¹¹ As imparted in Proverbs 10:2, Psalm 112:9, Tobit 14:11, and Matthew 6:1-4 justice means serving the poor. Importantly, Jesus’ mission is revolutionary. On this point, Miranda conveys the following:

A kingdom of God in which social classes are eliminated (Mark 10:25; Luke 6:20, 24), a kingdom of God which seeks to “tear down the rulers from their thrones and lift up the lowly, to fill the hungering with good things and send the rich off with nothing” (Luke 1:52–53), not only implies, but is, a political transformation of the broadest reach. (1980a, 67–68) ¹²

Liberation theology, notes Marxist scholar of religion, Michael Löwy, shares an elective affinity—that is, they are compatible but not identical at the level of meaning ¹³ —with socialism at various levels. This is an elective affinity, it must be noted, that emerges in the socio-historical context of the Cuban revolution and underdevelopment, which operate as the material context for the coming together of Christianity and socialism, as well as the emergence of liberation theology. It is within this material context that Miranda arrives at his provocative, if erudite, position. As cultural frameworks, causally arising under a favorable opportunity structure (or conducive material context), they both (1) denounce capitalism and its dehumanizing effects; (2) urgently call for transcending capitalism and, to put it in religious terms, “hope for a future kingdom of justice and freedom, peace and fraternity;” (3) recognize the importance of the social in that society, community, and collective values are conceived as integral to individual self-conceptions, interests, and life orientations; (4) are invested in protecting the interest of community from the undermining effects of egoism, estrangement, fragmentation, impersonalism, and anonymity that come with capitalist modernity; (5) call for the redistribution of material resources and recognize the need for the inclusion of marginalized actors in political decision-making, i.e., they prioritize political and social justice; and (6) are defined by universalism, a perspective on people that valorizes the commonalities rather than differences between them (Löwy 1996, 69). In addition to these affinities, they both denounce and distance themselves from Soviet socialism, which they see as representing “false socialism”—a totalitarian, oppressive, elitist, and authoritarian variant—that is incompatible with “genuine socialism” and Christianity. ¹⁴ The socialism that they both aspire to achieve is a socialism that emerges organically from below where the working classes (for Marxist socialists) and the poor but also other types of subaltern actors (for liberation theologians) are the principal protagonists in socialist struggles to create a more humane and egalitarian world.

It is worth noting at this juncture that both socialism (including Sandinismo) and liberation theology have a relationship to neo-Marxism; a Marxist approach developed in opposition to Soviet Marxism, emphasizing the significance of subjective factors, i.e., “categories of culture, class consciousness and subjectivity” (Jacoby 1995, 581). ¹⁵ So, just as there are many versions of Christianity, there are many versions of Marxism. A neo-Marxist approach rejects scientific positivism, the Engelsian concept of dialectics of nature, and economic determinism/teleology, analytical components central to Soviet Marxism. Importantly, the works of many neo-Marxists are inspired by a utopian motivation—or as Bloch calls it, the principle of hope—that orients itself to moving beyond the enslavement of political economy (1995). Among the neo-Marxists who influenced the development of liberation theology and social democratic visions, on can count Ernst Bloch, Roger Garaudy, Lucien Goldmann, Antonio Gramsci, and Max Horkheimer (Löwy 1996, 148, note 66). Among the neo-Marxists who influenced Sandinismo, the works of Che Guevara, José Carlos Mariátegui, and Antonio Gramsci played a central role on its development (Girardi 1987).

In addition to humanism, social justice, agency, and a deep concern over human dignity, as articulated thus far, liberation theology and Marxist socialism also share as fundamental assumptions or premises, anti-fetishism and the notion that communities of solidarity—guided by a commitment to economic, political, and social justice—are the necessary social contexts through which individuals can achieve their human potential. In Marxism and Christianity, Giulio Girardi, an Italian theologian, addresses and expands on these latter six premises. He notes that liberation theology and Marxist socialism share in common a foci on faith, praxis, historicity, salvation, and ethics. Both have faith in people’s ability to achieve liberation from the social, political, and cultural conditions that counter and prevent human fulfillment. Their striving to make a better world is inspired by principles of hope. Both believe that the means through which this type of liberation can be achieved is through praxis. To a Marxist socialist praxis means fusing theory and practice, consciously engaging with the world based on an understanding of the nature of socio-economic realities. Praxis is theoretically informed action designed to fundamentally transform the world such that the creative potential of individuals may be fully realized in the course of moving beyond the limiting effects of current socio-economic conditions. The aim of praxis is the abolishment of self-alienation, that is, establishing the conditions for self-realization. Such an end, Marxist socialists convey, can only be realized through the radical transformation of capitalist society. In this sense praxis is revolution (Petrović 1995, 440). To liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez, praxis is theological reflection on the nature of society and the life of the Church based on a(n) (radical) understanding of the Word of God. But praxis is also “commitment, an overall attitude, a particular posture toward” a life in the future in light of a critical awareness of de-humanizing socio-economic realities in Latin America (Gutiérrez 1973, 7).

Praxis is, therefore, participation in a process of liberation—“the protest against trampled human dignity … the struggle against the plunder of the vast majority,” the “building of a new, just, and fraternal society … better living conditions” and “the continuous creation, never ending, of new ways of [being], a permanent cultural [and social] revolution” (15, 32).

As interpretations of historical development, socialism and liberation theology also have in common historicity. Socialism understands the human condition in historical terms. The nature and potential of society are historical accomplishments achieved through human effort, at the hands of people committed to change and inspired by a utopian horizon. A future divorced from capitalism is a future that emerges through socio-economic struggles under plausible historical circumstances. This history of socio-economic struggles is the historical framework from which a new and freer society emerges. The Christian inspired by liberation theology also understands history in eschatological terms. She understands that humanity finds itself in a historical trajectory that ends with the arrival of Heaven on Earth. Various metaphors or political myths accompany this view of history that redeems the Christian struggle for fraternity and equality. Among other metaphors, the Second Coming, revelation, millenarianism, and the apocalypse convey how “the end of the world as we know it” is an opportunity to reshape social conditions and the intra-subjective relations in the human community in alternate ways, according to communitarian, equality, and democratic principles (Quoted in Hall 2013, 1).

Both cultural frameworks, additionally, have salvation in common. Girardi provocatively proposes that “the history of man is the history of salvation.” Further adding that “Marxism is a soteriology,” a system of thought designed to explain the need for salvation as well as its nature and potential effects. In conventional Christian thought, salvation is salvation from sin, the sins of the sinner. Individual sinning stands in the way of salvation. It alienates the individual from God. Salvation from individual sin, moreover, takes place when Jesus sacrifices himself for the sake of humanity and in so doing redeems it. Liberation theology and Marxist socialism also have in common the concept of “salvation” (which can be broadly conceived as liberation). But these frameworks also have the concept of “structural conditions” in common. This latter concept and its connection to “salvation” set them apart from conventional Christian thought. According to Marxist socialism, the structural conditions inherent in capitalist societies produce alienation, exploitation, and inequality, existential effects that delimit the creative potential and freedom of individuals in society. The “lack of autonomy and freedom within [and outside] the world of work” and the socio-economic inequalities under which people operate, that is, prevent human flourishing and undermines the human community (Wright 2010, 51). A socialist struggle, in light of these existential effects produced by capitalism, aims to liberate humanity. It does this through collective action and in the name of a freer and more just future. In liberation theology, alienation, exploitation, and inequality are too recognized as existential effects associated with capitalism. These effects, however, are divorced from any notion of individual sin, unlike traditional Christianity. They are the products of social sin, institutional practices that divide humanity because they are based on “despoliation, injustice, [and] hatred” (Gutiérrez 1973, 158). Operating under a capitalist world-economy, the institutions of Latin American societies (re)produce, through formal and informal policy practices, socio-political and economic conditions that stand in the way of human flourishing and fraternal relations. From this perspective, social sin, not individual sin, alienates the person from God and her fellow brothers and sisters. Social sin, in fact, undermines God’s plan for humanity: its active participation in the creation of a Kingdom of Heaven on earth and the building of a more equal, “just and fraternal society, where people can live with dignity and be agents of their own destiny” (Gutiérrez 1973, x). Ultimately, spiritual self-fulfillment—i.e., living according to the principles of fraternal love and the word of God—is denied on account of social sin. A Christian struggle against oppression and domination, much as it is the case with a socialist struggle, is a salvific process. In struggling and liberating herself from human made structures that alienate her—i.e., in attempting to live authentically as a Christian in a world inimical to her spiritual needs—she saves herself at the same time that she changes her socio-political and socio-economic environments. The same may be said of a socialist struggle. In attempting to live according to humanist principles, a socialist liberates herself and creates the conditions for the liberation of humanity.

Religion and the transition to socialism in the Nicaraguan Revolution

Socialism and liberation theology also have in common moral principles. They share a similar ethical orientation. This is to say that they share a moral vocabulary. “Liberation theology,” notes Michael Löwy, “fully assimilates the modern values of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, fraternity, democracy, and the separation between Church and State” (1996, 52). From the French revolution, it also understands social justice as a precondition for freedom, human flourishing, and equal access to material and social resources. Equality, democracy, fraternity, liberty, and social justice are also organizing values central to socialism (see Wright 1995; DiQuattro 1975). In the context of the Nicaraguan insurrection, most of these values functioned as motives for action. We know, for example, that in Bible-study settings prior the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship Christian revolutionaries, inspired by the pastoral method of “see, judge, act,” liberation theology, and Paulo Freire’s problem-solving pedagogy, reinforced notions of equality, fraternity, liberation (also understood as freedom), and social justice in their discussions of their socio-political realities. ¹⁶ At the level of equality, for example, they affirmed, among other things, that the true compass of Christianity is equality (Cardenal 1976, 44), that equality has been a historical priority for Christianity since its inception, and as such it should be embraced as a goal (130), that Christian fraternity is predicated on it (174, 210), and that the establishment of a “just system” necessitates it (212). At the level of fraternity, they affirmed that to love one another is a Christian imperative (9, 180, 201, 242), that injustice thrives in the absence of fraternity (196), that “love of neighbor” is inconsonant with love of things (Cardenal 1978, 102), that love of God is indistinguishable from love of neighbor and implies discontinuity with a socio-economic system that profits from human labor (Cardenal 1979, 97), and that the ennoblement of fraternity requires the relentless comdemnation of injustice (107–113). At the level of liberation, they affirmed that the liberation of the poor is the meaning of the Gospel (240), ¹⁷ that liberating society, the poor, and the oppressed from class oppression, class exploitation, and class distinctions is the aim of Christianity (14, 94, 189, 202). Liberation from this perspective is a goal of social justice (210). To be a true Christian is to commit to the struggle for liberation (Pravera 1984, 214). And a true Christian recognizes “Revolution” as the noblest embodiment of liberation from class domination (Cardenal 1976, 28, 29, 54, 77, 85). Lastly, at the level of social justice, they affirmed that injustice is reprehensible (7, 22), God is “on the side of the poor” and “blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice” (3, 177), and the objective of Christianity is “to put an end to injustice” (38).

As an economic, social, and political model, socialism in Nicaragua once the Sandinistas assumed power was implemented according to the same organizing (religious) values. The Sandinistas strove for equality. They called for the “the distribution of land to landless peasants.” They sought to liberate their nation from global capital and the imperialistic/militaristic practices associated with it. They called for “an expansion and diversification of exports to reduce dependency on a single sector or commodity” and implemented a “nonaligned foreign policy.” Their mixed economy plans “comprising state, collective, and private enterprises” and their attempts at instituting “full political democracy, with free labor unions, a free press, and a freedom of religion” was an expression of their social justice goals. Their fraternal orientation toward their fellow brothers and sisters manifested itself in the prioritization of “meeting basic needs for all, especially in the areas of food, medical care, and education” (Burns 1992, 501).

Saint Paul and the new Nicaraguan men and women

The connection between faith, socialism, and being a revolutionary is perhaps best capture in ¿Qué es un Sandinista? [What is a Sandinista?], a position paper elaborated by Carlos Fonseca, Óscar Turcios, and Ricardo Morales, intellectual leaders of the FSLN (1980). ¿Qué es un Sandinista?, a short pamphlet published posthumously in 1979 and 1982, provides a portrayal of the ideal revolutionary actor, the new Sandinista man and woman. The pamphlet brings to light a Sandinista ethos by which every revolutionary is expected to define themselves and their everyday behavior. This new revolutionary actor underscores the notion of a rebellious identity, elaborated by Fonseca before the overthrow, but it does so for a post-victory context, where it would facilitate the fulfillment in a “revolution in culture” and an “interior revolution,” respectively, by breaking free from the values attached to a corrupt and paralyzing Somoza past and cultivating the real meaning of revolution in herself and in her relations with others. This notion of the new person, rooted in the works of José Carlos Mariátegui and Che Guevara, also shares an elective affinity with radical Christianity. Lucianno Baracco, for example, notes that “Many radical Christians … discovered an affinity between Che Guevara’s New Man and the teachings of St. Paul on the renovation of man” (Baracco 2005, 77). This is an insight he gains in an interview with Father Ernesto Cardenal; although it must be acknowledged that no official Sandinista document makes the connection. This, of course, does not invalidate Cardenal’s position, nor that of other theologians (Hinkelammert 2010; Segundo 1971). If only at the analytical level, a parallel does exist between the new person who is to emerge in a post-victory context of utopian possibility in Nicaragua and St. Paul’s “transformative” conversion—from Pharisee to Christian apostle—and its connection to the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection—or a transformational event such as revolutionary victory—is pure beginning. It inaugurates a “new time”: time-as-rupture.

A transformational event is “the opening of an epoch, [the] transformation of the relation between the possible and impossible” (Badiou 2003, 45). It functions as a reference point through which the given structure of thought is itself redefined, the sense of time is understood differently, and new subject orientations are organized. A new mode of being is born as the event creates a distance between the present and future, on the one hand, and the past on the other. This event-created distance, of course, does not take place in a vacuum. Rather the distancing takes place in a semiotic context. This means that an event acquires relevance as a template of possibility “as it is discussed and incorporated in the narratives people construct about themselves” and their relationship to the present and future (Moore 2011, 307). This is possible because a transformational event disrupts “the operative systems of ideas, beliefs, values, roles, and institutional practices” and in so doing it “change[s] the way in which social actors think about the meaning and importance they assign to modes of action and the rules that govern interaction, groups and their discourses, symbols, and rituals” (Ellingson 1995, 103). Naming the event is of utmost importance in this semiotic scenario. In the case of St. Paul, he “radically structures his thought around the event [resurrection] and … declares and enacts its truth [meaning] in the practical reshaping of life in faithfulness to the event” (Barclay 2010, 173). In the unique historical context of revolutionary victory in Nicaragua, victory—as it was the case with the resurrection and St. Paul’s conversion—functions as a referent for everyday behavior and new ethical orientations, and importantly the internal transformation (or conversion) of the self. Victory gave birth to the new Sandinista revolutionary in much the same way Saul became the Apostle St. Paul because of the Christ-event. “Resurrection [or revolutionary victory],” Enrique Dussel notes, “is the re-creation, the birth of the new person; it is death [of the status quo] that has died and that which is born is new life, a new order” (1978, 50).

Who is St. Paul in this event-based semiotic scenario? What features define him? More importantly, in what ways do revolutionaries share an elective affinity with St. Paul? What makes the new Sandinista men and women revolutionaries in a post-overthrow context, after the transformational event of victory had taken place? First and foremost, St. Paul is a militant who challenges, displaces, and moves beyond the embodied particularities of given authorities. He is a radical egalitarian (Wills 2007, 175), who represents a “revolution in subjectivity” (Baker 2013, 316), and who reminds us of the power of conviction (Badiou 2003, 30). According to some contemporary philosophers he is a champion of alternatives to capitalism, including socialism. He is thus a model for both societal and subjective transformation. He is “the creator of a militantly reoriented vision of selfhood” and “the antiphilosopher of a militant revolt against the status quo and creator of a revolutionary social formation” (Stowers 2013, 159–174). To Slavoj Žižek, St. Paul is Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the consummate organizer of the early Christian movement, defined by a messianic (revolutionary) vocation, adept and capable of preserving and furthering the path resurrection sets for Christians (Žižek 2003, 9). To Alain Badiou, St. Paul “is a poet-thinker of the event, as well as one who practices and states the invariant traits of what can be called the militant figure. He brings forth the entirely human connection … between the general idea of a rupture, an overturning, and that thought practice that is this rupture subjective materiality” (Badiou 2003, 2). St. Paul is/represents the possibility of universal politics; a politics that moves beyond difference (identity) without rejecting difference. A politics for all without any status conditions. St. Paul is someone who reminds us there is strength in that which we have in common despite our differences. This type of unifying politics, Badiou insists, stands a chance against the politics of difference presently undermining progressive causes in the context of capitalist modernity. “In deciding that none was exempt from what a truth demands and disjoining the true from the Law,” Paul “provoked—entirely alone—a cultural revolution upon which we still depend” (Badiou 2003, 15).

To Giorgio Agamben, St. Paul stands for the messianic now as compared to the time of “progressive” history and its myths of civilizational advancement. The messianic now—time-as-rupture or the state of exception (see below)—opens the present to redemption. Paul calls on us to use our existent ways of being as not, i.e., in ways that counter our existent ways of being. For Agamben, St. Paul is a militant not because he stands for universal politics, as Badiou suggests he does, but because he deactivates his relationship to codified systems of norms through the as not. He is a dissenter of norms—he “calls for disobedience” (Martínez Andrade 2019, 383–384) of traditional and imperial authority—and he aims to activate the immanent potential of the given (i.e., imposed and naturalized) identities in an effort to transform the world in the here and now, in what remains after the messianic moment sheds light on the conditions of subjective (and objective) domination once it arrives at the socio-historical present (Agamben 2005). St. Paul, that is, is a militant who calls for the interior transformation of the self through the as not in the context of the messianic now. It is the context of the messianic now—i.e., the state of exception, “the suspension or neutralization of the juridical order” in a given historical context of possibility (Agamben 2005, 85)—that facilitates the immanent potentiality of actors, their interior transformation.

Enrique Dussel also contributes to the debate on St. Paul. Much like Žižek, Badiou, and Agamben, he also underscores the importance of a messianic vocation (Žižek) predicated on universal counter-hegemonic values (Badiou)—derived from the given (the law of empire and nation)—that stem from the interior transformation of the self (Agamben). However, Dussel concretizes our understanding of the messianic moment when he invokes the concept of the “state of rebellion,” a state that “is not mere inversion or restoration, but the ‘redemption’ that establishes a new order” (2009, 155). This state is not the same as the “state of exception.” Rather, it is a state that represents, the power of the messianic community—of the collectivity—whose “praxis is oriented toward [se endereza a] another project … that of the collapse of the system, as negativity, toward the construction of a future and more just system, as positivity” (Dussel 2009, 128). St. Paul is a militant because he operates in the context of a messianic community already defined by a discourse—rooted in the Semitic world—that is now re-oriented as the people affirm their place in the creation of a future and more just system. In this scenario, the people announce and provoke the messianic moment. Unlike the European philosophers, moreover, Dussel “justif[ies] religion as a site of critical thinking” (Frontán 2016, 367). He calls attention to the significance of the Epistles, an emergent discourse, he shows, that de-fetishizes the given and justifies, standardizes, facilitates, and structures the embodiment of a politics of life/liberation designed to engender a new and just social order. The end goal for Dussel is the same as Žižek, Badiou, and Agamben: interior and external transformation. The means by which this is done, however, is different for him in that Dussel analytically prioritizes communal discourse and politics. In so doing he calls attention to the real politics behind interior and external transformation.

Paul Willis captures the position on interior transformation in more religious terms and in light of a challenge to conventional understandings of St. Paul:

If we ask why Paul has come down to us as the Bad News Man [i.e., as someone who calls for “submission to the authority of the Church and governments” based on a narrow reading of his work], we have to remember Lucretius (1.101):

Conclusion: On why we need liberation theology and socialism

The promise and ambition of revolution in Nicaragua—i.e., the efforts behind the constitution of an alternate, and more egalitarian, society and the new persons that were to give shape to it—was undermined by US interventionism and betrayed by the actions of some Sandinista leaders, especially by the actions of Daniel Ortega following the downfall of the revolutionary regime in 1990 and after he assumed the Presidency in 2007. Such unfortunate developments are not a testament against the promise of revolution. They are not a testament either that socialism and liberation theology are romantic perspectives on the human conditions of undemocratic power, misery, and exploitation. Rather, they are a testament of the force of regional imperialism and the role global capital plays in the actions of an imperialist nation. They are a testament of what happens when a regional empire, which also happens to be a military hegemon for global capital, is challenged. These unfortunate developments, moreover, do not undermine the reality that Christianity, as understood in terms of liberation theology, has much in common with socialism. True, these perspectives emerged in particular historical contexts of possibility. Some argue that they do not have the same political purchase as before, since the Berlin wall came down in 1989. In light of this downfall of real-existing-socialisms, some also argue that the historical projects they stood/stand for lie forgotten and are now simply just mere historical curiosities. Such assertions, of course, deny the power of legacy, reinvention, and adaptation. As Michael Löwy has noted of liberation theology, “A seed has been sown by liberationist Christianity in the hotbed of Latin American political and religious culture” and it “will continue to grow and flourish … and … [it] holds many surprises in store” (1996, 140). The same may be said of socialism.

For good and for the inconvenience of the privilege, these perspectives on/narratives of socio-political struggle will remain in place—which is to say that they will reinvent themselves and continue their legacy—so long as capitalism in its various forms undermines human flourishing. They will continue to inspire in different ways people in and outside Nicaragua. (The present challenge to the Ortega dictatorship surely is an indication that the spirit of the revolution remains, if in less formal ways.) The poor material and social realities of millions of people around the world—in and outside Western nations—require not an accommodation but a refusal of an economic system that is predicated on profit above all even at the cost of extreme and relative human suffering. This makes liberation theology and socialism indispensable narratives notwithstanding their “past failures.”

Why are they indispensable? Because they are pensamientos-otro that provide a language to its users to understand and challenge their existent world and to imagine it otherwise. Because in so doing they give hope to the hopeless in their respective ways. They play a utopic function amidst conditions of human suffering. They proclaim the need to “really” live up to the values of the enlightenment (fraternity, democracy, justice, equality, freedom). They remind us of the need to break free from objective and subjective enslavement. As such, they call on us to engage the world with “emancipatory reason” for the sake of subaltern (and even ordinary) people, their life chances, and in order to erect a more humane world (Therborn 2008).

Christian and socialist radical actors can also assume form through them. Ultimately, socialism and liberation theology provide a sense of direction out of capitalist modernity because they stand for anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist freedom.

Individually and together, as pensamientos-otro, they make it possible to denounce capitalism as well as colonial and imperial social orders as social disorders and to clamor for justice denied under socio-economic and socio-political oppression. These denunciations are perhaps best captured in the work of Ernesto Cardenal as exemplified above by the abbreviated version of one of his poems, “Psalm 16.” His Psalms, written under the context of a struggle for the liberation of Nicaragua, based on biblical messages, are one of the vehicles through which he projects his Christian-socialist (revolutionary) ideals: resistance to injustice and hope for a better tomorrow. Cardenal “interpolat[es] a Marxist vision of class and national struggle through the belief structures and corresponding discursive practices (prayers, sermons, psalms, homilies, etc.) of Catholicism” (Zimmerman and Beverley 1990, 68). In so doing, he advances, elevates, and reveals, poetically and otherwise, the notion that Christianity and socialism share in common the struggles for human freedom, fraternity, and social justice.