Flag of justice - the René Padilla interview

Rene Padilla. Photo: Mike Webb/Tearfund

Interviewer: Jon Stanhope 

JS: Your biggest passion is for justice. What facets of injustice do you think that Tearfund should be challenging most?  

René: Well I understand that one of Tearfund’s main purposes is to empower the poor.  When you talk about the poor you are talking about the question of oppression, injustice, situations of disadvantage. Of course there are other causes for poverty. You know, you may have a catastrophe, a natural catastrophe or you may have laziness; that’s one topic that often appears underlined in the Western context.  But the main cause of poverty is injustice, oppression.  That is recognised in the Old Testament. Time after time poverty is related to oppression.

JS: Given that we all have a limited time in this life, is there a particular aspect of poverty that you personally feel most drawn to tackle?   

René: I believe that there are other types of poverty apart from economic poverty. The whole question of the spiritual poverty of people who dedicate themselves to making money and enjoying what money is able to give: that is also poverty. Often it’s the type of poverty that we find in the West and among people who enjoy the benefits of economic exploitation.

JS: Our last conversation generated a lot of feedback from Tearfund supporters. A lot of it was positive, but some negative. Some accused you of preaching a social gospel and being further left than Karl Marx. How does that make you feel?  

René: I did not expect everybody to be in agreement with what I said.  I was struck by people who said that I was a pro-Marxist or a Marxist.  It’s not the first time I hear that because unfortunately, as someone said, Christians allowed Marxists to steal from them the flag of justice. 

Marx grew up in a Christian context, in a Protestant context. In a [purely] materialistic context the concept of justice is not possible: historical materialism doesn’t have any room for ethical values.  If Marx derived his concept of justice from Scripture, from the Judeo-Christian tradition. So I’m not surprised if someone says that if I speak about justice I’m pro-Marxist. The best thing in Marxism was precisely its emphasis on justice, but what the recent Marxist governments were not able to accomplish was to implement the dream of a new world of justice and peace because of human corruption.

JS: Sure. Do you think it’s the easy way out, just to tar someone with that brush?    

René: Yes, it’s what you call an ad hominem argument. You cannot argue against God’s concern for the poor, so anybody who says that you must stand for justice is accused of Marxism.

JS: What kind of argument?  

René: An ad hominem argument. With this Latin expression, it means that you attack the person instead of answering the argument that the person proposes.

JS: It’s been said Marx wasn’t anti-Christian; he was anti organised religion. 

René: He was against a religion that was used by the powerful to enslave the powerless.

JS: To what extent is present day economic injustice rooted in the days of empire?  Is neo-colonialism a fair term to describe what’s happening today?

René: I would say so. I don’t think you can argue against the idea that today we have an empire. It’s interesting to see the parallels between, the Roman empire of New Testament times,  the Spanish empire of the 16th century and the American empire today. There are several similarities you know: conquest motivated by greed, ethnocentrism and then (in relation to the Spanish and the American empires) the legitimation of opression on the basis of the Christian religion. I mean when Spain conquered what was to become Latin America , this was supposed to be a service to God and the King and the Queen. So Roman Catholic Christianity was used as the ideology of the empire. Protestant Christianity is being used in the same way today in relation to the American empire. 

JS: When you talk about ethnocentrism in a modern context, are you referring back to Civil Rights injustice in the US, or what’s happening right now – issues like Guantanamo?

René: I’m referring to the ethnic sense of superiority; the idea that the white race is superior to any other race.

JS: Sure. And you think that’s embedded, say, in the Bush administration and in European governments?  

René: Oh, very much so. I mean there is a tremendous western white ethnocentrism.

JS: In terms of poor countries’ influence in how the world economy is run, do you see any signs of hope?  I mean in the sense that poor countries are slowly getting more influence at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) but in response the rich governments are trying to carve out bilateral trade agreements.

René: Well, last year the Doha Developmen Agenda to secure fair international commerce came to an end because the representatives of the poor countries rightly claimed that the WTO negotiations had become the means to get these countries to open their markets to subsidized agricultural products from the rich countries. In response, the rich countries are now working on bilateral trade agreements.

JS: But do you see hope in that poor countries are starting to organise?

René: I think little by little some countries are finding ways to resist the exploitation and prevent the abuse of power but I don’t know how much they will be able to do. At last in Latin America right now there is a whole movement towards more socialistic governments. Many of the traditional parties have been discouraged and Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina have elected governments that are very much more concerned for policies that will favour the people in some ways.  How much they will be able to do, well that’s a big question mark.

JS: What do you make of Hugo Chávez’s remarks about George Bush?  [At a meeting of the United Nations last year, Venezuela’s president referred to Bush as the devil and claimed he could still smell the whiff of sulphur from Bush’s last visit]

René: You see the problem with Chávez is that he is a military and very much, what shall I say? – willing to say things that other people may think but never say.  He is too aggressive in the way of expressing his own views of the empire.

JS: I imagine that people like it… well some people like it, when he does express those views.

René: Oh yes, I’m afraid so.

JS: This year is the anniversary of the transatlantic slave trade but two centuries later millions of people are still slaves; billions live in poverty.  Do you see any parallels between that historical campaign and what’s happening today?

René: Oh yes, sure. Slavery has not really disappeared.  There are plenty of people who live under oppression; the same kind of oppression that you had in the times when slavery was an accepted thing. I was recently in Central America and as I was travelling from the city – I think it was in El Salvador – to the airport I was amazed to see hundreds and hundreds of women lined up, waiting to get into a fantastically large factory. And I said, “What’s going on here?”  Well, they’d come to work.  They worked 10-12 hours a day sewing and they are paid barely enough to cover the needs of food for the family. That is real slavery. Of course it’s not only within the power orbit of the US; it happens in other countries like China itself. I mean, why is China able to sell products as cheap?  Because they have slavery there. They have work camps.

JS: Yes, although some economists would argue it’s all part of the development curve to get them out of poverty. 

René: Yes, but the point is that somebody is benefiting from that work, you know. There are companies that are taking advantage of the opportunity to exploit people.

JS: Some black groups have accused white historians of writing them out of history in terms of their own people’s contribution to ending slavery. Does that also apply to indigenous people in Latin America?

René: Well in Latin America on the whole there has been a tremendous exploitation of the Indian population. In fact that is one of the big issues that many of these countries have to face because there is a resistance movement and some of the Indians are becoming more and more educated, and able to protest and try to get the countries reorganised so as to defend the rights of the native populations. What has happened in Bolivia is a tremendous example of what could happen in countries such as Mexico , Guatemala , Peru , and Ecuador where the percentage of Indian population is quite high.

JS: Yes, I think they were referring to Wilberforce as being sort of elevated to sainthood because he is white, but former slaves played pioneering roles in the abolitionist movement.

René: Yes. In some countries the Indian population is totally disregarded. I mean, at the time of the Spanish conquest, there were people who were arguing whether Indians were fully human  —whether  they had a soul—or whether they were animals. Today that argument may not be there but the treatment that the Indian population oftentimes gets is just as if they were not human.

JS: You mentioned last time about how corporations were taking over the world, how can the Church even begin to challenge that power?  Especially if you say that many churches are implicated in it.

René: Tony Campolo has written quite a bit on that. He believes that Christians should become involved in corporations to change them from the inside, and I guess he has cases in which change has been produced from within the corporations by the participation of Christians who are there precisely for that purpose.

JS: So you don’t think they have to sell their souls to be part of those corporations?

René: Well, they would not sell themselves. They would try to affect the decisions that are taken by the corporations. It may be possible. I don’t know.
 
JS: Alfonso Wieland [of Tearfund partner Paz y Esperanza in Peru] said recently that sometimes it’s right to be angry. Can we be fully Christian without feeling angry about poverty and injustice?

René: I don’t think you can say that anger is wrong when it’s not anger in relation to what people do to you, but to  what people do to others with whom you feel identified.  I do not have biblical proof texts, but I can tell you there are passages in which it is said that Jesus Christ himself was angry in relation to abuse of power that was affecting others, affecting the weak.  I could elaborate that with an open Bible.

JS: Is anger a motivating force for you or is it more an intellectual thing?

René: I feel angry in response to situations in which I see abuse of power, but of course that alone is not enough. You have to become involved and make sure that what you say is coherent with what you do.

JS: There’s more than a few false prophets about today; how can we identify true modern-day ones?  What are their hallmarks? And can you give any examples?

René: I believe that there are certain criteria derived from scriptural teaching and in the light of those I would say yes, there are prophets today in the Christian world. But I have been amazed to see how some people in the secular world, who do not claim to be Christians – I don’t know whether they are – are denouncing abuse of power and exploitation and injustice.
In The God of the Poor [co-authored by Dewi Hughes , Tearfund’s Theological Adviser] you can find plenty of references to scriptural teaching with regards to injustice. And in the British context there are several people who are writing and speaking  on that subject, denouncing evil in society.

JS: The US activist Jim Wallis talks about his heroes of faith – a ‘cloud of witnesses’ that inspire him – and he has photographs of them in his study. Do you have people like that, living or dead, that help you to keep going when you feel like giving up?

René: I’m not sure I would call them my heroes but I have always had great admiration for people like Martin Luther King. When I read some of his books when I was young, I was greatly inspired by him.  I saw that he united his own Christian faith with a passion for justice. I have been very, very inspired by people in the past like John Wesley.  I’ve been reading lately some of his works on slavery. I mean it’s really amazing how he could preach the gospel but at the same time denounce the abuse of power in relation to slavery, or call wealthy people to accept that the wealth they had was not theirs; that they were responsible as stewards to share their wealth with the poor.
 
JS: How about Oscar Romero [Archbishop of San Salvador who was assassinated in 1980]?

René: Absolutely! He was elected as archbishop because they thought he would be a safe clergyman. But once he got there, he saw the abuse of power when Rutilio Grande, a priest, was killed and the explanation given was, ‘He was a Marxist.’  Well, since Romero was a very close friend of his, he knew that Rutilio was not a Marxist; he was living among and defending the poor. As a result, Romero became very passionate about justice and I think some of his sermons are very very biblical. He is one of my heroes. 

JS: It’s a great story, because often when people get in power they become corrupt, but he’s the opposite; he was reserved and traditional, and went the other way.

René: That’s right.

JS: What sort of reaction did you get to your book on terrorism in Iraq?  

René: Well, the same kind of reactions that I had in relation to our last interview some negative and some positive, people who said that I was responding to a leftist ideology and people who said this has to be said. 

JS: Your latest book is on the local church.  Could you give a brief synopsis of that?  

René: The title is The Local Church, Agent of Transformation, and the purpose is to show that the local church has to have certain characteristics if it is going to work in integral mission.  Not every church is able to. Thus, for instance, the whole church has to be committed to the Lordship of Christ as underlining the whole of the Christian life.  There’s no limit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It includes the totality of life and the totality of creation. Unless the members of the church – at least a good number of them – believe in that, they will think that, well, the Gospel has nothing to do with economics or with politics or with anything that goes beyond the individual and his or her own personal piety. So there has to be a concept that transcends the individual and the local church, as such. 

The Lordship of Christ is basic. Then also the question of the priesthood of all believers. All Christians have been called to participate in God’s mission. You know the mission is not just for a little group of people within the Church. We are all called to participate in what God wants to do in the world. This is related to the question of leadership in the church. The leaders alone cannot do everything. What is the place of the leadership? To train people so that they use their gifts in the service of God.  If the pastor monopolises the ministry of the church, then there is no hope. One more question is that of flexible structures so that the church is organised for ministry—not just to serve itself but to serve the world. That’s the purpose of that book; to show the basic characteristics of a church that practices integral mission. 

 
JS: How important has your wife been in your personal spiritual journey?

René: Oh my! We have grown and worked together all the way through. I cannot really make a division between what she has done and what I have done. We both have been very much involved in thinking and practising integral mission.  

JS: Some people might say that Tearfund was naïve to put its hope in the local church which may be ill-equipped and under-resourced and just not up to the task. How would you counter that argument?

René: I would say that if the local church is not able to contribute to integral mission, no entity is able to do that.  Of course there are aspects of the mission of the church that require far more than the local church alone, but it’s local churches, united, that can make a tremendous impact on every level of society. The bigger the task the more Christians you need to participate in it. I think the unity of the church is very very important for bigger tasks, but a local church can make a tremendous impact in its own neighbourhood, and there are plenty of examples of that. But for instance questions of foreign policy or the economic system, or the abuse of God’s creation in terms of the lack of concern for natural resources and so on – all of that has to be viewed from the perspective of the universal Church; Christians getting together to work on those bigger issues.

JS: I know that you’re very concerned about deforestation in Latin America. Can you expand on those fears?
René: The fact is that if deforestation and the emisson of gases continue to be what they are now we are not only irresponsible before God in relation to the way we deal with God’s resources and his creation, we are really digging our gave.  There is no hope for the survival of the human race the way things are going right now. The question of climate change and earth warming is quite urgent and needs to be taken very seriously.

JS: Yes, and the loss of bio-diversity.

René: That’s right. It’s very shocking to see what is going on.

JS: Has the economic situation in Argentina improved since we last spoke [In 2001, Argentina’s economy collapsed, provoking widespread fury against the government and global institutions implicated in that collapse] 

René: Yes, it has improved. Not as much as one would wish but I believe that the present government is trying to make sure that some of the basic needs of common people are covered. We still have an awful lot of people who are under the poverty line but in general the situation is better.

JS: And how is it manifesting itself?  Is it that the middle classes that lost everything are returning to their former position in society?

René: Today I read a report in one of the papers in Argentina saying that 2.4 million people in Argentina have come out of extreme poverty.  At the same time the reports say that the distance between the rich and the poor has really really grown in Argentina in the last few years and that is very sad. But it’s hard to know how the situation can be improved for everybody. I’m not happy with the situation but I’m happier than I was say three years ago.

JS: How important is prayer in you both personally and in the larger fight against injustice?  Do you think it can really move mountains and topple giants in terms of systematic injustice? 

René: Prayer is a way to recognise that human effort is never enough to produce the results that one would like to see and I think there is a side to the whole question of integral mission that has very much to do with our own confidence in what God can do in us and through us.

JS: If you could give the powers that be at Tearfund one piece of advice, what would it be? 

René: Well, never take it for granted that what you have done is all that you are called to do and all you can do. We are always challenged to do much more and to make sure that radical discipleship is at the centre of all our life and our ministry.

JS: Finally,  if you had to sum up your life’s motif in once sentence, what would it be?

René: I would say that my aim in life has been to please the Lord and that means bringing every aspect of life under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and yet I know that at the end the most I can say is that I have done what I have been called to do.  I am still a useless servant. 

The views expressed by Dr Padilla do not necessarily reflect those held by Tearfund.

This page was last updated on 04 April 2007