Archives For Venezuela

Repaso: February 1, 2013

February 1, 2013 — 1 Comment

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1. Hugo Chávez, slumlord
Jon Lee Anderson, perhaps best known for his massive biography on the life of Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara, has written a piece in The New Yorker on how Hugo Chávez, who has been MIA with uncertain health for more than 50 days now, has failed Venezuela generally and its capital city specifically. For those of us who don’t subscribe, there’s just a summary of the piece available for free (plus a related photo essay), but the abbreviated part is telling enough:

Hugo Chávez has said that he wants to remake Venezuela into “a sea of happiness and of real social justice and peace.” His pronounced goal was to elevate the poor. In Caracas, the country’s capital, the results of his fitful campaign are plain to see. For decades, as one of the world’s most oil-rich nations, Venezuela had a growing middle class, with an impressively high standard of living. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the rest of Latin America and from Europe helped give Caracas a reputation as one of the region’s most attractive and modern cities. That city is barely perceptible today. After decades of neglect, poverty, corruption, and social upheaval, Caracas has deteriorated beyond all measure.

2. The gospel of immigration
Over the past week, a surprising range of figures from across the political spectrum have come together in support of making immigration reform a high-level priority for this year. Sure, there’s a lot of political pandering going on, and yes, building a true consensus on the nitty gritty details will be a real challenge, but it’s at least an encouraging step. RELEVANT reposted a timely blog post from Dr. Russell Moore of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which he originally wrote in the summer of 2011. Here’s the opening paragraph of the piece:

I’m amazed when I hear evangelical Christians speak of undocumented immigrants in this country with disdain as “those people” who are “draining our health care and welfare resources.” It’s horrifying to hear those identified with the Gospel speak, whatever their position on the issues, with mean-spirited disdain for the immigrants themselves. While evangelicals, like other Americans, might disagree on the political specifics of achieving a just and compassionate immigration policy, our rhetoric must be informed by more than politics, but instead by Gospel and mission.

3. Two kinds of politics
Religion and politics is an explosive mix, as we all know. You don’t have to look far to see politicians seeking to co-opt people of faith, or people of faith seeking to baptize a particular brand of partisan politics. But those who claim the gospel is apolitical must deal with their own share of problems. Daniel Camacho, a Junior Fellow at The Colossian Forum, writes on the significance of our worship itself being political:

Separating our worship from our politics neglects the way in which our worship is a form of politics, and the way in which it can inform our involvement in our government’s politics. From this vantage point, a Christian is always involved in two kinds of politics. To borrow from Augustine’s The City of God, Christians are simultaneously involved in the politics of the heavenly polis and the politics of the earthly polis. Our participation in the Body of Christ gives shape to our involvement in society at large.

4. Beyond state and market
Matthew Kaemingk writes for Fieldnotes about the irreplaceable importance of the third sector, on the basis of who we are as human beings:

Instead of simplistic descriptions of human beings as either clients of the state or competitors in the market, the Christian Scriptures present humanity in a refreshingly complex way. We find a complex creature with a wide variety of gifts, abilities, interests, aspects, loyalties, and solidarities. Created in the image of God, human beings in the Bible are anything but simple. They are musical, communal, religious, artistic, familial, charitable, scientific, literary, moral, athletic, fun, and funny. The robust anthropology found in the Bible depicts a creature that could never be fully defined, controlled, content, or nourished by the market or the state alone—thank God.

5. The art of restoration
Nate Clarke, the filmmaker behind all of This Is Our City’s short films, has done it again with this one, rolled out this week as part of the project’s coverage of the ways Christians are seeking the flourishing of Detroit.

Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!

[Photo credit: Man lifting weights on a rooftop in Caracas, Venezuela via morethangreen.es]

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Poverty, riches and unexpected happiness

July 7, 2011 — 1 Comment

Here’s a head-scratcher for you. Yesterday I came across two fascinating comparisons of the economies of Chile and Venezuela, each making seemingly opposite (and perhaps both accurate) points.

First, a Christian blog I visited for the first time, which proudly seeks to counter “ignorant and fashionable sentimentalism, pacifism, and mushy-minded seeker-church sappiness.” It includes a video showing the positive correlation between economic freedom and economic wealth. As the video demonstrates, Chile and Venezuela, despite their geographical proximity, are on opposite ends of the spectrum, both in terms of economic freedom and economic wealth. Here’s the short video:

Moments after watching that video, I saw a tweet with this headline (seriously, I can’t make this up): “Chile among South America’s least happy nations; Venezuela top of the list.” The story, from The Santiago Times (via MercoPress), cites a study conducted in several South American nations to determine who was happiest and why. The study found that equal distribution of wealth was a key indicator, among these others:

Along with climate, family and finances, researchers found that happiness was influenced by a person satisfaction with his or her love life, health, job and physical appearance. The importance of these factors varied between countries. For Chileans, personal finances were the most important; for Bolivians job satisfaction ranked the highest; and for Colombians and Peruvians love and relationships had the biggest impact. “Even though we share the same language and may have similar histories, we are not the same,” González said of the results. There is no one indicator of happiness, he said. Instead, it seems, “every country has its own way of looking at life.”

For those prone to absolutizing economics, this should give us pause. There’s wisdom in the proverb that asks for neither poverty nor riches, I think. It’s not that we shouldn’t strive for economies — on both the micro and the macro scale — that make sense for the world’s poor and lead to the outcomes trumpeted in the video. It’s just a reminder that happiness (not to mention holiness) doesn’t always rise and fall with the GDP.

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Trafficking and diplomatic bias in the Americas

July 5, 2011 — Leave a comment

Last week the State Department released its eleventh annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, which ranks 184 countries on how well they’re doing in the fight against human trafficking. Countries are placed in one of three tiers according to how well they comply with the Department’s minimum standards. Basically, Tier 1 countries are those doing the most to combat trafficking, Tier 3 countries are the ones doing the least to prevent it, and Tier 2 countries are somewhere in between.

Theoretically, it’s a great report. It’s important that the State Department is making this a priority, and not leaving it exclusively to the domain of NGOs with great expertise in important areas but, in many cases, a lack of political clout to affect change.

Certain aspects of the report are iffy, though. For one thing, there’s the question of the United States as “a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons.” Last year was the first time the US included itself on the list, and unsurprisingly, it awarded itself with a Tier 1 ranking. This ranking may very well be deserved, but the conflict of interest is apparent.

Meanwhile, Adam Isacson from the Washington Office on Latin America, makes an interesting observation on the rankings of the countries in the Americas. Other than the United States, almost all countries in the region are given the Tier 2 designation, meaning they’re all doing some — but not enough — to combat trafficking in persons.

There are three exceptions: Colombia, Cuba and Venezuela. Yes, Colombia is known for its good relationship with the US and Cuba and Venezuela, of course, are known for just the opposite. And yes, Colombia is placed in Tier 1, while Cuba and Venezuela are given the region’s only Tier 3 rankings. Obviously, this isn’t to say that Colombia isn’t taking strides to fight trafficking or that trafficking isn’t a problem in the two nations with the most outspoken anti-American presidents. But I agree with Isacson that it does cast some unfortunate doubt on the report’s credibility.

If you’d like to support the work of organizations working to stop trafficking in the Americas and elsewhere, please consider International Justice Mission or World Vision.

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Repaso: Justice goes global, Indigenous university, Christ unwanted in Lima, and more

June 17, 2011 — Leave a comment

Repaso is something new I’m trying: a weekly roundup of news, commentary and more at the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace in the Americas.

Justice goes global
My good friend Barnabas sent me this piece from Tom Friedman about how Michael Sandel and his Justice course at Harvard (which I discussed here) is gaining popularity in Asia.

Sandel is touching something deep in both Boston and Beijing. “Students everywhere are hungry for discussion of the big ethical questions we confront in our everyday lives,” Sandel argues.  “In recent years, seemingly technical economic questions have crowded out questions of justice and the common good.  I think there is a growing sense, in many societies, that G.D.P. and market values do not by themselves produce happiness, or a good society. My dream is to create a video-linked global classroom, connecting students across cultures and national boundaries — to think through these hard moral questions together, to see what we can learn from one another.”


Barefoot college helps Venezuela Indians fight back
This is an interesting Reuters piece about a university aimed at preserving indigenous culture in Venezuela. Not all the “threats” listed below are created equal, in my opinion.

Like similar groups across the world, their habitat and way of life in a vast, long-neglected region of forests and waterways around the Orinoco river are increasingly threatened by illegal mining, ranchers and evangelical Christianity. Adding to the mix of influences are socialist aid programs from President Hugo Chavez, who has placed Venezuela’s Indian identity at the heart of his home-spun revolution.

Christ unwanted in Lima?
Outgoing Peruvian president Alan Garcia wants to construct a huge “Christ of the Pacific” statue overlooking the capital city, but his plan is being met with resistance. Lima’s mayor says Garcia didn’t ask permission to build on that prominent location, and says it will have to be built elsewhere.

Ghosts of Guatemala’s past
This is the co-author of a definitive book on a key chapter of Guatemalan history, on the significance of former president Jacobo Arbenz finally being recognized by the country, not as a villain but a hero. The United States, he says, should do the same.

Blowing in the Wind: Dylan’s spiritual journey
This is slightly out of date, but in late May the BBC had a 30-minute radio program commemorating Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday, taking a look at his one-of-a-kind spiritual journey.

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Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven Iglesia

June 10, 2011 — 1 Comment

It’s been almost a decade since Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life was published, selling over 30 million copies in its first five years alone. Warren’s influence on the North American evangelical church cannot be overstated, and it is also well known that he and his church have undertaken some ambitious development initiatives, starting in Rwanda. More recently, a nationwide Purpose Driven Living campaign was launched in neighboring Uganda.

Meanwhile, the teachings of The Purpose Driven Church, a book Warren wrote several years before his mega-bestseller, seems to be taking root in Latin America:

Juan Carlos Flores, president of the Foundation of Leadership and Innovation Liderinnova, along with his wife, Orietta Oreamuno, began in 2002 to teach the paradigm presented in The Purpose Driven Church both inside and outside of Costa Rica to other Spanish speaking countries. He was one of six American teachers in the 40 Days Campaign produced by Purpose Driven Ministries.

The foundation has already reached Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Argentina and Venezuela. In 2007, they held a conference in Venezuela, where hundreds of pastors and Christian leaders gathered to talk about the “Purpose Driven Church.”

For more on the significant connections between megachurches in the United States and Christians in developing countries, see the paper I co-wrote for Transformation, the journal of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies.

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