INTRODUCTION
A large number of Christians joined the insurrectionary struggle in Nicaragua. Their religious orientation toward life played a significant role in the revolutionary mobilization that led to the overthrow of the Somoza regime. Many Christian revolutionaries, in fact, became government officials and revolutionary activists following the overthrow of the dictatorship (Cabestrero Reference Cabestrero1986; Lozano Reference Lozano and Mexico1985). Yet, for the most part, the picture with which we are provided in historical accounts of the insurrection is one in which participants are assumed to be ideologically in synch with, if not shepherded by, the Sandinista vanguard (Foran Reference Foran2005; Goodwin Reference Goodwin2001; Selbin Reference Selbin1999). This is despite ample evidence that underscores the independent role of religion (Berryman Reference Berryman1984; Dodson and O'Shaughnessy Reference Dodson and O'Shaughnessy1990; Foroohar Reference Foroohar1989; Girardi Reference Girardi1989; Kirk Reference Kirk1992; Molina Reference Molina, Girabardi, Forcano and Vigil1987; Sabia Reference Sabia1997; Randall Reference Randall1983, Reference Randall1985; Williams Reference Williams1989), the complex heterogeneous nature of the revolutionary struggle (Booth Reference Booth1985; Everingham Reference Everingham1996; Hodges Reference Hodges1986; Horton Reference Horton1998; Whisnant Reference Whisnant1995), and the reality that many Christians joined the Sandinistas in the armed insurrection for practical reasons not Marxist-ideological ones (Booth Reference Booth1985; Foroohar Reference Foroohar1989; Molina Reference Molina, Girabardi, Forcano and Vigil1987). The role religion played in the Nicaraguan revolution remains underexplored (Foran Reference Foran2005; Parsa Reference Parsa2000), if not practically discounted (Colburn Reference Colburn1994; Goodwin Reference Goodwin2001; Nolan Reference Nolan1988; Selbin Reference Selbin1999; Wickham-Crowley Reference Wickham-Crowley1992; Wright Reference Wright1995), in scholarly accounts. This neglect perhaps reveals the modernist tendency to dismiss religious tradition as socially transformative; even when the “disruptive” role of religion has been observed in other historical and political contexts (Borer Reference Borer1998; Morris Reference Morris1984; McAdam Reference McAdam1982; Polletta Reference Polletta2002; Nepstad Reference Nepstad2004; Smith Reference Smith1996; Walzer Reference Walzer1965; Weber Reference Weber1930).
In an effort to counter the tendency by scholars of revolutions to interpret the insurrectionary period in Nicaragua as driven primarily by Sandinista ideological entrepreneurship and organizational efforts (Coulburn 1994; Goodwin Reference Goodwin2001; Foran Reference Foran2005; Wickham-Crowley Reference Wickham-Crowley1992; Selbin Reference Selbin1999; Wright Reference Wright1995), I set out to highlight the independent and causal role of religious discourse, dialogue, and organization in the Nicaraguan revolution. This position does not discount the viable role of political coalitions, Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) ideology and leadership, revolutionary dynamics, and the structural causes of revolution. But it makes a case for the dialogical appropriation of religious discourse in the making of revolution. I propose the following: Within the context of a growing revolutionary crisis, many Nicaraguan Christians became involved in the insurrection that culminated in the overthrow of a military dictatorship in July 1979. They became involved in large part because socio-structural conditions and political factors were conducive to revolution (Farhi Reference Farhi1990; Foran Reference Foran2005; Goodwin Reference Goodwin2001; Parsa Reference Parsa2000; Wickham-Crowley Reference Wickham-Crowley1992). But their ability to transform given meanings of their religious language into oppositional ones through dialogue was similarly a necessary component of their revolutionary involvement. To adequately come to terms with the latter assertion, I: (1) provide a brief historical account of change in religious meaning at the institutional level and (2) empirically evaluate the role of religious dialogue in the formation of revolutionary actors/stances in Solentiname, Nicaragua. I aim to center religion in the analysis of this revolution for two reasons: (1) in an effort to portray how religious settings and the language that stemmed from these animated this revolutionary case and (2) to give voice out of historical sensitivity to the experiences of Christian revolutionaries in Nicaragua, in particular those who participated in seminary dialogues in Solentiname.Footnote 1
Before moving on with the aforementioned analytic agenda, I begin with a discussion of methodology and some theoretical points in the sections below.
ON DISCOVERING REVOLUTION IN RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE: SOME METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Cultural analysis is an entryway into the realm of revolutionary subjectivity. Culture — in its religious and other manifestations — shapes the codes through which meaning is expressed in practice (Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu1984a); is a source of emotional energy (Collins Reference Collins2005); contains the narratives through which self and identity are constituted, however conflicting, (in)coherent, or (in)consistent these might be (Somers Reference Somers1994); motivates individuals (Weber Reference Weber1930); and is ultimately a resource for social action, revolutionary and otherwise (Gramsci Reference Gramsci1987, Reference Gramsci1991; Swidler Reference Swidler1986, Reference Swidler2001; Thompson Reference Thompson1993, Reference Thompson1995). Culture also contains an adaptive potential (Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu1984b, Reference Bourdieu1989, Reference Bourdieu1990, Reference Bourdieu1993; Gramsci Reference Gramsci1987, Reference Gramsci1991; Hannerz Reference Hannerz1969; Thompson Reference Thompson1993, Reference Thompson1995; Swidler Reference Swidler1986, Reference Swidler2001; Walzer Reference Walzer1965) that allows actors to adjust to and modify their social circumstances. When unstable social contexts make the conventional employment of culture extraneous, actors can creatively and skillfully adapt their cultural predispositions to construct unconventional lines of action to overcome the instability in their social environment. For example, in the context of a political crisis, a traditional belief system such as religion may be crystallized into an oppositional culture that challenges the status quo (Swidler Reference Swidler2001, 169). This is the case because in unstable, high-risk, situations actors are forced to employ “structurally available forms of thought and practice” in ways that will allow them to transcend the ontological insecurity such situations pose to them. Referring to the taking of the Bastille in 1789 as an historical instance when an existing culture was creatively employed, William Sewell notes the following:
In times of structural dislocation, ordinary routines of social life are open to doubt, the sanctions of existing power relations are uncertain or suspended, and new possibilities are thinkable. In ordinary times, cultural schemas, arrays of resources, and modes of power are bound into self-producing streams of structured social action. But in times of dislocation, like the spring and summer of 1789, resources are up for grabs, cultural logics are elaborated more freely and applied to new circumstances, and modes of power are extended to unforeseen social fields. In 1789 new arguments were tried out, new forms of organization were invented, and new ideas circulated … [But] [e]ven in moments like this, which combined extraordinary freedom with an unusual sense of practical urgency, creativity was still shaped and constrained by the structurally available forms of thought and practice (Sewell Reference Sewell1996, 867).
People, therefore, often attempt to formulate ways out of ontologically unstable circumstances by cohering, defining, and systematizing already-available and familiar belief systems in oppositional terms, and by using the emerging understandings that come with the latter cultural work in strategic and challenging ways as they encounter both foreseeable and unforeseeable events. In the historical case outlined here, the conventional uses of religion were made irrelevant in the face of a growing revolutionary crisis. This opened religion itself to being creatively adapted in ways that allowed actors to strategically contend with an increasingly hostile political climate.
Because my goal is to make sense of revolutionary meaning-making in religious dialogue,Footnote 2 I provide a brief historical account of changes in religious meaning in the Catholic Church, and their impact in Nicaragua. I also study three bible-centered dialogues in order to come to terms with the significance of religion for Christian revolutionaries. The three dialogues in question, respectively, underscore the need for noncompliance with the order of things, using a violence of justice as a means to bring about social transformation, and resistance to false beliefs and practices that would prevent change in society — all important themes that reflect shifts in religious perspective at the time, both at the institutional and popular levels. They similarly reveal the innovative and developmental features in dialogue that emerged in the course of discussions oriented to question, challenge, and change the order of things. I selected these from a four-volume historical collection on religious dialogues, The Gospel in Solentiname (Cardenal Reference Cardenal1976, Reference Cardenal1982a, Reference Cardenal1982b, Reference Cardenal1982c), which took place in Solentiname, Nicaragua, from 1971 to 1976, a crucial period of revolutionary politicization that led up to the insurrectionary period, 1977–1979. The collection chronicles the dialogic experiences of a peasant community that lived in an archipelago in the southern region of Lake Nicaragua. On almost every page of the 1,000-plus pages contained in the volumes, Nicaragua's socio-political conditions in the 1970s — a patrimonial dictatorship, arbitrary state repression, rural and urban poverty, underdevelopment, economic exploitation, political corruption and exclusion, and oppositional (both spontaneous and organized) mobilization — are revealed as points of reference and evaluation during the course of religious discussions.Footnote 3 Father Ernesto Cardenal, a Jesuit priest and the leader of the seminary setting where the dialogues took place, recorded, transcribed, moderately edited, and published these community discussions in book form. The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America subsequently translated and published these in English in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Focusing on The Gospel in Solentiname, notwithstanding the potential limits an editor poses, allows one to appreciate the relationship between consciousness-raising, religious dialogue, and revolutionary agency. The volumes are a useful point of departure to “capture” the power of religion at the hands of the religious under a period of revolutionary politicization. Although the testimonies from The Gospel in Solentiname largely reflect the experiences of Solentinameños, other available testimonial, ethnographic, and oral history sources project similar experiences, feelings, and thoughts about the role of religious conviction in revolutionary involvement (Dodson and O'Shaughnessy Reference Dodson and O'Shaughnessy1990; Mulligan Reference Mulligan1991; Sabia Reference Sabia1997; Kirk Reference Kirk1992; Cabestrero Reference Cabestrero1986; Randall Reference Randall1983, Reference Randall1985; Foroohar Reference Foroohar1989; Williams Reference Williams1989).
RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AS INNOVATIVE AND DEVELOPMENTAL OF REVOLUTIONARY ACTORS/STANCES
Why focus on religious dialogue as a conduit of revolutionary conversion? Dialogue is a social vehicle through which a sense of reality is constructed and maintained (Berger and Luckmann Reference Berger and Luckmann1989). The frequency and intensity of conversations sustain a given “accent of reality” that reinforces an individual's or group's identification with a particular perspective on the world (Ibid.). While conversations (or dialogue) maintain and reproduce individuals' taken-for-granted sense of reality (or to put it more critically, the ideological conditions in which they operateFootnote 4); conversations also enable individuals to “switch worlds,” especially under conditions of crisis and under new plausibility structures found in alternate community settings attempting to function as vehicles of transformation. Conversations make the reassignment of “reality accents” possible, which in turn make it possible for individuals to take apart the “preceding nomic structure of subjective reality” (Ibid.:157). It is in conversation that the necessary reinterpretation of an old subjective reality in terms of a new one “brings about a rupture in the subjective biography of the individual” (Ibid.:159).
As a sense-making capacity that unfolds in interaction between and within groups of people, dialogue expresses the historical fluidity of social meanings and values (Bakhtin Reference Bakhtin1981, Reference Bakhtin1986; see also Steinberg Reference Steinberg1999a; Crossley and Roberts Reference Crossley and Roberts2004; Anderson, Baxter and Cissna Reference Anderson, Baxter and Cissna2004). The words, statements, and texts (or the very language) through which it is constituted are subject to multiple readings depending on the social location and interests of the actors who use them and how they use them for particular purposes during spoken interactions. How words (or language) are used dialogically in the interpretation of historical events and social processes, therefore, makes them a valuable political resource (Steinberg Reference Steinberg1999a). Words (language) in this sense become the arena of struggle and dialogue the vehicle through which groups of people can assign particular meanings to them as they strive to bring about change. Dialogue can thus work as a counter-hegemonic (or transformational) force because of how people creatively use language to mediate their interests, values, and intentions in the various political scenes into which they enter, including revolutionary ones. In dialogue people can create a vocabulary of opposition through which they can question and challenge the order of things.
To be more specific, dialogue is an opportunity to express concerns and doubts, to speculate about social experiences openly. As such, it works as a diagnostic occasion. It can help individuals faced with a particular political situation to question and interpret its nature; to translate and give significance to it according to how they have experienced it; and to inform the meanings, context, and rationales for political action. But dialogue is also an opportunity to examine the assumptions behind how a political situation is understood, interpreted, and diagnosed, as individuals attempt to define it and make sense of the challenges, problems, and questions associated with it. Dialogue in this instance expands the self-reflexive capacity of individuals. It is a social mechanism that constitutes and expands the processes of understanding and interpretation. Dialogue as diagnostic and self-reflexive occasions, makes it both innovative and developmental.
Dialogue is innovative in that the multiple perspectives that are present in it provide an opportunity for actors to draw on these as resources for developing strategic approaches to dealing with political situations. The “reasoning together about options and solutions,” often leads to “new conceptions of self-interest and new perceptions of strategy” that in the end help to overcome obstacles to political goals (Polletta Reference Polletta2002, 209). Dialogue-as-innovation is thus a way out of the highly uncertain social and political situations which a contentious political context presents to challengers. Dialogue is developmental in that individuals gain new awareness, and with it, a new sense of themselves as they reflect on the knowledge that informs their understanding and approach to political situations. Engaging in dialogue facilitates the development of critical consciousness (Freire Reference Freire1970, Reference Freire1973). This is especially the case in problem-posing and open-dialogue settings where interlocutors have been conditioned to actively participate in inclusive discussions, to consider multiple voices in their evaluation of social circumstances, and to critically reflect on “the thinking and views of the world explicitly or implicitly manifest in their own suggestions and those of their comrades” (Freire Reference Freire1970, 105).Footnote 5 Dialogue dynamics in this setting compel interlocutors to critically interpret, develop knowledge about, and attempt to formulate solutions to their reality as a group (Freire Reference Freire1970, Reference Freire1973). As such, dialogue itself “produces people who question the conventional categories and responsibilities of citizenship, the limits of equality, and the lines between [ordinary] people” and those in power (Polletta Reference Polletta2002, 230). Dialogue-as-developmental thus creates the oppositional subjectivity required for an extended political struggle. It does this because it yields self-conscious activists who know what they want and need, learn to make demands on themselves and others, and recognize that they are agents of history capable of transforming social institutions and the social circumstances impacting them.
At the seminary setting in Solentiname, Nicaragua, participants engaged in open, inclusive, and problem-posing dialogues (Foroohar Reference Foroohar1989, 53; Bradstock Reference Bradstock1987, 4; Berryman Reference Berryman1984, 22). These played a pivotal role in consciousness-raising, the articulation of resistance, and the radicalization of opposition within the growing context of a socio-political crisis. They became sources of innovation for the development of revolutionary outlooks and identities. The dialogues were innovative because conventional religious idioms such as “salvation” and “the place of the poor” were dialogically appropriated and transformed into “fighting words” that both challenged the order of things and legitimated revolutionary action (Steinberg Reference Steinberg1999b). They were similarly innovative because new self-interest conceptions emerged — e.g., discussants realized that they did not need to subject themselves to exploitation — during the course of diagnosing and interpreting how the nature of the socio-political order affected them. Dialogues were also innovative insofar as participants learned to question and criticize arbitrary repression, economic exploitation, and political corruption; identified the military dictatorship as the root cause of the latter social problems; and developed new strategies to deal with the latter conditions (e.g., in the dialogues below discussants embraced noncompliance, resistance, and violence as the means to challenge the Somoza regime).Footnote 6 Dialogues were similarly developmental because participants came to understand their faith as a legitimate source of political critique; cultivated the skill to strategically adapt to changing circumstances; and assumed identities as revolutionaries.
In what follows I provide an historical analysis of the institutional and organizational contexts that made it possible for the religious to use their faith in radical ways within the context of a growing socio-political crisis. I follow with a historical account of the seminary in Solentiname and an evaluation of the aforementioned dialogues in terms of their function as revolutionary resources. I conclude with an appraisal of the revolutionary potential of religious dialogue.
THE INSTITUTIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL ROOTS OF REVOLUTIONARY RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE
[O]ur understanding of the Bible was developed enough … that we knew that there was no contradiction between being Christian and participating in the struggle for freedom. We were learning that we could only be good Christians by participating in the struggle for freedom (CEB lay leader quoted in Lancaster Reference Lancaster1988, 64).
The Vatican II council (1962–1965), the Episcopal conferences in Medellín, Columbia (1968) and Puebla, Mexico (1979) in Latin America, and several papal encyclicals in the same period of institutional transformation, played a significant role in the wave of political movements that emerged in the region during the 1960s and 1970s (as the above quote attests in the case of Nicaragua).Footnote 7 Vatican II and the papal encyclicals called on the Church to orient itself more thoughtfully to the persistent global problems of poverty, inequality, and injustice, and to engage its laity according to the latter orientation. Medellín and Puebla reaffirmed these new Christian commitments in the region with a praxis orientation. These new institutional trends opened the door for the laity to assume a more empowered relation to religious authority and to evaluate imaginatively and apply, given their new partnership with the clergy, existing and emerging doctrines (Friedland Reference Friedland2005). The theological developments that came with the conferences and encyclicals also facilitated a political reading of harsh socio-economic and political conditions in the region that evolved as commitment to liberation on the part of progressive priests and the religious (Gutiérrez Reference Gutiérrez1973, 105).
While Vatican II and the papal encyclicals, respectively, gave birth to and reinforced a new institutional platform for evaluating the role of theology in the modern world, Medellín and Puebla “succeeded in giving a theological profile to … the concept of temporal liberation” (Galilea Reference Galilea and Rossa1986, 27). The Episcopal conferences provided a forum for the development (Medellín) and expansion (Puebla) of a theology of liberation in the region, which condemned the existing economic, political, and social structures in Latin America as a “sinful situation” that produced “institutionalized violence” against the poor majority in the region (CELAM Reference Rossa1986). Based on the principles of radical egalitarianism (existential equality across difference), radical communitarianism (developing community on the concept of “brotherly love,” in the absence of self-interest), and radical pacifism (striving for unconditional peace), liberation theology explicitly called for people to “opt for the poor” and to rescue them from their depraved conditions, in particular underdevelopment, political repression, and economic exploitation (Roelefs 1988, 554–559). The conferences also sanctioned the vital social and political functions played by existing and emerging grassroots Christian initiatives in the region, in particular CEBs (communidades eclesiales de base, or Christian base communities), progressively oriented religious sites that set out to collectively solve local problems, improve their neighborhoods, and recuperate the moral state of the poor and young based on the “message of the Christ of the Poor” (CEB lay leader quoted in Lancaster Reference Lancaster1988, 62–63; see also Lernoux Reference Lernoux1982; Clearly Reference Clearly1985; Dussel Reference Dussel1981; Gotay Reference Gotay1983).
In Nicaragua, “the ‘structural sin’ castigated by the Latin American bishops at Medellín had a concrete point of reference – somocismo” (Dodson and O'Shaughnessy Reference Dodson and O'Shaughnessy1990, 124). In addition to the Medellín conference in 1968, the de facto marriage of religion and radical politics in Nicaragua can be traced back to the establishment of CEBs in 1966. An Encuentro Pastoral (Pastoral Meeting) that took place in Managua in early 1969, where several hundred progressive church functionaries (both priests and bishops) and the religious met to reflect on Nicaragua's situation in light of the resolutions from both Vatican II and Medellín, also played a role in the politicization of the progressive sectors of the church. This pastoral meeting provided a forum for participants to reflect on the nature and role of the Church and to discuss Nicaragua's sociopolitical reality. “Although the meeting in itself accomplished little,” it “legitimated a more radical role for the church in society” (Berryman Reference Berryman1984, 60). Out of this initial event of official political engagement on the part of progressive church members, a national pastoral strategy based on the expansion of CEBs and designed to confront national realities originated.
By 1979, the year of the revolution, one could count 5,000 lay delegates of the Word in the countryside and 300 CEBs in both the urban and rural sectors (Williams Reference Williams1989, 52). As the decade of the 1970s unfolded, a new language of agency and structure emerged in progressively oriented Christian communities. This new language mirrored theological developments in Medellín. It focused on “consciousness-raising,” “participation,” and “opting for the poor,” as well as “institutional violence” and “structural injustices.” Also in this period, familiar religious idioms such as “liberation,” “brotherly love,” “the place of the poor,” “salvation,” “exploitation,” and “sin,” increasingly assumed an oppositional orientation for many, especially during the mid-1970s when the political climate worsened.
These developments in religious meaning took place in part due to changes at the elite level — because of the institutional transformations that emerged from papal encyclicals, and the Vatican and Episcopal conferences; and because of the heretical discourse liberation theologians crafted as part of these historical developments — but also because of changes at the popular level. The dialogical appropriation and transformation of conventional religious language into a radical one at the hands of ordinary citizens, in fact, played a key role in the expansion and eventual success of revolutionary contention. By the time of the insurrection in the late 1970s, the aforementioned Christian idioms had become “fighting words.” Many Nicaraguans, as such, used the emergent religious language of opposition to evaluate and take action against the unjust socio-political and economic order that oppressed them.
The oppositional religious language adopted by the religious was crafted in a variety of settings in Nicaragua. In addition to the CEBs, these included popular churches, seminaries, and cursillos de cristiandad (small Christian courses). These sites functioned as “cultural laboratories” (Melucci Reference Melucci1980) within which the heretical discourse of liberation theology and a militant Christian collective identity were respectively embodied and given shape. It was at these sites — organized by liberation priests, nuns, and delegates of the word, but also lay people in rural and urban communities all over the country — that the traditional, customary, and existentially familiar understandings of religion (manifestly their legitimizing function of the political order at the symbolic level) were challenged, transformed into counter-hegemonic interpretations, and embodied as fighting words in dialogue. The dialogues in these settings revealed the doxic assumptions of the religious status quo order as arbitrary and impressed upon discussants the need for change. As such, they made the unfolding of revolutionary ambitions/stances possible.
RELIGIOUS DIALOGUES AND REVOLUTION IN SOLENTINAME
In his Liberation Theology seminary in Solentiname, Father Ernesto Cardenal led discussions that reflected on the economic, political, and social realities of Nicaragua. The seminary was founded in 1966 on an island in the Solentiname archipelago in the southern section of Lake Nicaragua, next to the country's southern border with Costa Rica. This was a remote, isolated, and sparsely populated area from which the founders — Cardenal, Columbian poet William Agudelo, his wife, and their children — originally hoped to develop an artistic and contemplative retreat away from the growing political and social turmoil in the capital city, Managua, and its surrounding rural areas. The retreat, however, developed into a type of community center by 1967 as Cardenal and the burgeoning seminary membership became more involved in the social life of the islanders. At this stage, inspired by the growing trend of “Family of God” seminars in Managua, people came to discuss the bible on a weekly basis in order to reflect on the significance of family and community for the development of good Christians. But it was not until 1970 that bible-focused dialogues assumed a more critical posture toward socio-political realities. Dialogues now incorporated a variety of themes regarding the social, economic, and political realities of Nicaragua. Rather than focusing on family and community as the only bases for the formation of good Christians, discussions turned to understanding their formation in light of their relation to society as a whole. By this time the Medellín conference and the Encuentro Pastoral had called on the Church to denounce the intensification of military repression, the violation of human rights in the rural areas, and the arbitrary political persecution of conscientious objectors to human rights violation. The social problems these realities posed and their relationship to the Somoza dictatorship were now at the center of dialogues during community meetings. These new dialogues maintained new political self-conceptions and animated calls for liberation.
Participants in Solentiname varied in age (they were old, middle aged, and young), gender, and race (some are indigenous, most are ladinos, of mixed Spanish and Indian decent). They were mothers, fathers, uncles, cousins, brothers, and sisters. Fishermen, artisans, and some agricultural workers made up the population. Some of them were prone to mystical observations, and a few resisted non-literal interpretations of the Bible; yet the majority were open to political explanations and all of them deeply believed in the message of Christianity. At times outsiders joined in, such as Antidio Cabal, his wife, Mayra Jimenéz, Julio Castilla, and Pedro Rafael Gutiérrez. Those who joined in from the outside included students, Latin American revolutionaries and their relatives, poets, journalists, hippies, and the sons and daughters of the Nicaraguan intellectual and economic elites (Cardenal Reference Cardenal, Girabardi, Forcano and Vigil1987, 342; Berryman Reference Berryman1984, 9). Their commitment similarly ranged from very active to occasional participation. Based on a conservative estimate of discussants, we may arrive at the figure of two hundred participants (about twenty percent of the total archipelago population) who actively engaged, although at different times and levels of participation, in religious discussions at Solentiname (Cardenal Reference Cardenal, Girabardi, Forcano and Vigil1987, 341–342). All who came and those who actively participated in discussions spread — for benefit or detriment — the new radical message of the Gospel.
Through historical sources we can identify several Solentinameños who joined the armed struggle (Randall Reference Randall1983, Reference Randall1985; Agudelo and Arcia Reference Agudelo and Arcia1982). Of those whose voices are examined below Alejandro, Felipe, Gloria, Julio Ramon, Laureano, and Manuel enlisted in the armed struggle during the insurrection. Felipe died before revolutionary victory on July 19, 1979. Laureano and Alejandro became Captains in the Sandinista army after the overthrow. Father Cardenal and Mayra played active and prominent roles in the Ministry of Culture during the period of revolutionary institutionalization that followed the installment of the FSLN government.
During the course of religious discussions participants in Solentiname invariably compared their political realities to Gospel scriptures. Biblical verses were used to make sense of and object to state repression in the countryside, governmental corruption, the political, economic, and social consequences of the 1972 earthquake, the manipulation of law in favor of the rich, unfair prices for food, the absence of utilities and social services, the unwarranted attack against peaceful civilian protests, as well as martial law. Biblical verses were similarly used to assign political and religious meaning to guerrilla (FSLN) encounters with state forces, among other ongoing events during the period of political crisis in 1970s Nicaragua. The interlocutors who participated in the seminary at Solentiname, therefore, dialogically used the Biblical verses to make sense of the problems facing them. They also used these to examine the assumptions behind the order of things and to elaborate narratives of resistance and opposition. Their discussions expose how they created a new perception of reality that allowed them to critically question (and for some take action against) the conditions of their socio-political environment.
Solentinameños constructed adversaries as villainous: The devil was compared to the dictator (Somoza), capitalism, and U.S. imperialism; Roman soldiers to the National Guard and U.S. Marines; and the killing of Jesus to the killing of Sandino, a national hero who waged war against U.S. occupation in the 1920s and 1930s. Actions against the state were similarly herocized during dialogues. Interchanges, for example, often centered on how the Sandinistas were a symbolic representation of Jesus the liberator. Spontaneous uprisings on the part of the population and guerrilla attacks against state forces were invariably defensible and virtuous. Using biblical passages from John, Luke, and Matthew to focus discussions on the difference between traditional evangelization and revolutionary Christian praxis, they turned the scriptures into a means for liberation rather than a defense of powerful interests, in this way reinterpreting the meaning of revolution (Cardenal Reference Cardenal1976:87–94,118–34,185–89). Violence as a means to bring about social change similarly assumed a central position in in-group discussions (Cardenal 1982, 257–269, 291–304). Brotherly love, collective charity, and working towards unity and equality were also taken up in discussions as the goals of “true” Christianity.
RELIGIOUS DIALOGUES AS REVOLUTIONARY RESOURCES
Let us now turn to the aforementioned historical dialogues in order to appreciate their potential as revolutionary resources. The discussions under consideration were centered on the familiar Gospel stories of “Turning the Other Cheek,” “John the Baptist Announcing the Messiah,” and “Jesus' Journey into the Wilderness.” They respectively focus on noncompliance with the order of things, the need for a violence of justice as a means to bring about social transformation, and resistance to conventional spirituality. As previously mentioned, these dialogues took place in time at a crucial period of revolutionary politicization, from 1971 to 1976, prior to the onset of the insurrectionary period, 1977–1979. During the course of discussions participants innovatively redefined the conventional meaning of “Turning the Other Cheek” to find, among other things, a way out of poverty. The tale of the “Journey into the Wilderness” functioned as an occasion for participants to reflect on the development of their identity as revolutionary Christians. They also innovatively used the story of “John the Baptist” to reinforce the perceived need to confront state authority. In these dialogues we see participants transforming the order-maintaining meaning of the first — that one must accept whatever fate has befallen oneself — into a call for liberation and appropriating the latter two stories to ethically sanction resistance against the status quo, on the one hand, and taking violent action against the state on the other.
The dialogues evaluated below appear as they have been documented in The Gospel in Solentiname, respectively, in Volumes II, III, and I. I have substantially edited them to highlight important moments of understanding. But I have also allotted space to appreciate the dynamics of dialogue. It is important to acknowledge that, by the time recording of the dialogues by Father Cardenal began, a couple of years had already passed. Father Cardenal addresses this gap in his introduction to each of the four volumes.Footnote 8 At this stage it is clear that a collective identity based on a critical posture toward the Somoza regime had been established. Notwithstanding this gap, the dialogues below bring to light how Solentinameños creatively adapted religious discourse in ways that allowed them to contend with their political realities and maintain revolutionary self-conceptions.
I proceed with an interpretation of each dialogue in order to demonstrate their transformational potential as resources of political innovation and revolutionary self-consciousness development. I then analyze the role Father Cardenal played in Solentiname. I conclude by addressing the significance of religion, seminary sites, and religious-based discussions for revolution.
Turning the Other Cheek …
But to you who hear me I say: “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who insult you.”
(Luke 6:27–28)Father Cardenal: There was a long silence. Nobody spoke. We heard only the hubbub of some children playing in the church, and outside the murmur of the lake. I asked if anyone had any comments to make. Everyone kept silent. “What do you say, Laureano? Don't you want to speak?”
Laureano, a young local activist: He smiled and said: “No, I don't want to speak; that nonsense is very confusing. That's crazy.”
Olivia, Alejandro's mother: “That's a very difficult thing, but we have to do it, because the gospel orders us to do it. The words are very clear.”
Father Cardenal: I asked if they thought this was practiced much here in Solentiname. And some answered Yes and others No.
Andrea: “Nonsense! We answer evil with evil. When they insult us, we insult back.”
Marcelino, Rebeca's husband: “If we hate, we are no longer struggling against the enemy … We are the enemy, because we are evil … He says we must love the enemy, he doesn't say we can't fight them … If they hate, the weapon against them is love. The difference between us and the enemy is that we fight them without wanting to oppress them, only to liberate them. They do hate us. But we are no longer the opposite of them if we answer hatred with hatred … it is with love that we can defend ourselves.”
If someone strikes you on the one cheek, offer him also the other cheek. And if someone takes your coat from you, let him have your shirt also.
(Luke 6:29)Julio Ramon: “Does this mean that the poor person must suffer and let people take his things away from him?”
Laureano: “It seems to me that this applies to the rich: They should let people take their things from them. He talks about a coat, right? And poor people are always in shirtsleeves [laughter]. So when the revolution comes and their farms are taken away, their factories, their extra houses, they shouldn't put up any resistance. And if they lose one piece of property, let them offer up the other piece.”
Felipe, another young local activist: “Let them give it up freely and give more than is asked of them. This is for the haves. What can the poor give, if they don't have anything? The Christian should be detached from everything, not wanting to defend property with force.”
Manuel: “Then what it says about the other cheek is only for the rich, and the poor should never turn the other the cheek?”
Father Cardenal: “This is also a precept for the poor, and it is very revolutionary. I mean that we must pass over own personalities, put aside all personal pride and all individualism, [and] fight not for our own interests but for those of other people. This doesn't mean not to fight. It means not to fight for yourself but for others. And Christ says to turn the other cheek, but it's your other cheek, not the other cheek of other people. Christians who don't fight for the revolution aren't turning either one of their two cheeks. They're turning the cheeks of undernourished children, of the hopelessly ill, of abandoned widows, of workers robbed of their work.”
William Agudelo: “And I believe that in the revolutionary struggle, turning the other cheek, your own other cheek, is also a very effective weapon. The man who gives the punch feels worse than the man who takes the punch. The work stoppage, the peaceful demonstration in front of guards armed with machine guns, the hunger strike, the takeover of factories or churches or universities: all these are turning the other cheek.”
Alejandro, Olivia's son: “A clarification: It's a different thing to let yourself be beaten because you're a weak or a coward. You do it because you're brave. And sometimes maybe you won't turn the other cheek but will react differently. When Jesus was beaten in the house of Caiaphas, he protested against the man who struck him, and he reasoned with him. Maybe by this he was trying to show us what he meant by ‘turning the other cheek.’”
Julio Ramon: “… The poor have to defend what little they have because what they have isn't enough for them. Can the rich take things away from the poor?”
Rebeca: “Jesus is talking inside the justice area. Everything is justice there, because the Gospel has no injustice. Everything will have to be done with justice, without exploiting anybody. We have to give ourselves to each other, but all inside the justice area, with no exploitation, no selfishness among us.”
Andacito: “If we all ought to give things to each other, how much should the rich hand over what does not belong to them, and how much more reason there is to keep the rich from taking things from the poor.”
Gloria, Olivia's daughter: “Well, the only thing to do is to struggle so we'll all live equal, nobody will exploit us, nobody will oppress us, nobody will be rich, nobody will be poor” (Cardenal Reference Cardenal1982a, 112–118).
The familiar story of “Turning the other cheek” in this dialogical context — contrary to the conventional wisdom that the poor must humbly accept the order of things — is innovatively defined as a recipe for the rich to relinquish their valuable possessions; innovatively interpreted as an ethical command for the poor not to turn away from the “undernourished children,” “the hopelessly ill,” “abandoned widows,” and economic exploitation; and innovatively crafted as a call for social transformation. It also means learning how to develop as agents of change, as part of their revolutionary commitment. The latter entails being brave and participating in “The work stoppage … peaceful demonstration[s] … the hunger strike[s], [and] the tak[ing] over of factories or churches or universities.” “Turning the other cheek” requires not compliance with the way things are, but the opposite, engaging in political praxes to change them. In the end, it is a strategy to embody God's command to love one another.
The Kingdom of Heaven and Violence …
From the time of the coming of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and those who use force try to seize the kingdom.
(Matthew11:12)
Antidio Cabal: “[This] means that John the Baptist brought something new with respect to the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom was accepted up until he arrived, it seems. When he arrived, something new was introduced. This newness will be the antagonism it produced in the authorities… . It could [also] be understood, or maybe not, that they're talking about two [kinds of] violence. He says: ‘Up to now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence’; and later he says: ‘Those who use force try to seize it.’ It seems that it is a question of two [kinds of] violence, the violence brought by John, who understands the kingdom of heaven in a way different from how it was formerly understood; and the violence of people who have power, the power of arms and money, that is, authority, and who are opposed to the renewal that John the Baptist brings… . It seems that Jesus is talking here about violence and force. There's the violence of people who want to change what is evil, and force of the establishment that tries to prevent things from changing.”
All the prophets and the law of Moses spoke of the kingdom until John came.
(Matthew11:13)Mayra Jiménez: “It occurs to me, Ernesto, that perhaps John brings a new concept of the kingdom of heaven (kingdom of heaven that is the bringing about of perfect equality and justice on earth) and that necessarily creates violence: a violence in the first place within ourselves, and an external violence that wants to take possession of heaven and snatch heaven from us like a prize of war.”
Julio Castilla, a worker from Juigalpa: “John told them something really screwy: now is the hour for change.”
Father Cardenal: “He told them: ‘Now is the revolution.’ And that's why since John came violence came… . The violence that we ourselves must make, and the external violence, as Mayra says.”
Antidio Cabal: “We could also say that violence is a kind of force that wants to change an unjust situation, while force is a kind of violence that does not want an unjust situation to change. The first represents the renewers … it is constructive, positive violence, and the violence of justice, that exists only because of the existence of the force that is the violence of injustice. It's what is happening right now. … justice conquered by violence in accordance to this text. So we're referring, with this language, to a current political and social situation, right now, which exists in many countries in the Americas … but which comes from John the Baptist.”
Esperanza: “I see that what Christ says began to exist with John the Baptist is the same thing that has begun to exist with us with the Gospel. We had religion, a lot of religion throughout the country, but it didn't mean a thing. Only now, when we're beginning to discover the Gospel in all its passages, does it have to bring violence because of course it goes against the rich. So, it's something violent because the rich are not about to let their things be taken from them. So each part of the Gospel brings violence, which we have to create, then, even if we don't want it.”
Olivia: “And you could also say: the violence of love and the violence of injustice, those are the two [kinds of] violence. Because there is a just violence, a violence of love that wants to put an end to injustice with the Gospel, with love among people.”
Olivia: “But revolutionary violence exists to put an end once and for all to all violence and to bring love into being.”
Antidio Cabal: “And when it says that those who use force try to conquer it, I start thinking that Christianity has been conquered by that force for two thousand years … This kingdom that they are trying to build was blocked by the people who had the force, who were rulers of the world (of weapons, of money, and of culture). They have opposed Christ's plan to establish justice. Injustice was perpetuated. You could say they snatched the Kingdom and they have kept it snatched” (Cardenal Reference Cardenal1982b, 218–250).
In this other dialogic context achieving liberation through violence is the primary theme of discussion. Violence as an option is discussed in light of significant moments of revolutionary understanding: A revolutionary Christian realizes that the prophet John the Baptist and the Messiah are revolutionaries; that the Bible is a reliable source for the interpretation of an unjust reality; and that the present time of injustice is the historical context of action. The dialogue begins with a Biblical verse that calls attention to the resistance Jesus encountered in his day. During the course of discussion seminary participants get a chance to explore the obstacles revolutionary transformation meets as it emerges and unfolds. As it was in the days of Jesus, the revolutionary struggle in Nicaragua encounters the obstacles of state authority and ignorance. To counter the effects of these obstacles, the interlocutors innovatively define violence as a manifestation of love and as a necessary vehicle of social transformation. Theirs is a violence of liberation as opposed to oppression.
Dialogue participants learn in discussion how violent injustice defers change and how a violence of justice facilitates it. A violence of justice, therefore, is the weapon of renewers, a new strategy that must be embraced by Christians who take it upon themselves to transform their unjust society into a just one. Discussants also learn that in order to recover the original message of the Gospel “to love one another” they must embody a dormant revolutionary legacy. In other words, they must emulate the early Christians and the Messiah by not wavering when confronted with the force and violence of authority as they strive to change their nation for the better. Felipe draws the important conclusion in a subsequent section of the dialogue that “people have no reason to be afraid of revolutions,” because revolutionary involvement simply means to stand for Jesus' and John the Baptist's Christianity. Indeed, as Father Cardenal explained in another occasion: “The promised land is described in the Bible; there no social injustice and no poor people would exist, and land would be equally distributed among all the tribes… . Christ came to reveal to us that such a kingdom had arrived with him … [But] there was a division in the Church, a division that came from the struggle between classes, where the church of the poor and the church of the rich emerged. The only true Church of Christ is the church of the poor. The other church will eventually expire because the coming revolution will take over the earth” (Randall Reference Randall1983, 93, 97. Translation by author).
The Temptations in the Wilderness
And the devil said to him: “I will give you all this power and the greatness of these kingdoms. For I have received all of this and I give it to anybody I choose. If you will kneel down and worship me, it will all be yours.”
(Luke 4:6–7)
Laureano: “He is like a politician, that devil. Because that's what the political campaigns are like. A man comes into a town and makes all kinds of promises and people will vote for him. And people do vote for him and afterwards he doesn't give them shit.”
Toño: “There is one thing here: The devil is making him a false proposal. He tells Jesus that he is going to give him all the power and the riches of the world, and Jesus, by refusing, is stating that the true master is himself, that is, all of humanity. And he doesn't have to adore the devil to get him to give Jesus what is rightly his. And that's our situation, too.”
Father Cardenal: “The devil is the master of pride, of haughtiness, of the power of people over people. This is his nature, and this is what he gives his people. That's what he offers to Jesus and Jesus rejects it.”
Someone: “Riches do not belong to the devil. It's the selfishness of the rich – that belongs to him.”
Afterwards the devil took him to the city of Jerusalem and he took him up to the highest point of the temple and he said to him: “If you are truly the Son of God cast yourself down from here; because in the Scripture it says: God will order his angels to take care of you”
(Luke 4:9–10)
Pedro Rafael Gutiérrez, a journalist: “I see a picture here too: The devil took Jesus up, just as he seizes many of us and lifts us into certain positions. It says: ‘He seized him and he took him up.’ So to some he gives riches, he gives power, he gives greatness. And once these people are powerful then comes the temptation to screw the weak, to oppress them. And he said: ‘No don't tempt me!’ As I see it, there is a temptation of the devil, which is to raise people up, to lift us to the heights and then let us fall.”
Felipe: “I see that the devil tempts him by saying ‘because the Scriptures say.’ It is just like a lot of Catholics and Protestants use the Bible to defend their interests. They say: The Scriptures say such and such a thing … And it is all to exploit us.”
And another: “It is like when they say to the poor: You've got to respect the property of the rich because it comes to them from God.”
And still another: “And there's another temptation too: not doing anything, thinking all you have to do is pray, like a lot of Catholics believe; or read the Bible and be very religious” (Cardenal 1976, 118–126).
In this third dialogue we see seminary participants discuss revolution primarily in terms of virtuous Christian conduct in the face of challenges that potentially undermine it. The dialogue serves as an occasion to explore the possible ways that keep Christians from minding the practice of love. “Political campaigns” that promise falsehoods, the temptation of power, pride and haughtiness, the assumption that people are powerless, the use of scripture to defend the status quo or the interests of the rich, the seduction of illegitimate gain, and the belief that all that matters is the habit of prayer and ritual can potentially derail or hinder, unless one possesses discernment, the establishment of a community of love. All in all, the interchange is a cautionary tale against false beliefs (i.e., people are powerless, the scriptures condemn the poor, religious contemplation is enough), false practices (i.e., the habits of prayer and religious rituals suffice for a virtuous life, the misuse of scripture is inconsequential), and false seductions (i.e., the promise of a better political future and the prospect of earthly power and pride). It is a self-reflexive occasion to examine the problems associated with a spirituality that goes along with the order of things. A true Christian, the dialogue reminds its interlocutors, must be mindful of Christian praxis, her commitment to the poor and changing the world for the better. She must endure in the face of challenges knowing that selling oneself to the comforts of things, to politics as usual, and to the religion of order that the status quo offers means to conform to an unjust system. Revolution in this dialogical context is more than material transformation. It requires a religious culture oriented to social change. The dialogue reinforces the emerging understanding that social transformation includes and requires self-transformation.
THE SOLENTINAME SETTING, FATHER CARDENAL, AND THE ARTICULATION OF RESISTANCE
The seminary setting in Solentiname provided an opportunity for “religious men and women … [to] rework the meaning of their faith” through dialogue “in a context charged with concern for linking religious values to the issues and conflicts” associated with their socio-political reality. “As a result, traditional religious symbols [and] messages … gradually took on new meanings, spurring and underscoring a new understanding … and new commitments for dealing with it” (Levine Reference Levine and Levine1986, 7). The dialogues examined above, as with many others that took place in Solentiname, suggest that religious language (and words), when dialogically appropriated in the context of a growing revolutionary crisis, operated as a counter-hegemonic force. They reflect an understanding of the scriptures in light of Vatican II, papal encyclicals, and the Episcopal conferences in Medellín and Puebla. The new language of condemnation and liberation with its respective focus on institutional violence and injustices on the one hand and consciousness-raising, opting for the poor, and political mobilization on the other is projected in the discussions. But it is also apparent that interlocutors read their faith as a source for equality, justice, and liberation by holding onto their real life conditions as a basis of interpretation. Their social environment — e.g., rural poverty, arbitrary state repression, economic exploitation, political corruption, and an expanding revolutionary situation — was not an alien reality but rather a setting that imposed on them an ongoing process of social criticism, one that they cultivated through familiar Christian stories. As such, participants routinely found “new pearls in the Scripture texts, despite the fact that they” had been “led to believe that those ‘above’ (authorities, politicians, priests, teachers, doctors) ha[d] the word” (Berryman Reference Berryman1984, 22, emphasis in original). The dialogues in Solentiname, therefore, made it possible for discussants — both Solentinameños and visitors — to rediscover religion as a legitimate source of political critique. This in turn made it possible for them to pose challenges to contemporary economic, social, and political conditions.Footnote 9 But dialogues also provided an opportunity for interlocutors to “interpret their situation as other than immutable” and to “learn to regard their situation as requiring intervention, especially their own intervention” (Misgeld Reference Misgeld and Forester1988, 105).
The leadership role Father Cardenal played in the seminary is also significant. Liberation priests helped the faithful confront the values and habits of acquiesce, fatalism, indifference and silence, and conformity with injustices through the rearticulation of the content of religion (Foroohar Reference Foroohar1989; Bradstock Reference Bradstock1987; Berryman Reference Berryman1984). To be specific, they helped refocus the discourse of religion from one that emphasized accepting the world to one that aimed at transforming it. This meant that familiar beliefs such as “God made us poor and we don't need to change” and “Christ came to teach us how to suffer” increasingly fell to the background and new ones such as “God has seen our suffering and He is on our side” and “Christ fought for the freedom of the poor; therefore we must follow His example” ascended to the foreground. This refocusing entailed activating latent themes in the discourse of religion, e.g., social equality, justice, and liberation, among others; defining Moses, John the Baptist, and Christ, among other religious figures, as revolutionary heroes; and giving contemporary relevance to biblical events and struggles that underscored the Christian duty to oppose injustice and strive for the formation of harmonious communities.Footnote 10 Such refocusing in the end facilitated the transformation of religion itself from being a resource for conformity to one for resistance. This new religious accent of resistance — always achieved in dialogue — instilled in people a sense of purpose and commitment to social change. Liberation priests as a result were often seen by many as the “voice of the voiceless” and defenders of human rights who gave legitimacy to existing calls for change in both Christian and non-Christian sectors. They were organic intellectuals who personified and symbolized the change that was to come. To the extent that their public addresses and their participation in seminary discussions identified the agents, antagonists, and targets of change, they helped to give voice to the ongoing experiences of oppression and hopeful moments of dissent, as well as deepened the meaning of taking action against the Somoza regime. While many members of the traditional Catholic Church saw self-defense as “a sinful matter,”Footnote 11 liberation priests saw the revolutionary struggle as the only option. As a matter of course many “relinquished their cassocks to join the guerrillas.”Footnote 12
Unlike other Catholic priests who remain loyal to the magisterium of the official church, Father Cardenal is noticeably someone with the people who willing participated in the crafting of a political narrative that defied and legitimated action against a depressed national (but individually experienced) reality. He became involved in the revolutionary struggle out of moral outrage, and because he saw his involvement as ethically justified by Christian principles and sanctioned by the Episcopal conference in Medellín (Mulligan Reference Mulligan1991). Like other liberation priests, Farther Cardenal, also played an essential role in consciousness-raising by generating and leading open discussions on participants' oppressive social conditions at the seminary settings. As an organic intellectual, he gave relevance to existing social and political conditions by drawing on stories and themes from the Gospel during the course of discussions. By organizing weekly seminaries he provided a space for group discussants to become “critical co-investigators” of their reality (Freire Reference Freire1970, 81). In short, Father Cardenal helped establish a counter-hegemonic site where people learned how to critically talk, reflect, and act together toward the liberation of themselves, their (religious) cultures, and their communities.
CONCLUSION: ON THE REVOLUTIONARY POTENTIAL OF RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE
Under oppressive political and social conditions many religious in Nicaragua transformed the status quo features of religious discourse into disruptive ones through dialogue. Their experience of a growing revolutionary crisis “propose[d] new questions” (Thompson Reference Thompson1995, 9) to them, which opened the door to new religious interpretations and understandings of their situations. In dialogue they used their Christian beliefs to denounce injustices, or as one Christian revolutionary aptly put it, to say “stop man, don't torture that being.”Footnote 13 As a para-institution, the seminary in Solentiname — and similar cultural sites — contributed to the formation of a radical Christian collective identity that made it possible for the religious to realize that “one had to struggle, one had to work, and one had to put forth a strong effort to achieve liberation.”Footnote 14 It was in their religious language that individuals found an already present, but inactive, “counter-hegemony,” that they were able to activate through dialogue — as they dialogically transformed religious stories and themes — into fighting words and revolutionary stances, and for some, e.g., Alejandro, Felipe, Gloria, Julio Ramon, Laureano, and Manuel — motives for armed revolutionary action. The actual process of revolution for revolutionary Christians was, therefore, constituted, animated, and maintained by and within the very religious dialogues in which they engaged. Religious language, in this historical case, proved to be the arena of struggle and the dialogues based on them the vehicle through which discussants assigned revolutionary meanings to it.
Bible-focused dialogues in Solentiname effectively mediated the relationship “between ‘objective’ relations of exploitation and oppression, and political action” (Foran Reference Foran1993, 11). They allowed many to make sense of the political repression and social inequality the Somoza regime imposed upon them. Seminary participants were also able to “formulate, share, and articulate their collective identities and interests” through their religious discussions (Steinberg 1999b, 240). To be specific, the dialogues functioned as diagnostic occasions of political situations, facilitated the emergence of oppositional understandings, and helped translate and give meaning to an ongoing revolutionary situation. During the course of Bible-centered discussions seminary participants: (1) worked to make sense of issues, problems, and questions associated with their realities; (2) examined the assumptions behind the thinking and ideas that stood in the way of changing things for the better; and (3) developed a common language of opposition. Dialogues also became occasions to inform the context, meaning, and rationale for action. The three dialogues in question, for example, focused on what could potentially and actually be done and how participants could orient themselves to the resolution of the political problems facing them. In their dialogues seminary participants critically questioned the conventional uses of religious discourse. As such they were able to innovatively change the meaning of religious discourse (e.g., the scriptures do not condemn the poor, “True” Christians need not take the order of things for granted; committed Christians can use violence as a forward strategy to achieve justice). They similarly developed revolutionary Christian self-conceptions (e.g., a committed Christian is duty bound to resist false beliefs, to be brave, to occupy factories, churches, and universities, and to confront the force of false authority). To the extent that dialogues reinforced their discourse-based new visions of justice, seminary participants in Solentiname were able to cultivate commitment for change and as such authenticated in their eyes revolution as the viable option.
