In Way Over His Head

Simps thinks that David Bentley Hart is an "ultra reactionary".   Yeah, you can tell how much of one he is by his article that caused huge controversy among conservative theologians when he told them that their natural law arguments against gay marriage didn't work.  And you can also tell what an ultra reactionary he is by his slamming capitalism like in the video I posted last night which Simps claims to have listened to.

What Hart is is subtle, too subtle for someone who is as lazy and illiterate as Simps to even begin to comprehend.

Actually, Hart isn't, as Simps declares "my favorite theologian".  I don't happen to have an official one,  though I would definitely say that James Cone, the great Black liberation theologian is probably about my favorite current theologian.  Here, again, is his preaching the ordination sermon of the radical journalist, Chris Hedges.

The Latino liberation theologians, such as Gustavo Gutierrez,  are right up there.

 I do have a favorite book of theology, I've quoted it many times and mentioned it many times, The Gospel in Solentiname, the great classic of radical New Testament theology as articulated by Nicaraguan peasants who worshiped at a Christian base community which was destroyed by bombs by the dictatorship supported by the United States government.  I've never made any secret of that.  The priest who initiated the discussions that are recorded in the book and who compiled it was  Ernesto Cardenal. the priest who Pope John Paul II shook his finger at and forced into retirement from the priesthood, a monk who had been trained in the United States by the liberal, critic of the Vietnam war and all round 1960s radical, Thomas Merton.  The last interview I read with him, he was a critic of the current Nicaraguan government under Daniel Ortega because he had betrayed the ideals of the Sandinista movement, the one that Reagan conducted his dirty war against.
Here's a Rawstory piece about him from a year ago.

On  the eve of his 90th birthday, storied Nicaraguan poet and priest Ernesto Cardenal laments what he calls the betrayal of the Sandinista revolution by President Daniel Ortega. 

Ordained a Catholic priest in 1965, Cardenal left a mainly farming community he founded on the Solentiname Islands to join Sandinista rebels fighting against the Somoza family regime, which had ruled the country for nearly half a century.

“It was a beautiful revolution. But what happened is that it was betrayed,” said Cardenal, who turns 90 on Tuesday, in an interview at the Nicaraguan Writers Center in Managua.

“There is now the family dictatorship of Daniel Ortega. That’s not what we fought for.”

Cardenal insisted he does not regret having supported the revolution, but minces no words when it comes to Ortega, who first came to power with the Sandinista National Liberation Front in the 1979 revolution.

Ortega ruled until 1990 and then returned in 2007 for a second stint as president, amassing “all the powers of the country” and “fabulously enriching himself,” Cardenal said.

Hunched over and walking with the help of a cane, his thick white mane covered in part by a trademark beret, Cardenal speaks ardently of a long life of accomplishments as a politician, priest, sculptor, translator, poet and author of numerous works that have been translated into some 20 languages.

Cardenal, who made international headlines in 1983 when the late Pope John Paul II publicly reprimanded him during a visit to Managua for supporting the revolution, no longer has the same boundless energy as before. But he remains in good health.

– Protagonist of revolutionary struggle –

Adamant that religion “cannot be oblivious to political struggles,” Cardenal celebrated Mass in the guerrilla camps, helped create an international network of solidarity with the fighters, served as Sandinista spokesman when guerrilla leaders were in hiding and participated with Ortega in the Sandinistas’ triumphant entry into Managua in July 1979.


“It was the feast of a people who had never seen anything like it in their 500-year history,” Cardenal recalled in his book “The Lost Revolution” (2004).

Cardenal has said of The Gospel in Solentiname that it is his best book because it wasn't written by him but by the peasants whose theology is profoundly insightful in a way that academic theology seldom can be because these peoples' lives were the subject of the Gospel, the ones who are the focus of its message. That is what makes it such a great book.