Ideas Have Consequences

The Solution to Postmodernism with Héctor Ramírez

• Disciple Nations Alliance • Season 2 • Episode 34

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What happens when a committed communist finds faith in Christianity? Héctor Ramírez, our special guest, shares his gripping journey from embracing Marxist ideology in his small Colombian hometown to being transformed by Christ. His remarkable story highlights the impact of faith, beauty, and the arts in bridging the gap between truth and today's postmodern, post-Christian societies. Héctor helps us consider how we might best navigate postmodern thinking as believers. To help us, we discuss the cultural shift from modernity to postmodernity and examine the challenges of a post-truth era, where emotions often overshadow reason and science. This conversation is crucial for understanding how the Church can effectively communicate the Bible in our day. Héctor shares his thoughts on utilizing beauty and art as a vessel for truth, and considers how this can foster spiritual reflection and bring a cultural shift away from postmodernism.

Héctor Ramírez:

Many Christians are not able to discern the times in which we live, and this is a very dangerous situation to find yourself in, because if you don't know the time in which you live, you might be embracing ideologies which sound good sound but have nothing to do with the gospel.

Luke Allen:

Hi friends, welcome to Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Scott Allen:

Well, welcome again everybody to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the Disciple Nations Alliance, joined today by colleagues and friends Darrell Miller, luke Allen, and today we have a special guest and are thrilled to have with us Hector Ramirez. Hector, it's great to have you. Thanks for taking time to join us.

Héctor Ramírez:

Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.

Scott Allen:

Hector is joining us from Madrid, spain, and so thanks for staying up late to be with us, hector. Just a little bit about Hector. He is an actor and a theater director. He's formerly a committed communist and he became a Christian and worked with Youth with a Mission, ywam for about 11 years in various countries around the world, mainly focused on the European continent. He has been the founder and the director of the Ars Performing Arts Center in Madrid, spain. He's done that for about 12 years and he and his wife Lily founded the Ars Vitalis Foundation with their son Danny, and he and his wife Lily founded the Ars Vitalis Foundation with their son Danny. They've been implementing an arts ministry that aims at reaching and connecting a postmodern, post-christian society with the gospel message.

Scott Allen:

So that's a little bit about you, hector, and maybe we could just start. I guess I would love to have you share a little bit more, hector, if you don't mind. A little bit more of your story. I'm especially intrigued by what I just read there, where you said you were a former communist. So tell us a little bit more of your story, hector. Yeah.

Héctor Ramírez:

Yeah, well, I was born in Colombia, in South America, okay, and my first interest in the theater began when I was about eight years old. It happened in my little town, which is a town called El Socorro, which is a small historical town, probably similar to Jamestown or Williamsburg in the US. It's a very historical town where Spanish people came and settled there and every year they put something similar to a mystery play or a morality play that takes place in the town's main square, and I went with my parents as a little boy to watch the show and since then I fell in love with the theater. It was a huge show, you know, a morality play where most of the town took place in the whole thing, and I was so surprised and it just caught me by surprise. I had never been in anything like that and I think I was about 80 years old and I completely fell in love with the theatre since then.

Héctor Ramírez:

Then I asked my parents to take me to theatre classes and there was something they called a culture house in the town where they used to teach music, dance and theatre. So my parents agreed and they took me when I was nine years old to take theatre classes to the culture house and it just happened that at that time in Colombia most of the educational and intellectual world had begun to be taken by Marxist ideology. So my theatre teachers were militants in that Marxist ideology and of course my indoctrination into Marxism started at that early age in my life. Then, by the age of 18, I was already working in the professional theater and participating in all kinds of political activities and activism, but but my life somehow was not very happy. Deep inside I knew my life was empty and I began to feel an urgent need to some kind of a spiritual experience in my life. It was also the time of pop concerts and you all know this concert in the UK, the Woodstock concert.

Héctor Ramírez:

You know, in the fields where all the music groups were playing and you know, kids were jumping up and down, and so that was also going on in Colombia and we had people like James Brown and Santana and these people coming to play there.

Scott Allen:

So I was you had a Woodstock in Colombia. I didn't know that.

Héctor Ramírez:

Oh yeah, yeah, it was huge, it was huge Wow, okay, at that time, yeah, so I remember that in those concerts, I mean especially one which was very similar to the Woodstock, it was up in the mountains and you know kids, you know 15, 17, 18 years old, jumping up and down and enjoying, you know rock and sex and drugs and all these kinds of things. And there was a group which was called the Hare Krishna movement, which was led by Guru Maharaj, which was very popular at that time, and also there was another group called the Children of God, which was a sort of a Christian sect, and so I met those people there in that concert and I think from that on, some kind of a search for God started in my life. Then, at one point I was invited to an evangelical church by a guy. I have no time to tell the whole story, but somebody invited me to go to this evangelical church and one Sunday morning I just got up and went to this place. I had never been to an evangelical church. I was brought up as a Catholic in all the Spanish countries or Catholic countries, and so I had never been to an evangelical church at all.

Héctor Ramírez:

So I went to that church that morning and for the first time in my life I heard as somebody preaching the Word of God and I remember I got to that church and I sat in the last pew and I was, and as I sat down there I was completely focused on what the guy was saying. I could hardly see the guy because I was in the last pew, but I was hearing very clearly what he was saying and he was preaching from a gasp, from a passage in the gospel where it was about the pearl of great price, and I had never heard the Bible preached in such a way. I could not come out of my amazement. And when I was listening to this guy and I was used to discussing political issues, religious issues, philosophical issues with people, but when I sat down that morning in the church I was completely in awe. I didn't know what to do. All I knew was that what this guy was saying was not human. I felt there's something here I had never experienced in my life.

Héctor Ramírez:

Anyway, the sermon finished and then a guy, a guy, a young guy came up to me and asked me what I had to do that evening and that day. We were taking part in the most important theatre festival that takes place in all Latin America and Colombia was at that time the host of that festival. There were people coming, theatre companies coming from all over the American countries and even from Spain, and it was the most important time of the year for us as a theatre company. But that day it just happened that we had nothing going on in the theater, so I was free. I had nothing to do. So I said, oh yeah, well, in fact, I have nothing to do this evening. So he said well, would you like to come to another meeting we have this evening? And I said, yes, of course I will.

Héctor Ramírez:

And I went and it was a charismatic meeting where a wire warmer, an American missionary, was preaching in that church. Of course, I didn't know that. I found out later on and as I I got to the church and they had already started their worship time. So when I go there, you know, everybody was, you know, raising their hands and eyes closed, worshiping, and it really caught me by surprise. Again, I felt I was entering into heaven somehow, but I didn't know what was going on. You know, I had never seen anything like that.

Héctor Ramírez:

Anyway, the YWAMer got to the pulpit and he preached and he invited people who wanted to receive Christ to come to the front. And I jumped off my seat and I went to the front and I said I don't believe in God, but if he exists I want to know him. And it was White Almond for those of you who know YWAMers. It was White Almond for those of you who know White Womans. And he prayed for me.

Héctor Ramírez:

And as soon as he began to pray for me, I completely broke down. I fell on the floor on my knees and I was crying and crying, and crying and I didn't know what was going on with me. I was just crying and crying and saying God, forgive me, forgive me, but I didn't know anything. I just felt I don't know. It was such an experience to me that it was so clear that God had met me and I didn't want to come out of that church that night because I felt so embraced in love and goodness and forgiveness that I didn't want to get out of that place anymore.

Héctor Ramírez:

Well, the service finished and I went out of the church and I can tell you, I could literally fly. I felt so light in my life that I couldn't feel my feet on the ground. I mean to the point that the only real Christian in my family was my mother, and of course she was praying for all of us. But I was the most difficult I'm the oldest of a family of 12 and and I was the oldest guy and the most rebellious and I was in communism and I was in every weird thing that you could get into. So my mom had hope in all of my other brothers and sisters, but not in me.

Héctor Ramírez:

But of course she was praying for me, of course, and so when I got home that day, that night, I was still staying with my parents and I told my mom, mom, mom, I became a Christian, I met Christ, and I was so excited. My mom thought I had gone crazy. She thought whatever happened to my son, you know, and it took her about two weeks to realize I had really become a Christian. And then my mom bought me the Bible I still use for my Bible studies, and she gave it to me two weeks later.

Héctor Ramírez:

So it was such a wonderful experience, yeah, so that's how I became a Christian.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, that's a powerful, wonderful story.

Luke Allen:

Praise God, hector I just thank God for the way that he loves us and works in our lives in that way.

Scott Allen:

Absolutely. Tell us about. Connect your experiences there, hector, you know, as you became a Christian and you had that big life-changing experience to what you're doing now. Maybe you could explain a little bit about the way that you're connecting art and theater with this vision to reach, as you said earlier, a postmodern, post-christian society. Explain that a little bit. Tell our listeners a little bit about what you're doing right now.

Héctor Ramírez:

This is a long story.

Scott Allen:

We'll try to keep it a little bit shorter.

Héctor Ramírez:

Yes, I would not be able to tell you the whole background and how the whole.

Darrow Miller:

Thing developed.

Héctor Ramírez:

But what I can tell you now is that you know, coming from the theater background, when I joined YWAM, I was working with YWAM, you know, going into different countries and different places, preaching the gospel through music, dance and theater, doing evangelism in different places, you know, in the streets, in schools, in theatres, in different places. But after 11 years of being with YWAM, I felt it was time for me to move on. But I did not really know what God had for me. So I needed to find my way, my way with God after that.

Héctor Ramírez:

But my main struggle was to find out what was God's calling in my life concerning the arts, because I was not completely sure about being a professional actor and being a Christian, and that was something that in the 80s, you know, christians had the idea that that might not be a good thing to do, you know. So I was really struggling to find out. You know, what am I supposed to do, god? Do I have a calling in the arts? Should I be working in the theater or in the arts? As a Christian, what am I going to do with my life? So God took me to the UK to study English, because my English was not good enough. So I went to study English there and somehow and this is how God does things I landed in London into the what was called the arts, the Christian Arts Center group, and this is a group which was started in the 70s, I think, by Nigel Goodwin, cliff Richard and another guy.

Scott Allen:

Cliff Richard.

Héctor Ramírez:

Cliff Richard, yes, it was.

Scott Allen:

Cliff Richard Okay, yeah, he's a famous pop musician from my early days, right yeah.

Héctor Ramírez:

Oh yeah, absolutely. He is like Elvis Presley for the British people, but the American people don't know him. But he's the big star for British people and he became a Christian in a campaign of Billy Graham. And so in the 1970s he and Nigel Goodwin Nigel Goodwin I don't know if you know him, but he's a British actor who actually also became a Christian and he also came from Marxism, who actually also became a Christian, and he also came from Marxism, but he felt a strong calling in his life to encourage Christian artists.

Darrow Miller:

He was also involved with Labrie, as I recall.

Héctor Ramírez:

Absolutely. Actually, this is where he got most of his understanding, because he got to meet Francis Schaeffer and Hans Ruckmacher and so he was part of the LaPree community for some time when they were studying and researching there. So he came back to London and he started, together with Cliff, this art center group. So, providentially, god brought me there and I began to be part of those meetings and Nigel Goodwin is the guy who got used to help me to, you know, clarify things in my mind and brought me back to the theater. So after my time in the UK, I knew that God had something for me in the theatre and that I had to go back into the theatre again. So I began to read a lot, because something that I also needed, coming from my previous communist background, was making sense of my Christian faith in a more kind of intellectual, rational way, in a more kind of intellectual, rational way, and I got to know names like Francis Schaeffer, cs Lewis, dietrich Bonhoeffer, chesterton, johann Wiesinger and a Spanish Christian philosopher who is one of the best philosophers we have, who is called Julian Marias. And I began to read most of their books. I think I have probably most of CS Lewis's books and most of Schaeffer's books and Hans Ruckmacher's and all. I read and read and read and read, because I felt I needed to make sense of my Christian faith, but also I needed to make sense of the creative imagination. What is the nature of the creative gift? And this is what I realized at that time that was missing in most of the christian world. A god took us and the.

Héctor Ramírez:

Of course, as I said, this is a long story, but at one point god took me and my wife into a sabbatical to America. We traveled all through North America, canada and the US trying to do some research into what was going on in the arts in were taking place in the 90s in America and also in Europe, because we travel into different countries in Europe was somehow people speaking to the choir. They were not reaching the postmodern, post-christian society in which we lived, and this is a big issue which, again, I don't have the time to go into the whole thing. But doing that research, god put in my mind, in my heart. I needed to do some research into post-modernism and post-Christianity and, to my surprise, I was absolutely shocked because I realized I was living in a world I didn't know there had been a paradigm shift in the Western society and most of the people didn't know what was the whole thing about.

Héctor Ramírez:

And this is the reason for our ministry in Spain, you know, after coming to terms with the idea of what is the nature of the creative gift from a Christian perspective, and then what is the world in which we live, which is a post-Christian, post-modern you could call it apostate world. So how can we, in this situation, using the creative gift, find ways of connecting with this completely different society? This is quite an issue, because I feel somehow that in many quarters of the church we are missing, we are not being able to connect with our society anymore, because we still live in a frame of mind which is what you can call a modern frame of mind, but the society is not there anymore. They are in the postmodern world of mind. And I can just give you one very short.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, I was going to say, hector, explain that just a little bit for our listeners the difference in your view between a modern mindset and a postmodern mindset.

Héctor Ramírez:

Yeah, again, this is a long thing to do, but I just can explain this in one sentence. Postmodern times means and actually in 2016, the Oxford Dictionary which is a publication I think it takes place every two years of the Oxford Dictionary. They put for the first time in the dictionary the word post-truth, and that means that we live in a post-truth era, in which truth is not necessary anymore for anything in life. All that counts are opinions, feelings and emotions, and this is the postmodern mentality. But more than that, what really counts is my own opinion, and my own opinion has to be accepted as good, but I don't need to use reason or common sense to make sense of what I'm saying. This is the postmodern mentality, which means I am… Rather, it's feelings and emotions that are driving it, as opposed to reason.

Héctor Ramírez:

Yeah, reason is not there anymore. Reason has disappeared, and this is the postmodern mentality. In the postmodern mentality, in the modern mentality, reason was everything Right, reason was the king and the queen.

Héctor Ramírez:

Reason and science were supposed to take us to the heavens in the 18th century, with the Enlightenment times, you know, and the Industrial Revolution revolution. So the great intellectuals of the of Europe thought reason and you know, sapere aude. This was the sentence by Kant in Latin, you know. Dare to think, forget about religion and use your mind. That was there, was the modern mentality, you know. Reason and science is everything, and we will be able to do anything with these two tools. Postmodernism came after the First and Second World Wars. So the Second World Wars did not only destroy most of the European beautiful cities and millions of lives, it destroyed the modern mind. This is what happened. So when the modern mind is destroyed, all you have is unreason, and this is what postmodern mentality is. Postmodernism is unreason. So people have the feeling they don't need any reasonable arguments to discuss any issue. This is why people question if a boy is a boy or a girl is a girl, because even biology doesn't count anymore.

Darrow Miller:

Nothing I'd like to interrupt you here and ask you a question, hector. You said a few minutes ago you discovered you were living in a world that you didn't know. And now we've been talking about that world yeah, that was there, but you didn't know it. And, for our listeners, why is it that Christians are living in a world they do not know?

Héctor Ramírez:

Oh, my goodness, you know. Something that really struck me when I began to think about this issue is a verse in the Bible where the Lord Jesus Christ tells the Pharisees and Sadducees of His day. He tells them you can lift up your eyes into the sky and tell that tomorrow is going to rain, but you are not able to discern the times in which you live. This was the issue the Lord Jesus Christ had against the religious people of his time. They were religious people. They were supposed to know the Bible. I don't remember the number, but I think theologians speak about more than 400 prophecies telling of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were reading in the writings. They were reading at the time and they were not able to discern that the Messiah was speaking to them in their own faces. They were not able to discern the times, and I'm afraid this is what is going on in our society today.

Héctor Ramírez:

Many Christians are not able to discern the times in which we live, and this is a very dangerous situation to find yourself in, because if you don't know the time in which you live, you don't know the background of the ideologies which are going on in the world and what has happened to the West in the last 80 years, from the 1920s to the 1930s, with the cultural Marxism and how they tried to introduce their ideology into all the different structures of society.

Héctor Ramírez:

You know, the American universities from the 1940s began to be infiltrated by the Marxist ideology who came from the Frankfurt School in Germany in the 1920s and Hitler, when he got to power, he wanted to kill these people and they had to flee in 1933. And most of them, like you know, theodor Adorno, herbert Marcuse, many of the more highly intellectual people at the time they were Marxists and they flew to the US and they came to Berkeley University, brandeis University, columbia University, and they began to infiltrate the educational system in America, and not only the educational system but Hollywood and all the other areas of society. This has been an erosion from the inside of the whole Western mindset. It has taken place without people realizing that it took place. So if you don't discern the times and if you don't know what happened, you are going to be caught in very difficult and dangerous situations in which you might be embracing ideologies which sound good, sound Christian, but have nothing to do with the gospel.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, if I could just interject there, hector, because you know even— I'm a guy who thinks a lot about worldviews and ideas and even I, until fairly recently, wasn't aware of the depth of the influence of those cultural Marxists in our own country, and I think part of it is because, you know, like a lot of Christians, I assumed Marxism had been thrown out, cast out. You know, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union, I was wrong. You know it was subversive, though right. In other words, it wasn't trying to be out there and open. It was happening kind of in a subversive way, through the universities, as you mentioned. But I do feel like something changed in 2020, where, you know, those students that were in the universities now found themselves leading all of our institutions and we began to see the fruit for the first time. And, you know, in a clear way, and I think there's kind of an awakening happening following the riots of 2020 and, you know, people now openly talk about wokeism, cultural Marxism.

Luke Allen:

Hi friends, Thanks again for joining us today. We really appreciate your time and attention here on. Ideas have Consequences.

Luke Allen:

As you heard me say during the introduction to this podcast, part of our mission as Christians is to be the hands and feet of God to transform the nations, to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom.

Luke Allen:

Later on in this discussion, you'll hear the guys talk about the importance of reflecting beauty into our world today, and the reason we pinpoint beauty in particular is because, as Hector has rightfully pointed out, we live in a post-modern world, which simply means that people have rejected truth.

Luke Allen:

So, as Christians, if we try to speak truth to people who don't believe in it, it will often go right over their heads, and it's for that exact reason that I believe God has told us to reflect him through goodness and beauty as well. If you'd like to learn more about how you can disciple your culture or nation through beauty, I'd like to tell you about a couple of helpful resources to go check out right after this podcast. The first one is Darrow Miller's newest book, which is titled A Call for Balladeers Pursuing Art and Beauty for the Discipling of Nations, and the second one is Darrow's blog, which is called Darrow Miller and Friends, which has a handful of excellent blogs that Hector Ramirez has actually guest written that talk about today's podcast topic and how we can utilize beauty to disciple our postmodern cultures, and both of those resources you can find in the episode page which is linked in the show notes. Thanks again for listening and I hope you enjoy the rest of the episode.

Scott Allen:

There's just kind of an awakening happening, it seems to me. Anyways, I know I have been kind of awakened to this in a new way. Do you agree with that? Do you think there is an awakening, or do you think people are still pretty blind to what's happening?

Héctor Ramírez:

Well, I think, sadly enough, somehow Western society has been brainwashed. You know, as I said, you know, in the 1920s, the Frankfurt School and I have to go into this so that you have a little bit of a background of the whole thing you know, the Frankfurt School in Germany were put together by some of the most highly intellectual people in Europe yes, from Theodor Adorno to Marcuse to there are probably 20 names. You know there were philosophers, psychologists, sociologists who were Marxists, and they came up with a new philosophy which is called critical theory. Now, critical theory in the Frankfurt School has nothing to do with what you call critical theory in America. Critical theory for these philosophers was finding a way of producing a way of thinking that was not the same as Plato and Aristotle, which studying and research and philosophy helps you to understand the world and make sense of everything around you. Critical theory is a philosophical theory to try to incite people into rebellion and somehow infiltrating society and demolishing society from the inside. So everything has to be criticized, everything in the West.

Scott Allen:

And that criticism is because it's not as it appears. Isn't it right? Like these things that we look at and we've assumed are good, the rule of law, the constitution, whatever it is, aren't really what they appear to be. They're tools to control, to gain power, to subvert Not to subvert, but they're tools of powerful people to continue to keep them in power at the expense of less powerful people. Isn't that the idea? So these things that we think are good are not. We have to be critical of them and see through them and see that they're just tools for powerful people to maintain power. Is that correct?

Héctor Ramírez:

This is actually what Antonio Gramsci, who lived at the time of the Frankfurt School. He didn't belong to the Frankfurt School, but most of the theory is based on Gramsci's theory and this is what he believed. You know, the Western ethics and way of thinking is a way of controlling the masses, just power and governments control the masses.

Héctor Ramírez:

so the what they, what they try to do, is to destroy the western mindset and and this, of course, applies to christianity destroying the christian mindset, because this is only one way of controlling the people, and communism wants to destroy all of that in order to be able to establish their own way of thinking and looking at things.

Scott Allen:

And if I could interject here too, Hector, because you can help me in my own thinking. I've always struggled a little bit with the connection between post-modernism, post-reason and this cultural Marxism. But isn't that connection most kind of fundamentally the post-modern idea that there is no God, there is no truth, and so all there is is this kind of competition for power at the human plane? Right, I mean this is kind of Foucault. Power at the human plane, right, I mean this is kind of Foucault, and you know so. If there is no God, there is no truth, everything is relative, your truth, my truth then it's just a competition for power. And that's then the fundamental kind of assumption behind critical theory, right, then it's oh, we have to see through Christianity and the rule of law and all of these things that we think are good, to see that they're actually just tools by powerful people to control us and therefore they need to be exposed, torn down, etc.

Héctor Ramírez:

Yes, absolutely Am.

Scott Allen:

I getting this kind of right?

Héctor Ramírez:

No, I think you're right, but I think we must not miss the spiritual background of the whole thing. I think because if you look at Nietzsche, for example, the philosopher I mean, he's probably the first postmodern mind, because he talks about this you know the destruction of the values and the will of power. You know the of the values and the will of power. You know the ubermensch in German, this is what he portrays. But all this comes from the Enlightenment times. You know the spiritual degradation of our Western society begins to take place.

Héctor Ramírez:

The Reformation, which took place just 200 years before it, comes to a halt. And then the liberal theology is born in Germany and other countries. So Christianity begins to be eroded and what I think, spiritually speaking, what begins to take place is somehow this piece of the Antichrist begins to be implemented in Western society. And you know the destruction of reason and logic. And all of this has to happen before the Antichrist appears, because otherwise how is he going to deceive people? You know he has to destroy reason before he's able to say I'm the Messiah and a part of the church is going to acclaim him as the Messiah, because there is no reason anymore, there is no way of really studying profoundly and evaluating in a reasonable way the history of the church and what happened in the first century when Christ came appeared on the earth. So it's a very heavy spiritual warfare. Nietzsche said that there will be coming a heavy spiritual warfare on the West. He used those words Spiritual warfare will be coming.

Scott Allen:

He was amazing. I mean, wasn't he? He was so prophetic that man was yes, absolutely.

Héctor Ramírez:

So postmodern mentality, communism, you know, gender ideology, globalism, all these, there's so many ideologies that from the 18th century begin to be born from liberalism, and all these different new political ideologies, even the fascist ideology, marxist ideology, all these ideologies. It's so interesting to know that it is starting from the 18th century and then the 19th century where all these ideologies begin to be born, and all of that has brought us into this point right now. So it's not only Marxism, you know, it's not only one ideology. It's like many ideologies have come together, even the Satanistic movement and the occult, and all these issues have also been the background helping to create the atmosphere we have right now in the West. So it has a very heavy spiritual landmark here. It happened in a very highly sophisticated philosophical way in the West, because we came from the you know, enlightenment and reason and all of that, and somehow brought us to the madness in which we are, you know, when you raise Rison as a goddess, which is what happened in France, you know.

Scott Allen:

Rison was enthroned in the Notre Dame church as the goddess. They actually put up a statue to the goddess of Rison after the French Revolution there.

Héctor Ramírez:

yes, yes they did it. They brought it into the altar of Notre Dame and they lifted her up as the goddess of reason, the goddess of the modern world. Well, the consequence of doing that is postmodernism, which is the destruction of reason and the implementation of unreason and madness, which is what is going on in our society right now. Explain that.

Scott Allen:

It doesn't seem quite logical that the elevation of reason into a god or goddess leads to the loss of reason or the abandonment of reason.

Héctor Ramírez:

That's what Romans chapter 1 says. Not acknowledging God as God, they became futile in their minds. You reject God when you know God as a Christian and then you go into madness. You think about this. Nietzsche said God is dead. Foucault in the 20th century said man is dead.

Darrow Miller:

I'd like to thinking of our time here and realizing in this discussion. We could spend hours with you but mindful of our time, I know that you have a real heart today to use the arts to address the postmodern culture in the postmodern world. Can you take a few minutes and explain to us what you have on your heart to do as an artist?

Héctor Ramírez:

Yeah, again, I think art is such a beautiful tool that God has given to humanity. Like with everything else in life, god loves everything he created and he created us humans with a sense of beauty and art. And art is a magnificent tool to help us understand the world better, to help us be better human beings and to encourage us to look for the divine and the transcendental. And I think somehow, as Christians, when we got stuck in the idea of art or evangelism, we have missed the point, because, yes, you can do evangelism through art, but maybe that's not the reason why God gave creativity to humanity. There's a much higher reason for that.

Héctor Ramírez:

And again, I cannot go into this again. I've just finished writing a book about that. But there is so much that can be done through art If we take art as what it is. God created art and there is a real nature of the creative gift which can be used in a very subtle way as it is. I always, when I have the opportunity to talk about this, I tell my dear Christian brothers and sisters if God commanded an evangelical Christian to create the world, this Christian would have thought okay, so we need to preach the gospel. That's our mission on the earth. So let's make the trees, but let's put in the leaves of the trees Bible verses so that we can preach the gospel. And let's put in the moon a placard saying For the glory of God, so that when people look in their eyes they see oh, this is for the glory of God. And let's make the birds sing choruses or hymns. For some people, this is how a utilitarian Christian would have created the world. But when we look, created the world. But when we look at the world, god is much wiser than us.

Héctor Ramírez:

Beauty speaks in the nature of beauty. You just look up into the sky, you go for a walk into nature and you don't know why or how. But when you get back home, something inside you has happened. You don't know why you cannot explain it. Art, in many instances, cannot be explained in a reasonable way. I mean, it could be explained in a reasonable way, but not in a rational way. So beauty is a mystery. It's one of the mysteries that God has given to humanity. But it is present before our eyes every day. We just have to look up into the sky, we just have to. This is what I tell my son when you open a tomato to make a salad, don't just cut it. Just open the tomato and look at it. Look at the wonderful, beautiful structure which is inside that fruit, with everything in life. Looking at the child, you know we work with children. You know going with the children to nature and run with them and play with them. Beauty and harmony and all these instruments of art are present everywhere in the universe and they speak to us. You know there are stories, since humanity has existed, of people going for a walk. You know one of them is the brother Lawrence in France, who used to be a drunkard and in the springtime, going for a walk into the fields, he saw the flowers shooting up, and that made made him think of resurrection, and that was the first thing that touched his heart to become a. Then he became a monk, but nature spoke to him in such a beautiful way, just by contemplating nature.

Héctor Ramírez:

So I think, as Christians, we need to be aware that there is more to art than only evangelism. We need to be honest, we need to be truthful, we need to be serious in taking the creative gift and finding out what it is. What is it that God gave us creativity for? What is it that we're supposed to do with it? What is it that art does to humanity? What does it do to society?

Héctor Ramírez:

What happens when art begins to adopt the degradation of the ethical values in society and painters begin to paint in the same way that they behave in their moral lives? What happens when that takes place? And what happens when the opposite takes place? All those things have to be taken into account for us to be able to speak into our society as Christians and this is what we are trying to do in our ministry our society as Christians, and this is what we are trying to do in our ministry and, as I said, right now we are working on a musical in which we are trying to do that, you know, to speak into our society about the issues in which we find ourselves right now, at this moment in time, and find ways of, you know, helping people reflect. You know reflect about life and about morals and ethics and values and the important things of life.

Luke Allen:

Is there anything that you want us to announce to our audience concerning Animal Talks, your upcoming project or anything that we can help you promote here on the show?

Héctor Ramírez:

Well, just what we really need the most is prayer, because this is a project we started as a consequence of our ministry and our ministry has. The main foundation of our ministry is finding ways of reaching a postmodern, post-christian society in the West. So in the musical we are trying to address some of the issues going on, going on in our society right now, which are really, as you all know, really tough issues. So we try to deal with these issues in the musical and try to offer a possible answer from an artistic perspective of what we as Christians see the world and see the situation going on. So we really need prayer for that first. So we don't want to be provoking people or creating, you know, uneasy situations, but we do believe that as artists we must. But we do believe that as artists we must be a prophet somehow and try to deal with the issues of our time. Which art has done through history, from the Greeks to the Renaissance and all through history. Good art always addresses the issues of society at the time and that's what we're trying to do. So we get aware that that living in the kind of situation in which we are right now, where you can very easily be cancelled or dismissed or thrown out of, you know, any platform just by saying things which you know the fat checkers don't want you to say. So that that's quite a challenge. And and the other challenge is is the actual financial uh situation, because, uh, and this is a secret that only you know we, the small team, know we need about seven million dollars to actually produce the whole musical as we want it to be produced. We want to take it to the main theaters and in america and also in europe, and we are also planning to go to china and and russia with the musical, because we believe it's it's it's a tool that can help, you know, encourage people or challenge people to reflect on what's going on in our society.

Héctor Ramírez:

So the musical deals with how democracies erode and come plummeting down, and what we're doing in the musical is try to go back to the Greek idea of democracy and show how, you know, when values and moral principles begin to erode, there is nothing that can sustain any democracy or Constitution or anything like that. So that that's what we're trying to portray there. It is nothing to do with politics, it is nothing to do with ideologies, it's all to do with ethics and morals and to do with ideologies. It's all to do with ethics and morals, and that's the only reason why democracies really come plummeting down. It happened with the Greeks, it happened with the Romans and in Europe we have also a long story of, you know, kings and behaving in a despotic way and, you know, losing their ethical and moral values and becoming dictators and all these kind of things. So this is what we try to do in the musical to inspire in an artistic way, people to reflect on what is going on.

Scott Allen:

Hector, we're out of time and I would love to continue the discussion and hear more about this musical. Maybe we can have you back on and hear more about this, really, what sounds like an incredible project. Just to reiterate what I hear you saying, though, is that you know, in our post-modern, post-reason world, you know, older tools of apologetics that are more reason kind of oriented aren't as effective because we've become so thoroughly post-modern, but beauty, in some ways, is becoming more important as a means of communicating truth. Is that what you're saying?

Héctor Ramírez:

Absolutely, absolutely, okay, and that's really what you're saying absolutely, absolutely.

Scott Allen:

and that's really what you're working on, yeah absolutely.

Héctor Ramírez:

If only we had not been completely sold to the rationalist mentality of the 18th century. No reason is everything. No reason is not everything. Yeah, it's true. Beauty, imagination, intuition.

Scott Allen:

These categories of pathos and logos. You know which has to do with reason and pathos which has to do with beauty, and you know this is the way God made us. But I think you're correct. I know you're correct. We, because we come out of a Western culture that's been so heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, we've kind of gone overboard on the logos, reason side of things. I know that's true for me, and so we're discovering that no, this pathos, this beauty, is really important and it's fundamental to what it means to be human, to live and to communicate as well.

Héctor Ramírez:

Yes, absolutely Wow.

Scott Allen:

Hector. This is such a wonderful and just rich, deep discussion. I'm so glad we had it. We need to have you back on Hector, we do. And Luke, I'm going to put that on you to see if we can get Hector back on the schedule. And I want to hear about the musical that you're doing it. You mentioned briefly just the. The scope of it sounds like a significant vision and I think we need to hear more about it yeah, hector, how do people?

Scott Allen:

if they want to connect with you and learn more. Is there a website? Are you on?

Luke Allen:

social media how do people?

Scott Allen:

how do people learn about you and your work?

Héctor Ramírez:

we've got a website which is artvitalises. It's wwwars v-i-t-a-l. I-s dot e-s. That's our website.

Scott Allen:

I can send it to you if you want we'll post it on the blog or or, excuse me, on the podcast site for sure that's the best way.

Héctor Ramírez:

yeah, okay, you can find some information there.

Scott Allen:

And is that in English or is that in Spanish only?

Héctor Ramírez:

It's in English and Spanish, it can be translated Both okay, yeah. Okay, we tend not to be much in social media due to the kind of work we do, so we need to be careful not to be into the social media so much, because now you can be banned, you can be cancelled by saying certain things. So we try not to be much in social media things. So we try not to be much in social media.

Héctor Ramírez:

But we do have our website and please ask people to pray for us. That's the main thing we really need.

Scott Allen:

We sure will, hector. Thank you. What a wonderful just to hear what God has begun in your life when he saved you all those years ago in Columbia and brought you to this point. Exciting to see what God is doing and is going to do through you and your ministry.

Héctor Ramírez:

Amen.

Scott Allen:

Amen, thanks for being with us and, just again, thank all of our listeners. We are so grateful for all of you and want to thank you again for listening to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Discipled Nations Alliance.

Luke Allen:

Thank you for joining us for this fascinating discussion with Hector Ramirez.

Luke Allen:

As always, for more information about our guest or to learn more about any of the resources that we mentioned in the episode, just head to the episode page, which is linked in the show notes.

Luke Allen:

If you, like us, want to hear more from Hector, then make sure to stay tuned here on Ideas have Consequences, because I just scheduled our next episode with him and that will be coming out in the next two months, so keep an eye out for that.

Luke Allen:

Speaking of upcoming episodes, we have a couple of exciting guests in the next few months, including this next week, calvin Beisner, who's going to be joining us to talk about a Christian perspective on global warming, and then, right after that, we are going to be joined by Katie Faust to talk about her newest book, which is called Pro-Child Politics, and then, on top of both those episodes, we are going to be continuing our mini series on the 10 Words book, which, if you've missed the last few episodes, is the newest book coming out here at the Disciple Nations Alliance, which is called 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World, restoring the True Meanings of Our Most Important Words.

Luke Allen:

If you'd like to make sure that you don't miss any of these episodes, then please head to the podcast platform that you're currently listening on and make sure to follow or subscribe to this podcast so that you're notified every time an episode comes out. Also, for you guys who are already following the show as always, we really appreciate it when you guys share your favorite episodes with a friend and help us continue to grow our community here on. Ideas have Consequences. You.

People on this episode

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Scott Allen

Host
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Darrow Miller

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Dwight Vogt

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Shawn Carson

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Tim Williams

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Luke Allen

Producer