As of today, “Colombia is home to nearly 7 million internally displaced peopled, one of the largest internally displaced populations in the world” (UN Refugee Agency). This displacement is primarily driven by armed conflict and violence: ongoing conflict between guerilla groups, paramilitary groups, and the State.

We sat with Dr. Milton A. Acosta Benítez to hear about:

• his journey,
• what led him to Old Testament studies and to enter theological education,
• and his work with displaced communities in Colombia.

Dr. Acosta Benítez is professor of Old Testament and chair of the Biblical Sciences Research Group at the Fundación Universitaria Seminario Bíblico de Colombia (FUSBC) in Medellín. He is the author of several publications, including Fe y Desplazamiento: La investigación-acción misional ante la crisis colombiana del desplazamiento forzoso (Resource Publication, 2022), co-edited with Scholar Leaders’ president Christopher M. Hays.

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This episode is brought to you brought to you by Eerdmans and the book Eight Million Exiles: Missional Action Research and the Crisis of Forced Migrationby Christopher M. Hays.

This book is at once a theological methodological treatise and a story. It is a story of how a handful of theologians in a little evangelical seminary on the wrong side of Medellín responded when they came to comprehend that the lives of eight million of their countrymen had been destroyed by the violence of Colombia’s armed conflict.

Get your copy here!