Damon Garcia on Purpose, Work, and Life Beyond Capitalism

In this episode, host Gabby Lisi talks with author, speaker, content creator, and public theologian Damon Garcia about vocation, purpose, alienation, work, capitalism, and the liberating power of interdependence.

Garcia challenges the idea that each of us simply needs to “find our calling” and pursue it harder. Instead, he asks what happens when our gifts, dreams, and sense of purpose are shaped by systems that require us to work in order to survive. Drawing from liberation theology, Marxist thought, anti-capitalist analysis, and his own experiences in ministry and wage labor, Garcia invites listeners to rethink work not as endless productivity, but as purposeful activity rooted in community.

Together, Gabi and Damon explore how capitalism alienates workers from their labor, from one another, and from the resources needed to live. They also discuss how faith can help people imagine and build alternatives grounded in justice, mutual dependence, and collective power.

Key Points

· Many conversations about “calling” and “purpose” ignore the economic pressures that shape what people are able to do with their lives.

· Capitalism often forces people either to pursue their gifts after exhausting work hours or to turn their dreams into profitable “dream jobs.”

· Work can alienate workers emotionally, spiritually, socially, and physically.

· Garcia argues that work is more than wage labor. It includes caregiving, community participation, creative work, household labor, and the everyday activity of sustaining life.

· The episode explores Karl Marx’s idea of alienation alongside Dorothee Sölle’s theology of work and love.

· Garcia challenges the idea of independence as the ultimate goal. Instead, he argues that humans are interdependent from birth to death.

· Community, not individual achievement, is where purpose becomes possible.

About Damon Garcia

Damon Garcia is a writer, speaker, content creator, and public theologian whose work brings together liberation theology, anti-capitalist thought, spirituality, politics, and culture. He is the author of The God Who Riots: Taking Back the Radical Jesus and the forthcoming book You Don’t Need a Calling: An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto for a Life of Purpose. Through his writing, videos, the newsletter The Lure, and the podcast Perhaps with Damon Garcia, he helps people cultivate a radical imagination for building a freer, more compassionate, and more creative world.

Resources Mentioned

Damon Garcia’s website/newsletter, The Lure:
 https://damongarcia.substack.com

Perhaps with Damon Garcia:
 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/perhaps-with-damon-garcia/id1789498524

You Don’t Need a Calling: An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto for a Life of Purpose by Damon Garcia:
 https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9798889832164/You-Dont-Need-a-Calling

The God Who Riots: Taking Back the Radical Jesus by Damon Garcia:
https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9781506480374/The-God-Who-Riots

To Work and To Love by Dorothee Sölle:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/761570.To_Work_and_To_Love

Karl Marx on alienated labor
 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm

This podcast was produced by Peterson Toscano

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

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Transcript

>> Damon Garcia: 0:00

A lot of books about purpose don't address the larger systemic barriers we run into as we're trying to follow our purpose or find a purpose. Our, uh, dreams of what we want to do often have to be confined to what capitalism is trying to get us to do. We're at church telling people, just ask God for your calling and pursue it with full zeal. Why are we pretending like capitalism doesn't exist?

>> Gabi Lisi: 0:32

Welcome to Religion and Justice, a podcast from the Wenland Cook Program and Religion and justice at Vanderbilt University. I'm your host, Gab Liese. Today we're joined by Damon Garcia, author, speaker, content creator and public theologian whose work invites us to imagine new possibilities for spirituality and politics. Informed by liberation theology and anti capitalist thought. Damon speaks especially to a generation of people who feel disillusioned with traditional religious and economic economic systems. He's the author of the God who Taking Back the Radical Jesus and his forthcoming book, you Don't Need a An Anti Capitalist Manifesto for a Life of Purpose that comes out in June of, um, 2026. In our conversation today, we talk about vocation, purpose and what it means to live a meaningful life beyond the pressures of productivity and capitalism and how a liberative spirituality might open up new ways of imagining and building alternatives. So let's get into it. Damon, welcome to the podcast.

>> Damon Garcia: 1:30

Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

>> Gabi Lisi: 1:31

Absolutely. So I want to jump right into this. Your book comes out swinging, you immediately jump into all of the bright and shiny things that kids raised in the 90s like myself were promised about our future. Namely the technological advancements that would increase productivity, would afford the masses more time to relax and pursue our own passions. Uh, as someone else who was also raised in the mid-90s, I immediately related to that frustration. I had forgotten that we were promised all of those things. Could you talk to me about why you chose to begin immediately, like right off the bat with that discontent?

>> Damon Garcia: 2:06

Yeah. So I was born in 93 and I started the book off, like, reminiscing about this aesthetic that I remember in the late 90s and early 2000s. One of them, um, that we now call Frutiger Arrow, which was a combination of the green nature and deep blue ocean and technology all coming together to form this, like, utopian world. And then another aesthetic around the time was that we now call Y2K futurism, which is a lot of chrome and round shape, see through to see the wires and microchips on different devices and toys and all that. And so I remember seeing that in these Commercials and music videos and uh, software devices. It was all part of this larger vision of the time that this new technology with home computers and the Internet was going to lead us to a future where technology does most of the work for us and we can all just relax, enjoy life more and pursue our passions. But then 20 years later, that's not at all what happened. Like you said, you forgot that was

>> Gabi Lisi: 3:06

even a, ah, vision promised or even even just imagined. Yeah.

>> Damon Garcia: 3:11

And then also now people talk all the time about the aesthetic is like, everything is like sharp edges and gray and colorless. And it's, that's not at all what uh, they talked about. We realized that that was just propaganda and advertising to get us to buy more stuff. Back then. What ended up happening was technology resulted in productivity going up and therefore profit going up. But they realized that keeping workers working with technology keeps productivity and profit up even more. And now there's similar message with AI that that will lead to us working less and being able to enjoy life more. But those of us who were around last time they were telling can be aware that this is not how it's actually going to go down. Or we're already starting to see it's just worsening the conditions, uh, for workers requiring us to still keep productivity increasing. Uh, but I use that as a parallel to the way we see our personal lives. As kids, we thought the world would be in our personal lives would be. We had all these dreams. We were told, you can be anything, just work hard enough, you can achieve anything. And then 20 years later, life is a lot different than what we thought it would be. And we realized that was also propaganda in a similar way just to get us to keep working harder to make capitalists richer. What I'm really trying to do is reach people who are looking back at their life and wondering, did I do something wrong? Should I have worked hard enough? Should I have followed this or that opportunity? Should I have gotten that job or stuck with that job or pursued that? Uh, would life actually be better? And I'm trying to say actually that was always just lies and propaganda. And we just need a different way of seeing our lives. Instead of thinking that we need to change ourselves and work harder or become better, we need to see the whole thing completely differently. And so I felt like that was a good starting point for the book because I, and like everyone I know, I'll, I'll wrestle with these feelings of, am I doing something wrong? Should I have worked harder? Do I need to change myself to become better?

>> Gabi Lisi: 5:22

Absolutely. And it felt like you were trying to move us away from like that individualized self blame focusing on the self and move it more to the systemic analysis. Right. What about the system has produced, uh, what seems like a universal experience among, amongst working people. You also go on a few pages later and you say that because our lives are primarily shaped by our need to work to survive, whatever our purpose is becomes distorted to serve the interests of what capitalism demands of us. Not. I know I just mentioned you were moving to the systemic analysis, but I want to move it back to the individual for you. What about your own life led you to this conclusion?

>> Damon Garcia: 6:01

A lot of books about purpose don't address the larger systemic barriers we run into as we're trying to follow our purpose or find a purpose. What we see is that our, uh, dreams of what we want to do often have to be confined to what capitalism is trying to get us to do. It's like you can either pursue your dream on your off hours, but then you have to sacrifice your time and energy because you have to give a lot of that to a day job and then hopefully try to pursue it after work. But then as the cost of living increases, it becomes harder and harder to dedicate any time outside of work. The other option is to just turn your dream into a dream job where you have to sacrifice your integrity instead and sacrifice your vision as you reduce it to the most profitable version of your dream in order to make a sustainable income. So then when we were like at church telling people, just ask God for your calling and pursue it with full zeal, it's like, uh, why are we pretending like the capitalism doesn't exist?

>> Gabi Lisi: 7:11

Right.

>> Damon Garcia: 7:12

How I started to see that was I felt like I was called to ministry when I was 18 and pursued that, did a little ministry internship training, a little bit of Bible college, and then ended up going into youth and young adults ministry. And that path felt very like a narrow, uh, singular up path of I got this calling, I'm getting training, it's working out. But I had to consider I also have a really strong support system with my family, friends and fellow ministers who are giving me opportunities for training and getting better at preaching and all of that. And my other people who received the same calling and were in training with me weren't following the same path, uh, because they weren't getting the same opportunities or didn't have the same support system. And so the church ministry internship I was in, I'm the only one who was in that group who is doing something somewhat ministry related now. They all just went into the job field and tried to find something else or they tried to do ministry for a while. It failed somehow, or just didn't work out how they thought it would. Then doing youth and young adults ministry, I'm, um, put in a position where I'm supposed to help people find their calling and purpose and their spiritual gifts and to cultivate that and pursue that. Then they would grow up and have to go into the job field. Then the gifts that we talked about when they were younger, whatever gifts that couldn't make them money, just slowly withered away as they had to just focus on the gifts that would get them a sustainable income. Does God just like me more? I don't think that makes any sense. Yeah, not at all. That seems like a very crappy God in theology and, and reading the whole thing. I think rather what it is is we need to update the way we talk about God and purpose and calling and gifts because of the context of capitalism, and realize that it's not the same for everyone. Often what we see is people's success isn't just God favoring them because of the support systems they have and that give them the opportunity to express and develop these skills and gifts and get opportunities to express them.

>> Gabi Lisi: 9:28

Absolutely. I relate to that a lot. I grew up below the poverty line and I also felt a calling, although it was a little bit later, it was an undergrad to go into ministry, which is how I ended up at Union Theological Seminary. My time at Union Theological Seminary. That's a story for another time. All that to say due, uh, to a multitude of reasons, but one of which included financial precarity. I did not continue on. I did not get ordained. I'm not, uh, working in sort of the traditional chaplaincy or ministry path that I originally thought I was going to be on. I felt like I was forced to make a choice. Either I could sustain myself financially or I could put myself back into what feels like a really traumatic thing of financial precarity. Essentially kind of ignored the call in a lot of ways. I said, cool, I'm on board with it. I'll move forward. And then I just sort of left that behind. And so you talking about the gifts, right, that you helped these youth develop and then watching them sort of fall to the wayside. Right. They don't disappear completely. But, uh, the system encourages us to stop using them in a lot of ways or modify the way that we're using them to obviously make money for other people. It's often said that people can better Imagine the end of the world more than they can imagine the end of capitalism.

>> Damon Garcia: 10:43

Hmm. Especially in the United States, just slightly changing things or just slight harm reduction is usually framed as the most radical position you can have. People who want just free health care, like most of the world has, are framed as the most radical communist, antifa, uh, authoritarian Stalinists ever. And then a lot of people who don't actually know these terms believe that. So it feels like that's way too radical to just have a slightly better capitalism.

>> Gabi Lisi: 11:16

Yeah.

>> Damon Garcia: 11:18

So if that is the radical position, then the end of capitalism is so unimaginable. That's what's really difficult is a lot of people can only see just slightly making things better. The other thing is the fact that we have to commodify ourselves ends up m making it really hard to imagine any alternative. It starts with commodifying our labor. As we have to sell our labor to these companies to buy back the resources that they've stolen from us. And then to get a job, we have to then commodify ourselves and our identity and see ourselves as a product or a brand, constantly trying to advertise ourselves. It's hard to imagine being anything else besides a product to be bought and sold. When you talk about things like free healthcare, free housing, or like decommodifying these things, that should be basic, that resources given to us to survive. People feel scared about that because they feel like, isn't that like being too entitled? Isn't that being lazy? It now feels immoral to even consider that our basic needs would be given to us just because we exist. That's another reason people don't even want to go there, because they're afraid of feeling immoral in that way.

>> Gabi Lisi: 12:40

Yeah. Just speaking on the propaganda you were talking about earlier, I feel like we've been really propagandized to feel an immense level of pride in our, uh, work, our work ethic. And obviously that's tied to the labor that we do at our jobs. This idea of earning things, whether that's healthcare benefits, your paycheck every week, whatever it is.

>> Damon Garcia: 12:59

Mhm.

>> Gabi Lisi: 13:00

The idea of that just being given to people without any work, I really just feel like we have been propagandized and then it becomes very personal. Oh, so I'm going to work hard, bust my butt, and then Joe Schmoll over here on the side could just do nothing and they would still get what I get. That kind of mindset is just so pervasive in our culture. The whole system has been designed to prop Itself up over and over again. In order to survive in the system, we've definitely had to have our mind colonized by the system itself. Speaking of which, you tell a really poignant story at the top of chapter six. I laughed out loud when I read it and I apologize for laughing, but I. I laughed because I remembered my first realization of a very similar situation. Chapter six is titled what Work does to the Worker, which number one, love the title. Thank you. Oh, yeah, we don't think about that often. Right. What does our job do to us? Whether that's physical or mental or emotional, psychological. You taking an entire chapter to really flesh that out. I thank you. In the story that you tell at the top of this chapter, you're working on an assembly line at ah, a medical supplies manufacturer. It comes time for an employee evaluation. Could you tell us that story?

>> Damon Garcia: 14:14

We're having to like unwrap these bags of these petri dishes really fast, put them into the machine as that's going fast, and then someone on the other side putting those petri dishes that have chemicals now and then into other bags. It's all very, very, very fast paced. It was hard for me to keep up with the machines and sometimes I would have to stop and then restart.

>> Gabi Lisi: 14:34

So the machine would set the pace for you? Yeah, essentially.

>> Damon Garcia: 14:38

Oh, um, my gosh.

>> Gabi Lisi: 14:38

Okay.

>> Damon Garcia: 14:39

Multiple machines. So there's one was just like three petri dishes would go through and then another one with five, another one with eight. And so each.

>> Gabi Lisi: 14:47

I mean, God forbid your hands slip or something.

>> Damon Garcia: 14:50

Yeah. So you work up to those machines and. And I was trying. It seemed like I was getting better over time. It just took me a bit. And then, um, yeah, I was supposed to have an employee evaluation. We talked about it how, yeah, I needed to keep up pace more. And he was even saying, there's this other machine we could also train you on. And we're talking about, yeah, different ways I could get better and improve my speed and different strategies for that. And it seemed like a good, uh, positive conversation. And then we just kind of chilled a bit in his office. He asked me how I feel about the job in general. It felt like a personal moment. So I was honest. I said that honestly. It's hard for me because I feel like this isn't something I'm really good at. And he said, was there something else you'd rather be doing? I thought about it. I was like, honestly, I'd rather be doing something in writing because that's what I'm most passionate about. And I was just Being honest about my life because it seemed like a personal moment to be honest. And then he's okay. And then he was just listening and relating to. We finished and reiterated that, yeah, we'll get you training on that. It was a Friday, done with work. Then Monday morning come in, he pulls me aside before I have to get dressed to go into the lab, into the office, and he says, come with me. Go through all these hallways, through the building to get to the HR office. The whole time I'm wondering what is happening. And then we get there and then they give me the termination papers and, and let me go. It was so fast. And then I'm just standing there in the parking lot so confused. And then later it took me a while to realize, like, oh yeah, that whole conversation I told him I didn't want to work there, literally. So of course he fired me. Of course that's what happened. The lesson I learned is the lesson that every worker learns eventually, which is you can't actually be fully honest at your job, Especially with your managers.

>> Gabi Lisi: 16:47

Mhm. Even when they ask.

>> Damon Garcia: 16:49

Yeah, even when they ask. It's supposed to be funny. And there's a lot of parts of the book that I think are supposed to be funny that I hope people realize it's supposed to be funny, but it's funny because of how much we relate to it. Yes, we've all experienced that. The reason we laugh is because we're like, of course you're supposed to play a character at work of, uh, pretending that you love it. There's. But then I question in the book, why is that the norm? That we're not supposed to express ourselves about how we really feel at work. Not only do we have to sell ourselves and sell our labor, we have to perform, which is this separation between how we really feel and what, uh, we have to do. There's so much alienation that we've just accepted as the norm. And yet when we look at the ways that worker conditions actually have gotten better over the last 100 years, things that workers have fought really hard for, like employee health insurance, the weekend, 40 hour work week, getting children out of the workforce, a bunch of those things were workers who, who weren't just going to accept this as the norm. I'm sure they're, they're surrounded by other workers, are like, well, this is just how work is. Get over it. Suck it up. These are workers who refuse to suck it up. Since then, a lot of these things they fought for have started to be rolled back by employers. Me and The Wendland Cook program are all trying to get people to pause, look around, realize something is off, it shouldn't be this way, and then refuse to suck it up.

>> Gabi Lisi: 18:24

Exactly. I think we've all worked with somebody who adopted the sort of every man for himself kind of mindset and is totally fine out on their own chugging away. I'm not going to join the union. I don't want to lose my job. The union's not going to protect me, me. Even if it goes through then inadvertently, in individualized cases, that might work out for that one person. But I think what we're trying to say is we have the power. Without us, there is no labor production. There's no production, period. So if they don't want to treat us like we are essential, we have some power to stop that and to change that. As we're talking about this alienation, it's a requirement under capitalism. Right. In order to survive, you must labor in some capacity in order to gain access to these resources. Then they also want you to love that system. They want you to die hard for capitalism. I love it this way. I love laboring 40 plus hours a week. I love being told that I'm not going to get that raise. Even though I've been here for two years and have met all my metrics or KPIs or, you know, whatever it is for your particular industry. They want you to like it. They want you to like the suffering. In some ways it feels safer, I think sometimes to buy into that mindset. When we, when you, the one, the Cook program, other folks, when, when we sort of suggest alternatives to folks, it's scary. It's an unknown. It is taking a risk. I'm curious, what does work do to a manager, Our managers, middle management. I'm, um, not talking like CEOs, but you know, your typical middle manager or even like regional director, you know, would you say that work distorts or alienates them from.

>> Damon Garcia: 20:03

Yeah, there's a level of alienation we all share. It's helpful to understand capitalism as playing a role of mediator that keeps the separation between the first layer, us, and the resources we need to survive, which is what God put on this earth for all of us to share. Capitalism separates us from us and the means for survival, they turn those into commodities that we have to buy. So another layer is separating us from the money that we need to buy back those resources. And then another layer is needing to get the job that can get us that money and prove ourselves to earn these jobs. As we get to these jobs, the more specialized our job is to specific tasks and roles. That adds more layers of alienation as people are just working on one set of few tasks, on a larger product, a part of a team, and just focusing on that set set of tasks all day, every day. They're also separated from the products that they, they're making or the services that they're providing for the world. And then another layer of separation would be the way we relate to our coworkers. Seeing each other as people we have to compete with in order to keep our jobs, but also our relationship with our managers. It's all different layers of alienation. Because people can look at a job that looks more obviously alienating and say, well, you just need to get a better job where you have more control, more decision making power, better wage. But we forget that we're all sharing the same layers of alienation. At a deeper level, no matter the job we have, including managers, it just looks different for them. There's still a separation between him getting the means of survival and him earning the money to get the means of survival. There's extra layers between him and the products that the company is making. Still also needing to perform as a character in that role. And it's funny, even that story of that manager who fired me. I, uh, never really knew who he really was. Like, I don't know who he is, how he really feels. It was all just a performance. I have to say, this set of things respond, this set of ways. It's funny thinking that walk to the HR office was just very performative small talk. He asked me, you got any plans for the weekend? And I plan on going to Six, uh, Flags with my friends to the theme park. I was like, yeah, I know Six Flags. Like, oh, that's cool, that sounds fun. He knows he's going to fire me and then put me in a position where I lack the money to go to Six Flags or Life After Six Flags. Yeah, alienation there and characters we have to play there. The CEO experiences alienation in a different way.

>> Gabi Lisi: 22:52

I mean, talk about how separated they are from production and their own employees.

>> Damon Garcia: 22:57

The only way they can survive is the workers keep working.

>> Gabi Lisi: 23:01

Mhm. And the stakeholders that invest in the company too, right? They are, they're by by far the most separated and they get the most from their investment in the company.

>> Damon Garcia: 23:13

When the workers stop working, then everybody stops making money. And that's why they try so hard to convince us that the real heroes of society are the capitalists and the CEOs the owners stakeholders in this era of entrepreneur and Hustle Bros and Grindset and all that that that's popular in content getting fed to teenagers these days. There's this message out there that the way out of this corrupt system is a capitalist is to become a business owner. They'll even say we are free from the matrix, which is really wild to promote capitalism with a uh, Matrix metaphor.

>> Gabi Lisi: 23:52

Yep.

>> Damon Garcia: 23:54

But in still it's not actual freedom. They're still tied to that alienation that we're all experiencing.

>> Gabi Lisi: 24:02

And then you go on to connect work into love.

>> Damon Garcia: 24:05

Yeah, I really really like Dorothy Zola and her book To Work into Love.

>> Gabi Lisi: 24:10

M. I remember reading that at AH Union when I was there for seminary. Life changing book. I'm sure you feel the same way. But talk to me about the connection that you made between To Work Into Love and Karl Marx. Why those two thinkers and why this chapter?

>> Damon Garcia: 24:26

What I was trying to do with this book too is make it more accessible to people who aren't super invested in all these thinkers and books and theories. I tried to make sure that when I would bring up some other writer that there was a personal connection to me as opposed to just randomly bringing up a writer and making the reader feel like, oh, now I have to go read this book to understand what they're saying. I really liked her these.

>> Gabi Lisi: 24:54

Her book is very accessible. If any of our listeners are interested and maybe a little uneasy, definitely pick it up, pick up a copy.

>> Damon Garcia: 25:01

She's very inspired by liberation theology, process theology and Marxism.

>> Gabi Lisi: 25:06

Mhm.

>> Damon Garcia: 25:06

The way she combines a lot of these theories in a really accessible way is really inspiring. She uses Marx to talk about alienation in work.

>> Gabi Lisi: 25:16

Mhm.

>> Damon Garcia: 25:16

Like we're talking about. What's interesting about Marx talking about alienation is that it's really just in the early Marx talking about this internal alienation that workers feel and questioning that bringing a moral element to it, saying it's immoral for us to feel this way and to be treated this way, so therefore we should change it. But then later Karl Marx wanted to have a more scientific approach. There's also a bunch of thinkers who were doing the moral approach, including Christians and theologians before Marx, who had a moral critique of capitalism. But he wanted it to be purely scientific, historical materialism as a way of saying here is the objective exploitation within the capitalist system itself and how that will lead to its own destruction. Then like a hundred years later you had a bunch of Marxist thinkers who wanted to recover the early Marx. So you got like the Frankfurt School, the Marxist humanists. And also Gustavo Gutierrez, the father of Latin American liberation theology, was inspired by the Marxist humanists. There is this reclaiming of, yeah, there is something off about this and the way we're being treated and the way we feel alienated. I'm trying to reclaim that a bit now and getting people to realize that we see the alienation first within ourselves. That's where we first experience it. But I'm not saying that's. That's where it ends. Because I think the reason people want to stay away from the moralistic, humanistic arguments is because it can end up seeming like we're saying the problem is how we feel inside. Therefore, the solution is to just feel better or it feels wrong. So we just need to make people feel right. And that's not the case. It's. It's more like this is just where we first feel it, the alienation. Yes, but it's a symptom of a, uh, deeper, larger alienation within the system. It's not the, uh, underlying problem itself. So it's realizing the underlying problem is the separation between us and the means for survival. And then from there all these layers of alienation that result in us feeling internally alienated too, noticing that symptom within ourselves and then looking for that underlying cause. That's how we can bring together the scientific analysis and the more humanist analysis of it all and a moral critique of capitalism.

>> Gabi Lisi: 27:49

You are listening to Religion and Justice will be. Be back after this short break. What other methods does the system use or have used to alienate us from each other, even maybe outside of our jobs or when we're not physically present at work?

>> Damon Garcia: 28:21

Yeah. So we all feel this internal alienation. Then we have a bunch of politicians and pastors who say that the reason is other powerless people, marginalized people, immigrants, queer and trans people, black people who are stealing your jobs that you should be getting. And if we were to just marginalize them even more, then you'll, your problems will be solved and you'll be able to provide for your family and find good livelihood and purpose in life if we just marginalize. Marginalize people even more. A lot of people buy into that narrative because the other politicians and pastors don't really have anything to say about their situation of economic hardship. So that's a popular one to blame each other for our, uh, economic problems. Instead of looking at who actually has control over our economic problems. We're seeing now Zoran Mamdani making changes in New York City. I keep seeing headlines that are like, surprised at how much he's able to do after years and years of being told, there's nothing we can do.

>> Gabi Lisi: 29:36

Yup. Of being told, you guys just have to continue to live this way. And also, it is your fault, not mine.

>> Damon Garcia: 29:44

Exactly. Yeah. This constant blaming each other for our problems is just, um, a method to keep things exactly as they are and to keep us from looking at who's actually causing our problems. The capitalists. And then also the propagandists and ministers that just protect capitalist interest.

>> Gabi Lisi: 30:02

Tell our listeners, who is the enemy? What is it? How do you know that that's the enemy? If it's not our fellow marginalized person or not our coworker or not people steal, who is it?

>> Damon Garcia: 30:14

I end up saying the enemy is a system of oppression. I grew up Pentecostal. The devil was usually referred to as the enemy all the time. The enemy or that's the enemy, or, uh, beware of the enemy. They were referring to the devil. And there's a constant fear around it. I, uh, talk about my relationship with that idea of the devil and the fear of the devil. The only other book I did, the God who Riots, Taking Back the Radical Jesus. I did a few book clubs, visiting book clubs and talking about it online. There was one book club that reached out to me through email and asked me to join. They said, I know this might be a, uh, long shot, but I wanted to see if you'd be down to visit our book club and talk. We've been really enjoying your book. Then it got to the part of the email where I proved to be a long shot. They said, by the way, we're members of the Satanic temple in San Diego. I saw that. I shot up and was really paying attention. Eyes widened, and then in parentheses they said, don't worry, we're just spicy atheists.

>> Gabi Lisi: 31:21

Amazing. What a, what a killer introduction.

>> Damon Garcia: 31:23

Yeah, that was hilarious. I always thought it was interesting because I could tell they're trying to make sure they didn't scare me away.

>> Gabi Lisi: 31:30

Mhm.

>> Damon Garcia: 31:30

I already knew a bit about the Satanic temple, which is mostly just spicy atheists or people who just aren't practicing Abrahamic faiths, but they enjoyed this book about the radical Jesus and critiquing the ways that Christianity has been used to justify oppression. A lot of the people you've interviewed on this podcast all talk critiquing Christianity in that way, um, but talking about like a better, more radical version of it. So they, they liked that because for them, they were using the symbol of Satan as a way, uh, of Reclaiming the symbol of rebellion against Christian authoritarianism. They're talking about we need a genuine separation of church and state. We need genuine religious freedom for all faiths and not have a society of what they call religious freedom when it's actually Christian favoritism. They didn't really believe in a literal Satan. I visited the book club. They ended up being some of the nicest people I've ever met. We had a lot to talk about, these oppressive versions of religion. We were talking about having the same goals of getting rid of religion that's used to justify exploiting people, oppress people, marginalizing people, causing us all this division, but then trying to envision a better world. In moments like that, it's like, oh yeah, obviously these people aren't my enemies. There's a larger enemy which is a system of oppression.

>> Gabi Lisi: 32:58

Mhm.

>> Damon Garcia: 32:59

When you grow up in a Christian fundamentalist household and go outside of that, there's a lot of moments where you meet new people and have the thought process of wait, these people aren't evil. Wait, these people aren't scandalous. These are just normal, cool people. Uh, better people than some of the Christians I grew up with. What's up with that?

>> Gabi Lisi: 33:21

Who are probably loving their neighbor the way that we're taught to as Christians.

>> Damon Garcia: 33:26

Yes, a lot of us need to have more of those moments with our fellow working class people. Working class just means people who have to work to survive. There's a lot more of us than there are people who own our labor. We need to have more moments where we actually talk to each other, get to know each other and realize, wait, we're actually on the same side and there's a larger enemy. The system of oppression affecting all of us.

>> Gabi Lisi: 33:56

Absolutely. I'm going to read an Excerpt from Chapter 7. Using a systemic lens can help us see through the lies and the demonization of our fellow humans. With a little bit of research, we can see what's actually happening. But we also need a systemic view to figure out why it's happening. Some people assume that anti immigrant politicians and their voters repeat lies because they're just evil people who like doing evil things. But that's too simple. Working class people carry a deep feeling that this life shouldn't be as hard as it is. It feels like it's getting harder to make your way through life, find meaningful work, and provide a secure livelihood for you and your family. People often fall for it when politicians scapegoat immigrants because they feel like their economic hardship is mostly ignored by the rest of the politicians. Politicians neglecting to address working class people's issues has made it easy for con areas to catch people's attention, uh, affirm their anxieties and blame marginalized people for their problems. So let's use our systemic lens and take a further step back and ask, what purpose do these lies serve? What policies are affected? Who benefits? How do they benefit? For answers to these questions, we need to follow the money. How did you come to the conclusion that we need to follow the money in order to better understand not only why capitalism exists, but why it's so pervasive? Those are questions that we ask here at the Wetland Cook Program. Right. Who has the power? What type of power is it? How is it wielded? How do I wield mine? What kind of power do I have? And how do we convince our community members to wield our power together? How'd you get there? Why follow the money? What's the importance there?

>> Damon Garcia: 35:34

Yeah, I'm trying to help people use this systemic lens instead of individual lens and see these larger causes for our problems.

>> Gabi Lisi: 35:43

And.

>> Damon Garcia: 35:44

But I'm also trying to make sure people don't just say it's this group of capitalists, therefore we just need to fire them or get rid of them or just put nicer people in their place. Because capitalists come and go and the system remains.

>> Gabi Lisi: 35:59

Mhm.

>> Damon Garcia: 36:00

If we're just going from blaming one group of people to another group of people that are more obviously evil, then we're not actually using a systemic lens. It just keeps us at an individual level and keeps us from actually changing anything in the system. It's realizing this is a system that's being used against us. There are people whose position in the system is being used to exploit us in that sense is when individuals are our enemy. But it's because of their position in the system. It's not because they're inherently our enemy or permanently our enemy. It's just as long as they're on that side of the system, they're our enemy. There's always an open invitation to come to our side. It's recognizing where does that power actually come from? How does that power continue through generations, no matter who's actually in control? And like we said earlier, realizing that the workers have so much power and they do a lot of propaganda out there to keep us divided, to make sure we don't see how much power we collectively hold. One of the things I really like about the Religion justice podcast and the Wenla Cook program and Jorg Rieger's work is this reframing of power. A, um, really basic definition of power is the ability to have an effect. And I think what gets hard for people to understand is how much power is corrupted. Usually the only times we bring up the word power is if we're talking about it in a negative sense. It's like a lot of things like technology, it's like religion, it's like they can be used in a bad way or a good way, but it's really just the ability to have an effect. We can use our ability to have an effect for good. There could be more of an ability to have an effect when we come together and use it. Now, as people are looking at the awful things happening in the world and wondering what's causing it, the mass deportations and the demonization of immigrants, the very narrow, naive, individualistic lens is like, yeah, immigrants are taking our jobs, we need to get rid of them. But then another individualistic lens is to just say that Trump is just evil and doesn't like immigrants. But if we look at who's making money off of mass deportations, all of these private detention centers, the DHS works with a bunch of private companies that are all getting richer off of mass deportations and stocks shooting up, especially after Trump won. Private detention centers, private airlines, private healthcare companies, private tech companies. A big one in conversation lately is Palantir, who is being used with their AI programs to build apps to track immigrants, which can only be made by tracking everyone. Then their technology also being used for

>> Gabi Lisi: 38:50

predictive policing, which all started, mind you, with them wanting to track us for consumer behavior. Yeah, right. So they started small. They just started, oh, how can I get Gab to buy another pair of red wing boots? Now that they've mastered that, they're moving on to, how can we use this in more nefarious ways? I would argue that the consumerist one is also pretty nefarious. Yeah, these tracking softwares just keeps escalating.

>> Damon Garcia: 39:15

Yeah. Also this Palantir's technology being used by the Israeli military against Palestinians, it's all connected to these private companies that are getting rich off of violence all over the world. Who's actually making money here? Who does this actually benefit? All this messaging about, like, well, immigrants are just are taking your job. They're valiant criminals. We have to get rid of them. It's realizing that that's all a big distraction from the people who are actually making our life harder. People who are invested in these private companies that make money to kill us and imprison us.

>> Gabi Lisi: 39:51

Mhm. That's a Pretty good segue into the capitalocene for some of our listeners. If you haven't listened to the most recent 20, um, minutes with the Org episode where he sort of goes over Anthropocene versus capitalocene. Essentially, what the capitalocene is, is it's a proposition that instead of living in the Anthropocene, which is the age of humans, uh, we're actually living in the age of the capitalocene. And the Capitalocene, in short terms, uh, where the economic interests of a small and privileged group of, uh, humans ruled both people and the planet, human and non human life. The role neoliberal capitalism has played in climate change is pretty hard to dispute. Damian, uh, was just talking about one form of this sort of corporate, ah, financial stranglehold that is existing here. I'll talk about an environmental one. At, uh, present 71 CO2 emissions are linked to only 100 fossil fuel producers. Um, but what we get told all the time is that climate change is an individual problem. You, one person need to recycle, you one person need to stop using plastic straws. That wasn't always necessarily the mindset. It seems like what you're talking about in this book overlaps quite a bit with themes of the capitalocene.

>> Damon Garcia: 41:03

Yeah, I really like Jorg's critique of the way that people talk about the Anthropocene, as if to look at all the ways that the Earth has been significantly damaged over time and then to say, look what humans have done. It's a problem when we consider how this damage has been done. Is it humans or is it a small group of humans who are exploiting the Earth and exploiting the rest of humans? Considering that the defining factor of capitalism is the privatization of all our resources, then we have to work to get our resources back. So we contribute to the system that's destroying the Earth so that we can survive, so we could get the means of survival back from these people who are actually controlling the system. Another problem with saying, well, look what humans have done is that it seems like the solution is get rid of humans or lessen humans impact. When it's like actually changing the system that's causing all of this is a more helpful way of understanding the situation we're in and the situation the Earth is in.

>> Gabi Lisi: 42:09

Um, absolutely. What is the importance of connecting your readers with each other through work? Why not write from a specific community or an identity? Why choose work? Here at the Wendland Cook Program, we're pretty passionate about connecting people to each other through labor. Why did you take that approach and what Kind of power did you see in choosing Work as a connective thread?

>> Damon Garcia: 42:35

We have all these corporations, questions about work and purpose, and is this what, what I'm supposed to do? 51% of US employees, according to Gallup, are actively seeking a new job and only 26% would recommend their organization as a great place to work. Yeah, most of us don't prefer what we're doing for work. Recognizing that layer of alienation that we all share and recognizing that despair that we all share is important. What I really want to help people see is that work isn't just wage labor. Work is actually something natural to us as humans and all creatures. Work is just purposeful activity. Work is also getting ready in the morning, dressing ourselves, cooking for our families, and even messaging people back. All those things are work.

>> Gabi Lisi: 43:30

Staying involved in your community.

>> Damon Garcia: 43:32

And some people may be like, well, those are easy. That's not really work. But if you've ever been depressed and tried to do those things, you know what it feels like when it really feels like work. There's uh, also all this unpaid labor that historically women have had to do.

>> Gabi Lisi: 43:47

Yep.

>> Damon Garcia: 43:47

Reproductive labor and social labor. Work isn't just wage labor. Wage labor is a, uh, very intentional reduction of work. A very specific kind of work where we have to sell our labor to do a certain set of tasks to get money to survive. But then there's all this other work that we have to do throughout life. A lot of it is what we love to do. And part of being human. It's not just work versus no work or pro work versus anti work. It's also reclaiming what work is supposed to be. You think of like thousands of years in these small human communities. The question of what do I do with my life? Probably never came up because the answer was just in the needs of the community. Responding to the needs of the community. Hunting or cleaning, taking care of children or farming. That was work for most of human

>> Gabi Lisi: 44:41

history without necessarily a wage attached to it. Right. A payment, if you even want to call it that. The payment in exchange for the labor was a, um, material outcome or a social outcome or a, uh, you know, an emotional outcome. Even chores. Right. Folding your clothes, doing the laundry, that's work.

>> Damon Garcia: 45:00

Yeah.

>> Gabi Lisi: 45:00

You don't get paid for it usually, but that's work.

>> Damon Garcia: 45:03

Yeah. And God is the original worker.

>> Gabi Lisi: 45:06

Mhm.

>> Damon Garcia: 45:07

We're all still co creating with God and co working with God to build a better world. Work is a natural, beautiful part of being human and it can be better than all this.

>> Gabi Lisi: 45:20

Absolutely. Speaking of God, the Original worker. You are arguing we are dependent on each other. We're co. Creating co presumes that there's something else happening or someone else involved or something else involved. What's the importance of being dependent on each other? And how is that a source of power?

>> Damon Garcia: 45:38

We're uh, constantly given this vision that success is ultimate independence. First we're taken care of by our caregivers and authority figures, and then we have to become successful enough to no longer be dependent on them, get our own place to live, our own property, no longer be dependent on any of our family. That's like a real ultimate success. I no longer have to ask my family for help is what people envision is like, that's where I'm headed. That's where I'll be happy and successful and achieve what I want to. And then beyond that is this point where you don't need any help from friends, you don't need any help from coworkers, or where you can build a business and then sell it and then no longer have to work. So you no longer have to depend on boss or work or anything, money, nothing. Ultimate independence. But the people who follow that path and succeed end up being more dependent than ever. They're dependent on all these invisible workers and service people to clean up after them, to maintain their properties. Then as they're just pressing a button to order all of their needs and services straight to their house. It feels like, oh, uh, I'm so independent now. I don't need anybody. I just press these buttons and things happen. In reality, there's all of these workers that are providing for your needs and you're more dependent than ever. Independence is an illusion.

>> Gabi Lisi: 47:08

Yeah.

>> Damon Garcia: 47:09

The truth is we're all interdependent creatures. We're interdependent from the beginning of life all the way to the end of life.

>> Gabi Lisi: 47:17

Mhm.

>> Damon Garcia: 47:18

What I would like people to do instead of making that their goal in life is to reach more and more independence, is just realize now you'll always be interdependent and to turn to those that you're dependent on now and no longer feel anxious or embarrassed about it. Except I'm dependent. I need help. I need others. In order to be a human, I need others. Embrace that. Be someone to depend on for others too, as you depend on others. That is just part of being human. There's a lot of messages out there of trying to challenge our insecurity of not being good enough and try to just get people to affirm themselves and say, you are good enough to don't worry, you have everything you need within yourself. You are great as you are. We need that sometimes, especially because of how insecure our system makes us feel in order to make us buy things. Then at the same time, we also need to pay attention to when that feeling is actually rooted in our body. Telling us, you actually aren't good enough on your own because you need other people as a human being. Why are you trying to be good enough all on your own, all by yourself, without anyone? Another alternative subtitle for this book could have been, you don't need a calling, you just need community. I'm really trying to help people realize that that is where you find purpose in community. Instead of feeling I need to become someone great, I need to fulfill my dreams, I need to achieve this or that, and then I'll be deserving of a community instead realizing like, no, the community comes first. Actually, let's find community. Look at the needs of our community, see where we fit in, how we could depend on others, how others could depend on us. And that is where purpose is found.

>> Gabi Lisi: 49:07

My God. Yeah, community will shape you right? It's not just roses all the time. Community is one of the hardest things that we do. Because a good community, um, one that has love and respect, will ask you to be better and will ask you to continually become. Will ask you to become better versions of yourself over time. And you'll be doing the same with your other community members. It's not like a one way street. It's where we grow. A lot of self help books know you talk about this a lot more in the book, but a lot of self help books don't tell you that. They tell you you can do all of that growth all by yourself. You can create almost like a little God of yourself. It's such a bastardized version of life. It sucks so much meaning out of our life when we're not in community and we're not struggling within community to change things. I know we're short on time, but you mentioned God the worker. Uh, where does faith, spirituality or religion come into this for you?

>> Damon Garcia: 50:05

Faith is exciting and inspiring and fruitful. For me when it's about remembering that other people made the world this way, so therefore we can change it. God calls us to continue to bring heaven to earth and make the world more loving and just. It's reclaiming the God who is calling for a new world. Unfortunately, most mainstream religion is just about justifying the world as it is and preserving the systems in place, saying, well, it's this way because God made it this way. Throughout the Bible, we see a God who's always in tension with the way that the world is calling people to do something about the way the world is and to change it. A lot of that is typically inspired by a larger vision that God is calling us to do better than this. There are a lot of churches that are calling for change, but it's just change backwards. Let's go back to how it was when things were safer under straight white men. We need to keep moving forward. God is calling for a new world that we haven't seen before.

>> Gabi Lisi: 51:15

Absolutely. George, my co host, always ended the podcast by asking each guest the following. This quote that's often ascribed to St. Augustine goes Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are and courage to see they do not remain as they are. Sometimes courage is referred to as hope. Damon, what's one thing that's giving you hope right now and one thing that's making you angry?

>> Damon Garcia: 51:45

Hmm. A common phrase you hear people say these days is everybody's struggling right now. Usually like when you talk about things that are people trying to afford. You heard a lot of it in the beginning of COVID attached to a message of we're all in this together. People already were doubting it back then, but then when people say now, yeah, everybody's struggling right now. Big artist tours are being canceled because people can't buy tickets, the movies are dying, other industries are dying. And then people say like, well, yeah, everybody's struggling right now. What gives me hope is that phrase. Usually there's an implication that people understand that there's a reason we're all struggling. It's the 99% of us are struggling. It's not all of us are in this together. Every single human people who have to work to survive are struggling right now. It is hard for all of us. And there's a reason for more and more people are recognizing there's a reason for it. There's a larger cause to why we're all struggling and that it can change.

>> Gabi Lisi: 52:45

Thank you, Damon, so much for being with us today. Um, if you haven't already ordered or pre ordered your copy, make sure you, uh, pick up you Don't Need a Calling by Damon Garcia. There'll be a link in the description below. And then also make sure you pick up his first book, the God who Riots. I actually have it on my shelf right behind me, so make sure you pick up a copy of that one too. Also, just as life changing and just as accessible for really broad audiences. So, Damon, thank you so much for being on the pod. We appreciate it, of course.

>> Damon Garcia: 53:12

Thank you for having me. This is a really good conversation.

>> Gabi Lisi: 53:22

Thanks for listening to this episode of Religion and Justice from the Wenland Cook Program at Vanderbilt University. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe, share it with others, and follow along for more conversations at the intersection of religion, labor, economics and justice. You can find us online at religionandjustice.org and on substack@religionandjustice. You can learn more about Damon Garcia and his work, including his forthcoming book, you Don't Need a calling out in June 2026 in the show notes below. Until next time, I'm your host Gab Leasy and this has been Religion and Justice. Remember, the path to justice is one we navigate together.

>> Speaker D: 54:16

And you have to reach out to your friends who think they are making it good and get them to understand that they, as well as you and I, cannot be free in America or anywhere else where there is capitalism and imperialism until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make this struggle and have to make the fight for freedom every day in the year, every year until they win it. Thank you.