Liberation Theology

[Myles Domini]

[quote]Myles,

I am not disagreering with you at all. However i am merely pointing out taht true 'liberation theology' is not marxist or communist at all rather. It is using Christs Message of hope to change structures of sin. I would never suggest Leo XIII was in favour of communism or marxist philosophys Rerum Novarum was quite capitalist in its nature (altho it did have many socialist concepts). However True 'Catholic Liberation Theology' i would argue is fine and in accord with the Magesterium. For example the Catholic movement against the Communist Powers in Poland or in the Phillipines or with the end of apartheid are all examples of True Catholic Liberation Theology. It is not merely a battle btwn classes or anything of the sort rather it is the Children of God looking out for eachother and seeking the common good. That is not opposed to the Gospel in any way nor is it the total salvific message of the gospel.
[/quote]

I understand what you're trying to say. However, what you are trying to say is not the accepted definition of Liberation Theology in the contemporary academy. The solidarity movement was not a theology of liberation because they developed no real theology. They worked from the pre-existing teaching of the gospel and measured their actions by it. However, Liberation Theology as I've stated twice already does not simply work from the Thomist base of opposition to tyrants and tyranny thats how it developed into a seperate discipline in the first place. As hot stuff, who was as he said on the first page of this thread a student of Liberation Theology, said already: Liberation Theology starts off with a pre-philosophical commitment and superimposes it upon scripture to find evidence for it. The solidarity movement and those struggling against apartheid did not utilise this method of biblical interpretation. They did not attempt to alter the core message of the gospel. This is where the line is drawn between such sporadic movements in opposition to evil and Liberation Theology. What you're describing is not true Liberation Theology because its not Theology at all. It was simple honest Christians doing what they have the rights to do according to natural law.

[Crusader_4]

Myles i would say its theology but perhaps for clairifcation more rooted iwthin the Tradition of the Church perhaps even more Thomistic in nature.

[Matt Black]

I wrote a paper on this some years ago. Here are some edited highlights of my views (NB: for some reason although the original had footnotes attributing the quotes the version appearing here does not, so apologies):-

"This teaching is best summed-up by the maxim that the Gospel is ‘Good News for the poor’, the contention being that “God has made a fundamental and preferential option for the poor, not because they are better than others, either morally or religiously, but simply because they are poor, often enduring inhuman conditions.” The mission of Jesus was and is to deliver the poor and oppressed and to liberate them from their oppressors and the associated injustice. The Gospel is Good News for the poor and is designed to set them free from poverty and enslavement and to empower them. Thus Luke 4:16ff is interpreted in a materialistic, economic and political fashion. The Church, as the Body of Christ, should therefore concentrate on rescuing the marginalised and dispossessed from their circumstances; only then can the Kingdom of God be made manifest. Thus liberation theologians typically focus on such Biblical texts as the Exodus narrative (Ex. 1-15, as illustrative of God’s deliverance of His people from oppression and slavery), the Law (in so far as it relates to ideas of social justice), the Old Testament prophets (with their calls for justice for the poor) and the Sermon on the Mount (with its accent on the poor). Putting it another way, “liberation theology is an interpretation of Christian faith out of the experience of the poor. It is an attempt to read the Bible and key Christian doctrines with the eyes of the poor. It is at the same time an attempt to help the poor interpret their faith in a new way…As an initial description, we may say that liberation theology is
1. An interpretation of Christian faith out of the suffering, struggle and hope of the poor.
2. A critique of society and the ideologies surrounding it.
3. A critique of the activity of the church and of Christians from the angle of the poor.”...

One of the most well-known of liberation theologians is the Brazilian Catholic Leonardo Boff. For him, soteriology and poverty are inextricably intertwined: “The poor are the primary addressees of Jesus’ message and constitute the eschatological criterion by which the salvation or perdition of every human being is determined.” Liberation theology, for him, means nothing less than the manifestation of the kingdom of God here on earth: “(The kingdom) is the utopia that is realized in the world, the final good of the whole of creation in God, completely liberated from all imperfection and penetrated by the Divine. The world is the arena for the historical realization of the Kingdom. Presently the world is decadent and stained by sin; because of this, the Kingdom of God is raised up against the powers of the anti-Kingdom, engaged in the onerous process of liberation so that the world might accept the Kingdom itself and thus achieve its joyous goal. The Church is that part of the world that, in the strength of the Spirit, has accepted the Kingdom made explicit in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnated in oppression. It preserves the constant memory and consciousness of the Kingdom, celebrating its presence in the world, shaping the way it is proclaimed, and at the service of the world. The Church is not the Kingdom but rather its sign (explicit symbol) and its instrument (mediation) in the world.”

The American theologian and commentator, whose writings in my view place him firmly within the Left wing, Charles L. Kammer III, whom I have used against the Right but whom I will also criticise below, sums up the thinking of many of those on the Left tending towards liberation theology: “God is presented as historically active and is being especially concerned for the poor and oppressed. God is also viewed as being fundamentally concerned with the transformation of social structures…” Although not perhaps as well-known as Leonardo Boff, Gustavo Gutierrez is generally thought of as the prime originator of liberation theology.

An important characteristic of liberation theology and perhaps of the Left wing school of thought generally, is the emphasis on community, of the Church as a corporate being, the Body of Christ. Indeed, a major feature of the praxis of liberation theology is the formation of ‘base communities’ (communidades de base), with ordinary Catholics coming together to live, frequently without the regular presence of ordained clergy, to practice communal living and live out the maxims of liberation theology. “In Latin America today the Bible is read in small village- or barrio-level groups by people sitting on benches, often in the dim light of a kerosene lamp. Previously accustomed to seeing the church as the priest, or the large church building down in the town, or an organization with its own authorities like those of the government, they now begin to see themselves as the church…Latin Americans can read the New Testament as recording the life of the first communidades de base.”Unsurprisingly, the place of the individual is downplayed: “Individualism causes selfishness, the root of all evil.” “Individualism, as we know it, is certainly a by-product of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition…[which has] always understood the individual as part of a broader community and as a person who was both nourished by, and responsible to, the other members of that community.”.

It follows from this that soteriology, as far as individual salvation is concerned, is to be criticised and subordinated to the idea of building community: “Rather than concerning itself with the question “What kinds of communities should we create?”, Christianity has focussed on such issues as “How can the individual be saved?” “What is sound doctrine?”…For most Christians, social reform, the building of human communities, remains secondary to what they perceive to be the real task of Christian faith – providing a means for personal salvation.” This concept can be described as a “move to extend the Christian notion of salvation, or liberation, from personal sin into the entire spectrum of life”.

Another characteristic of liberation theology is the concept of praxis – as it were, the ‘doing’ of theology. Liberation theologians would assert that their doctrine is worked out through practical everyday living and observation. Gutierrez, for example: “Liberation theology would say that God is first contemplated and practised, and only then thought about. What we mean by this is that worshipping God and doing his will are the necessary conditions for thinking about him only on the basis of mysticism and practice is it possible to work out an authentic and respectful way of speaking about God…Contemplation and involvement in history are two essential and interrelated dimensions of Christian life. The mystery is revealed in contemplation and solidarity with the poor: this is what we call the first act or step. Christian life; only after this can this life inspire a process of reasoning: this is the second act or step.”This stands in contradistinction to the methodology of Biblical scholarship that seeks to first interpret Scripture and then apply the interpretation. Gutierrez would indeed go further and state that this new hermeneutic should become the theology for today: “…just as people were once molded by Greek thought. Those who cling to the old ways of thinking, who resist the new approach and accuse its proponents of distorting the faith, remind us of those who once opposed the use of Aristotle’s philosophy in theology. And like the latter, they really have no future.”
...


The chief weakness of the Left-wing in so far as liberation theology is concerned is the absence of an acceptable soteriology (contrasted with Sider and other individuals who strive to delicately balance soteriology with social reform). There is an innate tendency within Left-wing circles to over-stress reform of social, political and economic structures whilst downgrading the need for the salvation of the individual. Consider Kammer for example: “Most significant, however, has been Christianity’s unhealthy focus on personal salvation. A movement founded upon the symbolization of one person’s giving his life for others soon became a religion whose primary concern was a self-centred quest for personal salvation.” In this, Kammer both crosses the line of acceptable doctrine for evangelicals and displays his true colours; he misses the point that Christ’s giving of his life was for our personal salvation and thus establishes a theological, even soteriological, dichotomy that is not really there. The true evangelist focuses on the salvation of others, not his own, since that is already assured; therefore his quest for personal salvation is other-centred. Turner, commenting on Gutierrez in particular, states that “Gutierrez clarifies the notion of salvation by saying that people are converted when they open themselves up to God and to others. This entails demonstrating communion with God by living in communion with one’s neighbor (sic). Gutierrez states that this can be accomplished even if the individual is not aware of this action. These ideas run counter to the traditional Protestant tradition of salvation, which maintains a strict interpretation from the New Testament. Basically, the New Testament says that people are saved when they accept Jesus Christ as their Savior (sic) and commit themselves to doing His will in their lives. Conversion is based on a conscious decision of faith in Christ, and in obeying His teachings. A person is saved, according to the New Testament, when the Holy Spirit lives in the believer, which signifies God’s seal of acceptance. Thus, from this perspective liberation theology is clearly heretical, and many Bible believing Protestants rebuke Gutierrez on this issue. And, even Protestants and Catholics agree on denouncing Gutierrez for extending salvation into all aspects of life.” Although I am not usually in agreement with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Catholic Church’s successor to the Inquisition, I find much with which to agree in his statement that “liberation is first and foremost liberation from the radical slavery of sin…As a logical consequence, it calls for freedom from many different kinds of slavery in the cultural, economic, social and political spheres, all of which derive ultimately from sin…[emphases on]…liberation from servitude of an earthly and temporal kind…seem to put liberation from sin in second place.” There are additional soteriological concerns with some of what is taught on the Left. For example, in agreeing with perhaps some of Boff’s conclusions I must take issue with his methodology, particularly his soteriological roots; he presents Christ as being creation’s ultimate gift to God, which is manifestly absurd unless, by some feat of mental gymnastics he is latching onto the idea of Christ as the Second Adam; if anything, his view on this point should be Christ as God’s gift to creation.


The Left-wing therefore tends to stray into an imbalanced corporatism. While conceding that “Jesus speaks directly to particular persons and offers salvation to specific individuals”, Kammer goes on to say that “his message is always placed within the context of the fundamental form of human communities…the Kingdom of God is coming; human communities will be remade…(Jesus’) concern over individual sin is a concern primarily about the social effects of their sin…there is no idea of the radical separation of individuals from their communities. The condition and destiny of both are inextricably linked. Persons will be saved only as human communities are remade in the coming kingdom of God”. Likewise, Juan Luis Segundo believes that “the longstanding (belief in) individual salvation in the next world represents a distortion of Jesus’ message. He was concerned with man’s full and integral liberation, a process which is already at work in history and which makes use of historical means.” If the sin of the Right is an unhealthy emphasis on the individual, the ‘vertical’, then the error of the Left is by stressing the corporate at the expense of teaching on the vital need for the individual to be reconciled with and justified by God. As much as the Right-wing, the Left can be guilty of preaching a ‘salvation by works’ – in this case for a community rather than for a person by a Person; it negatives and plays down the need for individual personal salvation. It is soteriologically insufficient for the likes of Leonardo Boff to assert, as quoted above, that poverty and soteriology are intertwined; it says nothing about the need for repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation with God on the part of the individual. Ironically, although some on the Left seek to extol the dignity of the individual, by an unhealthy emphasis on corporatism they can easily downgrade rather than uphold his/her intrinsic value; individuals are only important as part of a community.

Similarly, if a fault of the Right is to identify too closely with capitalism, the Left can be justly accused of being over-familiar with Marxism. Kammer again: “The task of envisioning a new form of human community has been taken up in the modern era by the Marxist movement”; although he concedes that “many of its dreams have turned out to be nightmares”. He goes on to say “The Judeo-Christian tradition presents a vision of human communities much closer to the Marxist vision of society that that of the Western capitalist vision. In part this is no coincidence: Marx’s vision of society has deep roots in the Biblical tradition”; to be fair, he qualifies this view in the next few lines, but one is always suspicious of those who try to read into the Bible some kind of modern economic or political doctrine that may or may not actually be there.

This corporatist connection with Marxism extends to a degree into internationalism: “Nation-states must surrender much of their autonomy in international affairs and agree to be bound by higher principles of law transcending national self-interests.” Whilst lauding the principle of co-operation between nation-states and deploring nationalist aggression, where this coming-together amounts to the erosion of the nation-states themselves (as with the EU), this can violate the principle of Genesis 11 and 15. Internationalism therefore does not hold up well against the light of Scripture.

The methodology of praxis that is such a major element of liberation theology has its weaknesses. It could for example tend towards the dangers of existential theology; the idea that truth is relativised by circumstances and experience and that liberation theology is appropriate to its Latin American setting and thus ‘right for them’ contradicts the view of the universality of Biblical truth."

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Matt Black]

So have I killed this thread or what ?

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Aloysius]

i think it was dead... so putting a big thing to read on a thread already dead kinda assured it would not be read.

I haven't gotten around to reading it either.

"The problem of capitalism is not too many capitalists, it is too few"
-G.K. Chesterton