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How Authentically Christian is Liberation Theology?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

James Tunstead Burtchaell C.S.C.
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Extract

This is a friendly critique of the Liberation Theology being elaborated in Latin America. The preferential option for the poor constricts its attention to economic disadvantage, and ascribes virtually all impoverishment to purposeful oppression. The poor are, simply in virtue of their deprivation, said to be so morally exalted that the gospel has for them no call to conversion. Theirs is a salvation without further ado. Yet their salvation turns out to be predominantly, if not exclusively, economic and political. A predilection for the Exodus displaces the death and resurrection ofJesus as the dominant paradigm for liberation. It is maladapted to a Christian vision of liberation, which must aim at communion with the enemy, not mere triumph. By claiming justice as its goal and fulfillment, liberation theology seems to suffer from a loss of Christian nerve. Looking to the socialist state as the sure guarantor of justice, it seems politically naive, and barren of the Christian hope that both exploiter and victim must be transformed into more than just persons (because prepared to return good for evil) well before the society around them has become a fit home even for justice.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , Spring 1988 , pp. 264 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1988

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References

Notes

1. Novak, Michael, Will It Liberate? Questions About Liberation Theology (New York: Paulist, 1986).Google Scholar

2. Boff claims on the contrary that the liberation theologians are speaking with one voice; yet he is himself an example of independence and dissent on some issues within that group. Boff, Leonardo, Salvation and Liberation: In Search of a Balance between Faith and Politics, trans. Barr, Robert B. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1984), pp. 24–30.Google Scholar

3. Gutiérrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation, trans. Inda, Caridad and Eagleson, John (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1973), pp. ix–x, 14.Google Scholar

4. Berryman, John, Liberation Theology (New York: Pantheon, 1987), pp. 63 ff.Google Scholar

5. Dussel, Enrique, Philosophy ofLiberation, trans. Martinez, Aquilina and Morkovsky, Christine (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985), p. 94.Google Scholar

6. Gutiérrez, Gustavo, The Power of the Poor in History, trans. Barr, Robert R. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983), p. 45;Google ScholarBoff, Leonardo, with Boff, Clodovis, Liberation Theology: From Dialogue to Confrontation, trans. Barr, Robert R. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), p. 60.Google Scholar

7. Gutiérrez, , Theology of Liberation, p. 18.Google Scholar

8. Dussel, , Philosophy of Liberation, p. 41Google Scholar; Ethics and the Theology of Liberation, trans. Mcwilliams, Bernard F. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1978), pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

9. Segundo, Juan Luis, The Historical Jesus of the Synoptics, trans. Drury, John (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985), pp. 90–92.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., p. 91.

11. Galilea, Segundo, FollowingJesus, trans. Phillips, Helen (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1981), p. 3.Google Scholar

12. Leonardo, Boff, Way of the Cross — Way of Justice, trans. Drury, John (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1980), p. 29.Google Scholar

13. Gutiérrez, , Power of the Poor, p. 116.Google Scholar See also p. 140. Segundo, draws this same view from Andre Myre, who writes: “Inner dispositions have nothing to do with Jesus’ choice. Jesus addresses himself to the lowly, the socially marginalized, the sick, the disadvantaged, the poor people who are victims of injustice, those kinds of people who have no hope in this kind of world. He announces to them that God loves them. And it must be stressed: this option, this proclamation, has nothing to do with the moral, spiritual, or religious worth of those people. It is grounded exclusively on the horror that the God known to Jesus feels for the present state of the world, and on the divine decision to come and re-establish the situation in favor of those for whom life is more difficult. Jesus reveals God, not the spiritual life of his listeners” (Historical Jesus, p. 109).Google Scholar

14. Ibid., p. 142.

15. Metz, Johann Baptist, The Emergent Church: The Future of Christianity in a Post-bourgeois World, trans. Mann, Peter (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 97;Google ScholarSölle, Dorothee, Of War and Love, trans. Rita, and Kimber, Robert (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983), p. 29.Google Scholar

16. Segundo, , Historical Jesus, p. 135.Google Scholar

17. Boff, Leonardo, Saint Francis: A Model for Human Liberation, trans. Diercksmeier, John W. (New York: Crossroad, 1982), pp. 49–51Google Scholar, describes well how poverty dehumanizes rich and poor alike, albeit implying that there is no poverty except by dint of oppression.

18. Gutiérrez, , Theology of Liberation, p. 159Google Scholar; Segundo, Juan Luis, Theology and the Church: A Response to Cardinal Ratzinger and a Warning to the Whole Church, trans. Diercksmeier, John (Minneapolis: Winston [Seabury], 1985), pp. 44–49.Google Scholar

19. Dussel, Enrique, History and the Theology of Liberation: A Latin American Perspective, trans. Drury, John (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1976), p. 144Google Scholar, see Yoder, John Howard, “Exodus and the Exile: The Two Faces of Liberation,” Cross Currents (Fall 1973): 297–309.Google Scholar

20. Gutiérrez, , Theology of Liberation, pp. 165–66Google Scholar; Boff, , Salvation and Liberation, pp. 43–45Google Scholar, has a more balanced view.

21. Dussel, , History and the Theology of Liberation, p. 144.Google Scholar It is of interest that despite this insistence that “liberation” not be treated analogically, Dussel, does make “violence” into an analogy (Ethics and the Theology of Liberation, p. 48).Google Scholar

22. See Gutiérrez, , Theology of Liberation, p. 194ffGoogle Scholar; Power of the Poor, p. 8ff.

23. Boff, Leonardo, Chunk: Charism and Power: Liberation Theology and the Institutional Church, trans. Diercksmeier, John W. (New York: Crossroad, 1986), p. 25.Google Scholar

24. Sobrino, Jon, The True Church and the Poor, trans. O’connell, Matthew J. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1984), p. 47.Google Scholar

25. Boff, , Way of the Cross, p. 55.Google ScholarSee also Galilea, , The Future of Our Past (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria, 1985), pp. 54–55.Google Scholar

26. Dussel, , History and the Theology of Liberation, pp. 126–27.Google Scholar What Dussel does not discuss is how the “second violence” leads, in its turn, to the third and thus to the eighty-third. Also, by presenting this use of force as a specifically Christian responsibility, he does not propose an agenda much beyond that of the civil state.

27. Galilea, , Following Jesus, pp. 100–101.Google Scholar

28. Sölle, , War and Love, p. 29.Google Scholar

29. Boff, , Salvation and Liberation, p. 46.Google Scholar

30. Boff, calls appealingly for “political holiness,” which he describes as “loving within the class struggle.” Does this mean loving across the struggle, or does it only refer to solidarity with one’s allies? ("A Theological Examination of the Terms ‘People of God’ and ‘Popular Church,'” Concilium 176 [1984]: 95–96).Google Scholar

31. Metz, , Emergent Church, p. 27Google Scholar; Segundo, , Historical Jesus, p. 71ff.Google Scholar

32. Gutiérrez, , Theology of Liberation, p. 175.Google ScholarSegundo, Juan Luis, Faith and Ideologies, trans. Drury, John (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1984), p. 327Google Scholar, points out how this sort of individualized religion so easily plays into the hand of repressive governments. See also Sölle, , Choosing Life, trans. Kohl, Margaret (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), pp. 80–81.Google Scholar

33. Boff, , Church: Charism and Power, p. 25.Google Scholar