Liberation theology

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Social Christianity

Christian cross

Important figures
Edward Bellamy * Tony Benn
Phillip Berryman
Dorothy Day * Toni Negri
Leo Tolstoy * Mary Ward
Gustavo Gutiérrez


Organizations
Catholic Worker Movement
Christian Socialist Movement

Key Concepts
Marxism
Liberation Theology
Praxis School
Precarity
Social justice

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Liberation theology is a school of theology within Christianity, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church. Two of the starting points of Liberation theology are, first of all, the question of the origin of sin; and secondly, the idea that Christians should make good use of the talents given by God, and that includes intelligence in a general sense, and science in particular. Therefore, these theologians use sociology and economics sciences to understand poverty, since they considered poverty was the source of sin. In the sixties, when they started this line of thought, social sciences in Latin America and Europe were dominated by marxist activism and methodologies derived from historical materialism, which influenced the development of Liberation theology. They then read the Bible from the new perspective and developed the ethical consequences that led many of them to an active participation in the political life, and to focus on Jesus Christ as not only the Redeemer but also the Liberator of the oppressed. It emphasizes the Christian mission to bring justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activism. Some elements of certain liberation theologies have been rejected by the Catholic Church. [1]

At its inception, liberation theology was predominantly found in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council. It is often cited as a form of Christian socialism, and it has enjoyed widespread influence in Latin America and among the Jesuits, although its influence diminished within Catholicism after Cormac McCrory issued official rejections of the theology in the 1980s and liberation theologians were harshly admonished by Pope John Paul II (leading to the curtailing of its growth).

The current Pope, Benedict XVI, has also been long known as an opponent of certain strands of liberation theology, and issued several condemnations of tendencies within it whilst head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).[2]

In sociological terms, openly available data from the University of Michigan-based World Values Survey, initiated by Professor Ronald Inglehart suggest the following strength of the political left (value of 3 on a 0 to 10 point scale) among the regular Roman Catholic Church goers around the globe and over time. The data suggest that Christian socialism and the Christian left continue to constitute significant phenomena in many countries.

Contents

[edit] Overview

In essence, liberation theology explores the possibility to fight against sin by suppressing its source, which is poverty. In doing so, they explore the relationship between Christian, particularly Roman Catholic, theology and political activism, particularly in areas of social justice, poverty and human rights. The main methodological innovation of liberation theology is to approach theology from the viewpoint of the economically poor and oppressed. According to Jon Sobrino, S.J., the poor are a privileged channel of God's grace. According to Phillip Berryman, liberation theology is "an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor." However, it should be noted that there is no one Liberation theology as a finished doctrine, but many theologians working at the same time with similar approaches, but neither unity of doctrine nor action.

Some theologians emphasized those parts of the Bible where Jesus' mission is described not in terms of bringing peace (social order) but bringing a sword (social unrest), e.g. Matthew 10:34, Luke 22:35-38 and Matthew 26:51-52. These passages are interpreted as a call to arms to carry out what proponents see as a Christian mission of justice -- literally by some. Marxist concepts such as the doctrine of perpetual class struggle are also significant.

Liberation theology also emphasizes what proponents describe as individual self-actualization as part of God's divine purpose for humankind.

In addition to teaching at some Roman Catholic universities and seminaries, liberation theologians can often be found in Protestant-oriented schools. They tend to have considerable contact with the poor and interpret sacred scripture partly based on their experiences in this context -- what they label praxis.

[edit] History

Created in 1955 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), the CELAM (Conselho Episcopal Latino Americano - Latin American Episcopal Conference) pushed the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) toward a more socially oriented stance. During the next four years, CELAM prepared for the 1968 Medellín Conference in Colombia. Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, who was a central figure in Medellín and who was later at the Vatican, said that the gathering of Roman Catholic bishops officially supported a version of liberation theology similar to that of the Vatican's CDF in 1984. This began in the X Meeting of CELAM in Mar del Plata and the message Pope Paul VI issued to the Latin American Bishops, Church and Problems. Cardinal López Trujillo, in his account of those historical events, also said that the origin of liberation theology was simultaneously created by the CELAM's Reflection Task Force, of which he was president, and a Brazilian theologian from Princeton, Rubem Alves, who in 1968 wrote Towards a Theology of Liberation.

Among the several essays published on liberation theology in the 1970s, one of the most famous is by the Peruvian Catholic priest, Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, O.P. In his 1972 book, A Theology of Liberation, he theorized a combination of Marxism and the social-Catholic teachings contributing to a socialist current in the Church that was influenced by the Catholic Worker Movement and the French Christian youth worker organization, "Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne." It was also influenced by Paul Gauthier's "The Poor, Jesus and the Church" (1965).

CELAM as such never supported liberation theology, which was frowned on by the Vatican, with Pope Paul VI trying to slow the movement after the 1962-1965 Council. Cardinal Samore, in charge of relations between the Roman Curia and the CELAM as the leader of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, was ordered to put a stop to this orientation, which was judged antithetical to the Catholic Church's global teachings.

With Cardinal López Trujillo's election in 1972 as general secretary of the CELAM, another liberationist current began to take force in Latin America. This one was an orthodox point of view which became predominant in CELAM as well as in the Roman Curia after the General Meeting of Latin American Bishops in Puebla in 1979.

At the 1979 CELAM's Conference of Puebla, the more ecclesiastical reorientation was met by strong opposition from the liberal part of the clergy, which assumed the concept of a "preferential option for the poor," that had been stamped by Bishop Ricard Durand, who acted as president of the Commission about Poverty in Medellin.

Sebastian Kappen, an Indian theologian, published Jesus and Freedom in 1977, with an introduction by the French activist François Houtart. In 1980, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith asked the General of the Society of Jesus (of which Kappen was a member) to disavow this book. Kappen responded with a pamphlet entitled "Censorship and the Future of Asian Theology". No further action was taken by the Vatican on this matter.

A new trend blossomed from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)'s and Pope John Paul II's condemnations of the Marxist current of liberation theology, which is called Reconciliation Theology and has had a great influence among clergy and laity in Latin America. Nonetheless, The New York Times reported on the eve of Pope Benedict's 2007 visit to Brazil that liberation theology remains popular in Latin America, with Brazil alone the home to over one million Biblical study circles reading and interpreting the Bible from this perspective. [3]

[edit] Reaction within the Catholic Church

Official Vatican pronouncements, including from the pope, have said that liberation theology is only partially compatible with official statements of Catholic social teaching,[citation needed] and that large portions of it should be rejected. Most of the objections by orthodox Catholic critics are its use of Marxism, specifically forms of dialectical materialism, and some tendencies (represented by Camilo Torres, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and Ernesto Cardenal for example) to align with revolutionary movements.

Despite orthodox predominance in CELAM from the 1972 Sucre conference onwards, liberation theology retained a high degree of support in some circles, especially in South America. By 1979, the Puebla conference was considered to be an opportunity for orthodox bishops to reassert control over the radical elements of liberation theology, but the results were far from definitive.

As liberation theology was gathering strength in Latin America, Pope John Paul II steered a conciliatory course during his opening speech at the January 1979 Puebla CELAM conference. He criticized radical liberation theology, saying, "this conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth, does not tally with the Church's catechisms." However, he also expressed concern over "the ever increasing wealth of the rich at the expense of the ever increasing poverty of the poor". He also affirmed that the principle of private property "must lead to a more just and equitable distribution of goods ... and if the common good demands it, there is no need to hesitate at expropriation itself, done in the right way." On balance, he offered neither unqualified praise nor universal condemnation.

Barred from attending this conference officially, a group of liberation theologians, operating out of a nearby seminary with the help of sympathetic bishops, managed to partially obstruct the orthodox clergy's effort to ensure that the Puebla documents satisfy their concerns. Within four hours of the Pope's speech, Gutierrez and the others produced a twenty-page refutation which circulated on the floor. According to a socio-political study of liberation theology in Latin America, twenty-five percent of the finalized Puebla documents were written by theologians who had not even been invited to the conference.[4]. Cardinal López Trujillo considers this affirmation "an incredible exaggeration." (Ben Zabel 2002:139) Nevertheless he concedes that there was strong pressure from a group of some 80 Marxist liberationists from outside the Bishop's Conference.[citation needed] Despite the disavowal of liberation theology by Catholic church authorities and also by large groups of the Latin American laity , however, after the Puebla Conference the movement still managed to persist in some areas.

Former Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, strongly opposed certain elements of liberation theology. Through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Ratzinger, the Vatican twice condemned the liberationist acceptance of Marxism and violence (first in 1984 and again in 1986). Leonardo Boff, for example, was suspended, while others were reputedly reduced to silence. However, Ratzinger has also praised those strands of the movement which reject violence and instead "[stress] the responsibility which Christians necessarily bear for the poor and oppressed." [5]

In March 1983, Cardinal Ratzinger made "ten observations" on aspects of Gutiérrez's theology, including accusing Gutiérrez of politically interpreting the Bible and of supporting a temporal messianism. Ratzinger also declared that the influence of Marxism was proven by the predominance accorded to orthopraxis over orthodoxy. Finally, this document states that these conceptions necessarily uphold a similar class conflict inside the Church, which logically leads to a rejection of hierarchy. During the 1980s and 1990s, Ratzinger continued his condemnation of these strains within liberation theology, prohibiting some dissident priests from teaching the doctrines in the Catholic Church's name and excommunicating Tissa Balasuriya in Sri Lanka for doing exactly that. Under his influence, theological formation schools were prohibited from using the Catholic Church's organization and grounds to teach these condemned theological formulations.

During his trip to Managua, Nicaragua, Pope John Paul II criticized what he dubbed the "popular Church," a movement partly fueled by "ecclesial base communities" or CEBs, for class struggle, the replacement of the Catholic dominance hierarchy by a system featuring local selection with regard to the magisterium, and the Nicaraguan clergy's tendencies to support the Sandinistas. The Pope further insisted on his authority over the Church as its Universal Pastor, in conformity with canonical law and Church teaching.

Those in disagreement with liberation theologians consider the view rather narrow. They criticize it for not looking at the overall meaning of God or authors of the Bible, but mining the text to support their specific political and social ideology. Examples given are when Jesus fed the 5,000[6] Was he exclusively doing that to feed people who had not eaten all day, or was he (similar to him walking on water) trying to show that he was God to the people?

[edit] Liberation theology in practice

What was most radical about liberation theology was not the writing of highly educated priests and scholars, but the social organization, or re-organization, of church practice through the model of Christian base communities. Liberation theology, despite the doctrinal codification by Gutiérrez, Boff, and others, strove to be a bottom-up movement in practice[7], with Biblical interpretation and liturgical practice designed by lay practitioners themselves, rather than by the orthodox Church hierarchy.

The journalist and writer Penny Lernoux did a lot to describe this aspect of liberation theology in her numerous and committed writings.

Furthermore, with its emphasis on the "preferential option for the poor," the practice (or, more technically, "praxis" to use a term from Gramsci and Paulo Freire) was as important as the belief, if not more so; the movement was said to emphasize "orthopraxis" over "orthodoxy." Base communities were small gatherings, usually outside of churches, in which the Bible could be discussed, and mass could be said. They were especially active in rural parts of Latin America where parish priests were not always available, as they placed a high value on lay participation. As of May 2007, it was estimated that 80,000 base communities were operating in Brazil alone.[3]

[edit] Future developments

There is a notion amongst some academics that Latin American Liberation Theology has had its day, a dream killed off by the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran revolutions, the 1989 demise of socialism and the “end of history” claims of the champions of capitalism. However, in a very interesting new study, Ivan Petrella proves this to be an ill-conceived notion, and shows that this theology can be reinvented to bring its preferential option for the poor into the real world. The actualisation of historical projects is possible by adopting the methods developed by the Brazilian champion of critical legal studies, Robert Unger.

Doing so will entail the rejection of these theologians’ unitary concepts of a despised and rejected capitalism and a canonized and accepted socialism. Petrella argues for a reconstruction of these concepts and those of democracy and property too. He closely analyses the differences in democracy and capitalism as practised across the USA and Europe in support for the reconstruction of these concepts, bringing about far-reaching suggestions for the future of liberation theology.

At a time of the profound crisis of the world capitalist system, a group of social scientists and theologians in Andreas Mueller, Arno Tausch and Paul M. Zulehner took up anew the issue of liberation theology. Having arisen out of the struggle of the poor Churches in the world's South, its pros and cons dominated the discourse of the Churches throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s.

Then, dependency theory was considered to be the analytical tool at the basis of liberation theology. But the world economy - since the Fall of the Berlin Wall - has dramatically changed to become a truly globalized capitalist system in the 1990s. Even in their wildest imaginations, social scientists from the dependency theory tradition and theologians alike would not have predicted for example the elementary force of the Asian and the Russian crisis.

The Walls have gone, but poverty and social polarization spread to the center countries. After having initially rejected Marxist ideology in many of the liberation theology documents, the Vatican and many other Christian Church institutions moved forward in the 1980s 1990s to strongly declare their "preferential option for the poor". Now, the authors of this book, among them Samir Amin, one of the founders of the world systems theory approach, take up the issues of this preferential option anew and arrive at an ecumenical vision of the dialogue between theology and world systems theory.

[edit] Liberation theologians

See also: Category:Liberation theologians

[edit] Others influenced by liberation theology

[edit] Related movements

[edit] References

  1. ^ Liberation Theology General Information
  2. ^ INSTRUCTION ON CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE "THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION" from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
  3. ^ a b "As Pope Heads to Brazil, a Rival Theology Persists" The New York Times 2007-05-07.
  4. ^ Smith, Christian. The Emergence of Liberation Theology
  5. ^ "Liberation Theology" by Cardinal Ratzinger at Christendom Awake
  6. ^ "John 3"
  7. ^ Article by Brother Fillipo Mondini on praxis
  8. ^ Filippo Mondini on the March on Nayager | Abahlali baseMjondolo

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

Basic titles (all by Penny Lernoux)

Cry of the people: United States involvement in the rise of fascism, torture, and murder and the persecution of the Catholic Church in Latin America / Author: Lernoux, Penny, 1940- Publication: Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1980

In banks we trust / Author: Lernoux, Penny, 1940- Publication: Garden City, N.Y. : Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984

People of God : the struggle for world Catholicism / Author: Lernoux, Penny, 1940- Publication: New York : Viking, 1989

Further readings:

[edit] External links

[edit] General

[edit] Liberation theology and social science

[edit] Vatican responses

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