Liberation Theology - 2

Liberation theology is the prophetic third world response to oppression. The theology has emerged only as prophetic practice opened the way for it. The realization that theology was part of an oppressed culture did not come at once. The oppression existed and then came the prophets, who started the process and theology followed them later. This is the relationship between theology and practice, and its insistence that the practice in question is the liberation practice of the exploited classes. In them the message becomes once again a transforming force, the community becomes an agent of liberation, and theology becomes a spiritual experience. There is a groaning of the universe born of the need to be free. Latin American Liberation Theology emerged in the midst of profound economic, cultural, and religious upheavals in Latin America. It began in the 60's among ordinary Christians who felt called by their faith to work for and with the poor. This was a concrete way of living out faith in the God of Moses and Jesus which understands the gift of salvation as intimately bound up with the struggles of the oppressed for liberation in history. Any theology which does not directly relate to and contribute to the liberation of the oppressed - despite its other possible virtues - is not Christian (or useful) theology. Christianity's message of salvation is one of liberation from sin and the consequences of sin that enslave humanity. The United States is locked into a struggle with the poor of the world, but our economic interests prevent us from responding to their cries. There has always been the accusation that liberation theology is Marxist. While there is some truth to parts of it, it is only in the context that liberation theology is anti-authoritarian, anti-imperialist, has a preferential option for the poor and stands against laissez-faire capitalism and oppression. Marxism was an atheistic anti-christian ideology that stood for violence to achieve their goals. This is in direct conflict with the spiritual and prophetic ideals that have identified the liberation movements of the thirld world, supported by the church. Brazilian liberation theologist Archbishop Helder Camara says, "When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist." The former U.S. Senator Frank Church, on the shortsightedness of 'rollback' as our foreign policy doctrine" states that "America's inability to come to terms with revolutionary change in the The Third World...has created our biggest international problems in the postwar era. But the root of the problem is not, as many Americans persist in believing, the relentless spread of communism. Rather, it is our own difficulty in understanding that Third World revolutions are primarily nationalist, not communist. Nationalism, not capitalism or communism, is the dominant political force in the modern world. You might think that revolutionary nationalism and the desire for self-determination would be relatively easy for Americans - the first successful revolutionaries to win their independence - to understand. But instead we have been dumbfounded when other peoples have tried to pursue the goals of our own revolution two centuries ago...." William Geider writes that "The great multinationals are unwilling to face the moral and economic contradictions of their own behavior - producing in low-wage dictatorships and selling to high-wage democracies. Indeed, the striking quality about global enterprises is how easily free-market capitalism puts aside its supposed values in order to do business. The conditions of human freedom do not matter to them so long as the market demand is robust. The absence of freedom, if anything, lends order and efficiency to their operations." When the five-fold ministry is open to the moving of the spirit among the poor and dispossessed people of God, we contribute to a theology of liberation. We can only accomplish our goals in the Christian community when we have included ourselves in the process of liberation and involved ourselves with the poor and oppressed. Ours is a theology of the denunciation of oppression and we look forward to the worldly confrontation, others are merely spinning their wheels. The Puritans in the group will be cast out of their own accord, the apostles of pretense will be exposed and the false prophets will be put to shame. Interest in liberation theology has grown rapidly in North America, both because of its own importance and because of related developments among the proponents of black and women's liberation theology. It is an ethical theology that grew out of social awareness and the desire to act. If Liberation Theology and its reference to Jesus is to be meaningful for our people today, then it must be lived and expressed within the liberation project of the poor. The liberating love of God is ever historically linked to the poor. For it is there that our relationship to the world as religious will find real historical roots. The overwhelming fact about the third world is that the majority of its people are poor, exploited, and marginalized. This forces us to recognize the chief sign of the times in all its force and meaning. That sign is Jesus the poor person. We cannot dissociate the condition of the poor and oppressed from the mystery of Christ. Jesus still presents Himself to us as the chief Liberator, and we can recognize him as such. To be consecrated to the poor of the land means to have opted for those who not only are the favorites of Yahweh (the just, the blest, the upright) but will also inherit the land in these last days. Our option for the poor and oppressed is not one task among many others, it is the key act, and it represents a qualitative leap. Human brotherhood is at the core of the poor's project. The poor are the bearers of the message of human solidarity. Solidarity with the poor implies a commitment to turn human love into a collective experience from which there is no turning back. Liberation praxis is the decisive factor in our love for God and in the sanctifying action of the spirit. Liberation seems to express better both the hopes of oppressed peoples and the fullness of a view in which man us seen not as a passive element, but as an agent of history. More profoundly, to see history as a process of man's liberation places the issue of desired social changes in a dynamic context. Martin Luther King: "All over the world like a fever, freedom is spreading in the widest liberation movement in history. The starting point is our objective situation as oppressed and dependent peoples." The theology of liberation shifts the emphasis toward liberating action, in a strongly political sense, in the context of the conflict situation of the world today. We did not create the conflict, we denounce it and only blind fools cannot recognize it. The political aspect of eschatology is therefore an important recurring theme in the theology of liberation. The process of liberation as it is going on now implies the need of the Church to make a choice. Speaking the truth is no longer an acceptable substitute for doing the truth. The mark of the beast must be shaken off, in our heads and to what we put our hands to do. The tendency toward messianism in Latin America is one of the most vigorous potential revolutionary and liberating forces of the people, and one still largely unexplored. The Biblical concept of messianism, understood as the collective expression of the historical hope of a people on its way, can become one of the most important sources for a theology of liberation. The Right is more and more coming to the conclusion that it cannot count on the support of the Church, whereas the Left is beginning to regard it as an ally. "The poor you have always with you" should not be used to legitimize an exploitive economic system. Indeed, Jesus' whole teaching takes on liberating force, and He is seen to preach a God who stands with the poor. Liberation Theology becomes a way of understanding Christian belief, Christian life, and the mission of the church from the side of the poor and their demand for justice. The commitment to the process of liberation challenges one with a meaningful change, a radical questioning of a social order and its ideology, a break with the old form of knowing things. That is why the liberating praxis, in the measure that it starts from an authentic solidarity with the poor and oppressed, will be in short, a praxis of love. Isaiah 61:1,2, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn." Liberation in Latin America is a divine imperative; conscientious participation is their common calling and a meaningful and fruitful challenge to Christians everywhere. The very living of his faith involves the creation of a new and solidary world and leads to historical initiatives fertilized by Christian hopes. The five-fold ministry must also work for the establishment of those structures that has best realized the Christian humanistic values of liberation, justice and love which are endorsed by the gospel. The church for too long has focused on spiritual and individual faith and put down the Biblical notion that religious salvation involves liberation from oppressive economic and political structures as well. We emphasize that unity among Christians is only a myth so long as there are oppressed and oppressors within their ranks. It is just too easy to spot the right-wing, luke warm Christian Babylonian conservatives that oppose these truths. In recent years, the Roman church has announced a series of official changes. The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) committed the Church to an active role in the promotion of justice, human rights, and freedom. Many bishops in Latin America, Asia, and Africa since the end of the Council have exercised this prophetic role vigorously, denouncing political disappearances, torture, economic exploitation, and racism perpetrated by authoritarian regimes in their countries. Not only Rome has made these changes, but many faiths. Of course there has been opposition from Babylon. Think of how many Jerry Falwells there are out there. Imagine others thinking that Bishop Tutu was a "phony." Babylon is falling and judgment begins at the house of God. There is no problem in integrating new social commitments into the Church's moral and religious system, it is essential to its mission in these last days. New religious formulations also began to appear in Latin America in the late 60's. Theologians stressed collective aspects of sin as manifested in unjust structures and in the domination of one class by another. The prophets address values of freedom, participation, and equality more positively now and show a greater willingness to use its national and international capacities prophetically in favor of justice and human dignity. It comes with a price, the Church will begin to experience greater internal strife among themselves and create more tension with secular powers. This is unavoidable.