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The Development of Liberation Theology: Continuity or Change?
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14637 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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5 / 1988 |
8,488 Words |
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Paul E. Sigmund
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Mention liberation theology to the average educated person, and you are likely to get one of two reactions--either strongly positive or equally strongly negative. To some, the emergence of liberation theology demonstrates that at last the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America has abandoned its historic alliance with the wealthy classes and taken a position in favor of the poor, as Christ was in favor of the poor. Leading theologians in the United States and Europe have hailed it as a major new approach to theology. Karl Rahner in Austria, Johannes Metz in Germany, and Robert McAfee Brown of the Pacific School of Religion have written about it with enthusiasm. In Latin America, where it originated, it has been praised by the Brazilian Conference of Bishops as "indispensable to the church's activity and to the social commitment of Christians." Its leading proponent, Gustavo Gutiérrez, lectures at major universities and his book, A Theology of Liberation, is an international best seller.
Yet others are not so enthusiastic. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has called it "a fundamental threat to the faith of the Church," and the body he heads accused the liberation theologians of using "concepts uncritically borrowed from Marxist ideology." In September 1984, Ratzinger summoned a leading Brazilian theologian, Leonardo Boff, to Rome and after a discussion of his writings ordered him to observe a period of "penitential silence." Leading Colombian churchmen have led the fight against its influence, accusing it of "using instruments that are not specific to the Gospel" and "promoting hate as a system of change." Latin Americans (and since its translation into English Americans as well) have been able to read in Fidel and Religion, Frei Betto's twenty-three hours of interviews with Fidel Castro, of his enthusiasm for the movement, and his call for a "strategic and lasting alliance" between Marxists and liberation theologians "to transform the world." And just as Castro's words were published, Pope John Paul II wrote to the Brazilian bishops in April 1986, "We are convinced, we and you, that the theology of liberation is not only timely, but useful and necessary. It should constitute a new stage--in connection with former ones--of theological reflection."
So which is it--an important new way to do theology or a kind of crypto-Marxism that reduces the Christian message to revolutionary activism? The answer, of course, was given by Pope John Paul II on his way to the Latin American Bishops Conference in Puebla, Mexico, in 1979. "Ah, yes, liberation theology, but which liberation theology?" (New York Times, January 20, 1979). To sort out what is a complex and evolving current of theological reflection that has now developed a substantial literature over nearly two decades, it is necessary to examine its history and to identify the various elements that compose it. Some of those elements have been deemphasized and even abandoned, while others have taken a more prominent role.
Specifically, liberation theology includes a core element of commitment to identifying and ameliorating the sources of spiritual and physical oppression of the poor, but that core element has been applied in different ways over time. What began as a movement that seemed committed to revolution as the way to express what later became known as "the preferential option for the poor" also contained from the outset a belief in the importance of "Christian Base Communities" as a way to express and resolve the spiritual and physical needs of the poor. The base communities approach
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