liberation theology: major ideas, part 2 · 2019. 9. 16. · a spirituality of liberation will...

Contemporary Theology II:

Transcript - ST507 Contemporary Theology II: From Theology of Hope to Postmodernism© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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LESSON 06 of 24ST507

Liberation Theology: Major Ideas, Part 2

Contemporary Theology II: From Theology of Hope to Postmodernism

This is lecture 6 for the course Contemporary Theology II.

Lord, we are reminded by this theology that you do love the poor and the needy and that you do not want any of us to be involved in oppressing people in our society in any way at all. Father, we are also reminded that theology needs not only to be something that we think about, but it needs to be something that motivates us to action. And even though the emphasis in this theology is primarily upon action, and the focus on what is thought is not as central as it is in our tradition, we are reminded that right theology should lead to right action. Father, we recognize, as well, that sin is very prevalent in our world; but, Lord, we recognize that it is not only a societal and corporate phenomenon, but it is a very individual thing. Lord, help us, personally, to root out the sources of sin in our life. Help us to live as your people, and help us to be sources of reconciliation for individuals and for groups in our societies as well. Lord, as we continue to study this theology of liberation, we pray for your guidance and direction. For it’s in Christ’s name we pray it. Amen.

The particular kind of kingdom that Gutierrez envisions is not necessarily equivalent to the promised messianic kingdom in Scripture, but indeed liberation, kingdom, salvation involves not only personal reconciliation to God, but, ultimately, it’s going to bring in a whole new order. Gutierrez is suggesting that, in light of the promise of a kingdom and a new order, even right now we have an obligation to be engaged in removing social, political, and economic structures in our societies that oppress people. In other words, we need to be involved in the process of liberation.

Involved in this process of liberation is, as well, the idea that Christ is the Liberator; and this is a key theme for Gutierrez and, I think, for liberation theology in general. Gutierrez tells us that Christ has seen what sin is, and He understands that it requires radical liberation. As a matter of fact, Gutierrez says this radical

John S. Feinberg, PhD University of Chicago, MA and PhD

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, ThMTalbot Theological Seminary, MDiv

University of California, BA

Transcript - ST507 Contemporary Theology II: From Theology of Hope to Postmodernism © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.


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liberation is the gift that Christ Himself offers us. By Christ’s death and resurrection, He redeems us from sin and from all of its consequences; but we have to remember how Gutierrez is defining sin.

Gutierrez says that Christ introduces us, by the gift of His Spirit, into communion with God and with all men. It is because Christ introduces us into this communion—into, if you will, a continuous search for its fullness—that He conquers sin, which is a negation of love. And He conquers not only that sin which is a negation of love but all of its consequences. Gutierrez then says that the precondition of the coming of the kingdom is removal of sin; but, again, remember how he’s defining sin: social and political and economic injustice and misery and all the rest. So the precondition for the coming of the kingdom is to get rid of these things, and one reaches this root and this ultimate precondition for the coming of the kingdom only through the acceptance of the liberating gift of Christ, which surpasses all expectations.

Here let me read to you what Gutierrez says on page 176 through 177. He says, “One reaches this root and this ultimate precondition only through the acceptance of the liberating gift of Christ, which surpasses all expectations.” I just quoted that to you. But then he picks up from there and says:

But, inversely, all struggle against exploitation and alienation, in a history which is fundamentally one, is an attempt to vanquish selfishness, the negation of love. This is the reason why any effort to build a just society is liberating. And it has an indirect but effective impact on the fundamental alienation. It is a salvific work, although it is not all of salvation. As a human work it is not exempt from ambiguities, any more than what is considered to be strictly “religious” work. But this does not weaken its basic orientation nor its objective results.

Temporal progress—or to avoid this aseptic term, the liberation of man—and the growth of the kingdom both are directed toward complete communion of men with God and of men among themselves. They have the same goal, but they do not follow parallel roads, not even convergent ones. The growth of the kingdom is a process which occurs historically in liberation, insofar as liberation means a greater fulfillment of man.



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You can see that’s not the point here of getting rid of sin and the stain that it causes in our life and the breaking of the fellowship that it causes between us and God. Rather, ultimately, this liberation is going to involve a greater fulfillment of human beings in all of their potentialities. Gutierrez then goes on to say:

Liberation is a precondition for the new society, but this is not all it is. While liberation is implemented in liberating historical events, it also denounces their limitations and ambiguities, proclaims their fulfillment, and impels them effectively towards total communion. This is not an identification. Without liberating historical events, there would be no growth of the kingdom. But the process of liberation will not have conquered the very roots of oppression and exploitation of man by man without the coming of the kingdom, which is above all a gift. Moreover, we can say that the historical, political liberating event is the growth of the kingdom and is a salvific event; but it is not the coming of the kingdom, not all of salvation. It is the historical realization of the kingdom and, therefore, it also proclaims its fullness. This is where the difference lies. It is a distinction made from a dynamic viewpoint, which has nothing to do with the one which holds for the existence of two juxtaposed “orders,” closely connected or convergent, but deep down different from each other.

The very radicalness and totality of the salvific process require this relationship. Nothing escapes this process, nothing is outside the pale of the action of Christ and the gift of the Spirit. This gives human history its profound unity. Those who reduce the work of salvation are indeed those who limit it to the strictly “religious” sphere and are not aware of the universality of the process. It is those who think that the work of Christ touches the social order in which we live only indirectly or tangentially, and not in its roots and basic structure. It is those who in order to protect salvation (or to protect their interests) lift salvation from the midst of history, where men and social classes struggle to liberate themselves from the slavery and oppression to which other men and social classes have subjected them. It is those who refuse to see that the salvation of Christ is a radical liberation from all misery, all despoliation, all alienation. It is those who by trying to “save” the work of Christ will lose it.



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But it becomes very clear from what Gutierrez is saying that, even though he wants this liberation to be all-comprehensive, his main focus is not on what’s happening to the individual’s state and condition before God, but rather the difference that this is going to make in the everyday living out of our lives in this world.

Gutierrez, as we just saw, is pointing out that Christ’s salvation is all-comprehensive, and by that he means that it gives us liberation on all three levels and senses of liberation that we mention: the sociopolitical-economic level, the psychological and the humanistic, and then thirdly the theological level.

If we thought by what we have heard that maybe we don’t have the exact equivalent of an orthodox concept of salvation and conversion and justification, we get that suspicion confirmed when we see what Gutierrez has to say about conversion. And what we can see is that conversion becomes very much a political and a social economic thing. Let me, if I may, read to you what he has to say about this on pages 204 and 205. He says:

A spirituality of liberation will center on a conversion to the neighbor, the oppressed person, the exploited social class, the despised race, the dominated country. Our conversion to the Lord implies this conversion to the neighbor. Evangelical conversion is indeed the touchstone of all spirituality. Conversion means a radical transformation of ourselves; it means thinking, feeling, and living as Christ—present in exploited and alienated man. To be converted is to commit oneself to the process of the liberation of the poor and oppressed, to commit oneself lucidly, realistically, and concretely.

So you can see, even though he says that evangelical conversion is indeed the touchstone of all spirituality, when he goes further to explain what he means by conversion, it becomes very much a social and political phenomenon. He says that this conversion means

to commit oneself not only generously, but also with an analysis of the situation and a strategy of action. To be converted is to know and experience the fact that, contrary to the laws of physics, we can stand straight, according to the gospel, only when our center of gravity is outside



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ourselves.

Conversion is a permanent process in which very often the obstacles we meet make us lose all we had gained and start anew. The fruitfulness of our conversion depends on our openness to doing this, our spiritual childhood. All conversion implies a break. To wish to accomplish it without conflict is to deceive oneself and others.

Then he quotes or paraphrases from the words of Jesus: “No man is worthy of me who cares more for father or mother than for me.” Then he says:

But it is not a question of a withdrawn and pious attitude. Our conversion process is affected by the socioeconomic, political, cultural, and human environment in which it occurs. Without a change in these structures, there is no authentic conversion. We have to break with our mental categories, with the way we relate to others, with our way of identifying with the Lord, with our cultural milieu, with our social class, in other words, with all that can stand in the way of a real profound solidarity with those who suffer, in the first place, from misery and injustice. Only thus, and not through purely interior and spiritual attitudes, will the new man arise from the ashes of the old.

I think you see there very quickly that internal spiritual change is nowhere near as significant for Gutierrez as is this external liberating change.

It seems to me that what you have presented here is an either/or. Either there will be a focus on the internal spiritual change or on the external social and political liberation of all of society. And it surely has been true of much evangelical theology that we have placed an emphasis on the former of those to the exclusion of the latter. Now it appears that what we’re seeing in Gutierrez—and I think in many of the liberation theologians—is an emphasis on the latter to the exclusion of the former. It seems to me that the emphasis has to be both/and, not either/or; but beyond that, we have to realize that the external liberation of society as a whole—while it is something we need to work for and toward while we are



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here on earth—that is only going to happen not by our fomenting and fermenting a political revolution, but ultimately only when the Lord Himself comes back and rules and reigns in peace and justice.

There is another theme, theologically, that Gutierrez addresses as a support for his theology of liberation. It is the theme of the revelation of God in history, and I want to turn to that now. Gutierrez traces the various stages of revelation of God in Scripture; and, as he does that, he notes a twofold process. On the one hand, he sees that there is a universalization of the presence of God. God moves from being the God of a localized, particular people with whom He is linked—namely, the people of Israel—and it goes beyond that. It gradually extends—that is, His relationship and His presence—to all the peoples of the earth. So, on the one hand, the stages of revelation of God move from a dealing with a particular people to all people. On the other hand, there is another movement of God in revealing Himself. Namely, there is an internalization of, if you will, an integration of the presence of God. There is a movement from God seen as dwelling in places of worship, and from that place His presence is seen as being transferred to the heart of human history. It is a presence which embraces the whole of man. So, rather than worshiping God in some external places and external ways, rather, God is seen as dwelling internally within human beings and is to be worshiped that way as well.

Gutierrez says that Christ is the point of convergence of both of these processes, the process first of universalizing of the message and then the process, secondly, of internalizing it. In Christ, Gutierrez says, the particular—the individual—is transcended, and the universal becomes concrete. In Christ’s incarnation what is personal and internal becomes very much visible.

Then Gutierrez moves to say that the modes of God’s presence determine the forms of our encounter with Him. How, then, did God present Himself in the Old Testament and in the New Testament? He says that the Old Testament is very clear about the close relationship between God and the neighbor. Citing Proverbs 14:21, he notes that, according to the Old Testament, to exploit the humble and poor worker and to despise your neighbor is to offend God. On the other hand, to know Yahweh, which Gutierrez says is equivalent to loving Him—to know Yahweh is to establish just relationships among men. It is to recognize the rights of the poor. So then the God of biblical revelation is known, he tells us,



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through interhuman justice. When justice does not exist, then God is not known. He’s absent. When it does exist, then God’s presence is there, and we’re able to know Him and encounter Him.

Gutierrez makes this point on page 195, and let me just read to you what he says. He says, “On the other hand, if justice is done, if the alien, the orphan, and the widow are not oppressed, then ‘I will let you live in this place, in the land which I gave long ago to your forefathers for all time.’” This is a quote of Jeremiah 7:7. Gutierrez then says:

This presence of Yahweh is active. He it is who deals out justice to the oppressed. “The Lord feeds the hungry and sets the prisoner free. The Lord restores sight to the blind and straightens backs which are bent. The Lord loves the righteous and watches over the stranger. The Lord gives heart to the orphan and widow but turns the course of the wicked to their ruin. So the Lord shall reign forever.

You may have recognized, as I was reading those last few sentences, that this is a quote from Psalm 146:7–10. That’s what the Old Testament says. We find something similar when we turn to the New Testament, and here we see the theme of Christ in the neighbor. We can encounter Christ through the neighbor.

Gutierrez’s point of departure here is Matthew 25, where he picks on the parable that deals with the final judgment, or at least he calls it a parable. It is the passage, you remember, that deals with what is oftentimes referred to as the judgment of the nations, or the judgment of the sheep and goats. In regard to this portion of Matthew 25, Gutierrez says that there are a couple of crucial questions that arise with respect to this passage. Those questions are, in the first place: Who are the nations that are judged by the Son of Man? And then the second question is: Who are the least of the brethren of the Son of Man?

On page 197, Gutierrez gives us three possible interpretations of the answer to these questions. He tells us which one of them he thinks is the correct one. As a matter of fact, he chooses the first one he mentions. And let me share with you what those three are. He says there are three lines of interpretation of this text which have developed to date. The first one: Some believe that this is a judgment of all men, Christians and non-Christians, according to



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the love of their neighbor, and particularly of the needy. That’s one way to understand this judgment.

A second interpretation is as follows: Others see, he says, in this a judgment of Christians, with regard to their behavior toward the disadvantaged members of the Christian community itself. And he cites here Origen and Luther as two who took this interpretation. So this interpretation says this is only a judgment of Christians. It’s not a judgment of non-Christians. And it’s a judgment as to what they have done with respect to the disadvantaged members of the Christian community itself, not what they’ve done in regard to all people.

Then a final interpretation is as follows: He says a minority believe it refers to the judgment of pagans based on their attitudes toward Christians. That would be, again, a different variation—not a judgment of Christians but of non-Christians, and a judgment solely on the basis of how they have treated believers.

As he says then in the next sentence, the author—meaning himself, Gutierrez—obviously opts for the third interpretation. Although the work is thorough and well documented, it is less than convincing—that is, the author of that particular approach to it. What about Gutierrez, though? Which interpretation does he choose? He takes the first of three. He believes that this judgment in Matthew 25 is a judgment of all people, Christian and non-Christian, and the basis of this judgment is their relationship, their reaction, to their neighbor. They are judged according to their love of the neighbor, and particularly of those who are the needy. So “the least of the brethren” would be, in fact, those who are the needy, the poor, the oppressed among us.

Gutierrez then goes on to tell us that this is a portion of God’s Word that really teaches us three main things. In the first place, this is a passage that teaches us that human beings are destined to total communion with God and to the fullest brotherhood with all men. That is the ultimate meaning of life: total communion with God and a full brotherhood with all people.

On page 198, we read this: “The way to this fullness of love can be no other than love itself, the way of participation in this Charity, the way of accepting explicitly or implicitly, to say with the Spirit: ‘Abba, Father’ (Galatians 4:6). Acceptance is the foundation of all brotherhood among men. To sin is to refuse to love, to reject communion and brotherhood, to reject even now the very meaning



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of human existence. Matthew’s text is demanding. ‘Anything you did not do for one of these, however humble, you did not do for me’ (Matthew 25:45).” Then he says, “To abstain from serving is to refuse to love. To fail to act for another is as culpable as expressly refusing to do it.”

There is a second thing that we learn from this Matthew 25 passage, and it is that this love exists only in concrete actions. It can’t just be an abstract idea. It cannot be some feeling that we say we have for other people, but it exists only in concrete actions—things like feeding the hungry, giving a drink to the thirsty. You remember that’s the kind of focus that Jesus had at this point. In this particular teaching, He says to people who come before Him that “you never fed, you never gave to drink these who were my brethren, and because of that you are to be judged.”

We are told that this love, then, occurs of necessity in the fabric of relationships among people. It is not, then, merely saying that you love someone, or intellectually knowing it, or feeling this particular emotion toward people. It is actually doing the deeds of love that matters.

There is a third thing that this passage teaches us, according to Gutierrez. The passage is said, as well, to teach the need for human mediation to reach God; that is, that in order for us to be able to be in communion and contact with God, and for others to be in communion and contact with God, we must do so and they must do so through our relationships to one another. The claim here, then, is that love for God is unavoidably expressed through love of one’s neighbor. God is loved in the neighbor. And here he cites 1 John 4:20.

On page 202, though, Gutierrez is very clear as to what this does not mean. And let me just read to you what he says here. He says:

Nevertheless, the neighbor is not an occasion, an instrument for becoming closer to God. We are dealing with the real love of man for his own sake, and not for the love of God, as the well-intended but ambiguous and ill-used cliché would have it—ambiguous and ill-used because many seem to interpret it in a sense which forgets that the love for God is expressed in a true love for man himself. This is the only way to have a true encounter with Him. That my action towards another is at the same time an action towards God does not detract from its truth and



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concreteness, but rather gives it even greater meaning and import.

So what Gutierrez is saying is: Don’t view your actions and your relationships with your neighbor as purely instrumental to getting you in touch with, in communion with God. Yes, indeed, it will do that—your relationship with your neighbor—but your love for your neighbor is a value in and of itself, and it is to be seen that way.

There is one other theological theme that is the basis for theology of liberation’s call to social and political action—at least as we find it here in Gutierrez. I want to turn to that at this point. It is the theme of the relationship of eschatology and politics. We’ve seen that kind of connection when we were looking at theology of hope. And that kind of connection has—to a certain extent—been implicit in what we’ve seen in theology of liberation, at certain points. We saw it explicit as Gutierrez talked about the relationship between eschatology and salvation, but now we have the explicit linkage of eschatology and politics.

Gutierrez says we look toward the future as filled with its possibilities and expectations. But he then says that—and I quote him here from page 215—“The intensification of revolutionary ferment, which is to be found in varying degrees in the modern world, is accentuating and accelerating this thrust toward what is to come.” If we were inclined to say, I wonder how we’re supposed to get to this kingdom. Are we to, if need be, engage in social and political military revolution? You can see, with what Gutierrez is already saying, that he thinks that the revolutionary ferment—and I think he means here not just in ideas but in moves that could politically and militarily involve revolution—that sort of thing can be seen, all of it, as moving on toward this future goal.

He also, at a certain point in his discussion, emphasizes the theology of hope of Jürgen Moltmann and others, but he has some rather interesting comments to make about it. And I’d like to read to you what he says. On page 217 through 218 he makes a comment about Moltmann. He says:

It cannot be denied that despite all his efforts, Moltmann has difficulty finding a vocabulary both sufficiently rooted in man’s concrete historical experience, in his present



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of oppression and exploitation, and yet abounding in potentialities—a vocabulary rooted in his possibilities of self-liberation. Hence, perhaps his idea of theological concepts mentioned above, which anticipate future being and do not limp after reality; but we are dealing with a human historical, concrete, present reality, which we must do to prevent failure in our encounter with man and with the God who is to come. The death and resurrection of Jesus are our future, because they are our perilous and hopeful present. The hope which overcomes death must be rooted in the heart of historical praxis. If this hope does not take shape in the present to lead it forward, it will be only an evasion, a futuristic illusion. One must be extremely careful not to replace a Christianity of the beyond with a Christianity of the future. If the former tended to forget the world [and I take it that’s his complaint against evangelicalism] the latter, Christianity of the future [which is the way he’s portraying Moltmann’s theology of hope] runs the risk of neglecting a miserable and unjust present and the struggle for liberation.

So the complaint here is that theology of hope focuses on the future but does not allow those future hopes and promises to engage one with the present realities of life to change them on the way to the future.

Of course, it is indeed a question worth consideration as to whether this is a fair assessment of theology of hope and, at least, of theology of hope as Moltmann portrays it. But I think surely the emphasis in theology of hope is on the future and looking forward to the future, and there is less of an emphasis on what the present is and on a need to root out that oppressive, exploitive, social and political structure in which we find ourselves today, in order to get on to that future. I will leave that to your further reading and studying to see to what extent you think that Gutierrez’s critique of Moltmann is entirely fair and entirely correct. At any rate, you see that he wants to look to the future but to look also very closely at the present and do something about things right now.

Gutierrez says that the eschatological vision becomes operative, and the theology of hope becomes creative, when it comes in contact with the social realities of today’s world and gives rise to what has been called political theology.



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Then Gutierrez speaks of future also in terms of the concept of utopia, but here he has three main things that he wants to say about his concept of utopia. The first one is that utopia is characterized by its relationship to present historical reality. When you think about what a utopian situation would be, then you look at the way things are currently, then that should move you to a denunciation of the existing order in favor of some utopian situation. It should also lead you to the enunciation of what is not yet but what you hope will be and what you are committing yourself to make come into existence. It is, in effect, the forecast of a new society, a different order of things. So, yes, the utopian situation is not present among us, and it is not to be just some pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by idea, but rather it should be the basis of making us unhappy with the present and willing to look toward some future that will be much better.

In the second place, he says about utopia that utopia is verified in historical praxis. If utopia does not lead us to action in the present, it is an evasion of reality. We might even say it’s sort of a daydreaming about the way things might be, but it needs to be more than that. We need to be driven by that view of a utopian situation to do something right here and now. Utopia, he says, must lead to a commitment to support the emergence of a new social consciousness and new relationships among people.

Then the final thing that he says about utopia is that it belongs to the rational order. It is neither opposed to nor is it outside of science. It constitutes the essence of its creativity and of its dynamism. And you can see that this third point makes sense only in the context of the first two points that he’s made about utopia. If you simply think about a wonderful situation, and you sort of daydream about it but don’t bring that idea to bear on the present, then it’s debatable as to how in the world we could say that this concept of utopia belongs to rational order. On the other hand, if you use this concept of utopia to denounce the present, announce a greater future, and then you verify that utopian concept in historical praxis, then there’s something that we can deal with in the rational order.

Then a couple more comments from Gutierrez on eschatology and politics, if I can put it that way, and then we will be finished with this lecture and with Gutierrez’s liberation theology per se. Gutierrez links liberation, faith, and utopia in the following way. Let me quote to you from what he says on page 235. He says:



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The relationship between faith and political action could, perhaps, be clarified by recalling the comments we have made above regarding the historical plan designated by the term utopia. When we discussed the notion of liberation, we said that we were dealing with a single process; but it is a complex, differentiated unity which has within itself various levels of meaning which are not to be confused—economic, social, and political liberation; liberation which leads to the creation of a new man and a new society of solidarity; and liberation from sin and entrance into communion with God and with all men. The first corresponds to the level of scientific rationality, which supports real and effective transforming political action. The second stands at the level of utopia, of historical projections, with the characteristics we have just considered. The third is on the level of faith. These different levels are profoundly linked, one does not occur without the other. On the basis of the clarifications we have just made, we can perhaps go one step further towards understanding the bond which unites them.

Then, finally, he summarizes on page 238 many of his notions on eschatology, as well as a number of the other things we’ve discussed. He summarizes all of that in the following way. He says,

In human love, there is a depth which man does not suspect. It is through it that man encounters God. If utopia humanizes economic, social, and political liberation, this humanness, in the light of the gospel, reveals God. If doing justice leads us to a knowledge of God, to find Him is, in turn, a necessary consequence. The mediation of the historical task of the creation of a new man assures that liberation from sin and communion with God in solidarity with all men, manifested in political liberation and enriched by its contributions, does not fall into idealism and evasion. But, at the same time, this mediation prevents these manifestations from becoming translated into any kind of Christian ideology of political action or a politico-religious messianism. Christian hope opens us, in an attitude of spiritual childhood, to the gift of the future promised by God. [There you have the eschatology.] It keeps us from any confusion of the kingdom with any one historical stage, from any idolatry toward unavoidably ambiguous human

Transcript - ST507 Contemporary Theology II: From Theology of Hope to Postmodernism© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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achievement from any absolutizing of revolution. In this way, hope makes us radically free to commit ourselves to social praxis, motivated by a liberating utopia and with the means which the scientific analysis of reality provides for us. And our hope not only frees us for this commitment, it simultaneously demands and judges it.

There you have the theological grounding background for Gutierrez’s theology of hope. It has to do with eschatology, it has to do with his understanding of sin and salvation—Christ as the Liberator—and the revelation of God to us.

In our next lecture, I want to begin discussing with you feminist theology, and, as you will see, in a certain respect this is going to carry on many themes that we find in liberation theology. But it is going to apply them to the specific situation of women. More on that as we come to our next lecture.

liberation theology: major ideas, part 2 · 2019. 9. 16. · a spirituality of liberation will...

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