Prompt: Integral Liberation, by Yoji Shinkawa
In Mission as Liberation, we noted how classical liberation theology evolved into diverse brands that include gender, racial, and socio-economic and political issues. Among these issues, poverty played a significant role. Here we see the influence that Marxism played even in the way the biblical text has been interpreted.
Basic Differences Between Liberal Theology and Liberation Theology
To clarify potential confusion, it is appropriate to identify the basic differences between liberal theology and liberation theology, and foremost among them is their religious stance. Liberal theology is considered anti-religious whereas liberation theology is religious in its presupposition. Still, another distinction is that the former exalts the secular while the latter cannot give up its idea of the sacred. As such, talking about God in liberal theology is taken for granted whereas in liberation theology the primary question is to identify which side God is. Furthermore, liberal theology is predominantly hegemonic whereas liberation theology is anti-hegemony. Other distinctions exist that we cannot cover here.
The Marxist Connection
As to the Marxist connection to liberation theology, many missiologists and theologians find it very useful as a tool in social analysis. For Bosch, rejecting this ideology is a big mistake.
On the other hand, Bosch recognizes the "crucial flaws in Marxism" such as the "abuse of power, its arbitrariness, its personality cults, and its bureaucratic clique" (Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, 2000, p. 440). He also argues that many liberation theologians reject the use of force to attain the Marxist's paradise. Just like Bosch, they renounced the use of force to achieve their end. Nevertheless, despite such realization of setbacks, Bosch wants to maintain the relevant insights of Marxism for he finds them promising and advantageous when it comes to addressing socioeconomic and political issues.
The Transition to Integral Liberation
Based on the foregoing observations, it is popular today to consider that liberation theology assisted the church in so many ways such as in recovering its old faith in God, in understanding the work of the Holy Spirit in a new way, and in reforming both the church and society. For Bosch, this kind of liberation must take place at three levels: from oppressive social structures, from any form of personal slavery, and the power of sin.
However, following Juan Luis Segundo's argument, Bosch wanted to clarify the identity of the bearers of liberation theology today. For him, the word "people" isn't accurate for it is a sociological category. He prefers to identify the "church" as the bearers of this theology to avoid confusion in the association between the community of faith and political movements. This preference is based on the conviction that "the praxis of liberation theology presupposes justification by grace through faith" (p. 444) and such qualification can only be applied to the church.
Moreover, the above clarity is necessary to prevent the earlier uncertainty due to the connection of liberation theologians with liberals or the "technological humanists" for sharing common optimism about the future of mankind. At this point, it appears to me that Bosch doesn't like liberation theologians to be identified with liberal theologians and he seems to be very negative about the term "technological humanists". I am now thinking if believing in human creativity as a tool to free us from tyranny and the power of an abusive government can be classified as technological humanism. Can we not just give glory to the Creator for giving men and women such creativity based on the clarity of His general revelation and the abundance of His common grace?
Both technological humanists and liberation theologians, says Bosch, tend to think of sin manifesting in power structures rather than in the human heart. If this is true, particularly in the case of liberation theologians, that is a huge departure from the biblical concept of sin.
I appreciate the recognition of structural evil in the liberationist model. In this framework, the idea of legal plunder by a classical liberal political theorist like Frederic Bastiat will have a theological basis. However, to neglect the role of the human heart that produced such structures would make the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit unnecessary who alone is capable to bring about internal transformation.
A holistic understanding of sin would then acknowledge that structures are first products of the human hearts and minds; they are the external manifestations of what is inside of us. To bring about social and structural transformation would then prioritize this internal and supernatural work of the Spirit of God based on the Gospel of Christ. Then those who have experienced such a miracle of "justification by grace through faith" will then serve as agents of change.
Under this discussion, I need to identify two anomalous insights, which run contrary to the biblical idea of sin. First, I am referring to the liberal idea of the basic goodness of all mankind. In the postmodern era, the modernist basis for morality has already been discarded. Diogenes Allen argues that despite the progress that we reached so far, we still struggle to find "a consensus for action or even a basis for rational discussion on such matters as war, armaments, the distribution of wealth, medical ethics, and criminal justice" (Christian Belief in a Postmodern World, 1989, p. 4). There is this "increasing recognition that evil is real and that it cannot be removed merely by educational and social reform" (ibid., p. 5). The second anomaly is the liberationist idea "that only the poor and the oppressed were innately good - the rich and the oppressors, however, were evil" (Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 444). Nowhere in the Bible that we can find such a teaching that confines evil and sin in a socio-economic class.
Liberation theologians rely heavily on the Book of Exodus in their social analysis. They are convinced that the book provided them the basis for their critique. Reading Bosch, we find a confirmation of such confidence:
Israel's liberation from slavery in Egypt was the undisputed theological paradigm for liberation theology. . . . The capitalist system, so it appeared, was under severe pressure, in Chile and elsewhere. The socialist golden age was just around the corner (p. 445).
However, a cautious exegetical study of the book will show us that God's act of deliverance portrayed in Exodus is done against the power of an abusive government, the government of Egypt. To use it as a basis to justify a socio-political and economic ideology that considers the free market social order as their enemy is a misapplication of the message of the book. Their model does not fit the story of Exodus. The kind of bondage that the Jews suffered was not the bondage under a free market social order, but under the tyranny of a civil government, the state of Egypt. I find it unconvincing to utilize their critique of a political entity such as the oppressive government of Egypt in biblical times and then shift to its application by attacking an economic social order such as the free market.
I suspect that due to the above two reasons that despite their earlier enthusiasm, the liberationist project failed. Not only that they take for granted the biblical idea of sin, but they also erroneously identified the free market as the "power structures" they want to abolish. They mistakenly thought that poor people can be liberated by the same methodology that brought them under oppression in the first place. Consequently, the extent of the power of the political class has been expanded and so the poor find themselves bound by stronger chains. The sad thing is this is done with popular support and in the name of fighting for freedom and justice.
As a result of such a failure, liberation theologians have been looking for a way out of this "vicious circle of frustration" (p. 446). They made another reading of the Pauline materials searching for themes particularly those that talk about the institution of slavery. They want to find how to attain the goal of humanizing the slave from within without challenging the socio-political structures. This time, they want to suspend the concrete socio-political aspects of liberation. They are looking for a Pauline motif of victory even when the situation remains the same. For Bosch, this is a pioneering work within the liberationist camp.
From a revolutionary concept of liberation, we now arrive at a new situation of Christian victory "even when circumstances do not change, even where liberation does not come" (p. 446). This to me is a great twist from the earlier version of liberationist theology caused by despair after suffering failure despite repeated attempts.
Bosch is not giving up on his Marxist and liberation analysis. He firmly believes that "the theology of liberation is often misunderstood, attacked, and vilified" (p. 447). He insists that this theological reflection has a basis in the apostolic tradition. He agrees with Pope John Paul II that liberation theology is not a "'new theology', but a new stage in theologizing . . ." (ibid.). Bosch concludes that liberation theology "is not a fad but a serious attempt to let the faith make sense to the postmodern age" (ibid.).
Grace and peace!
Reference:
Bosch, David J. 2000. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. New York: Orbis Books.