I published on #someeofficial tribe the first four articles in this research about the correlation between freedom and mission. I want to explore the interconnections and the implications between these two fields as part of my academic requirement for the Ph. D. ICS program.
I recognize that this is a boring project for most Hivers and I don't expect much response. However, if I won't do it this way, I think I cannot accomplish this writing project. And so I decided to "eat the elephant" slowly and in small pieces. All in all, I have 11 books to read. So far, I am now writing on the last section of the first book that I find relevant to my topic.
This time, instead of publishing this post on #someeofficial, I decided to test if this kind of content is acceptable on the #Cent tribe. As I know Cent accepts general content.
Completing my reflection on the first book, so far, I already covered the first two topics:
In this last topic, Mission as Liberation, I dropped the Voluntarism section and focused instead on the following topics:
God's Preferential Option for the Poor
Fundamental Differences Between Liberal Theology and Liberation Theology
The Marxist Connection, and
Integral Liberation
The current article is about God's Preferential Option for the Poor. Under this topic, I will be covering the following themes:
Two Excesses
The New Hermeneutical Lens, and
Personal Reflection
Two Excesses
Reading Bosch confirms what I wrote in my thesis when I finished my master's degree about the poor's identity. One tendency is to spiritualize the meaning of poverty and the other is to confine it purely in economic terms. I find similar ideas in Bosch's material.
Capitalism is identified as the socio-economic background that brought such spiritualization of biblical poverty when Christians started to gain wealth and influence. Consequently, the voice of the economically poor took some time to be heard by these rich Christians. However, when the voice has been finally heard, it occupied the center stage and poverty became the hermeneutical criterion in missiological studies. Salvation has been economically interpreted and its meaning changed to liberation from poverty.
Since then, economic poverty has been idealized, and solidarity with the poor has been considered with the utmost highest appreciation. It was claimed that "the poor have an "epistemological privilege," "the new interlocutors of theology," and the "new hermeneutical locus" (p. 436).
The New Hermeneutical Lens
Bosch then introduced the importance of this new kind of trend. Similar to the transition from the development approach to the liberation approach, the poor "now refused to be defined by the West, the rich, or the whites" (ibid.). "The poor were no longer merely the objects of mission; they had become its agents and bearers" (ibid.). Hence, the idea of mission as liberation has finally broken out. The poor considered previously without a voice are now "making their voices heard" (ibid.). Starting in the 1980s, numerous studies have been made using this new hermeneutical lens.
The outcome of these studies confirms that the Bible indeed teaches such a preference for the poor. The Church forgot its roots when Christianity became dominant since the time of Constantine the Great. For these scholars, the "rediscovery of the poor in our own time is also a reaffirmation of an ancient theological tradition" (ibid.). Bosch then introduced his study of Luke 3 where he got convinced that poverty is "an all-embracing category for those who were the victims of society" (ibid.).
Consequently, the idea of the preferential option for the poor has been expanded. It was no longer confined to the Third World. The marginalized sectors even in the First World have been included. Racial discrimination is now considered a new form of poverty.
Personal Reflection
If it is true that the poor and the marginalized are the victims of society, it is of vital importance to ask the identity of those who victimize them. It appears that based on the result of the current studies, by implication the exploiters are identified as the West, the rich, and the whites.
Is such a conclusion accurate? Or is this a misleading identification resulting from an ideological influence? In our anti-capitalist era, many in the academe including theologians will never admit that their identification is mistaken. To prove otherwise is beyond the scope of this article. For now, it is sufficient to say that you can find the answer by reading the books of Austrian economists. Prominent examples would be Ludwig von Mises' Anti-Capitalistic Mentality and Bureaucracy.
If the above trend will continue, the voice of those who promote guilt by mistaken identification will become louder. Does Bosch agree with Ronald Sider's thesis in his book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger that those who are guilty of "complicity in the oppression of the poor" (p. 437) are wealthy Christians? Are these Christians then worshipping the idols of money?
At the risk of becoming redundant, I want to emphasize that if the identification of the culprit is mistaken, this will lead to a dangerous association of a social offense to the wrong victimizers, which will lead again for the real exploiters to escape public view. What is more lamentable is that scholars are doing this in the name of theological and missiological studies.
If these missiologists and theologians are serious in their call to turn away from the idols of money, they should give careful attention to the existing monetary system. A concrete way of turning away from the idols of money is to find an alternative system that abides by God's moral law respecting the sanctity of private property.
Grace and peace!
Source: Bosch, David J. 2000. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. New York: Orbis Books.