So far, I already completed three topics under Mission as Liberation:
Two more to go and I am done reading the first book. I think the second book will be easier.
Our fourth sub-topic is popular and controversial. This ideology has numerous supporters, especially from the academe where many of them are closet Marxists. They hate to be identified among the "red" and that's why they are very active now in their "green" advocacy. Thomas DiLorenzo is accurate to describe why they are called "watermelons":
Because they’re green on the outside and red on the inside. Source
Reaching this point in reading the book, I don't consider it premature to conclude that David J. Bosch is a Marxist missiologist and a liberation theologian committed to non-violence as a way to social change. In this article, we will see how Bosch finds Marxism very useful as a tool in social analysis and at the same time how he carefully explains his points of departure from this ideology. And then after a brief commentary, I want to conclude this article with an extended critique of Marxism based on the overview of insights from two books I read in the past.
Selective and Critical Use of Marxism
At the outset, Bosch accepts that both "contextual and liberation theologians are often accused of having surrendered the Christian gospel to Marxist ideology" (p. 440). He is not surprised by this accusation due to the fact "that both Marxism and liberation theology reject the capitalist model" (ibid.).
In the mind of Bosch, the critics are mistaken for rejecting Marxism as a whole. In his assessment, Marxism provides a "tremendous value" as a tool in social analysis (p. 441). As such, they failed to see the distinction between the "prescriptive" form of Marxism from the liberation theologians' use of it "as an instrument of critique" (p. 440). And besides, there are some recent developments in Latin America that liberation theologians have "been moving away from Marxist analysis" (ibid.).
Bosch recognizes the "crucial flaws in Marxism" such as the "abuse of power, its arbitrariness, its personality cults, and its bureaucratic clique" (ibid.) 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.
A Short Commentary
I see no problem in the vision of liberating the poor from oppression and poverty. I don't doubt the sincerity of modern followers of Marx to attain their idealism. Again, I repeat that the problem is the precise identification of "the power structures" that Marxist intellectuals want to destroy and the methodology they employ to achieve such a dream. As the historical footprints of this ideology show, every time they fail, its defenders keep saying that such a social experiment is not genuine Marxism. How many more lives have to be sacrificed until the "real" thing will be achieved?
Two Additional Points of Departure
Bosch emphasized two additional Marxist tenets are either rejected or shared only by the majority of liberation theologians. Since the basic presupposition of liberation theology is religious, it rejects the atheistic dimension of Marxism. Also, the use of violence to attain the Marxist's paradise is a methodology that many liberation theologians find offensive. Just like Bosch, they renounced the use of force to achieve their end.
Conclusion and An Extended Critique of Marxism
In closing, to liberation theologians that find Marxism of great value, my suggestion is to revisit two unpopular books and carefully digest them if there is truth in what these authors are saying.
The first has 354 pages. The writer is a historian and an economist. The title of his book is Marx's Religion of Revolution and this is how he summed up Marxism as a revolutionary religion:
The proletarian revolution will regenerate mankind by regenerating man's economic and social institutions. This is the primary message of Marxism. This is the very heart of Marx's religion of revolution. (p. xvii)
The second book contains a series of nine lectures, of which the first five are about philosophy and the last four cover economics. The author is Ludwig von Mises and the title of the book is Marxism Unmasked: From Delusion to Destruction.
Though my reading of this book is still not complete, I just want to conclude this present article with Mises' proposal to offer a comprehensive critique of socialism that includes its unworkability as an economic system, a refutation of "the philosophical and political underpinnings of the socialist and Marxian conceptions of man and society” (p. 14). Mises accomplished this goal in his 1922 book on Socialism.
Combining two previous studies critiquing socialism, Mises suggests the Paul Leroy-Beaulieu way and the Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk way. The first way exposed socialism as a serious threat to both personal liberty and economic prosperity. The second way unmasked the fallacy of the labor theory of value and the Marxist’s idea of the exploitation of labor under capitalism.
Summing up the insights taken from the above methods, socialism is exposed as a dangerous threat to personal liberty and economic freedom, unworkable in practice as an economic system due to the absence of market price making economic calculation impossible and fallacious in its labor theory of value, in its idea of exploitation of labor under capitalism, and in its philosophical and political views about man and society.
Grace and peace!
Source: Bosch, David J. 2000. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. New York: Orbis Books.