Why should you care if something called Liberation Theology even exists?

For several reasons, really: 1) Liberation Theology—we will call it LT hereafter—flourishes in Central and South America where it encounters various agencies of the Christian Reformed Church (you might, incidentally, like to know what these agencies think of LT); 2) LT has some appeal on college and university campuses where it encounters CRC youth—you might wonder how it is viewed on campuses you are familiar with; 3) LT pretends to make Christianity a socially relevant, even revolutionary, force—a temptation for every theorist who thinks “big” talk is big action; and, 4) because LT is a remarkably brazen and cynical perversion of the Gospel, it brings disrepute upon a faith we profess—you might like to see how!

To put the matter bluntly, LT is neither liberating, nor theology! Pope John Paul II, who cut his theological eyeteeth in the Marxist environment which LT breathes, said as much at Puebla, Mexico, in 1979. Or to put it another way, if LT were “Christian,” then Marx and Engels were the original liberation theologians. Marx and Engels, however, having a certain integrity, would have been the first to repudiate, with contempt, the wily hybrid which LT presumes to forge out of Christianity and Marxism. For Marx and Engels, Communism presupposes atheism. And so they plainly said. Why atheism? So that, as they saw it, man alone can work out his own self-liberation without interference from any other authority. Marx and Engels, wanted no gods in their way. This is clear and open. LT, however, though it apes Marxism in giving the initiative to man, keeps God on hand to wrap the mantle of the Church about its shoulders, and to beguile the innocent. In Marx such duplicity would have generated only scorn. Marx knew well enough that the creation of a “new man” is, according to the Bible, only God’s doing; and he respected the Bible enough to repudiate it. LT has learned that the way to ignore the imperatives of the Bible is to quote it very , very selectively, leaving out what interferes with its theorizing. This foo ls people, leaves one on the payroll of the Church, and subtly puts God and His Word to LT’s use, and at His expense. It may be instructive to see how this is done.

The Sources

LT is promoted by a comparatively small, but highly vocal, group of mostly South American writers , many of them Catholic priests active in education. They are fond of quoting each other, and not hesitant to claim that their own ideas are profoundly new insights—indeed if one is allergic to the term “new,” he will find it nauseatingly cast like bread upon the waters in LT publications—occasionally a dozen times or more to a page. A certain dreary monotony, moreover , pervades LT books, as the wild assertions and not very profound novelties come to repeat each other. A course of reading one charts for himself, as I did, in the publications of Orbis Books, a (Catholic) Maryknoll, New York, publishing house which seems to specialize in LT, is begun with interest and ends as a self-punishing duty, just to keep the commitment.

A Theology of Liberation by Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian priest, is commonly called the “classic” of LT. This Gutierrez was, once, a schoolmate in Belgium of one, Camillo Torres. Both began to speak of “identification” with the poor. Torres shouldered a gun to demonstrate the integrity of his “solidarity’—something LT always requires—with the oppressed of Columbia, and died in the field. Gutierrez more prudently shouldered a pen, professing his “solidarity” in words, and has his bread while denouncing the society which provides it. Gutierrez’ somewhat tedious “classic” appeared, in Spanish, in 1971, with English translation by Orbis in 1973. It was enthusiastically hailed by some liberal theologians , and will serve as our touchstone to LT; all of the quotations which follow are taken from it. The page numbers are there, so you can, if you like, check them out for yourself.

More varied fare appears in a collection of essays by thirteen South American writers (including, of course, Gutierrez) identifying themselves with LT, a publication which first appeared in 1975, with English translation (Orbis) in 1979, under the title, Frontiers Of Theology In Latin America. The choice of title is telltale : these men think of themselves as frontiersmen, and are not above declaiming that never before (the Church may be thankful) has theology been done as they do it. Nor are they reluctant to assert that only (they like being exclusive!) those who stand with them on the “frontiers” as they define them can really “do” theological reflection at all. The reader seeking a LT overview will find this collection repetitiously instructive.

Pope John Paul’s bead-on collision with LT is detailed, not sympathetically, in Puebla and Beyond (Orbis, 1979), and more appreciatively in Quentin L. Quade, ed., The Pope and Revolution (Ethics And Public Policy Center, Washington, 1982). Someone curious to see how the LT clique sought to outmaneuver the Pope at Puebla will find the story, by a reporter who endorsed the effort, in Penny Lernoux, The Cry of The People (Doubleday, 1980). Starting from such publications, the reader who has stomach for ¹it can forage on his own in the Orb is list, until he grows weary of seeing the Bible selectively perverted, the Church abused, and Marxism touted as the truly scientific tool for social analysis.

How shall we attempt to lay hands on LT?

Shall we suppose, to begin with, that you live in a country we will call South Mercuria?

   

A Glance At South Mercuria

It’s a place, in Latin America, where the rich are few but powerful while the poor are plentiful and pitiably exploited. The wealthy live in unimaginable splendor, and the poor in unimaginable squalor. No one denies this, and the grim plight of the exploited wrings your heart. You are certain that the awful imbalance in social justice must touch God’s heart too. Is He not concerned especially for the poor? Indeed, you become so sure of that as to turn to secular help to push God along a little, and to amend the fact that His Word does not seem to shed enough light to get things changed in South Mercuria.

Christianity has been in South Mercuria for a long time. It has absorbed most of the population. The Church is adjusted to the social situation, ministering spiritual comfort to the oppressed and spiritual endorsement to the status quo, with the state enforcing law and order through police, courts and the military . Occasional upheavals in the ruling junta make no real changes in social relations.

Let us further suppose, now, that you are vocationed to the Catholic priesthood (and named Gutierrez), and show enough promise to be sent to Europe for training. There you observe first hand how Marxism has established itself in Russia—reminding you that before you left for study agents were infiltrating South Mercuria with the “gospel according to Marx.” In Europe you discover that since World War II “dialogue” has been carried on between Christians and Marxists. You move in the environment which will produce books like Disputation zwischen Christen und Marxisten (1966), and French Marxist Roger Garaudy’s From Anathema To Dialogue (1966). You note that German theologians Johannes Metz and Jurgen Moltmann are promoting a “political theology” which brings Christianity down on the side of political activism, and one Richard Shaull (who will highly endorse your book) of Princeton, in the USA, speaks boldly of “theology of revolution.”

Perhaps you had hitherto thought of the term “theology” as meaning the “science – logy” of “God – theos,” and of the data for this “science” as special revelation. You discover, however, that in the nimble hands of liberal European theorists the term “theology” is subject to a wide range of adaptation, and the sources of “loci” of dogma are no longer restricted as, say, Karl Barth or the Reformation tradition has it, to divine special revelation.

Return To South Mercuria

You (we will use both “you” and Gutierrez interchangeably) will not be surprised, then, when you get back to South Mercuria, to find yourself redefining “theology” to suit your convenience. It’s being done all over.

What, for you now, is “theology”?

You will write that “theology is reflection, a critical attitude;” and, again, “theology must be man’s critical reflection on himself, on his own basic principles” (p. 11 – all quotes will be taken from Gutierrez’ A Theology of Liberation). The object of theology is not necessarily ‘“theos” (God) but may be “anthropos”—man! Theology need not be constructive, but can be “critical.” In short, “theology” has become a slippery term in your vocabulary—useful, perhaps, for obscuring your meaning and misleading the undiscerning . You will also discover that the term “reflection” has its uses. It, too , mystifies. LT is forever engaged in “reflection.” And tossing in the words “theological reflection” will seem to endow the most vacuous of thoughts with an air of profundity which appears to beguile even yourself. Like the term “new,” the term “reflection” will sprout up everywhere in your theorizing. Alas, the unwary reader may be long in discerning that by “reflection” you only mean whatever thoughts happen to be coursing through your head at a given moment—no matter that theos and special revelation may be nowhere on state at the time!

Before we examine the results of your “theological reflection,” let us briefly review the basic teaching of Karl Marx to see what parallels, if any, there are between Marxism and LT.

Marxism

The clearest introduction to Marxism is The Communist Manifesto, written jointly by Marx and Engels in 1848. Marx had committed himself to atheism some years earlier , and the Manifesto is a purely secular analysis of history . Marx and Engels here describe the cause for man’s social and personal ills, as they see it, and prescribe a cure. It is in pursuit of this cure that Communism has come into the world.

The structure of the Manifesto is simple, written as it was for popular effect. We can summarize it in five steps. We will then see how much of LT fits into the same scheme.

1. At the core of history is class struggle. 2. Class struggle occurs between those who own the means of production and those who are obliged to surrender their labor power to the masters of productive property in order to survive. Taking advantage of their privileged economic position, the owners of the means of production cruelly exploit the weak and the poor. In modern times, the owners of the means of production are the capitalists, called the bourgeoisie; their exploited victims are the workers, called the proletariat. Between these two classes there is, whether obvious or not, bitter class struggle, accounting for all the social evils of exploitation and injustice, of man’s inhumanity to man, of which social conditions in South Mercuria are typical. 3. Communism calls the proletariat to violent revolution for the purpose of destroying the private property system and overthrowing the state which sustains it. 4. When this revolution is accomplished, and in its very process, the oppressed achieve both their own liberty and their own selfhood, and discover that the free development of each entails the free development of all into a new, classless kind of humanity.

5. So the famous call goes out: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win! Workingmen of all countries, unite!”

Marxism and LT

What relations exist, now, between Marxism and LT?

LT openly embraces Marxism!

LT does so , it is commonly said, because Marxism affords a truly “scientific” analysis of the social relations prevailing in modem societies. Through Marxist eyes one for the first time—it is said—sees clearly the root cause of all the social tensions, exploitation, poverty and injustice that plague South Mercuria and all mankind . And when, illumined by Marxism, exploited man sees the cause of his misery, he achieves his adulthood, and is inspired to rebellion and the winning of a new self through the conquest of freedom. So says LT.

But is Marxism an obedient tool or a formidable master? Can a theist first accept an analysis of the human condition, and then opt for the violent cure—both generated out of deliberately chosen atheistic premises—and have anything left of his theism? Does Marxism serve LT? or is LT subservient to Marxism?

The Lord said long ago that “no man can serve two masters.” Oddly enough, Marx knew that, and took that truth seriously. In order to “liberate” man by way of the Communist form of redemption, Marx explicitly rejected God. This is the same Marx whose social analysis and prescription LT accepts. But the result shows that Marx was more perceptive than the liberation theologians. LT cannot serve two masters either. Lacking the integrity openly to disclaim Christian commitment, LT is obliged to warp the Bible, disdain the Church, and fabricate a “theology” drawn from Marxist premises in order to keep its commitments to Marxism.

(To Be Continued)

This and a following installment are developed from a lecture given at Mid-America Reformed Seminary at Orange City, Iowa, in October 1983 , and will later appear in expanded form in a publication by the Christian’s library Press. Dr. Lester DeKoster, former editor ofThe Banner, lives at Grand Rapids, Michigan.