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Whatever happened to liberation theology?
Christian Century, Oct 20, 1999 by Nancy E. Bedford
To this fact one must add that rather than making an "option for the poor," many members of the former middle class--the mainstay of many non-Pentecostal Protestant churches in Latin America--have found that impoverishment has made an option for them. This is especially true for old people, for the unemployed and for single women raising children, as well as for many of the descendants of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of "Our America," as Jose Mart/called Latin America. At the same time, many of the poor and the recently impoverished have opted for participation in churches that embrace forms of the "prosperity gospel," which promises rapid physical healing and does not challenge structural injustices. What "praxis of liberation" is to be recommended and reflected upon in these circumstances? In what ways can theology correspond faithfully to the God of its calling in this context?
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SEVERAL FACTORS need to be taken into account in order to find some answers to these questions. The poor tend to be politically weak because their continual struggle for survival is not conducive to sustained organization and mobilization. A theological praxis of liberation today needs to be conscious of these limitations. With a great deal of dry humor, Hugo Assmann wrote recently that he is astounded that no one pointed out to him in the 1970s how incredibly pompous the phrase "Pueblo oprimido, senor de la historia" (The oppressed people, lord of history") sounded. This sort of comment reflects a tendency to revise the understanding of praxis: one's expectations of oneself as a theologian and of the actual possibilities of a transformative praxis as a whole are perhaps more humble and limited than they would have been 30 years ago. This does not lead to resignation or apathy, but it does mean that the joy and the pleasures of life need to be allowed for by theology even in the midst of the pain caused by structural injustice--something many poor people have known all along.
Although the poor do often have valuable insights and wisdom, theologians must not overload them with messianic roles, as has sometimes occurred in the past. The phrase "option for the poor" is first of all a theological statement about God's choice and should not lead to any romanticism about what the poor are or should do for the world. Nevertheless, the social and political dimensions of the gospel cannot be trivialized or overlooked by any theology or theopraxis that desires to take seriously the event of God in Jesus Christ.
To put it another way: the paradigm of the incarnation is now more meaningful to me and to others in Latin America than that of the Exodus. The Christology "from below" that helped theologians rediscover the historical dimensions of faith and the life of Jesus Christ is continually revitalized by a Christology "from above" that underlines that it really is the Triune God who chooses to walk on our paths in order to change them and us.
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