Latin Americans perceived
that authentic liberation could be experienced only through the experience of
liberation from capitalist forces. This awareness compelled them to search for
liberative dimensions of the scripture. As a result, four main themes from the
Bible recur most often in the liberation theology: God as Liberator, with the
Exodus as a special prototype; God’s command to do justice; Jesus, liberation
and Kingdom of God and Jesus and confrontations in his life which gave a
political dimension to his actions.
God
as a Liberator: Exodus
The recent biblical
scholarship stresses on God who acts in the history through revealing himself
gradually over a period of time and who entered into human history by
incarnation. God reveals himself by acting in the history to bring salvation.
God initiates human history by the gift of creation. He revealed to Abraham and
his descendants, saved Noah from the flood, kept Joseph to save descendants of
Abraham from starvation and liberated Israel from the Egyptian bondage through
Moses. Thus, Guttierrez observes, “biblical faith is, above all, faith in a God
who reveals himself through historical event, a God who saves in history.” The
Exodus event shows that God’s action takes place in history and as history. And
the exodus event not only shows God who liberates people spiritually but also
physically. It means God liberated people from political oppression and poverty.
The exodus event thus, is a paradigm for liberation of Latin American people
who were oppressed politically.
God’s
Demand: “Doing Justice”
God identifies with the
poor and oppressed. However, God’s identification with poor is not just a
question of charity but of justice. Prophets support this point (Jeremiah
22:16; Hosea 4:1-2). Further, Jose Miranda argues that knowledge of God can be
identified with doing justice. H.J Kraus argues that Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and
Micah know only one decisive theme: justice and right. Yahweh is a God who
breaks into the history to liberate the oppressed ones (Isaiah 42:5-7;
Exodus6:3). The author concludes that liberation flows from the very nature of
God. Miranda also believes that injustice is denounced by Yahweh and the
justice of Yahweh is punitive towards the oppressors.
Jesus
and Liberation: The Kingdom of God
Kingdom of God was the
main message of incarnated Jesus. He proclaimed about the Kingdom of God in the
context of prophetical expectation of restoration of nation of Israel after
exile. The Kingdom of God comes through grace and initiatives of God but it
expresses through the deeds of liberation, salvation and overcoming not only the
personal but also the social/collective form of the sin. Further, this
understanding of the Kingdom in Jesus’ teaching and action needs to be
understood in the light of present day experience of the people. In Latin
American context, the Kingdom expresses a people’s utopian longing for
liberation from pain, hunger, injustice and death. The Kingdom of God is to be
understood not only as a spiritual transformation but also the transformation
of the unjust structures of the world. In the perspective of Kingdom,
church-the bearer of the Kingdom-and the participant of the Kingdom are
expected to participate in the struggle for the liberation of those who are oppressed
by others.
Jesus
and Conflict: The Political Dimension
Jesus life and ministry
had not only religious side but also political side. Jesus rejected and
attacked the narrow nationalism of Zealots, political and religious messianism
and corrupted socio-political power structures of the society. He criticized
the Pharisees, Sadducees and priestly class and the nexus between Romans and
the Jewish aristocrats. His denunciation and anathemas are directed against
abuse of power, be it religious, intellectual, economic or political. God whom
Jesus proclaimed, made clash with God of religion of that time which became a
cause of his death. Further, Jesus renounced the path of violence to stand against
injustice. Many Liberation theologians think non-violence as the essential
Christian stance on liberation. Leanardo Boff affirms that the power of God, to
which Jesus bore witness, is love. Such
love rules out all violence and oppression. Juan Luis Segundo believes that
Jesus’ message of non-violence is not a matter of faith but an ideological
stance taken in a particular historical context. Jesus insisted on love and
non-resistance to evil. In the light of the above discussion, the author of
this article argues that theology must decide what kind of ideology is needed
in the context of socio-political oppression in Latin America.
Some
Comments about Biblical Perspectives
There are some criticisms
to liberation theology:
1. It reduces faith into
politics. But liberation theologians defend that it does not deny the faith
aspect. Segundo says “Liberation is meant to designate and cover theology as a
whole.” He also claims that it is the only authentic and privileged standpoint
which can help one to reach the complete understanding of God’s revelation in
Jesus. Liberation perceives that politics is the only one dimension of faith.
2. When it interprets
Bible, it appears to overemphasize the human efforts and to have one sided
treatment of the political dimensions of the Bible. Though some of the
liberation theologians seem to be so in their articulation, there are a good number
of theologians who stress God element in liberation. The activity and role of
Yahweh in the liberation event of exodus and initiatives of Jesus for
liberation are stressed by many liberation theologians.
3. It uses theology to
justify the political positions that were already taken. The criticism that often
rises against liberation theology is that it simply identifies God’s will with
Marxists socialism. Liberation theologians replay that the very purpose of the
liberation theology is to relate bible with the historical praxis. Also they
argued that identification of the liberation and Marxism most often comes from
the opponents of liberation theology or militant political groups, not from
within liberation theology itself.
Evaluation
and Conclusion
The author summarizes the
four main biblical themes which recur in the articulation of the liberation
theology: God as Liberator; God’s command to do justice; Jesus, liberation and
Kingdom of God and the political dimension of Jesus’ actions. All these themes reflect
the effort of liberation theology to present integral process of salvation
which deals with all dimensions of the life. The central focus of the liberation
theology is its inclusive understanding of salvation, which is not exhausted by
politics, but is a reflection on faith and its contextual implications
especially in the Latin American context. Thus, it relates faith and Bible to the
praxis and the historical context. It proposes both theological proposition and
praxis. Though it has been criticized
for reducing faith into politics, one sided emphasis on politics and human
activity in the Bible and using theology to support the pre-established
political stand, the author of this article opines that most often such
criticism come from misunderstanding of critics who have reactionary position
or from revolutionary groups.