LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY

JOSE COMBLIN 

How does theology, if at all, line up with social activism?  There are those that believe that one has nothing to do with the other and that "never the twain shall meet."  

A common characteristic of Latin American theologians is their effort to combine political activism with a deep concern for the devotional life.  A splendid example is Jose Comblin (Ferm, op. cit. p. 44). 

Born in Belgium, Jose Comblin has a doctorate in theology from the University of Louvain.  Since 1958, he  lived in Latin America.  For several years he was a member of the faculty at the Theological Institute in Recife, Brazil, until his expulsion from Brazil in 1972.  He had divided his teaching duties between the University of Chile (Talca) and the Catholic University of Louvain (Ibid., p. 126).

The author of over 27 books, Comblin assumes the role of acute political analyst in his "The Church and the National Security State (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1979).  

In this study he defends the role of the church as a political agent in support of the underprivileged and their determination to build a just society.  Tracing the various historical stages of the colonial/neocolonial systems that have held Latin America in servitude-the Spanish, Portuguese, the British, and the North American (USA)-Comblin finds the last one, epitomized by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, the most violent.  According to Comblin, these agencies have spared no effort in perpetuating military dictatorships, consolidating financial interests,  and inhibiting human rights under the guise of an unbridled war against communism.  Comblin points out that the militancy of many Latin American liberation theologians derives from the experience of the ruthlessness of the support that the CIA and the Pentagon lend to oppressive social structures (Ferm, op. cit., p 45).

Comblin acknowledges the value of Marxist analysis in bolstering the efforts of the underprivigled to achieve justice.  But at the same time he does not hesitate to condemn the Marxist practice in which the political seeks power at the expense of the individual (Ibid.).

Comblin says, "In Marxist revolution there is no freedom for the people, only for the party.  The same science that expels freedom from history and revolution expels God from humankind and history.  The party is supposed to be sufficient to create a new world, but it ends up by creating a new power (National State Security p. 220)." 

Here are confronted with two questions? Is Comblin defending Marxist ideology and at the same time condemning its praxis?  Does Comblin believe that Marxism is contrary to the Gospel or inherent with its basic message?  

In order to determine where Comblin stands at. one would have to read his. books. One cannot "judge a book by its cover," make a determination as towhere he stands without having thoroughly read the literature in the field.  There are those who will read and take what Comblin says out of the socio-economic context in which he wrote his books, and then, unfortunately arrive at misinterpretations of what he really saying.  

Comblin believes it incumbent upon theologians to develop a theology of revolution that will take into account the deepest longings of human existence in the building of a just and free society in which everyone has a responsibility in the shaping of a new people ((Ferm, op. cit. p. 45).

Like all other Latin American liberation theologians, Comblin sees the base ecclesial communities as the seed bed for a theology of revolution.  But he does not advocate violence.  No liberation theologian prefers violence, he argues but there are times when one faces the unavoidable situation of choosing between no action, which condones the violence of the oppressors, and action that may risk fomenting violence (Ibid.).  

What is Comblin's view on salvation (redemption) as to whether it is "this worldly and political," or "otherworldly and non-political?

He says that it is political because we live enslaved to oppressive structures from which we must free ourselves in order to establish justice.  It is mystical because this effort would turn into another form of oppression if it were not motivated and suffused with, human, freedom, and love (The Meaning of Mission, p. 60).

What we've seen so far, is that Comblin's theological perspective is but another example of theological diversity among Latin American theologians.  Comblin's great achievement remains his twin commitments to revolutionary praxis and the devotional life (Ibid., p. 46)

In closing, I would say that Comblin's theological perspective challenges us to grapple with the question of violence and the "proper" approach to constructive social change.  The major issue in his writings is that he does not advocate for a passive "do nothing" attitude among Christians.  He is, in essence, a man of action.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

                              

                                              LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY 

                                              JON SOBRINO 

There are other Latin American theologians of liberation that specialize in Christology. Jon Sobrino is one of them.

Jon Sobrino joins Leonardo Boff in making his major contribution  the development of a christology appropriate for the Latin American setting.  He was born in Spain, received a master's degree in engineering mechanics at St. Louis University in 1965 and a doctorate in theology from the Hochschule Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt, in 1975.  He has served as professor of philosophy and theology at the Universidad Jose Simeon Canas, San Salvador (Ferm, op. cit. p. 125).

In his Christology of the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach, Sobrino agrees with Boff in pointing to the close parallel between the contemporary Latin American setting and the historical context in which Jesus lived (Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis, 1978).

Sobrino finds traditional views on the nature of Christ devoid of historical and grass-roots relevance. He calls them "Christologies of descent," because they try to superimpose on any given cultural setting a prepackaged, abstract scheme of salvation (Christology, p. 337).

These classic views begin with the dogmatic claim that God became human in Christ, and then proceed to spell out the general implications of this divine act for all humankind.  Little wonder, then, that these christologies appear historically alienating and open to manipulation, completely lacking in human relevance (Ibid., p. 353). 

Sobrino contends that the starting point for Christology should be "the underside of history," an idea that increasingly gained favor among Latin American liberation theologians.  By this term, Sobrino means that one should begin with the actual of the lives of oppressed peoples, and of a Jesus who is Himself rooted in a particular history (Ferm, op. cit. p. 45).

Here once again, we find the issue of the "starting point" for Liberation Theology.  While each liberation theologian has a different area of focus, most of them believe that oppression and suffering are the starting points for biblical interpretation and theological reflection.  This particular theologian (yours truly) also subscribes to that approach to theology.  It is this writer's opinion that if theology does not address or take into consideration the human condition, that it is then, not only irrelevant, but as the late Dr. James Cone said "demonic and oppressive."  

Jon Sobrino's Christology is an important addition the small but growing literature among Latin American theologians that seeks to develop an authentic christology for the poor and oppressed.  One might add that Marx appears only once in the book (Ferm, op. cit., p. 42).

Sobrino's overriding concern is to make Christ come alive in the context of Latin American oppression. In other words, for Sobrino, the doctrine of the person and work of Christ only become relevant when we, as James Cone said, "We don't ask the question as to what did Jesus do back then but what is he doing today? (Ibid.. p. 44).

He talks about the four American woman (nuns) who were raped and killed in El Salvador in 19890.  He says, "They are dead today. But they are also the Risen Christ, who keeps alive the hope of liberation.  Their assassinations as affected the entire world and moved it to indignation. But to Christians, this assassination also speaks to of God, because these women say something to us about God.... Salvation comes to us through all men and women who love truth rather than falsehood, who are more disposed to to give rather than to receive, whose greatest love is  giving their life rather then keeping it for themselves. This where God makes Himself present (Marykoll:Orbis, 1978).

Is Christ present in Latin America today?  If so, how?  I think that most theologians of liberation would affirm that Christ is most present among those who fight for social justice and for the eradication of unjust social policies and structures.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Professor of Latin American Liberation Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary  

Small-talk Dialogue: LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY: RUBEM ALVES T...

Small-talk Dialogue:  LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY: RUBEM ALVES T...:  LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY: RUBEM ALVES  There is a question as to whether Rubem  Alves belongs in the camp of Liberation Theology ...

 LATIN AMERICAN THEOLOGY 

JOSE MIGUEZ-BONINO 

THEOLOGY AND THE CAPITALISM-SOCIALISM DEBATE 

One of the things that Liberation theologians emphasize is that theology has to address what socio-political and economic praxis it legitimates.  In other words, how does theology endorse or oppose certain socio-economic and political systems and why?

Jose Miguez Bonino is one of those Latin American theologians who addresses those questions. Like most Latin-American theologians, Bonino addresses the direct relationship between theology and social issues in Latin America.  He makes it clear that theology cannot exist in a vacuum and that it cannot operate devoid of its cultural and social context.  

Like Rubem Alves, Bonino was one of the very few Protestant liberation theologians in an overwhelmingly Catholic Latin America.  Alves's ties to the church weakened throughout the years as he came to advocate a "theology of captivity" centering on dreams that will protect humanity from the harsh realities of the real world.  Bonino, on the other hand, continued as an active clergyman who also served as a president of the world council of churches (Ferm, op. cit. p. 39).

Jose Miguez Bonino was born in Argentina in 1924. He attended the Evangelical Theologate in Buenos Aires, as well as Emory University and Union Theological Seminary in the United States.  Ordained to the Methodist ministry in 1948, he served churches in Argentina and Bolivia, and was an official observer of the United Methodist Church at Vatican II.  He served as a professor of systematic theology at the Higher Evangelical Institute for Theological Studies in Buenos Aires (Ibid., p. 125). 

The author of several books, Miguez-Bonino's major contribution to the development of Liberation Theology is his Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation. This book serves as an excellent introduction to the main features of Latin American theology, particularly the conviction that theology must emerge out of the lives of the oppressed in their own encounter with the biblical texts, a process that that Miguez-Bonino calls "hermeneutical circulation."  He traces the development of what he calls a "new breed of Christians" in Latin America, focusing on the Christians for Socialism conference in Santiago, Chile, as pivotal in this development.  This book is also helpful in its treatment of of some of the major agreements and differences among some liberation theologians (Jose Miguez-Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975).

In his writings, Miguez-Bonino devotes considerable attention to the capitalism-socialism debate. He faults the capitalist system for its profit-motive basis (which in Latin America has resulted in the dehumanization of large sectors of the population) and its apparent indifferences to the plight of the poor. These glaring inequalities will continue to exist as long as economic dependence on outside power continues.  In a manner of reminiscent of Gustavo Gutierrez and Juan Segundo, Miguez-Bonino suggests a new form of socialism that would eliminate the basis inequalities of the capitalist system yet not be a mere parroting of doctrinaire Marxism.  He takes pains to point out that Latin American liberation theologians are not socialist ideologues fomenting radicals social change.  Rather, they are committed Christians seeking to forge a new society of liberated human beings.  They have become social activists because of their Christian faith, not because of Marxist ideology.  But they have learned that Marxist analysis is helpful in understanding and correcting social inequalities.  In echoing Jose Miranda, Miguez Bonino points out that Marxist analysis to see class struggle, not as a general consequence of sin, nor as a deplorable accident, but-as Calvin himself saw-as a war prompted by greed and power (Ibid., p. 119).

For the Christian community, this means that what is at stake is not a specifically Christian struggle, but basically a human struggle of the oppressed against oppressors.  And Christians, like everyone else interested in social analysis, need to use the best available tools, including but not limited to, Marxist thought.  If at some point revolution and even violence become necessary for the oppressed to receive their due, it is not because of any Marxist dogma, but because the violence of oppressors demands it (Ferm, op. cit. pp. 39-40).

Miguez-Bonino joins Gustavo Gutierrez, Juan Segundo, and Rubem Alves, and other liberation theologians in criticizing Jurgen Moltmann and other European theologians for advocating a "critical theory" that claims to remain above all theologies and ideologies as a kind of all-encompassing judge. Such a neutral stance, Miguez-Bonino insists, is impossible (Ibid., p. 40).

Bonino says that there is no divine politics or economics.  He states that this means that we must resolutely use the best human politics and economics at our disposal (Miguez-Bonino here is responding to Moltmann's "Open Letter to Jose Miguez-Bonino."  In his letter, Moltmann contends that Miguez-Bonino and his Latin American colleagues are closer to European political theology than they care to admit and that in their use of critical analysis of European Karl Marx, they are less distinctive than they think they are.  Christianity and Crisis, March 29, 1976).

But he also warns against the tendency among some Latin American liberation theologians to equate Christianity with a specific social program. He calls this tendency the "radical monism' of the new Liberation Theology," a view that makes the love of God and the love of neighbor one and the same ("Historical Praxis and Christian Identity," in Rosino Gibellini, ed. Frontiers of Theology in Latin America., p. 263). 

He states that such that such a stance would lead to "unwillingly deifying the history of humanity. He believes that in such a case, that we would be better to call things by their right name and profess to total immanentism (Ibid., p. 272).

Bonino says the following: "As a Latin American Christian, I am convinced that revolutionary action aimed at changing the basic economic, political, social, and cultural structures and conditions of life is imperative today in the world.  Ours is not a time for mere development, rearranging or correction, but for basic revolutionary change (which out not be to be equated necessarily with violence)...the sociological tools, the historical horizon of interpretation, the insights into the dynamics of the social process and the revolutionary the revolutionary ethos and programme  which Marxism has either received and appropriated or itself created are, however, corrected or interpreted, indispensable for revolutionary change (Grand Rapids, Erdmans, 1976, p.7).

In closing, we can ask if Miguez-Bonino is advocating for a synthesis between Christian and Marxism.  We can also ask if he is a Marxist in disguise.  Is he trying to sanitize Christian theology by utilizing Marxist categories?  

My own response is an absolute "no" to all the questions above.  I strongly believe that he is a committed, dedicated, and sincere Christian who is committed to social justice from both a faith and theological perspective.  That in his work as a believer and  as a theologian makes use of Marxist analysis among others, does not diminish his faith.  Nor does it put him in the category of atheist and agnostic Marxists.  If anything, it places him in the category of those whose commitment to social justice is faith-based and not secularly-based. 

As Ferm, says, Miguez Bonino is especially important both for his concern to develop a Christian political ethic for Latin America and for his contribution to the Christian-Marxist dialogue (Ferm, op. cit., p 40).

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

                      LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY 

                      JOSE PORFIRIO MIRANDA 

                      ARE CHRISTIANITY AND MARXISM COMPATIBLE? 

Many people whose notion of Liberation Theology is based on hearsay and market-place rumors, tend to think that Liberation Theology is Marxism in disguise.  They believe that it is a theological sanitizing of revolution and violence as a means of social change.  They have not, for the most part, bothered to pick up a single book written by an author of Liberation Theology, nor have they seriously engaged with the contents in the field.  

One such person that they believe (again, based on hearsay) to be a "Communist in disguise" is Jose Porfirio Miranda.  They see the title of his book "Marx and the Bible," and without having read it, they judge the book by its cover, and then are quick to say "You see, I told you so."  The reaction to Liberation Theology is then, as a visceral one, rather than one based on critical and analytical thinking or rigorous research.  As one colleague of mine put it, "they are allergic to research."  

Jose Porfirio Miranda is one of the most controversial Latin American liberation theologians.  He seems to occupy his own space, having virtually no contact with the church or his theological colleagues.  A native of Mexico, Miranda is a leading advocate of Marxism as an essential tool for understanding and changing Latin American society.  He has attempted to bring out many affinities between Marxist teachings and biblical faith (Ferm, op. cit. pp. 34-35. Miranda studied economics in Germany at the Universities of Munich and Munster and in 1967 received a licentiate in biblical science from the Biblical Institute, Rome. He has taught at the Universidad Metropolitana Tztapalapa in Mexico City.).

His first book, Marx and the Bible: A Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression put him at the forefront of Latin American biblical exegesis (Jose Porfirio Miranda, Marx and the Bible. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1974).

His basic theme in this study is the positive correlation between Marx and the Bible.  Neither will have love without justice or justice without love. Both affirm that love and justice make no sense apart from the social matrix; both insist that human beings can lose their selfishness for the sake of loving the neighbor; both seek to change the world for the better rather than to simply understand it; both believe that such a change for the better can indeed take place (Ferm, op. cit. p. 35).

Miranda asks "Is it more utopian to hope for the transformation of the world through justice than it is to hope for the definitive elimination of sin in the world?  Is it more utopian to believe in the resurrection of the flesh than in the abolition of all the injustices, enmities and cruelties in the world?...In both Marx and the Bible the basis for all thought is this thesis which is the most revolutionary imaginable: Sin and evil are not inherent to humanity and history; they began one day through human work and they can therefore be eliminated (Marx and the Bible, p. 277).  

Miranda takes  pains to note the similarities between Marx and the Apostle Paul.  Both emphasize the totality of evil. Both believe that injustice and sin can be eliminated, because selfishness is a "fallen" condition, not a natural one.  Whereas Marx sees injustice and sin as primarily the consequences of an economic system (capitalism), Paul finds them imbedded in earthly principalities and powers (Ferm, op. cit. p. 35).

In his book, Being and the Messiah: The Message of St. John, Miranda stresses his earlier theme that love and justice are also one and the same in the Johannine tradition. He says that the defining characteristic of the God of the Bible is that fact that He cannot be known or loved directly; rather, to love God and to know Him means to love one's neighbor and to do one's neighbor justice (Jose Porfirio Miranda, Being and the Messiah: The Message of St. John. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1977, p. 137). 

In fairness, it should be pointed out that Miranda is not an ideologue who simply bends and twists both Christianity and Marxism to make them fit together.  Miranda is highly critical of many components of Marxist ideology; yet he is not afraid to see the positive features in Marxism and the resemblance they bear to many biblical insights.  Miranda is justified in criticizing those anti-Marxists who have never bothered to read Marx, but who have settled for a passing acquaintance with Marx through the sometimes distorted lenses of his antagonists.  What is crucial to stress here is that the Marxist component one finds in some, but not all, Latin American Liberation Theology cannot be fairly and fully appreciated until one is willing to come to terms with Jose Miranda (Ferm, op. cit., p. 38).

By no means should we minimize Miranda's own deep Christian faith. He affirms again and again that one really believes in Jesus Christ only if one also believes that the this world can be changed for the better and that the reign of God can be realized on this earth.  For Miranda the bottom line is that to  do justice-"to preach good news to the poor....to set a liberty those who are oppressed"-is to follow Christ and to know God (Ibid.).

Can religion and Marxism resonate with each other in any way?  Is it possible to eliminate sin without eliminate the causes and roots of sin?  These are the types of questions that need to be raised when making the comparisons that Miranda as a theologian of liberation writes and speaks.  These issues will continue to exist and be addressed as long as the struggle for justice continues. 

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary