Theology in the Americas: A Letter from Gregory Baum

Continuing our reflections on the Conference "Theology in the Americas" in Detroit in 1975, I now move on to a letter written by Gregory Baum, who at the time of his writing was a Professor of Theology at St. Michael's College in Toronto Canada.  The letter was written to Sergio Torres, a Roman Catholic priest from Chile, and Executive Secretary of "Theology in the Americas: 1975," and one of the main organizers of the Conference.

One of the points that Baum highlights in his letter to Torres, is one that has previously been highlighted in this series of essays, i.e. the need for North American theology to be faithful to its own context, while at the same time appreciating and learning from other theologies and the contexts in which they emerge and develop. Baum writes, in a sense, from a Canadian standpoint, to a theologian who no doubt, is carrying the baggage of Latin American Liberation Theology. In a subsequent essay, we will cover Torres's response to Baum.  We will now consider Baum's letter and consider whether or not what he says has relevance for the theological enterprise and task for today.

In his letter, Baum says to Torres, " While I agree with the approach to theological reflection outlined in the paper (referring to the preparatory documents), I do not think that it is useful for North Americans to start reflecting on their condition with the eyes of Latin Americans.  It seems to me the consciousness of a people must be raised by reflections on their own condition, on their history, on the structures of oppression to which they themselves, or at least certain groups among them, are exposed.  In your paper you offer important theological material helping Americans to understand their own situation.  But since you select this material mainly in the light of what happens in Latin America, it is not enough.  Unless we can discover our own enslavement, we cannot as a people reach out for a new collective existence.  If you confront Americans simply with the Latin American analysis, you only make them feel guilty, you make them wish they could help others,  but since they will not find the right perspective for understanding among themselves, they will not find a language that can be heard their countrymen and hence they will remain powerless.  We have to begin where we are.  We must listen to Latin Americans and to their analysis, but then must start analyzing our own history and our own situation of affluence and poverty (Baum, in Eagleson and Torres, p. 87)."

Baum's letter to Torres of course raises questions for us forty years later.  Are we Americans (especially those of European extraction) still so arrogant that we still believe that Euro-American theology, and the Euro-American way of interpreting the Bible, are the "correct" and "universally valid" positions in the theological task?  Do we measure truth (especially God's truth) in terms of what comes out of the Euro-American context?   Does Baum's letter to Torres constitute the reverse of the supposed supremacy of Euro-American theology, i.e. is Baum saying that Latin American theology is pretending to be the "correct" and "universally valid one?"

Baum continues by saying " I do not like the way in which the paper makes Latin American Liberation Theology the model from which we must learn.  Canadians are only too willing to learn from others.  In Canada, a thinker is not recognized unless he/she has made a name for herself/himself in another country.  This is a heritage from the colonial days. Anglo-Canadian intellectuals used to turn to England; now they often turn to the U.S.A. For the sake of liberation, they should be encouraged to be in touch with their own tradition and find in it resources of reflection and new vision (Baum in Eagleson and Torres, p.88)."

In your opinion, is Baum rejecting Latin American theology wholesale?  Or is he just simply saying that no one theology (including Latin American) can claim to be the universally valid one that can pontificate for the world-wide Church of Christ?

Baum continues: "In Canadian Protestantism, to give an example, a sophisticated and action-oriented social gospel movement extended into the thirties, a movement that transcended Reinhold Niebuhr's rejection of the American social gospel and reflected an extended dialogue with Marxist thought. Most Canadian theologians are not even aware of this.  The last thing we need in Canada is to be told to turn to another country.  What we need is confidence that important things have happened in our own history and are happening now, thanks to which we are enabled to discern the structures of oppression in which we are involved ((Baum in Eagleson and Torres, p.88)."

Since much of the theology in America has been inherited by the Euro-American Protestant Missionary Enterprise, do you think that Baum's letter to Torres is a warning for we Americans to reevaluate it, and perhaps come up with a theology that emerges out of own North American context?

In his concluding remarks, Baum says: "Canadians, in particular, should not make the analysis of the American empire the only source of reflection.  We are dependent on the empire and to a large extent owned by it, and at the same time we are willing collaborators with American foreign policy and the dominant business interests.  But we also have our own internal structures of oppression, which we must study.  At Canadian universities, students are often more interested in protesting the Vietnam involvement of the United States, and following American politics than in learning French  and dealing specifically with Canadian issues.  Canadians are very much in need of discovering the destiny written into their history, their geography, their human experiences, and this includes the vastness of their as yet unpopulated land, and the space and richness available to be shared with other people.  While we must listen to Latin Americans and analyze the influence of the American empire, we must develop our own sense of independence from the United States so that we can assume a more responsible role in international affairs.  We are in need of our own theology of liberation (Baum in Eagleson and Torres, p. 89)."

As you reflect on the contents and thrust of this letter, what would you venture to say about its validity or invalidity?  What relevancy, if any, does this letter written forty years ago, have for the Church today?  Please feel free to give your input.

Grace and peace,
Dr. Juan A. Ayala-Carmona

Detroit Revisited: Theology in the Americas-A Letter from Rosemary Ruether

This essay is a reflection on a letter written by Rosemary Ruether, a feminist and theologian, and who at the time of this writing was a professor of Historical Theology at Howard University.  The letter was directed to Sergio Torres and the Planners of the Theology in the Americas Conference held in Detroit in 1975.

The purpose of this essay is not to rehash what Dr. Ruether said in her letter, but rather to single out, so to speak, some of the issues which she addresses, and to challenge us to make a determination as to whether these issues still have relevancy for the Church and for the world today.  The reader will make that determination of the basis of familiarity with those issues.

Ruether says "If Americans are expected to respond to the criticism of American posed by the theology of liberation, they must be able to find in this national language the resources to respond, by being able to recognize in the response of repentance that is called for, not merely judgment, but also the call to renew the covenant with their "truer selves;" to recognize this response as the true affirmation of their identity as a people who believe in "liberty and justice for all."  This is not a question of being less critical of America!  This is a question of giving people the positive basis of the alternate identity through which they can respond at all.  If this basic psychological-historical reality is ignored in a misguided effort to be as apocalyptical as possible, the result will be that the language of liberty and justice in the American tradition will be ceded in advance to the FBI and the CIA, who will claim exclusive right to represent the "true Americans," and will use this language to convince people that great "enemies of America" are abroad in the land and new efforts of repression are necessary.  In other words, the tone of this conference will repeat the mistake of the left of the later 1960's, which fed into a perfect symbiosis with the forces of repression.  At the moment, thanks to Watergate, Americans are focusing on the true enemies of the Establishment.  They are beginning to recognize that Americans have different interests from this leadership class.  This is a time when they could be powerfully appealed to, to recognize that their own true identity should lead them to support or leave alone other people's liberation struggles.  rather than intervene on the side of repression.  But this can be done only if the criticism of these policies of the American empire also draws on an alternative positive image of what America should be.  If the language that comes from the theology of liberation is only that of judgment of the Monster, and no call is given to an alternative identity that draws on their historical language of liberty, then the forces of repression have an easy time creating new paranoia and locating false enemies all over again.  Only if American radicals return to the strategy of Martin Luther King, who always made his scathing judgment in the language of an alternative "dream", is there any possibility that his message will be heard, not just by a tiny alienated few, but by the larger masses of Americans. I suggest that resources, such as Robert Bellah's  'The Broken Covenant,' as well as theologians and American religious historians who can provide this dimension, be brought to the conference (Ruether in Eagleson and Torres, p. 87)."

Questions for your reflection.

1.  What do you think of Ruether's recommendations in preparation for a conference of this nature?

2.  Are any of the issues that Ruether mentions in her letter "alive and well" today? If so, which ones?

3.  Is Ruether in your opinion, suggesting that in order for Christian theology to be genuine, that it must adopt the language of oppressive political and social systems in order to be rightly understood, or is she merely suggesting that the language should be "toned down" in order to avoid repression?

4.  What, if anything, do you believe that Christ is saying to the Church today through the recommendations in Ruether's letter?

Your input is very important.  Please respond.

Grace and peace,
Dr. Juan A. Ayala-Carmona

Detroit Revisited: Theology in the Americas-Doing Theology in a ( Counter) Revolutionary Situation

In this essay, I continue the thread of the Detroit conference, Theology in the Americas in 1975.
This essay, like the previous one, focuses on an article written by Phillip Berryman whom we have across in a previous writing.  The name of this particular article which Berryman writes "Doing Theology in a (Counter) Revolutionary Situation.

Berryman points out that this article appeared in September 1973 as a military coup was overthrowing the Popular Unity Government in Chile.  This government had been democratically elected, but the coup was initiated and funded by the U.S.A. government through the CIA for two basic reasons.

1.  The duly democratically elected President, Salvador Allende Gossens wanted to nationalize some of the private American corporations like ITT in order to make the economy more beneficial to the majority of Chile's citizens.

2.  President Allende wanted to move the economy and the government in the direction of a democratic socialism.

In the name of preventing "the spread of Marxist Communism," the U.S.A. government with the help of internal elites in Chile (oligarchies) violently overthrew the Allende government.  Over ten thousand people were killed, and many tens of thousands more were jailed, tortured, fired from their jobs, or forced into exile.  Subsequently, Chile once again fell subservient to the grips of transnational corporations, its economy "corrected," (with the help of Milton Friedman and Chicago-trained economists), while workers and peasants lost all their former gains and lived under terror (Berryman in Eagleson and Torres, p. 54).

After that time, there were rightist military coups in Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina. More than two-thirds of Latin America was living under military rule, even where there civilian governments, (Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Costa Rica), the army and the police were at work. There were long periods of a "state of siege" in Columbia (Berryman, p. 55).

The reader might ask, what does this all have to do with theology?  The answer is that it is precisely in this environment of dehumanization and terror that present-day Latin American theology emerged and developed.  Unlike traditional Western theology, which with some exception, tended to be aligned with and lend support to elitist-led governments. the new Latin American theology (Liberation Theology) initiated a process of biblical interpretation and theological reflection that emerged from those who were "under the boot" of these oppressive governments.

Berryman was among those at the Detroit conference who wanted to engage with North American theologians, not to import Latin American theology, but rather encourage North Americans to contextualize their own theology, especially relative to the economic, political, and social conditions of those who were alienated, marginalized, living in poverty, etc. in an environment where only a small minority were or are living in affluence and/or opulence. 

Berryman presents the "chicken-egg" situation when he talks about eliminating class-differences vs. nation-building. For reasons of his own, he places priority on nation-building (Berryman, p.74).

Once again, one might ask, what does all of this have to do with theology?  Latin American theology is concerned with reading the Gospel as a message of social justice, and not merely as a message of preparing for the "hereafter."  For Latin American theology, the issue of social justice is not merely an abstraction nor a platitude, but rather an issue which requires action and participation in order to make justice a reality.

If we take Latin American theology as a contribution to contextualizing North American theology, we might ask, what are the issues that North American theology has to address?  Here in North America we deal with class issues, though the economic gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" is not quite as acute or wide as it is in other countries of the so-called Third World.  We deal with issues of race, which is a major problem.  We also deal with issues of gender, and in recent times with issues of same-sex relations, both of which has forced the Church in North America to reevaluate it's theology and biblical hermeneutics.

In your opinion, what issues would you as a North American Christian consider important enough to be addressed?  If you were a participant in the Detroit conference, what issues would bring "to the table" of discussion?   Please share with us your own perspective on how we in North American can best contextualize theology.

Grace and peace,
Dr. Juan A. Ayala-Carmona