LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY 

        A LATIN-AMERICAN BIBLICAL HERMENEUTIC 

        JOSE SEVERINO CROATTO 

One of the things that is necessary for any theology which is not Euro-Centric, is to have a clearly-defined biblical hermeneutic (interpretation of the Scriptural revelation).  The hermeneutic has to emerge from the existential reality of the people engaged in it, and not from the people who have imposed, through colonization, their own hermeneutic as if it were "universally valid in all times and in all places."  

In general, in spite of the variations that exist in Latin American Liberation Theology, the common thread among these theologians is that  oppression and suffering serve  as the starting point for biblical interpretation and theological reflection.  In other words, rather than utilize the Bible to shed light on the human conditions of oppression and suffering, Liberation Theology begins with the human condition as a lens through which to examine and understand the biblical message.  

One of the Latin American theologians who believes that a genuine biblical hermeneutic should emerge from the oppressed community and not the oppressing community is Jose Severino Croatto.  Croatto was the first Catholic to teach at the Instituto Superior Evangelico de Estudios Teologicos in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Ferm, op. cit. p. 126).

He insists that there can be no definitive biblical hermeneutic (or closed Christology), because the different historical accumalations of meaning require ever renewed interpretation. He is adamant on this point:

The theology of the Third World has burst upon the scene with a hermeneutic challenge.  Like the theology that is arising in the world of the poor,  all theologies of liberation (socio-political, religious, women's, black and so on) mean to decipher a liberating God's new manifestations in situations of injustice and alienation.  For, in the suffering of the poor, we are assisting at a new God-event.  The poor are raising their consciousness and fighting for liberation.  It is they, first and foremost, who "recognize" God and who pronounce the first "word"-the first interpretation-of the God event ("Biblical Hermeneutics in the Theologies of Liberation," in Virginia Fabella and Sergio Torres, eds, Irruption of the Third World: Challenge to Theology (Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 1983, p. 163). " 

Croatto also dwells on the unending struggle Yahweh and "oppressing gods," and asserts that, in a real sense the theme of the entire Bible is "the battle of the gods ("The Gods of Oppression," in Pablo Richard et. al, the Idols of Death and the God of Life, p. 27)." 

He is also one of a growing cadre of liberation. theologians intent on developing an authentic Christology for Latin America.  Like Leonardo Boff, he portrays Jesus as "the one who reveals human values," the one who seeks out the oppressed, the one who knows firsthand what it means to be marginalized and denounced by oppressors (Ferm, op. cit. p. 50).

Like many other liberation theologians, Croatto finds strong parallels between the experiences of the early Christians and those of the oppressed peoples of the Third World (Ibid., p 50). 

If Third World theology is to result in our drinking "from our own wells," then a Christology and a clearly defined hermeneutic must accompany that emerging theology.  The Christology and the biblical hermeneutic must be home grown rather than imported. 

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

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Visiting Professor of Latin American Liberation Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary