Liberation Theology Debate Rebuttal

Introduction to Rebuttal

The Liberation Theology of Gustavo Guiterriez is a theology propounded for reflection by members of the Roman Catholic Church. As with all theologies, it is based from within the contexts and situations that are found within the historical settings of our time, to be read as the signs of the times. No matter the amount of reflection and divine guidance, all of these theologians are humans within human settings and with human understandings. These are the conditions that are brought to the interpretation of the gospel.

Some criticisms held against Guitierrez are:
-- His translations of the gospel, which do tend to be far-reaching at times and very insightful at others and must be placed into a dialogue to correct or accentuate the distortions and the gifts of his theology.

-- Guiterrez uses Marxist thought as a tool within the toolbox of Christian theology and staying within the theological framework of definitions and conceptions held by the church. This criticism is so reactive to Marx’s atheistic position concerning religion that it is falling into its own critique of generalizing the discourse with its own biases.

-- Just because of criticism against Guiterriez theology, many of which are or may be credible and call for either revision or deeper understanding and analysis, the church cannot dismiss the movement that he is a spokesperson for and patronizingly insert a theology of liberation that does not include the grassroots movement. Instead of accepting or dismissing his theology, I ask that the Church to consider opening to dialogue with the Liberation theologists of this movement rather than invalidating their initiative.

There is now a situation worldwide where various theologies are addressing conditions in the world, including critiques of the church and its way of theological formation, that all must be seen together in a larger light, even though each must particularly be addressed individually. A few of these theologies is liberation, feminist, Black, African, First Nations, and Amerindian theologies. These theologies are not just arising out of third world countries, but also third world conditions within first world ones.

All of these aforementioned theologies show a global movement that the Church must take seriously, first by doing more than offhandedly admitting and apologizing for their contributions to creating the oppressions experienced today. These oppressions have arisen as repercussions of past errors in missionizing techniques that played their part in the colonial process and still play an active part in the resulting class struggle that is addressed in many of the documents from the Vatican concerning liberation theology.

Once more the Church is at a brink where other great theologians in the past have transcended the limited view of themselves as Christians, the Church as the body of Christ in this world, and the Christian theology of their times, bringing about the Five Stages of the church. Liberation theology is critical in this day and age in part because of the results of errors made by human theologists and how they interpreted the bible in the past, and in the actions of the church as a whole.

It is time that individuals within the administrative and structural church lead the way in addressing the forms of oppression that still are found within the individuals that have authority in the church. Each individual who has decision-making abilities must reflect and grapple with recognizing their own power and privilege and come to terms with how these interact within the relationships they have with the gospel, the Church, and to the world. This will lead to purification and de-secularizing of our earthly ideologies that stand in our way from a more authentic interpretation of the gospel.
This is the intention of Gutierrez theology.

Gutierrez has formulated a theology that can open up dialogue, but instead, the church, believing it is not political, has orchestrated its routines and doctrinal formation in imitation to the secular organizations of state government. To believe that we as a church are not political is hard to do operating within the structure of this debate: this is a parliamentary style debate that has the competitive edge of winners versus losers as the outcome.

This allows no room for dialogue, a two way communication process that allows for the voice of all parties to be heard in order to reach an understanding that may come from compromising between two positions. This style of debate is not set up this way and substantiates many of the concerns that are being critiqued within the various theologies, especially within the Liberation Theology of Guiterrez.

I would like each of us to take a moment to reflect together on the personal nature of oppression.
Place yourself within the context of this debate running well over the lunch hour. Your belly is hungry for food and it is hard to focus on the issues at hand and the positions being propounded from each side. Your belly calls for your attention.

This is minor compared to the hunger for food, the thirst for clear water that Latin Americans deal with, and the distractions of basic daily living that we take for granted in our first world countries are not even known, let alone within reach of many of the peoples of Latin America. Prayer is hard to complete because of the thrusting pains of hunger and the cries of children who need the basic commodities of life.

Yet Latin America is a wellspring of Christian faith that awaits full nurturance and liberation theology is coming from that wellspring asking for attention and the participation in dialoguing to achieve a solution through both Christian theology and Christian praxis. A spiritual sense of poverty, like that found within the 1984 doctrine of the faith cannot be grappled with until that hunger and thirst is first fulfilled. Then, in joy and thankfulness, an open heart can be turned to God, and these people can personally choose spiritual poverty for themselves, on the same level of understanding that we know and have the personal choice to do.

Until their hunger of this world is basically met, like ours is in the first world, we can not patronizingly state that they need to accept their situation because we see them as the blessed of the lord because of their hunger. It is their hunger for basic human rights that delays their Christian advancement.

As we reflect on the subjective element at work in the oppressed, unfortunately we can not even imagine the oppression that works in their lives because our privilege and our position in a first world country, including the privilege of being of an educated class disallows us to even imagine their plight. Much of the theological conception and reflection is made without the voices of the human objects giving us an opportunity to understand their situation rather than to safely and intellectually analyze, even if prayer is involved, within the safe distance of our first world settings. We refuse to feel oppression in its fullest sense at our doorstep, let alone bringing it within our house, God’s house.

Dialogue is necessary in order to balance the intellectualism of first world theology with the more spiritual and applicable thought of those theologians who came from or are working in the field. Guiterrez is human and the church workers are human; Moses was human within a human context and God used him to lead the exodus. Maybe it is time to pick up Guiterriez’ call and join into the praxis with our own human agency; not following Guiterriez as the Jewish did, but at least dialoguing with him in order to possibly reach compromises that will empower both the Church and the world.