Tag Archives: Liberation Theology

The Gospel weighted toward the poor?

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Continuing the conversation about Mary’s Magnificat here and here.
This begs the question: Is the Gospel good news for everyone?

Perhaps the prepositions need some work here. Good News FOR everyone? Yes, most definitely. Will it sound like good news TO everyone? Not likely. I’m assuming here that we could resolve all of the church’s failures, shortcomings and inconsistencies. This line of questioning has nothing to do with our inability to live up to the Gospel’s call and claim on our lives. For the sake of argument, let’s just say that is all resolved, and all we are left with is the Gospel itself, in its pure and true form.

Hannah and Mary point to what they believe is an essential truth in God’s message of love – that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. Those who have been beaten down and left out will be brought in, healed and restored. Meanwhile, those doing the beating and the leaving – they will lose their positions of power over others. This is nearly impossible for us to hear in western culture so defined by power and prestige, where might makes right, growth and strength are signs of privilege to be preferred by us.

from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops http://www.USCCB.org

If Mary and Hannah are to be believed, then the God made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth shows “a preference toward the poor,” to borrow language from Liberation Theology. Here is how the US Conference of Catholic Bishops introduces the idea:

Option for the Poor and Vulnerable – A  basic moral test is how our most vulnerable members are faring. In a society  marred by deepening divisions between rich and poor, our tradition recalls the  story of the Last Judgment (Mt 25:31-46)  and instructs us to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first. 

And here is an excerpt from Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns intro:

From the Scriptures we learn that the justice of a society is tested and judged by its treatment of the poor. God’s covenant with Israel was dependant on the way the community treated the poor and unprotected—the widow, the orphan and the stranger (Deut. 16.11-12, Ex. 22.21-27, Isa. 1.16-17). Throughout Israel’s history and in the New Testament, the poor are agents of God’s transforming power. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus proclaims that he has been anointed to bring good news to the poor (4.1-22). Similarly, in the Last Judgment, we are told that we will be judged according to how we respond to the hungry, the thirsty, the prisoner and the stranger (Matthew 25.31-46).

I would argue that we must lay these ideas alongside Jesus’ teaching that we must become like little children if we wish to enter the kingdom of God. Children are penniless and powerless. They are humble, weak and poor. And they are our mentors and guides for inheriting the Kingdom to come, which in glimpses and fits and starts is already here.

Follow the weak and the frail?

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Could it be that as soon as the church finds itself on the top side of history we must immediately turn, look around, and go sit with those who are on the bottom side?  What if the only way to enter into the presence of God and remain with God is by following those who are dispossessed? Israel was always closest to God when they were the lost bride in need of redemption. When the people were lifted out of oppression and rose to power, almost immediately did they turn their backs on the one who had saved them.

In the midst of all the talk about race relations, community policing, inequity, poverty, crime, and yes, even outright systemic racism, could it be that Christians are missing the point? All of us, White, Black, Asian, Latin, and more? As we are now 12 days before Christmas, I’m reminded of the ways in which God entered into the underside of history, and everyone seems to have missed the point. Mary and Joseph ended up in a stable, which means they didn’t find hospitality from the rich or the poor. Herod tried to kill Jesus, but the wise men did nothing to protect him. The shepherds came and worshiped, and then returned to their fields, filled with joy, but presumably not to change the course of their lives. Even those who may have had some idea who this child was were left untransformed by his presence.

What needs to change in us so that we can finally be humble before those God sends to us as messengers, “Angelos,” to teach us and leads us to peace?

NPR Book Review – The Righteous Mind

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Book Summary

The author of The Happiness Hypothesis presents a groundbreaking investigation into the origins of morality at the core of religion and politics, offering scholarly insight into the motivations behind cultural clashes that are polarizing America.

via The Righteous Mind : NPR.

Learning to serve the poor

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When I was in college I was fortunate to serve as Mission Intern at a big-steeple downtown church. When people came to the door seeking financial support, I was their liaison with the church. I had afternoon office hours and a monthly budget – I always exceeded both. Each month my supervisor would meet with me, show me the budget and how much I had given away, point out the overage and grimace in a way that expressed compassionately, “This can’t happen next month.” “I know,” I’d smile back, both of us recognizing that it probably would, and it did. I also coordinated the church’s running of a Saturday Soup kitchen, using the model known as Second Helpings – where restaurant food is collected, deep frozen, and reserved to those in need. A small group of us from a campus ministry, full of the idealism and indefatigable spirit of the young, cornered the senior pastor of the above mentioned church and said, “We’re going to start a soup kitchen, and we’d love it if you all help.” Without missing a beat the pastor responded, “We’ll do it at our place!” and sure enough, over time that’s exactly what happened.

These experiences, along with time spent as a volunteer coordinator for a Habitat for Humanity chapter, left me frustrated. I kept feeling like we were putting on band-aids, doing triage, but not helping people to address their foundational issues that put and kept them in need of help. I wrote my senior thesis on “The Socialization of the Homeless: A Call for Change” wherein I argued that the homeless in general, and the poor more broadly considered, need more than for someone to hand them resources; they (like all of us) need to participate in a community of support where transformation can occur and inner capacities can be discovered and developed to their fullest capacity. This is also the argument made by Robert D. Lupton in TOXIC CHARITY: How churches and charities hurt those they help (and how to reverse it).

Dignity is a key theme for Lupton – he emphasizes maintaining and even enhancing the dignity of the poor through all policies, programs and practices intended to help alleviate poverty. This also results in heightened dignity-with-humility for those who serve – doing for is dehumanizing for those with power as well as those without. This focus on dignity then leads to numerous shifts or outright reversals. from “doing for” to “doing with”; from focus on need to focus on relationship; from emergency assistance to development assistance; from focus on meeting our needs to meeting the needs of those being served; from “charity to parity”; from “going on tourist mission trips” that displace local labor and leave little long term change to sending skilled community developers; from food pantry to food coop; from gentrification to re-neighboring; from “experts” leading to community leaders leading with “experts” (i.e. people with knowledge, skills, resources and networks) serving in support capacities. All of these shifts result in heightened dignity for all involved.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”, a phrase oft used in literature and perhaps originating with Bernard of Clairvaux, certainly applies in this present context. Churches and charities (and governments and individuals) mean well. We need to look at the unintended consequences of our actions before we take them. We need to act in partnership and community with those being served. We need to develop opportunities for reciprocity wherever possible. We need to build on strengths while filling asset gaps.

I am also now fortunate to serve in a community where some people understand these premises and are seeking to develop community awareness while enacting policy and developing program. We have much to learn. Jesus called the adults around him to learn from the children; I think a parallel principle applies here – the poor have much to teach those who would want to help them. Needing help does not make one helpless – meeting needs unilaterally does.

In Search of a Theological Method for the Transformational Leader

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       Transformational Leadership in the Christian community is a theological endeavor. Everyone agrees that the secular world in the United States has changed dramatically from the time when today’s model of church life took form – i.e. the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Theology is not just something we tell, it is something we do. Theology is the communal work of discovering God. The Theological Community is formed by those actively doing the work, along with the voices of previous generations of theologians, those of the authors and editors of scripture, those of the characters within scripture, and those of the community around us.

The Word is active, a living force which creates by its presence. How we engage that Word determines the content of theology, and thus the results of living out that theology. If all we do is pass on what others have said the word means, then we have failed to engage the Word. We need a way to connect, a theological process that is real and accessible to all who desire to participate. I believe that an exploration of Latin American Liberation Theology as it developed within base communities can give us such a process. Classically trained theologians entered as pastors to local communities of largely uneducated laity. As they gathered and formed a theological community, they were able to do theology – to have a life giving creative conversation with all the voices mentioned above. The result of this was both doxa and praxia – thought/belief and activity/action. Each community needs to do this work for themselves.

How will religious leaders, as resident theologians, move from telling people which theological ideas are right, toward enabling a process in which people hear the Word afresh and come to their own understandings as a part of that larger conversation? Even in the popular postmodern expressions of Christianity led by such figures as Brian McLaren and Rob Bell, there seems a dearth of interest in helping people do theology. Indeed, I think the criticisms that Juan Luis Segundo, S.J., makes of Liberation Theology in The Liberation of Theology, apply to the contemporary postmodern, postchristendom “theologies”. They have found an audience, as they resonate with the frustrations of many regarding conservative interpretations of scripture and Christian doctrine, which are felt to be too narrow, restrictive, and not representative of God’s wild creativity that we see revealed throughout creation. Yet both are externally imposed on congregations and society at large. Talking heads say, “This is what it means.” Rather, I suggest there must be a way to follow the lead of Jesus who said, “Who do people say that I am?” And who told wonderful but elusive stories as his way to explain the unfolding kingdom of God.

Some people seem to want to be fed the right answers rather than working them out together in community. This reality needs to be acknowledged and understood if possible, and perhaps even honored. Questions leave open the choice to engage or not. My interests lie in understanding a theological process that is rooted in historical Christian theology and yet enables lay people to engage the process of theology together toward a way of being Christian in this present day. Today’s churches and communities need leaders with a new vision. As our context has changed, so we need to be transformed. We need new wine skins for the new wine for this new day. I believe that the processes and practices of Latin American base communities under the leadership of those pastoral theologians can reveal for us a way of being faithful Christian communities in our current context.