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The Confused Protest of Liberation Theology
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10840 |
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Section : |
Book World
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| Issue
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7 / 1986 |
2,631 Words |
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John W. Cooper
John W. Cooper, senior research fellow in religion and society
studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington,
D.C., is the author of The Theology of Freedom (Mercer
University Press, 1985). |
THIRD WORLD LIBERATION THEOLOGIES: AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
Deane William Ferm
Orbis Books
150 pp., $10.95
THIRD WORLD LIBERATION THEOLOGIES: A READER
Deane William Ferm
Orbis Books
386 pp., $16.95
Liberation theologian Geevarghese Mar Osthathios of India believes that God chose Marx, Engels, and Mao "to fulfil [sic] his plan to evolve a classless society." Gustavo Gutierrez, the progenitor of Latin American liberation theology, argues that an indigenous socialism "represents the most fruitful and far-reaching approach" to rid the Third World of foreign capitalist domination. According to the "Christians for Socialism" document issued in Chile in 1972, "there is a growing awareness that revolutionary Christians must form a strategic allegiance with Marxists."
Such statements abound in the literature of liberation theology--a theological movement that has achieved widespread legitimacy, if not virtual dominance, among Christian social ethicists. Yet, even among liberation theologians, an occasional word of caution emerges:
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
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