Rel 198 -- Ch. 12-14:  secularization; liberation theologies

GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ  (1928 - )

There are various forms of liberation theology. James Cone has written eloquently on black liberation theology, though liberation theology is only one of many strong voices speaking to the situation of African-American people.  Martin Luther King, Jr.,  James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Malcolm X's autobiography have words well worth reading also, though none of these are theologies (though King's are clearly religious). The two most extensive forms of liberation theologies are Latin American and feminist.

Latin American liberation theology is a movement which perceives evil in socio-economic structures that give wealth and power to a privileged class while maintaining both peasants and the urban poor in continuing deprivation and powerlessness. Some liberation theology focuses its efforts on the creation of "base communities" in which the poor can find mutual support and perhaps also political clout. Other liberation theology preaches a more active political agitation along socialist lines. There is no program on which all liberation theology agrees.

Gutierrez, a Peruvian Catholic priest, gave the movement its name by his book A Theology of Liberation (first English translation, 1973; revised 1988). A major theme of his is "secularization." This was originally a late medieval word to label the process of handing over church property to the civil authorities, to place it under "secular" control. But it has come to stand for a whole process whereby ideas and values and practices that were once focused on the church and its traditional otherworldly goal of getting out this world and into heaven, have been shifted towards a concern to take care of this world, for the sake of others and for generations yet to come.

Western culture as a whole has undergone a high degree of secularization in the last few centuries. The "historic" or classical form of religion perceives this as unreligiousness, a falling away from true otherworldly religion. Modern religiousness, however, argues that concern for this world can be quite religious. Liberation theology is a major example of this.

Gutierrez believes that this world is very important, and that the purpose of the Catholic Church should be to serve the world. So the purpose of the church becomes secular, in a sense. It is a religious obligation, according to Gutierrez, to seek to change political and economic and social structures that create human suffering and poverty, to seek to liberate the poor from dehumanizing oppression.

[Comments on vocabulary and wording:  
The word "evangelical" below does not stand for conservative Protestant Christianity, as it often does in the U.S.  Each gospel is an "evangel" -- from a Greek word that means good news.  The old English word for good news is "gospel." So when your translation of Marks' Gospel says "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ" the word "gospel" is a translation of the Greek word euangelion, and the first verse actually says "The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ.".  When Gutierrez speaks of "evangelical demands" he means to point to what he says the gospels demand. 
The word "praxis" is a fancy word for "practices," with the added connotation that many practices arise from certain implicit or explicit theories about life and values.
Gutierrez ends by saying that what he recommends is not a "struggling for others" but a self-transformation.  He means that yes, we should struggle for others, but not from a paternalistic position of power.  Instead it will be necessary to rethink and reform the whole social power structure.]

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In all the different responses to the problem we are considering, the world has gradually been acknowledged as existing in its own right. Autonomous with regard to both ecclesiastical authority and the mission of the Church, the world has slowly asserted its secularity. Acknowledgement by the Church of this autonomy manifested itself first with timidity and distrust--hence the expressions "healthy," "just," and "legitimate" autonomy which frequently appear in documents from the magisterium of the Church. But gradually and especially in theological circles, the values and irreversibility of the process to which we now refer as secularization have become more obvious.

Secularization appeared as a breaking away from the tutelage of religion, as a desacralization. This is the most common way of characterizing this process. Harvey Cox writes: "We have defined secularization as the liberation of man [sic] from religious and metaphysical tutelage, the turning of his attention away from other worlds and toward this one." This is how the process of secularization has historically been presented. It was an initial attempt to deal with the problem, valid albeit incomplete.

There is a second and more positive approach to this subject, which is already suggested in the final part of the text quoted above. Secularization is, above all, the result of a transformation of the self-understanding of man. From a cosmological vision, man moves to an anthropological vision, due especially to scientific developments. Man perceives himself as a creative subject. Moreover, man becomes aware--as we have noted above--that he is an agent of history, responsible for his own destiny. His mind discovers not only the laws of nature, but also penetrates those of society, history, and psychology. This new self-understanding of man necessarily brings in its wake a different way of conceiving his relationship with God.

In this sense, secularization--and this has been recalled often lately--is a process which not only coincides perfectly with a Christian vision of man, of history, and of the cosmos; it also favors a more complete fulfillment of the Christian life insofar as it offers man the possibility of being more fully human. this realization has engendered efforts to search for the Biblical roots of secularization, efforts at times somewhat "concordist." Biblical faith does indeed affirm the existence of creation as distinct from the Creator; it is the proper sphere of man, whom God himself has proclaimed lord of this creation. Worldliness, therefore, is a must, a necessary condition for an authentic relationship between man and nature, of men among themselves, and finally, between man and god.
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 In the past, the Church used the world for her own ends; today many Christians--and non-Christians--ask themselves if they should, for example, use the influence of the Church to accelerate the process of transformation of social structures. 

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It is not our purpose to deal with all the complex questions which this heading suggests, but only to consider briefly some of the aspects of the subject which concerns us.

From the viewpoint of faith, the motive which in the last instance moves Christians to participate in the liberation of oppressed peoples and exploited social classes is the conviction of the radical incompatibility of evangelical demands with an unjust and alienating society. They feel keenly that they cannot claim to be Christians without a commitment to liberation. But the articulation of the way in which this action for a more just world is related to a life of faith belongs to the level of intuition and groping--at times in anguish.

If theology is a critical reflection--in the light of the Word accepted in faith--on historical praxis and therefore on the presence of Christians in the world, it should help us to establish this relationship. Theological reflection should attempt to discern the positive and negative values in this presence. It should make explicit the values of faith, hope, and charity contained in it. And it should contribute to correcting possible aberrations as well as the neglect of other aspects of Christian life, pitfalls into which the demands of immediate political action, regardless of how generous it is, sometimes allow us to fall. This too is the task of critical reflection, which by definition should not be simply a Christian justification a posteriori. Basically this reflection should contribute in one way or another to a more evangelical, more authentic, more concrete, and more efficacious commitment to liberation.

It is important to keep in mind that beyond--or rather, through--the struggle against misery, injustice, and exploitation the goal is the creation of a new man. Vatican II has declared, "We are witnesses of the birth of a new humanism, one in which man is defined first of all by his responsibility toward his brothers and toward history" (Gaudium et Spes, no.55). This aspiration to create a new man is the deepest motivation in the struggle which many have undertaken in Latin America. The fulfillment of this dream (if it can ever be completely fulfilled) can be only vaguely perceived by this generation, but this aspiration even now inspires their commitment.

This quest poses questions and challenges to the Christian faith. What the faith says about itself will demonstrate its relationship to the goal of the people who are struggling for the emancipation of others and of themselves. Indeed, an awareness of the need for self-liberation is essential to a correct understanding of the liberation process. It is not a matter of "struggling for others," which suggests a paternalism and reformist objectives, but rather of becoming aware of oneself as not completely fulfilled and as living in an alienated society. And thus one can identify radically and militantly with those--the people and the social class--who bear the brunt of oppression. . . .

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"Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino was born in Lima, Peru, in 1928 and is the founder and director of the Bartolomé de las Casas Institute, in Lima. A man with a solid humanistic, theological and pastoral training, presently he is a parish priest in Lima's slum quarter of Rimac. Guitiérrez was the first person to synthesize and draw together the ideas of the Theology of Liberation, coining and defining the term in a conference given in 1969 and in the book A Theology of Liberation published by Orbis Books two years later."  (From the announcement on the Orbisbooks.com page of the Asturias award.  The 1971 publication was in Spanish.)