A theology of liberation - excerpt from book

In the current statement of the problem [of a theology of liberation] one fact is evident: the social praxis of contemporary man has begun to reach maturity. It is the behavior of man ever more conscious of being an active subject of history; he is ever more articulate in the face of social injustice and of all repressive forces which stand in the way of his fulfillment; he is ever more determined to participate both in the transformation of social structures and in effective political action. It was above all the great social revolutions--the French and the Russian, for example, to mention only two important milestones--together with the whole process of revolutionary ferment that they initiated which wrested--or at least began to--political decisions from the hands of an elite who were "destined" to rule. Up to that time the great majority of people did not participate in political decisions or did so only sporadically and formally. Although it is true that the majority of people are far from this level of awareness, it is also certain that they have had confused glimpses of it and are oriented in its direction. The phenomenon that we designate with the term "politicization"--which is increasing in breadth and depth in Latin America--is one of the manifestations of this complex process. And in the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed classes on this continent--which is implicit in the effective and human political responsibility of all--people are searching out new paths.

Human reason has become political reason. For the contemporary historical consciousness, things political are not only those which one attends to during the free time afforded by one's private life; nor are they even a well-defined area of human existence. The construction--from its economic bases--of the "polis," of a society in which people can live in solidarity, is a dimension which encompasses and severely conditions all of man's activity. It is the sphere of the exercise of a critical freedom which is won down through history. It is the universal determinant and the collective arena for human fulfillment. Only within this broad meaning of the political sphere can we situate the more precise notion of "politics," as an orientation to power. For Max Weber this orientation constitutes the typical characteristics of political activity. The concrete forms taken on by this quest for an exercise of political power are varied. But they are all based on the profound aspiration of man, who wants to take hold of the reins of his own life and be the artisan of his own destiny. Nothing lies outside the political sphere understood in this way. Everything has a political color. It is always in the political fabric--and never outside of it--that a person emerges as a free and responsible being, as a person in relationship with other people, as someone who takes on a historical task. Personal relationships themselves acquire an ever-increasing political dimension. Men enter into relationships among themselves through political mans. This is what Ricoeur calls the "lasting and stable" relationships of the socius, as opposed to the "fleeting and fragile" relationships of the neighbor. To this effect, M. D. Chenu writes: "Man has always enjoyed this social dimension, since he is social by his very nature. But today, not accidentally but structurally, the collective event lends scope and intensity to the social dimension. What is collective as such has human value and is, therefore, a means and object of love. Human love treads these 'lasting' paths, these organizations of distributive justice, and these administrative systems."

In addition to this universally of the political sphere, we are faced with an increasing radicalization of social praxis. Contemporary man has begun to lose his naivete as he confronts economic and sociocultural determinants; the deep causes of the situation in which he finds himself are becoming clearer. He realizes that to attack these deep causes in the indispensable prerequisite for radical change. And so he has gradually abandoned a simple reformist attitude regarding the existing social order, for, by its very shallowness this reformism perpetuates the existing system. The revolutionary situation which prevails today, especially in the third world, is an expression of this growing radicalization. To support the social revolution means to abolish the present status quo and to attempt to replace it with a qualitatively different one; it means to build a just society based on new relationships of production; it means to attempt to put an end to the domination of some countries by others, of some social classes by others, of some people by others. The liberation of these countries, social classes, and people undermines the very foundation of the present order; it is the greatest challenge of our time.

This radicality has led us to see quite clearly that the political arena is necessarily conflictual. More precisely, the building of a just society means the confrontation--in which different kinds of violence are present--between groups with different interests and opinions. The building of a just society means overcoming every obstacle to the creation of an authentic peace among people. Concretely, in Latin America this conflict revolves around the oppression-liberation axis. Social praxis makes demands which may seem difficult or disturbing to those who wish to achieve--or maintain--a low-cost conciliation. Such a conciliation can be only a justifying idelogy for a profound disorder, a device for the few to keep living off the poverty of the many. But to become aware of the conflictual nature of the political sphere should not mean to become complacent. On the contrary, it should mean struggling--with clarity and courage, deceiving neither oneself nor others--for the establishment of peace and justice among all people.

In the past, concern for social praxis in theological thought did not sufficiently take into account the political dimension. In Christian circles there was--and continues to be--difficulty in perceiving the originality and specificity of the political sphere. Stress was placed on private life and on the cultivation of private values; things political were relegated to a lower plane, to the elusive and undemanding area of a misunderstood "common good." At most, this viewpoint provided a basis for "social pastoral planning," grounded on the "social emotion" which every self-respecting Christian ought to experience. Hence there developed the complacency with a very genral and "humanizing" vision of reality, to the detriment of a scientific and structural knowledge of socioeconomic mechanisms and historical dynamics. Hence also there came the insistence on the personal and conciliatory aspects of the gospel message rather than on its political and conflictual dimensions. We must take a new look at Christian life; we must see how these emphases in the past have conditioned and challenged the historical presence of the church. This presence has an inescapable political dimension. It has always been so, but because of new circumstances it is more urgent that we come to terms with it. Indeed, there is a greater awareness of it, even among Christians. It is impossible to think or to live in the church without taking into account this political dimension.

What we have discussed above leads us to understand why for Christians social praxis is becoming less and less merely a duty imposed by their moral conscience or a reaction to an attack on church interests. The characteristics of totality, radicalness, and conflict which we have attributed to the political sphere preclude any compartmentalized approach and lead us to see its deepest human dimensions. Scial praxis is gradually becoming more of the arena itself in which the Christian works out--along with others--both his destiny as man and his life of faith in the Lord of history. Participation in the process of liberation is an obligatory and privileged locus for Christian life and reflection. In this participation will be heard nuances of the word of God which are imperceptible in other existential situations and without which there can be no authentic and fruitful faithfulness to the Lord.

If we look more deeply into the question of the value of salvation which emerges from our understanding of history--that is, a liberating praxis--we see that at issue is a question concerning the very meaning of Christianity. To be a Christian is to accept and to live--insolidarity, in faith, hope, and charity--the meaning that the word of the Lord and our encounter with him give to the historical becoming of mankind on the way toward total communion. To regard the unique and absolute relationship with God as the horizon of every human action is to place oneself, from the outset, in a wider and more profound context. It is likewise more demanding. We are faced in our day with the bare, central theologico-pastoral question: What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be Church in the unknown circumstances of the future? In the last instance, we must search the gospel message for the answer to what according to Camus constitutes the most important question facing all people: "To decide whether life deserves to be lived or not."

These elements lend perhaps greater depth and a new dimension to the traditional problem. Not to acknowledge the newness of the issues raised, under the pretext that in one way or another the problem has always been present is to detach oneself dangerously from reality; it is to risk falling into generalities, solutions without commitment, and, finally, evasive attitudes. But, on the other hand, to acknowledge nothing but the new aspects of the contemporary statement of the problem is to forgo the contribution of the ife and reflection of the Christian community in its historical pilgrimage. Its successes, its omissions, and its errors are our heritage. They should not, however, delimit our boundaries. The people of God march on "accounting for their hope" toward "a new heaven and a new earth."

The question as it is posed today is not really dealt with by the attempted responses.... But the positive achievements of these efforts with regard to the permanent elements of the problem as well as their deficiencies and limitations can help us to sketch--often by showing us pitfalls to avoid--the itinerary which we must follow.

The Liberation Movement

To characterize Latin America as a dominated and oppressed continent naturally leads one to speak of liberation and above all to participate in the process. Indeed, "liberation" is a term which expresses a new posture of Latin Americans.

The failure of reformist efforts has strengthened this attitude. Among more alert groups today, what we have called a new awareness of Latin American reality is making headway. They believe that there can be authentic development for Latin America only if there is liberation from the domination exercised by the great capitalist countries, and especially by the most powerful, the United States of America. This liberation also implies a confrontation with these groups' natural allies, their compatriots who control the national power structure. It is becoming more evident that the Latin American peoples will not emerge from their present status except by means of a profound transformation, a social revolution, which will radically and qualitatively change the conditions in which they now live. The oppressed sectors within each country are becoming aware--slowly, it is true--of their class interesta dn of the painful road which must be followed to accomplish the breakup of the status quo. Even more slowly they are becoming aware of all that the building of a new society implies.

Because of urbanization and increased industrialization, the Latin American popular movement grew from 1930 on, demanding greater participation in the economic and political life of its respective countries. Political parties of a populist bent capitalized on this basically urban movement. But the crisis of developmentalist policies to which we have referred, the rise of multinational businesses and their growing control of the economy of Latin America, and the appearance of militant peasant masses on the political scene--all these were responsible for the loss of political leadership, at different times in different countries, which the different forms of populism held up to that point. After a period of disorientation, an intense process of political radicalization began. In this regard, the Cuban revolution has played a catalytic role. With certain qualifications, this revolution serves as a dividing point for the recent political history of Latin America. One final factor in all this is the Sino-Soviet split, which among other things has accelerated the internal breakup of the classical Communist parties and precipitated the birth of new and more radical revolutionary groups.

Guerrilla groups appeared, intending quickly to mobilize the masses: they did this by urging them to follow a radical line more than through an organization really representing their interest.

Military defeats followed each other. The political lessons are nevertheless importants. Revolutionary political action has diversified in recent years. It has gone from outbreaks of a leftist nationalism in search of definite options--under the pressure of radicalized groups and the masses--through in-depth connections with the popular masses and even the much-discussed "electoral path," to subversion under new forms of armed struggle. Moreover, it is becoming more obvious that the revolutionary process ougth to embrace the whole continent. There is little chance of success for attempts limited to a national scope.

This radicalization has brought about a reaction--both domestically and overseas--on the part of the defenders of the established order. This has in turn frequently led to working outside existing institutions and legal norms and to clandestine, even violent, political activity. The reaction becomes even more belligerent and in many cases resorts to severe and brutal forms of repression. The effect is what Dom Helder Camara refers to graphically as "the spiral of violence."

In Latin America we are in the midst of a full-blown process of revolutionary fermet. This is a complex and changing situation which resists schematic interpretations and demands a continuous revision of the postures adopted. Be that as it may, the untenable circumstances of poverty, alienation, and exploitation in which the greater part of the people of Latin America live urgently demand that we find a path toward economic, social, and political liberation. This is the first step toward a new society.

These groups and individuals who have raised the banner of Latin American liberation are most frequently of socialist inspiration; socialism, moreover, represents the most fruitful and far-reaching approach. There is, however, no monolithic orientation.

A theoretical and practical diversity is emerging. Strategies and tactics are different and in many cases even contrary. Theoretical approaches also vary. This can be a result both of different interpretations of reality and of conscious or unconscious imitation of others' approaches. Indeed, cultural dependence has a role to play even here. Nevertheless, the search for indigenous socialist paths continues. In this field the outstanding figure of Jose Carlos Mariategui, despite the inconclusiveness of his work, continues to chart the course. "We certainly do not wish," he wrote in an often-quoted text, "for socialism in America to be an exact copy of others' socialism. It must be a heroic creation. We must bring Indo-American socialism to life with our own reality, in our own language. This is a mission worthy of a new generation." According to Mariategui, Marxism is not "a body of principles which can be rigidly applied the same way in all historical climates and all social latitudes.... Marxism, in each country, for each people, works and acts on the situation, on the milieu, without overlooking any of its modalities." For Mariategui as for many today in Latin America, historical materialism is above all "a pmethod for the historical interpretation of society." All his work, thought, and action--although not exempt from understandable limitations--was characterized by these concerns. His socialism was creative because it was fashioned in loyalty. He was loyal to his sources, that is, to the central intuitions of Marx, yet was beyond all dogmatism; he was simultaneously loyal to a unique historical reality.

However--and Mariategue predicted this--only a sufficiently broad, rich, and intense revolutionary praxis, with the participation of people of different viewpoints, can create the conditions for fruitful theory. These conditions are beginning to appear. Without any loss of militancy or radicalism in the theory, they will undoubtedly lead to greater modifications than envisioned by those who sought refuse in easy solutions or in the excommunication of those who did not accept their pat answers, schematizations, and uncritical attitudes toward the historical expressions of socialism. One of the great dangers which threaten the building of socialism in Latin America--pressed as it is byimmediate concerns--is the lack of its own solid theory. And this theory must be Latin American, not to satisfy a desire for originality, but for teh sake of elementary historical realism.

There is also present in this process of liberation, explicity or implicity, a further ramificatio which it is well to keep in mind. The liberation of our continent means more than overcoming economic, social, and political dependence. It means, in a deeper sense, to see the becoming of mankind as a process of the emancipation of man in history. It is to see man in search of a qualitatively different society in which he will be free from all servitude, in which he will be the artisan of his own destiny. It is to seek the building up of a new man. Ernesto Che Guevara wrote, "We revolutionaries often lack the knowledge and the intellectual audacity to face the task of the development of a new human being by methods different from the conventional ones, and the conventional methods suffer from the influence of the society that created them."

This vision is what in the last instance sustains the liberation efforts of Latin Americans. But in order for this liberation to be authentic and complete, it has to be undertaken by the oppressed people themselves and so must stem from the values proper to these people. Only in this context can a true cultural revolution come about.

From this point of view, one of the most creative and fruitful efforts which has been implemented in Latin America is the experimental work of Paulo Freire, who has sought to establish a "pedagogy of the oppressed." By means of an unalienating and liberating "cultural action," which links theory with praxis, the oppressed person perceives--and modifies--his relationship with the world and with other people. He thus makes the transfer from a "naive awareness"--which does not deal with problems, gives too much value to the past, tends to accept mythical explanations, and tends toward debate--to a "critical awareness"--which delves into problems, is open to ne ideas, replaces magical explanations with real causes, and tends to dialogue. In this process, which Freire calls "conscientization," the oppressed person rejects the oppressive consciousness which dwells in him, becomes aware of his situation, and building up of society. Let us specify, also, that this critical awareness is not a state reached once and for all, but rather a permanent effort of man who seeks to situate himself in time and space, to exercise his creative potential, and to assume his responsibilities. Awareness is, therefore, relative to each historical stage of a people and of mankind in general.

Freire's ideas and methods continue to be developed. All the potentialities of conscientization are slowly unfolding, as well as its limitations. It is a process which can be deepened, modified, reorientated, and extended. This is the task in which in the first place the founder of this movement, as well as many of those who in one way or another have participated in it, are invovled.

Christ the Liberator

The approach we have been considering opens up for us--and this is of utmost importance--unforeseen vistas on the problem of sin. An unjust situation does not happen by chance; it is not somethig branded by a fatal destiny: there is human responsibility behind it. The prophets said it clearly and energetically and we are rediscovering their words now. This is the rason why the Medellin conference refers to the state of things in Latin America as a "sinful situation," as a "rejection of the Lord." This characterization, in all its breadth and depth, not only criticizes the individual abuses on the part of those who enjoy great power in this social order; it challenges all their practices, that is to say, it is a repudiation of the whole existing system--to which the church itself belongs.

In this approach we are far, therefore, from that naive optimism which denies the role of sin in the historical development of humanity. This was the criticism, one will remember, of the Schema of Ariccia and it is frequently made in connection with Teilhard de Chardin and all those theologies enthusiastic about human progress. But in the liberation approach sin is not considered as an individual, private, or merely interior reality--asserted just enough to necessitate a "spiritual" redemption which does not challenge the order in which we live. Sin is regarded as a social, historical fact, the absence of brotherhood and love in relationships among men, the breach of friendship with God and with other men, and, therefore, an interior, personal fracture. When it is considered in this way, the collective dimensions of sin are rediscovered. This is the biblical notion dimensions of sin are rediscovered. This is the biblical notion that Jose Maria Gonzalez Ruiz calls the "hamartiosphere," the sphere of sin: "a kind of parameter or structure which objectively conditions the progress of human history itself." Moreover, sin does not appear as an afterthought, something which one has tomention so as not to stray from tradition or leave oneself open to attack. Nor is this a matter of escape into a fleshless spiritualism. Sin is evident in oppressive structures, in the exploitation of man by man, in the domination and slavery of peoples, races, and social classes. Sin appears, therefore, as the fundamental alienation, the root of a situation of injustice and exploitation. It cannot be encountered in itself, but only in concrete instances, in particular alienations. It is impossible to understand the concrete manifestations without understanding the underlying basis and vice versa. Sin demands a radical liberation, which in turn necessarily implies a political liberation.

Only by participating in the historical process of liberation will it be possible to show the fundamental alienation present in every partial alienation.

This radical liberation is the gift which Christ offers us. By his death and resurrection he redeems man from sin and all its consequences, as has been well said in a text we quote again: "It is the same god who, in the fullness of time, sends his Son in the flesh, so that He might come to liberate all men from all slavery to which sinhas subjected them: hunger, misery, oppression, and ignorance, in a word, that injustice and hatred which have their origin in human selfishness." This is why the Christian liefe is a passover, a transition from sin to grace, from death to life, from injustice to justice, from the subhuman to the human. Christ introduces us by the gift of his Spirit into communion with God and with all men. More precisely, it is because he introduces us into this communion, into a continuous serach for its fullness, that he conquers sin--which is the negation of love--and all its consequences.

In dealing with the notion of liberation we distinguished three levels of meaning: political liberation, the liberation of man throughout history, liberation from sin and admission to communion with God. In the light of the present chapter, we can now study this question again. These three levels mutually affect each other, but they are not the same. One is not present without the others, but they are distinct: they are all part of a single, all-encompassing salvfic process, but they are to be found at different levels. Not only is the growth of the Kingdom not reduced to temporal progress; because of the word accepted in faith, we see that the fundamental obstacle to the kingdom, which is sin, is also the root of all misery and injustice; we see that the very meaning of the growth of the kingdom is also the ultimate recondition for a just society and a new man. One reaches this root and this ultimate precondition only through the acceptance of the liberating gift of Christ, which surpasses all expectations. But, inversely, all struggle against exploitation and alienation, in a history which is fundamentally one, is an attempt to vanquist selfishness, the negation of love. This is the reason why any effort to build a just society is liberating. And it has an indirect but effective impact on the fundamental alienation. It is a salvific work, although it is not all of salvation. As a human work it is not exempt from ambiguities, any more than what is considered to be strictly "religious" work. But this does not weaken its basic orientation nor its objective results.

Temporal progress--or, to avoid this aseptic term, the liberation of man--and the growth of the kingdom both are directed toward complete communion of men with God and of men among themselves. They have the same goal, but they do not follow parallel roads, not even convergent ones. The growth of the kingdom is a process which occurs historically in liberation, insofar as liberation means a greater fulfillment of man. Liberation is a precondition for the new society, but this is not all it is. While liberation is implemented in liberating historical events, it also denounces their limitations and ambiguities, proclaims their fulfillment, and impels them effectively toward total communion. This is not an identification. Without liberating historical events, there would be no growth of the kingdom. But the process of liberation, will not have conquered the very roots of oppression and the exploitation of man by man without the coming of the kingdom, which is above all a gift. Moreover, we can say that the historical, political liberating event is the growth of the kingdom and is a salvific event; but it is not the coming of the kingdom, not all of salvation. It is the historical realization of the kingdom and, therefore, it also proclaims its fullness. This is where the difference lies. It s a distinction made from a dynamic viewpoint, which has nothing to do with the one which holds for the existence of two juxtaposed "orders," closely connected or convergent, but deep down different from each other.

The very radicalness and totality of the salvific process require this relationship. Nothing escapes this process, nothing is outside the pale of the action of Christ and the gift of the Spirit. This gives human history its profund unity. Those who reduce the work of salvation are indeed those who limit it to the strictly "religious" sphere and are not aware of the universality of the process. It is those who think that the work of Christ touches the social order in which we live only indirectly or tangentially, and not in its roots and basic structure. It is those who in order to protect salvation (or to protect their interests) lift salvation from the midst of history, where men and social classes struggle to liberate themselves from the slavery and oppression to which other men and social classes have subjected them. It is those who refuse to see that the salvation of Christ is radical liberation from all misery, all despoliation, all alienation. It is those who by trying to "save" the work of Christ will "lose" it.

In Christ the all-comprehensiveness of the liberating process reaches its fullest sense. His work encompasses the three levels of meaning which we mentioned above. A Latin American text on the missions seems to us to summarize this assertion accurately: "All the dynamism of the cosmos and of human history, the movement towards the creation of a more just and fraternal world, the overcoming of social inequalities among men, the efforts, so urgently needed on our continent, to liberate man from all that depersonalizes him-physical and moral misery, ignorance, and hunger--as well as the awareness of human dignity (Gaudium et spes, no. 22), all these originate, are transformed, and reach their perfection in the saving work of Christ. In him and through him salvation is present at the heart of man's history, and there is no human act which, in the last instance, is not defined in terms of it."

One by overcoming a society divided into classes, only by installing a political power at the service of the great popular majorities, only by eliminating the private appropriation of the wealth created by human toil, can we build the foundation of a more just society. This is why the development of the concrete historical march forward of a new society is heading more and more in the direction of socialism in Latin America.

But it is a socialism that is well aware of the deficiencies of many of its own concrete forms in the world today. It endeavors to break free of categories and cliches and creatively seek its own paths.

This effort to create a different society also includes the creation of a new human person, a human being that grows progressively free of all servitude preventing it from being the agent of its own lot in history. This leads us to question the dominant ideologies--in which certain religious elements are present--that today provide the model for the human being in our society. However, the construction of a different society, and a new human being, will be authentic only if it is taken by the oppressed themselves. Hence the whole project must start out with their values. For it is from among the masses that this radical questioning of the prevailing social order, this effort for the abolition of the culture of oppressors, is arising. Only thus can a true social and cultural revolution be carried out.

COPYRIGHT 1984 Monthly Review Foundation, Inc.
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