Creation of a Just Society and the Future: Liberation Theology and Eschatology
Note: What follows is an initial draft of a section in a book on eschatology that is currently under construction.
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We
can approach the future with fear or with hope. Both hope and fear affect how
we live in the present. The message of Jesus is one of hope not fear, but how
might hope speak to specific present-day conditions, if those conditions do not
represent the vision of God? What message does the church have to offer to the
poor and the marginalized? Too often the message given to those who suffer is
that they will receive a reward in heaven. This is why Karl Marx called religion
the “opiate of the people.” While the “theology of hope” as articulated by
theologians such as Jürgen Moltmann speaks to this concern, Liberation
Theologians have critiqued it as being too abstract and ephemeral. Thus, they
call for a theology of hope that not only addresses the challenges experienced
by a specific community of people in the present but envisions a transformation
of the situation in the present. Thus, this is a theology that has political
implications that are based upon “a theological ethic developed from the perspective
of those on the periphery, the marginalized, the outcasts of the world.”[1] Because Liberation
Theology is praxis-oriented, it takes on different forms depending on its
location. That means Latin American theology will look different from Black Theology
in the United States or Minjung theology in South Korea. While these theologies
take on different forms based on location, there are common themes and
concerns. For our purposes, we will focus on Latin American and Black forms of
Liberation Theology.
Gustavo Gutierrez, one of the founders of what became
Liberation Theology, writes in his foundational text A Theology of
Liberation, “The commitment to the creation of a just society and,
ultimately, to a new man, presupposes confidence in the future. This commitment
is an act open to whatever comes.”[2] The coming of God’s realm
in its fulness is the hope that gives meaning and purpose to the work of the
people of God in the here and now. That realm is, however, not yet here. Thus,
liberation theology is driven by the promise of the future, a promise that is
rooted in hope. In fact, there is much similarity between Liberation Theology
and the theology of hope developed by theologians such as Jürgen Moltmann. This
hope empowers the people of God to pursue justice not only in the future but in
the present. Although the word utopia can be found in Liberation Theology,
those who proclaim the message of liberation know that the pursuit of justice
for the present will be easy nor will it come quickly. It will involve getting
involved in politics because justice will not come without engagement with
those who control the levers of power. Thus, this vision of the future is
deeply political. The question is what are the ethical principles that govern
Christian engagement with power in the pursuit of justice?
In this brief reflection on Liberation Theology’s
recognition that God has a preferential option for the poor and the
marginalized, we will focus on Latin American Theology (which is represented by
such figures as Gutierrez, Jon Sobrino, Leonardo Boff, Enrique Dussel, and José
MÃquez Bonino. As for Black Theology, while figures such as Martin Luther King,
Jesse Jackson, and William Barber give voice to the message of liberation
present in Black Theology, it is the work of theologians like James Cone who
have given theological definition to that work.
This is especially true when it comes to envisioning the future and the
culmination of God’s vision for this world.
Karl Marx suggested that religion is the opiate of the
people because it uses the promise of heaven to deaden the pain of this life
and therefore make the poor and marginalized more compliant. James Cone, one of
the most important Black theologians challenged that assumption without
rejecting the promise of heaven.
If God is truly the God of and for the oppressed for the purpose of their liberation, then the future must mean that our fight for freedom has not been for naught. Our journey in the world cannot be a meaningless thrust toward an unrealizable future, but a certainty grounded in the past and present reality of God. To grasp for the future of God is to know that those who die for freedom have not died in vain; they will see the kingdom of God. This is precisely the meaning of our Lord’s resurrection, and why we can fight against overwhelming odds. We believe in the future of God, a future that must become present.[3]
Liberation Theology in
its many forms embraces the work of God in the present with the promise of
God’s future serving as a foundation for that work.
Liberation Theology is rooted in a belief that Jesus is
the liberator who preached the message of God’s realm, and in so doing
inaugurating the realm. The resurrection of Jesus stands as the first fruits,
but it is the beginning and not the end of the journey. In making this claim,
Liberation Theology envisions the Realm as not just a religious entity, but a
political one. As Jon Sobrino writes concerning Jesus’ message: “though he
proclaimed it for religious reasons. Its content is still political, not in
opposition to the religious dimension, but for differential from the purely
transcendent or individual dimension. The religious and political dimensions
have really no reason to be mutually exclusive, whether they are seen as different
aspects of human existence, or still more, if they are taken on different
levels: that of subjective motivation and that of objective motivation.”[4] For Liberation Theology
the Realm of God is not merely an abstract notion or a spiritual reality. It is
a call to action, which the people of God are called to engage in so as to
bring into reality that which does not yet exist in its fulness.
Liberation Theology looks to Jesus, not only the Jesus of
the past or even the present but also of the future. As James Cone writes: “Jesus
Christ is who he will be. He is not only the crucified and risen One but also
the Lord of the future who is coming again to fully consummate the liberation
already happening in the present.”[5] It is this conviction that
provides hope in the present that the oppression experienced by the poor and
the marginalized can be overcome. As Cone makes clear, unless this work of
theology is done in conversation with the poor, the oppressed, and the
marginalized, then it will not fully express the message of Jesus. Thus, when
connected with the person of Jesus, hope is not an intellectual idea; rather,
it is the praxis of freedom in the oppressed community. To hope in Jesus is to
see the vision of his coming presence, and thus one is required by hope itself
to live as if the vision is already realized in the present.”[6] Thus, Martin Luther King, Jr., paraphrasing the
nineteenth-century Transcendentalist leader Theodore Parker, could say that “the
arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” As Liberationists
will remind us, that arc is still bending and has yet to reach completion. It
will not reach completion if we do not participate in this work of liberation
that points us to the future. But that work of liberation does not fall on the
people alone, for God has taken the lead and stands with and for the poor and
the oppressed. So, as Gustavo Gutierrez writes: “To hope in Christ is at the
same time to believe the adventure of history, which opens infinite vistas to
the love and action of the Christian.”[7]
[1]
Enrique Dussel, A History of the Church in Latin America: Colonialism toLiberation, Alan Neely, trans., (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1981), pp. 18-19.
[2]
Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics andSalvation, Trans. and ed. By Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson,
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1973), p. 213.
[3] Cone,
James H. A Black Theology of Liberation: Fortieth Anniversary Edition.
Orbis Books. Kindle Edition. Loc. 2827
[4]
Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator: A Historical-Theological Reading of Jesusof Nazareth, Paul Burns and Francis McDonagh, trans., (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1993), p.129.
[5]
James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed. Rev. ed., (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1997), p. 116.
[6]
Cone, God of the Oppressed, pp. 118-119.
[7]
Gutierrez, Theology of Liberation, pp. 238-239.
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