People in power dismiss theologies of liberation. They pose a threat. But, what happens when those in power, or the dominant ethnic or religious group, feels the loss of power?
My friend Guy and I were messaging on the Facebook earlier today. He had posted an article that indicated we in America should set in for the American 30 Years War. So says Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton.
During our back and forth on the already ongoing War On Drugs that began in about 1971, I wondered to Guy if it wasn’t time to revisit Liberation Theologies. We both were introduced to them while in college at Oklahoma Baptist University. I do not recall Dr. McWilliams being dismissive as we discuss Contemporary Theology in the early 1980’s. But, I do remember at another Institution being given the impression that they are just Marxism masquerading as theology. Talk about dismissive.
Recently I listened to a conversation about Jon Sobrino and decided it might be time to pick up the first volume of his Christology, Jesus the Liberator. After reading the following, I think it might be a very good time to revisit Liberation Theologies. He writes:
If I may be allowed a personal comment, I have often thought, on seeing the proliferation of books on Christ – including my own – that if we Christians could put into practice a modest percentage of what is said in any normal work of christology, the world would change radically – and the world is not changing radically. This, of course, is not just the fault of christology. But it does make one think that in certain quarters there might be a sort of avidity and curiosity to see “what the latest book of christology has to say,” and that christologies thereby become market products or views put about in the Athenian market-place, from which we can all pick and choose at whim, compare them, discuss them, defend them or attack them . . . while everything stays exactly the same in reality. (p.3)