When
I tell people that I am an agnostic, they don’t believe me. Well, I cannot entirely
fault them because deep in my heart I have a passion for God. More precisely, I
have the passion to be with God who loves mankind, especially the poor and the
oppressed, the sinners and the unbelievers.
Not
so many years ago, I bought a book (on sale!) from St. Paul’s religious store titled “The Range of Faith: Basic Questions for a Living Theology” (1986) by
a Redemptorist theologian Father Tony Kelley. What caught my attention was the
brief description of the book which says, ”The essays in this book investigate
a whole range of issues facing the believer today.” This must be a good book
for me as a seeker of God in the modern world. In the foreword, Father Kelley
wrote: “The great theologians of South America have reminded us forcefully that
the expression of faith is most genuine when it is intent in promoting human
freedom and resisting everything that does violence to our humanity.”
Father
Kelley is a frequent lecturer in the Philippines and surely, as a Redemptorist,
he met a lot of our poor brothers and sisters wallowing in misery and
deprivation. But what is more interesting is his concept of “free-thinking”. He
explained that it is in a sense of “freedom-promoting” theology for "an essential
liberation for faith is one of mind”. He
further explained that “we believers must be freed to express our faith in a
wonderful and inspiring way, even as the familiar evils of our age all but
overwhelms us.” The implication of this mental attitude is “being free to enter
into a conversation with all men and women of good will who are searching and
struggling for hope.”
One
chapter in his book intrigues me, “The great conversation between Jesus Christ
and Karl Marx” which he reflected on the Vatican’s Instruction on Certain Aspects
of Liberation Theology (1984). At that time, you will read in major newspapers
that Liberation theology was condemned by Vatican. But it was not the case. Father
Kelley observed, “what we are witnessing today, in this convulsed era of the
world, is a conversation taking place in the presence of two of the great
classic figures of our civilization” – Jesus of Nazareth and Karl Marx.
The
first speaker said, “Truly, I say to you, as often as you did it to one of these,
the least of my brethren, you did it to me.” (Mt 25:31-46) Reflecting on this
biblical text, Father Kelley exclaimed: “The ‘least’ with whom he is so
identified, are the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the prisoner.
The God whom he involved and invoked in his tragic career was the God of the
forsaken and the powerless.” Jesus of Nazareth “showed the face of God who was
really intent on human freedom, willing the healing of all human ills, calling
forth hope. His witnessing to such a God resulted in his public execution. At
very least, he was a prophet of hope and a martyr of the forsaken and the
outcast.” Those who follow Jesus of Nazareth are forced to ask “who is my real God?”
and get involved to take side with the “least of his brethren.”
The
second speaker “embodied and endlessly expressing one powerful, original
insight: so much of human suffering is caused by the economic structures that,
by favouring the privileged few, degrade and exploit the many.” Karl Marx “diagnosed
the mass poverty of his time as an instance of capitalist greed living from the
creative and unrewarded energies of the toiling masses of humanity. Such a
pattern of exploitation fabricated its own self-justification, pressing the
compliant religion into its service. As long as God offered a reward in another
life, the mass of mankind would accept its dispossession in this life. His
solution was to change the system. His method was to inspire the freedom of the
dispossessed as a world-shaping force. With such new energies unleashed, society
would be turned upside down, and justice would result.”
Sadly,
Marx rejected Jesus who became the possession of the capitalist religion. By
rejecting the captivated Jesus in the capitalist religion, Marx, unwittingly, brought
back to life Jesus of Nazareth who proclaimed the Kingdom of God as liberation of mankind from all forms of oppression. Marx has no room for Jesus.
But how about Jesus, living in the reality of those who follow him, is there a
room for Marx? For Father Kelley, both the crucified Jesus and the
revolutionary Marx “still speak to the millions who, even in their suffering, sense
the presence of a new freedom and the stirring of new hope.”
Liberation
theology, for Father Kelly, conducts its conversation along seven lines:
(1)
Self-determination. The growing
awareness of humanity to its capacity to re-structure social, political and
economic order is a powerful force of liberation. “The human world is a self-determining
reality, no longer a regular order or a blind fate that simply occurs or is
imposed,” observed Father Kelley. “Liberation theology is a modern style of
thinking inasmuch as it grasped that the social and economic order are the
result of choice, and that human freedom is truly human only when it is
liberated to participate in the formation of the conditions that govern human
life.”
(2)
The political nature
of freedom.
Father Kelley affirmed the importance of being involved in politics. “Not to be
‘political’ is a political decision to ratify the status quo. The only choice one
has, is either to be politically critical or naïve about the reality of social
life.” The implication to the Church is clear: “to refuse a political stance on
human rights is simply to ratify the politics of those who degrade or oppress
human beings.” For Father Kelley, “liberation theology attempts to liberate the
Church for constructive political involvement.”
(3)
Praxis. Father Kelley
described praxis is simple term “we know the truth by doing it.” Christian
truth, in the judgment of liberation theology, is meant to be lived, to be acted,
to have a life-transforming effect. It must promote human freedom and give hope
to suffering human beings.
(4)
The dangerous memory
of Jesus.
While classical theology uses metaphysical and abstract notion about Christ,
like human and divine nature, hypostatic union, liberation theology reclaims
Jesus of Nazareth, who proclaimed God’s kingdom to the poor, who proved himself
a partisan of the poor and the outcast. Father Kelley noted that Christian
belief, being influenced by the historical figure of Jesus, “has much more of a
social and political ‘bite’ to it.
(5)
History from the
underside.
The dangerous memory of Jesus “provokes a more compassionate reading of the
history of one’s society and one’s world.” Father Kelley argued that “the
surest knowledge of the real state of one’s society is revealed by listening to
those who are most powerless and most forgotten.” For liberation theology, “it
is the poor who teach theology about what the world is really like and where
God is to be found.”
(6)
Social analysis. Father Kelley
wrote: “The way the voiceless and powerless feel about reality calls forth a
hard-headed look at the society. Here the issue of the use of Marxist
categories of analysis has become controversial. If big business or rich landowners
control the natural resources, the industrial power and the media of a country,
it is hardly surprising that Marxist terms most easily identify the structure
of the problem – how the resources became so concentrated in the hands of the
few, how ideology functions to maintain this position, how it can be
challenged.” He continued, “if such a use of Marxism makes people like atheists
at this point, it might be because they are rejecting the false god of the
powerful and the rich.”
(7)
Context. “Liberation theology,”
Father Kelley explained, “was never meant to be a truth in the head, but the
truth lived with and for others… the central value of liberation theology will,
I am sure, enter into all theological reflection” because “thinking about God without
an involved commitment to your neighbor is an illusion. The real God makes for
community and freedom.” This is precisely the importance of context in living
out our Christian life.
Of
course, I can find a much deeper reflection from the liberation theologians concerning
option for the poor but it is surprising and refreshing to find an abandoned
book in the Christian religious bookstore with a radical message.
