A Truly Liberating Theology

Perhaps one of the most frustrating ideals posited at the seminary that I attend is that of liberation theology. The way that it is posited is that oppressed groups, who have long been without voice in the theological realm, are given primacy in interpreting the Bible and discerning its meaning for everyone. As such, you have a variety of liberation theologies. There are Mujerista, Womanist, Feminist, Black, Hispanic, and other liberation theologies. Each setting up their own oppressed group as the diviners of Holy Writ.

The problem with all of this is that new groups of oppressors and oppressed are created. For example, Justo Gonzalez (in his book Mañana) says both explicitly and implicitly that you can only 'truly' read the Bible if you are Hispanic...if you have experienced their oppression. What happens if you are Asian, Pacific Islander, African, or even Anglo? A theology of liberation that only liberates a few seems inconsistent with the Scriptures themselves.

After all, isn't it in John 3:16 that we read "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life"? It is the world that God desires to reconcile...not just one group of oppressed or the other.

Additionally, if we cast our gaze in the direction of Romans (specifically 6:19-23) we read, "I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord."

A truly liberating theology, based on Paul's aforementioned words, must be ground in our liberation from the oppression of sin and death, which comes as an act of grace that is a gift of God. Simply put, liberation theology must offer liberation for all otherwise it is not truly liberating for anyone. It is not just the individual oppressions that God seeks to redeem us from (how we used the Scriptures to endorse slavery or to justify the crusades, or to justify a pure race as the German church did during the reign of Nazism...the list goes on ad infinitum). Rather it is the oppression of sin and death (of which all of the aforementioned examples and any others you could think of would fall under) that God redeems through his Son Jesus Christ on the cross. It is a redemption that was offered to all (Samaritan, Syrophoenicians, Ethiopians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, males, females, pharisees, etc) and is still offered to ALL today.

This, I believe, is where true liberation theology begins. We must stop being divisive. We must listen to and hear the voices that we have so long overlooked (especially here in the West). We must confess that no matter what our background or experience, we have been both the recipients and the perpetrators of oppression as defined by sin and death. Finally, we must turn to and embrace the grace that has been offered to us. It is only then that we, both corporately and individually, can be radically altered.