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(S. J. Samartha, the first Director of the Dialogue Program of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, guides doctoral students at SATHRI.)

So much has been written about globalization that so little new can be said about it today. A good deal has been said about its economic and political effects, but not much about its cultural consequences. This is an attempt to draw attention to this dimension of globalization, and to review some of the theological responses to it in recent years.

1

Globalization has a long history as a political and cultural reality and as a religious and cultural movement. The thrust to go to "the uttermost ends of the earth" is intrinsic to certain religions like Christianity and Islam and, earlier than these two, to Buddhism as well. Marxism too, until recently, pursued its globalizing ambitions with relentless zeal.

Three stages are identified in the march of globalization in recent centuries.¹ The first stage began with the European voyages and exploration that brought Vasco da Gama to the western shores of India (1498). During subsequent centuries colonization reached its height when it was taken for granted that "the Europeanization of the earth", "the westernization of the world" and "the Christianization of all people" were beneficial to the entire globe. This period ended with the conclusion of world war II (1939-45), but its ideological, theological and cultural consequences are alive even today.

The second period lasted for a much shorter period from 1945 to 1989 when the Berlin wall came down, and when subsequently with the weakening of Marxist ideology, the socialist states in Eastern Europe disintegrated. This was the period when nations of Asia and Africa resisted globalization on the basis of the plurality of their own particular cultures. Plurality changed globalization, and particularities fought against the creeping tide of uniformity. This, however, has proved to be a short period of struggle torn between enthusiasm and helplessness.

We are now at the beginning of what may be considered as the third stage when, with the removal of socialism as an alternative, the whole world is thrown open to the claim of market economy, liberal democracy and the powerful march of Western cultural values all over the globe. This claim, in theory and practice, is as exclusive as any made by certain religions in history, and has the same tragic consequences on the life of other people who refuse to accept such claims. Religious fundamentalism and secular fundamentalism are not too far apart in their intentions and consequences.

Anthony Giddens points out that to discuss globalization today we need a wider conceptual framework than sociology can provide because, according to him, sociology has a tendency to study societies as "boundaried" communities whereas globalization cuts across all boundaries of time and space. Globalization is a matter of relationships across the whole earth. He writes, "Globalization refers essentially to that stretching process, in so far as the modes of connection between different social contexts or regions become networked across the earth’s surface as a whole."²

This results in an intensification of worldwide social relationships which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring thousands of miles away. The visual impact of images sent instantly through electronic media networks shapes the consciousness of the global community in such a way that the local becomes the global and the global local. The global and the local are now inextricably related. Akio Morita, chairman of the Sony Corporation in Japan, has invented a new word to describe it: "globalization" or looking in both directions.³ Certain features of globalization need to be noted here.

Its most obvious feature is the advocacy of the free market system allied with liberal democracy or authoritarian rule, as the only way of economic management for the entire globe. Political leaders of Third World countries are simply told that they have to adjust themselves and fit into this new global economic order. The manner in which India is being pressured to accept certain mega power projects costing millions of rupees and to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) are examples of this. According to Dilip S. Swamy, "A genuine search for a new vision, a new paradigm of development, is pre-empted by the very process of globalization, to which all countries are expected to adjust or conform"⁴

Closely connected with this is the regionalization of manufacture and the division of labor made possible through the worldwide diffusion of machines and industrial techniques, and the training given to people from different countries so that people in their own countries can provide "cheap" labor for the manufacture and distribution of goods which most people of developing countries cannot afford to buy. The developing countries may protest but they are in no position to decide on this matter because they depend on economic resources and techniques from developed countries.

Furthermore, there is a centrist political pull that seeks to draw nations together within a new political order or geo-political system, defined not in terms of national sovereignty or cultural identity but in terms of the economic well-being and styles of life of certain powerful nations. This is backed by a massive and menacing military power. The notion of "national sovereignty" is declared to be an outmoded concept. This negates the politics of democratic dissent within the political life of nations, particularly the poor ones, and creates a gaping void in the collective morality of nations because it prevents them from evolving a political system that can better respond to their own political needs.⁵

In the absence of an alternative the whole world is now suddenly thrown open to a global culture symbolized by Western ways in drinks, clothes, movies and music, styles of life and value systems, all of which have a powerful influence on the minds of people, particularly of the younger generation. The embeddedness of power and its close ties with the economic and political forces, enables it to enter the cultural homes of other people without restraint. K.C. Abraham points out that "Globalization has become a vehicle of cultural invasion", leading to "a mono-culture that suppresses economic, ecological and cultural diversity, and has a tendency to accept efficiency and productivity without concern for justice and compassion towards people".⁶

The word "culture" here stands for a whole range of ways in which people embody and express their reality. A religious faith gives culture categories of ultimate meaning, purpose and hope. "As authentically human, culture is the tilling of history by human self-expression," remarks John F. Kavanaugh, "it is also the friendly and symbolic dwelling place of the human spirit, whereby new generations are cultivated rather than suppressed. It is, finally, sacred: a revelation of the Spirit in time".⁷ In Asian societies religions and cultures are inextricably woven together in the fabric of a multi-layered reality. There are cultures that threaten and enslave and there are cultures that liberate and enhance life. The threat in the globalization of one dominant culture must be resisted; the promise of the new in the intermingling of cultures must be accepted.

The combination of two factors, namely, the enormous advances made in electronic technology and the widespread use of the English language, has greatly increased the range and strength of globalization today. There is no defense against the invasion from the skies. "The new media have the power to penetrate more deeply into a receiving culture than any other previous manifestation of Western technology", writes Anthony Smith. "The result could be immense havoc, and intensification of social contradiction within developing societies today.⁸

Language has always been used as an instrument of domination. The global spread of the English language, used by the four major networks, ABC, NBC, CNN and BBC, is the most powerful medium of cultural penetration. It is estimated that there are more people speaking English in India today (60 to 70 million) than in Britain (56 million). No Indian language is spoken by more than 10% of the people except Hindi which is spoken by 39%. English has become the lingua franca, the medium of communication, of about 200 million newly created and growing middle class people in India.⁹ Equally significant is the importance of English as a global language. In more than 70 countries English is the official or semiofficial language. It is estimated that 70% of the world’s mail is written in English.¹⁰

Asian theologians are in a dilemma here. If they write in their particular regional language they cannot communicate with their own colleagues in other language areas or with theologians in other countries of the world. This state of affairs cannot be changed but has to be accepted. Globalization does not prevent Indian theologians from writing in their own languages but imposes on them an obligation, at least on some of them, to write in English as well because, without doing so, their insights cannot be shared with other theologians in the world. If language, like labor, is a socially responsible expression of self, then English has to be regarded as a functional language in a multilingual society.¹¹ We have to gain cultural freedom by going through the experience of cultural bondage.

2

Three paradigms of culture change have been identified in the ongoing process of globalization.¹² One is the notion of "a clash of civilizations" based on "a self-image of the West" and "enemy images of the rest" that makes conflict between civilizations inevitable until one overcomes the other. There is a mood of certainty, even historic inevitability, about this because of the recent collapse of socialism.¹³ Another is described by the term, "McDonaldization," a word taken from the fast food industry in USA, to indicate a process of standardizing a particular commodity throughout the world. A strict uniformity is imposed through control of labor, ingredients and appearance. It becomes familiar and predictable; there are no surprises.¹⁴ There is a third paradigm -- Hybridization -- quite different from those two because it affirms a plurality of cultures against the domination of one, rejects the move towards uniformity and, by drawing attention to the mingling of cultures in history, facilitates the emergence of the new. It rejects the theory of "a clash of cultures" and draws attention to "dialogue between cultures", based on the "resurrection of subjugated knowledges". It springs from the experience of the poor, the Oppressed and the marginalized people and is based on their actual experience in daily life. Fast food stalls, part of a culture in most cities of Asia, are for the poor, where the mingling of menus is a common experience. Pieterse describes these three paradigms in the following words:

The assumptions behind the paradigms of domination and uniformity need to be questioned. A few years before the Second World War (1939-45) E. Husserl, invoking the spirit of Europe, wrote:

Plurality is the dominant mark of the post-modern era. All exclusive claims -- economic, political, religious and cultural -- are under attack. The Judeo-Christian tradition is no longer the norm for the whole globe. The enduring plurality of religions and cultures, of languages and ethnic roots, provides the basis to reject domination and uniformity. A diversity of cultures and an open-ended view of the possibilities of cultural exchange provide an antidote to the forces of cultural globalization.¹⁷ In India, the ideology of Hindutva seeks to define "Indianness" and to dominate the whole nation. It fails to see the enduring multi-cultural character of Indian civilization over the centuries. Not just the Hindu, but also the Buddhist and the Jam, the Christian, the Muslim and the Sikh, and even earlier than these, the primal cultures of dalits and tribals provided both a defense against cultural domination and possibilities of mutual enrichment. "Any culture which has demonstrated survival value for a society over centuries", writes Pjotr, "is equally valid as every other culture which has proven its survival."¹⁸ In the present context of globalization it is not only necessary to reject "the Western pretence of universalism," writes Rajni Kothari, "but also for non-Western cultures to seek answers to their problems from within and, in the process, not only provide pluralism in techno-cultural system but, through such pluralism, help Westerners themselves to deal with the new crop of problems they now encounter. This is a perspective that is widely being shared."¹⁹

3

h what ways can the Church respond to the plurality of religions and cultures is a question that has engaged its attention for a long time. Sometimes, it is discussed under the term "inculturation" and sometimes under "indigenization." Today the question is how the Church can respond theologically to the challenge of globalization. For some years a wide ranging study on "Gospel and Culture" has been going on in the World Council of Churches, that led to a world conference in 1996 on the theme "Called in One Hope: the Gospel in Diverse Cultures."²⁰ One is struck by the plurality of cultural contexts in Asia, Africa and Latin America, from which the authors of so many articles speak about this matter. The gospel of Jesus Christ provides substance and direction to Christians in different cultural contexts to resist forces of domination and uniformity. So too, the religions of neighbors of other faiths help them in a similar manner. Faith has a critical-creative function in all cultural contexts.

In this connection S. Wesley Ariarajab draws attention to a pertinent point. He observes that in the earlier decades of the ecumenical movement the emphasis was on the Gospel and religions, and that after the Tambaram conference 1938, attention shifted to Gospel and cultures. He suggests that, one reason for this shift was the inability of the missionary movement to come to an agreement on a theological response to religions.²¹ This remains true even to this day in the ecumenical movement. Once again now, the attention has shifted to cultures. In the contemporary debate on globalization and culture change religions are hardly mentioned. An inability or unwillingness on the part of the missionary movement to respond theologically to the plurality of religions seems to drive it more and more to studies on culture.

Two comments are made here. One is the most obvious one, namely, the persistence of religion in human life and its intimate connection with cultures, particularly in Asian societies. Even in such a highly technological society like that of Japan it is reported that there are 81,511 Shinto shrines, 77,186 Buddhist temples and 6,446 Christian churches, well attended by people.²² Second, the strongest defense against the creeping tide of a secular global culture today is based on religions -- Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim. In India, for example, Hindutva, is not just a political ideology against what is called "pseudo-secularism", but also a cultural movement against what are regarded as alien values of globalization. If this observation is correct, then, the question is not just one of the relation between church and cultures in the context of mission but also of the relation between church and other communities of faith in the context of globalization.

Among Indian theologians, K.C. Abraham has given considerable attention to this matter²³ As his theological starting point he affirms that "a Christ-in relation" framework is more helpful in supporting the church’s efforts to transform and renew the process of globalization than "an exclusive Christo-centric-universalism". He writes, "if radical inter-relatedness is the characteristic of reality and therefore of the divine, the openness to the other is the essential mode of response to God. This openness becomes the seed for creating new relationships and a new order."²⁴

There are three components in his theological response to globalization. One is to provide a foundation for it in the experience of the poor, and in the message of the cross because it is the poor who suffer most by the economic effects of the globalization of the market. He remarks, "The growing inequality between the rich and the poor nations, and between the rich and the poor in each nation, is the fundamental threat to global harmony. Globalization and marginalization go together."²⁵

Another is the link between the renewal of society and the renewal of the earth. According to Abraham, without accepting this inter-relationship between the two any Christian theological response to globalization would be impoverished.²⁶

The third component is the undergirding of this theological response by a "spirituality" that is "not elitist or other worldly, but that which is dynamic and open". It is encouraging to note that to Abraham, this spirituality is not exclusively based on Christian resources but also on the resources of other religious traditions. He writes,

Thus, while recognising the need for a "Christic-sensitivity" in order to discern the work of the spirit in the world, Abraham rejects a "Christcentred exclusiveness" which ignores the faith-commitments of other people and prevents Christians from co-operating with their neighbours in the common struggle against the harmful consequences of globalization.

A recent article suggests a different theological approach to globalization. Stating that "a contemporary theology of catholicity provides an understanding of the church that is strikingly similar to that which is emerging from reflection on globalization", Richard Marzheuser argues that "globalization" and "catholicity" are two modes of one ecclesiology; that "globalization" can find a home in "catholocity" and vice versa; and that therefore, rather than opposing it, the church must use globalization to promote its own catholicity. According to him, there are at least four referents in the theological usage of globalization: mission and evangelism, ecumenical reconciliation, dialogue between Christianity and other world religions, and the worldwide struggle for justice. Catholocity demands that all these be integrated into the fabric of the Church’s life and identity.²⁸

The world "catholocity" has a long history, and churches in the world have interpreted it in different ways. Marzheuser affirms that "two characteristics of divine catholocity are inner diversity and fullness: a diversity of persons and a fullness of being that makes them one"²⁹ He quotes Avery Dulles with approval with remarks, "Catholic suggests the idea of an organic whole, of a cohesion, of a firm synthesis of a reality which is not scattered, but, on the contrary, turned towards a centre which assures its unity, whatever the expanse in area or the internal differentiation might be." And Dulles adds, "the entire cosmos has in Christ its center of unity, coherence and fulfillment."³⁰

4

To avoid any misunderstanding it must be stated that ecclesiology and the nature of catholocity are not under discussion here. The question is about the implications of the suggestion that there is no clash between globalization to gather together scattered elements to its own center and integrate them into the fabric of the Church’s life.

A couple of observations are in order. One is that globalization is not "a neutral" or "value free" process. Earlier discussion has indicated that it has both beneficial and harmful consequences on the life and cultures of other peoples. Therefore a critical stance towards it is required on the basis of the concern of the gospel of Jesus Christ for fullness of life. A second observation is about the plurality of religions and cultures which endures in history in spite of all efforts to draw them into one center and integrate them into the fabric of one religious community.

Each of the four referents or areas of theological concern in globalization-mission, ecumenism, dialogue with world religions, and the struggle for justice -- has within it a persistent plurality that seeks to obliterate their identities, draw them around one center, and integrate them into the life of one single community.

The use of the word "mission" in the singular goes against the ground reality of "missions" throughout history. There are people who ignore the connection between Christian mission and the forces of colonialism in the previous era. Colonialism facilitated the efforts of the Church to "globalize" itself through mission. The use of the word "mission" in the singular ignores the plurality of "missions" in history. Earlier than Christianity the Buddhists had their "mission" which continues even to this day without allying itself with any kind of colonialism or globalization. A Roman Catholic scholar in India, George Soares Prabhu, draws attention to the hermeneutical implications of "two mission commands" the earlier one of the Buddha and the later one of Christ, to their respective disciples.³¹ If the Buddhist mission came earlier the Muslim mission came later than Christianity. If the Christian mission allies itself with the forces of contemporary globalization what happens to these "other missions"? If the ecclesia globalizes itself what happens to the Buddhist sangha and the Muslim ummah?

Plurality persists within the ecumenical movement itself. "After a century of intense theological activity, the churches in most places seem no closer to unity," reports Alan Falconer, the director of the Faith and the Order Commission of the WCC to a major meeting in Tanzania.³² Konrad Raiser, the General Secretary of the WCC, has called on the main Christian traditions -- the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Pentecostal churches -- to start preparations in the year 2000 for "a universal church council to reconcile the main issues, including the authority of the Pope." Monsignor Eleuterio F. Fortino, under-secretary at the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has stated that the proposal was "fully shared" by the Vatican.³³ This means that in spite of all efforts for unity the plurality of churches persists in history.

"Hybridization" has been mentioned as the third paradigm of culture change in globalization in contrast to the trends of domination and uniformity. The term has always been suspect partly because of its racial overtones and partly because of a fear of "syncretism." But it is widely discussed in post-colonial and post-Orientalist studies on cultures and religions. It stands for an intermingling of cultures, a border-crossing, that sometimes leads to the emergence of the new. "Related notions are global oikoumene, global localization, and local globalization . . . as a rich and creative approach to globalization and culture."³⁴ The intermingling and "creative mix-up" of religions and cultures have occurred throughout history. In India, for example, through the intermingling of many religions, languages and cultures, new forms have emerged not only in styles of life, in food, clothing, music and architecture but also in religion. Sikhism is a fruit of the interaction between Hinduism and Islam. In the ongoing competition between tender coconut water and coca cola, between tandoori chicken and Kentucky fried chicken, between the saree and the blue jeans the indigenous components are most unlikely to disappear. On the contrary, new mixing up of menus is already taking place. The pizza base might look the same but the "toppings" are now a creative mixture attractive to the eye and succulent to the taste.

Christian dialogue with people of other living faiths and the world wide struggle for justice are the other two areas referred to in the process of globalization. Here too there is an ongoing cooperation, of people of different religions and cultures coming together for common purpose in global society, without surrendering their identities or centers of faith. At the centenary celebrations of the Parliament of Religions in Chicago (1993) a statement on "Global Ethic" was signed by the leaders of world religions which highlighted their commitment to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order; a culture of non-violence and respect for life; a culture of equal rights and partnership between men and women; and a culture of tolerance and truthfulness."³⁵

So too, the issue of justice has brought together people of different religions and cultures without destroying their identities. For example, Christian dalits in India, who were earlier fighting for justice as Christians, basing themselves exclusively on biblical resources, now realize that there are resources in other religious traditions as well to undergird the struggle for justice. The recently established Dalit Solidarity Programme has brought together Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and Sikh people.³⁶ Their centers of faith are not obliterated. The boundaries of their communities are not disturbed. Their identities are recognized. There is traffic across the borders. People recognize the urgent need to fight together against injustice in society. Justice is a human need but its roots are in the righteousness of God.

The plurality of religions and cultures, of languages, ethnic identities and social systems, is the best defense against the forces of domination and the push towards uniformity. Mere diversity is not plurality. Diversity often leads to fragmentation of life, conflict and confusion, at best, to a sullen co-existence. But when diversities are accepted within the wholeness of life that holds together all things in its embrace, then, new possibilities emerge in history. To reject exclusivism and to accept plurality, to be committed to one’s faith and to be open to the faith-commitments of our neighbors, to choose to live in a global "community-of -communities", sharing the ambiguities of history and the mystery of life -- these are the imperatives of our age.

Globalization is a process that is inescapable and irreversible. People in developing countries have to go through it, and come out of it, not subdued or vanquished, not tamed, manipulated or controlled, but transformed as a people to meet a new future with hope.

Notes:

1. Robert Schreiter "Contextualization from a World Perspective", Theological Education, Vol. 30, Supplement I, 1933, pp. 79 ff.

2 Anthony Giddens ‘The Globalization of Modernity" quoted in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory (Eds.) Patrick Williams and Paula Chrisman, Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York 1993 p. 181. See also his book The Consequences of Modernity, Polity Press Cambridge, 1990 pp. 52-78.

3. K. Ohmas The Borderless World: Power and Strategy in the Global Marketplace, Collins, London 1992, quoted by Jan Nederveen Pieterse "Globalization and Cultures: Three Paradigms" in Economic and Political Weekly Vol. XXXI No. 23 June 8. 1996 p. 1389-1393.

4. Dilip S. Swamy, "Alternative to Globalization", Mainstream XXXII No. 20, April 8, 1995, p. 16. This was a paper presented to the Christian Conference of Asia on the theme ‘Towards a New Economic Vision", Quezon City, Philippines, November 23, 1994. A great deal has been written about this matter by Indian thinkers, for examples, MA. Oommen, "Anatomy of Globalization: More a Moral Crisis than a Development Dilemma", Mainstream Annual 1995 pp. 23ff; Chakravarthy Raghavan. "Globalization Model: An Uneven Development", Mainstream XXXIV No. 32 July 13, 1996 pp. 8 if; Madhu Limaye "Globalization and the Third World" Mainstream April 9, 1994 pp. 5-6, etc.

5. "Intellectuals Against Globalization" Times of India New Delhi, April 28, 1995, p. 8, a statement prepared and signed by 70 intellectuals in India.

6. KC. Abraham, Liberative Solidarity: Contemporary Perspectives on Mission, Christava Sahitya Samithi, Tiruvalla, Kerala, India, 1996 pp. 147 ff.

7. John F. Kavanaugh, Still Following Christ in a Consumer Society, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, revised edition, 1991, p. 71.

8. Anthony Smith, The Geopolitics of Information: How Western Culture Dominates the World, Oxford University Press. New York, 1980, p. 176.

9. Kumar Ketkar, "Do We Really Need English?" in Sunday Times Review, Bangalore April 17, 1994, p. 1.

10. Times of India, Bangalore, March 28, 1996, p. 8.

11. See Anvit Abbi, "Language as Social Truth" in Review of Explorations in Indian Socio-linguistics: Language and Development series, WI. 2 Sage Publications, New Delhi 1995 in The Book Review Vol. XX No. 8 August 1996 New Delhi, pp. 30-31.

12. Jan Nederveen Pieterse "Globalization and Culture: Three Paradigms", Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXXI Jan 22, 1996 p. 1389-1393.

13. Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations" Foreign Affairs, 1993 No. 72 (3) pp. 22-49. Quite a few Indian thinkers have criticized this notion e.g., Nilesh Kumar, "And Never the Twain Shall Meet", Mainstream January 22, 1994, pp. 33 if. Avjit Pathak, ‘Thoughts on Cultural Invasion", Mainstream, February II, 1995, pp. 23 if.

14. George Ritzer, The McDonaldisation of Society, Pine, Forge/Sage, Thousand Oaks, London, 1993, p. 19.

15. Pieterse op. cit., p. 1.

16. Quoted by Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in Philosophical Understanding, Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi, first Indian edition 1990, p. 167.

17. See Hajime Nakamura, Ways of Thinking of Eastern People, revised English translation (Ed) Philip P. Winter, East West Centre Press, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1966.

18. Hesseling Pjotr. Organizational Behaviour and Culture, 1971 quoted in Claude Alvares Homo Faber: Technology and Culture in India and China, and the West 1500 to the present day, Allied Publishers, Bombay 1979 p. 11.

19. Rajni Kothari in Foreword to Claude Alvares’s book Homo Faber op. cit., xi.

20. See International Review of Mission Vol. LXXIV Nos. 332/333 January/April 1995 and subsequent issues.

21. S. Wesley Ariarajah, Gospel and Culture, WCC Publications, Geneva, 1994, "Gospel and Religion" pp. 1 ff and "Universality and Particularity" pp. 28 ff.

22. N. Krishnamoorthy, "Religion in the Land of Non-Religion", The Hindu Magazine, Bangalore, Sunday May 8, 1994 p. XIII.

23. KC. Abraham, Liberative Solidarity: Contemporary Perspectives in Mission, Christava Sahitya Samithi, Tiruvalla, Kerala, India 1996 see esp. chapter X "Globalization and Liberative Solidarity" pp. 138 ff.

24. Ibid., p. 154.

25. ibid., p.145

26. Eco-Justice: A New Agenda for the Church’s Mission, BUILD, Bombay n.d. pp. 2 ff; see also his article, "Globalization: A Gospel and Culture Perspective" in the International Review of Mission, LXXV No. 336 January 1996, WCC Geneva, pp. 85-92.

27. Liberative Solidarity p. 157.

28. Richard Marzheuser, "Globalization and Catholicity: Two experiences of One Ecclesiology", Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 32 Spring 1995 No. 2 pp. 179-192.

29. ibid. p. 184.

30. Both quotations are from Avery Dulles, The Catholocity of the Church, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1958 quoted by Marzheuser on p. 168.

31. George Soares-Prabhu, ‘Two Mission Commands: An Interpretation of Matt.28-16-20 in the light of the Buddhist text Mahavagga 1:10-11:1," in Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World. (Ed) R.S. Sugirtharajah, Orbis/SPCK, new edition, Maryknoll and London, 1995, pp. 319-336.

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Ethical Issues in the Struggles for Justice

32. Ecumenical News International Number 16, 21 August 1996 Bulletin 96-04555.

33. Both quotations are in Ecumenical News International Number 157 August 1996 Bulletin 96: 96-0405.

34. Pieterse op. cit., p. 1996.

35. One World, WCC Geneva, No. 190. November 1993 p. 10.

36. See Dalit Solidarity (Ed.) Bhagavandas SPCK, Delhi, India, and James Massey, 1995.

(Sergio Torres, a Chilean priest, teaches systematic theology at the Alfonsin Institute of Pastoral Theology in Santiago, Chile)

1. Introduction

I have been asked to take part in recognizing the theological work of Doctor K.C. Abraham on the occasion of his 60 years of life. It is a just acknowledgement for a man who has been able to relate his deep Christian convictions with a liberating commitment in the context of his cultural roots.

I have had the privilege of knowing and working with K.C., as he is known among his friends in the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT), which recently in 1996 celebrated its 20th anniversary.

K.C. has been a prominent member of the Association and was its Vice President from 1986-1991 and its President from 1991-1996.

We, Latin American Theologians, have participated from the very beginning in the life of the Association, and we have been enriched by the contribution of theologians from other continents and regions. We have valued especially the cultural and religious traditions of Asia and India which have helped us to open ourselves to the dialogue with other cultures and religious.

This dialogue within EATWOT hasn’t been without difficulties and confrontations. Our commitment, however, has prevailed and we have been able to overcome those differences. Doctor K.C. Abraham has played a leading role facilitating the dialogue and the mutual enrichment within EATWOT.

As a Latin American theologian I join with pleasure in this acknowledgement as a sign of joy and gratitude for the contribution of K.C., through his writings and commitment to the development of a theology in the Third World.

In this occasion my contribution will be to write an article on the future of Liberation Theology in Latin American in view of the questioning and criticism of the past years.

2. Liberation Theology at Crossroads

Liberation Theology in Latin America has a short history.¹ It was born Out of the participation of Christians in the historical process of liberation in the 60s and the 70s. Contrary to what is sometimes thought, however, it is a genuine theology, a reflection on the Word of God starting from the praxis of liberation.

It is in continuation with the theological traditions of the Church and, at the same time, has made important new contributions to the development of theology. This theology takes seriously the proclamation of Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth when he says that he has been sent to announce Good News to the poor, give sight to the blind and free captives.²

Latin American Liberation Theology makes the saving power of God present in the historical context of oppression and recalls the God of the Old Testament who has seen the slavery of his people and has come down to liberate them.³

Liberation Theology underlines the evangelical privilege of the poor. They are the first to receive the Good News. This is a theology in favor of the poor and against poverty. Christians, struggling for liberation and against poverty, develop the political dimension of Christian faith.

Liberation Theology is a critical reflection on the experience of God in the praxis of liberation. The content of this theology has always been the experience of God, as experience lived, celebrated and announced in the historical process of liberation.

Resistance to this theology

In its short life Liberation Theology grew and developed with great force in the Latin American continent. Many people felt interpreted by this new manner of doing theology. The Catholic Church assumed it as an official teaching in the Episcopal Conference of Medellin in 1968.

In proclaiming the defense of the poor, however, it received great opposition from the powerful of this world. The persons that are favored by the present unjust order considered this theology as a dangerous enemy. This theology is feared, not only because it speaks of justice and equality but also because it proclaims a God who sides with the poor.

Another great difficulty for Liberation Theology was the crisis of socialism in the countries of Eastern Europe. Liberation Theology, assuming some elements of Marxist analysis, appeared too identified with the ideology of Marxism. Many people superficially believed that the fall of socialism also included the fall of Liberation Theology. Other persons, including high officials of the Church, have said that Liberation Theology is dying.

The major difficulty, however, for Liberation theologians has come from within the Catholic Church. In 1984 the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published the document "Libertatis Nuntius" on Liberation Theology which contains strong attacks against this theology and practically condemns the liberation theologians. In 1986 the same Congregation published a second document "Liberatic Conscientise" with a more positive tone.⁴

We intend new to explain the content of these two documents focusing our attention on the first one.

3. The Document "Libertatis Nuntius

The document is divided into eleven chapters with an introduction and a conclusion. The first part contains a positive approach of liberation. It underlines that Liberation Theology is necessary to respond to the aspirations of liberation and reflects the biblical meaning of liberation which is an essential theme of the Old Testament and the New Testament.⁵

The document says that this type of theology was developed in recent years in Latin America. This process, however, did not last long and very soon its Christian identity.

According to the document, the fundamental reason of this failure comes from the use of Marxist analysis without any critical assessment. With the pretext of a deeper understanding of reality, Latin American theologians reinterpret the Christian message and they separate themselves from Christian orthodoxy The Instruction says that is impossible to separate Marxist analysis from Marxist ideology. When Marxist analysis is used, the person necessarily assumes all the content of Marxist ideology, including the Marxist concept of truth, ethics, class struggle the use of violence and atheism.

When these criteria are applied to theology we have to accept historical. Immanentism, and we identify God with the historical process. The Church also becomes a reality of this world without any relationship with God’s transcendence. The Church is part of the dominant class and losses its sacramental and hierarchical identity.

Practically this is a new hermeneutics, a political rereading of the scriptures. This is the reason of the emphasis of Latin American theologians on some biblical texts like Exodus and the Magnificat.

This is a short synthesis of this critical document. It is a disqualification of Liberation Theology and a misunderstanding of the real intentions of the theologians of Latin America who have always proclaimed their faith in Jesus Christ, have been active members of the church and have supported the poor even with the risk of their lives.

The reactions of the theologians

Latin American theologians knew with anticipation that Rome was preparing a document on Liberation Theology. They were very surprised by this document, for they never expected a condemnation of their theological commitment to the church and to the poor.⁶

Their first reaction was to disagree with the document because they did not feel identified with the type of theology described in the document. At the same time they were forced to enter into dialogue with the Vatican about the critical assessment of their theology and of their personal Christian commitment.

The focus of the discussion was the use of social sciences in theology, the rereading of the Bible from the perspective of the poor, the Christian communities in the struggle of liberation and the assumption of some elements of critical and Marxist analysis for a better and deeper understanding of the conflictual reality of the continent. The instruction of the Vatican says that theologians using Marxist analyses become ipso facto Marxist atheists. In their response, Latin American theologians have tried to prove that all these issues are very complex, and it is not possible to simplify the relationships among science, philosophy and theology.⁷

Theology and Social Sciences

Traditionally theology has used the mediation of philosophy to understand the complexity of the human person and to interpret the biblical message of revelation. Latin American theology introduced a new mediation of social science in order to know and to interpret social and historical reality and to propose concrete ways of transforming the unjust society.⁸

The Roman Instruction is not clear about the relationship between social sciences and theology. On one hand it says that "scientific knowledge of the situation and the possible ways of social transformation are the basic for an efficient action, capable of obtaining the goals that have been determined.⁹

On the other hand the document does not accept the dialogue between Christian faith and political action and puts into question the autonomy of social science in relation to Christian faith. We have here again the understanding of the Church as a mediaeval Christendom where all structures and levels of knowledge are determined and controlled by theology and tradition. The document says in this respect: "Critical examination of the means of analysis taken from other disciplines has to be done in a special way by theology. The light of faith provides the criteria for analysis through theological reflection.¹⁰

The text speaks about the instrumental value of social science, but it does not make clear the goal for which the instrument is used. If the goal is to know and to interpret revelation, social science does not make a contribution. if the goal is to know reality in order to change it, social science does not need the help of theology.

Marxism

The Roman document speaks at length about Marxism. At the same time it is necessary to recognize that it appears ambiguous and contradictory dealing with this ideology. Latin American Theologians never identified themselves with Marxist though. They have always been very critical about orthodox Marxism, and they denounced through the years the excesses of Stalinism.

The Instruction proposes a definition and a description of Marxism which does not correspond to the reality of many Marxist authors and political tendencies. Several times the document speaks about a nonpolitical concept of Marxism. In other sections of the same text we read a different approach: "From the beginning, but especially in recently years, Marxist thought has diversified itself in various trends which differ one from the other.¹¹

In this way there is a contradiction between an univocus concept of Marxism and a variety of different trends. Latin American theologians have always been attentive to the evolution of the Marxist science and to the concrete applications to political life. They have never accepted the totalitarian role of the State and the lack of freedom and participation of people in political life and in the decisions about their own future. On the scientific and philosophical level they never accepted mechanical determination of the economic infrastructure and have always proclaimed freedom and spiritual dignity of persons building their own destiny with the help of the transcendent God.

For all these reasons it has become impossible to accept the description of Liberation Theology of the Roman document. Theologians affirm themselves as Christians, committed to God and to the poor, and they consider that Christianity and theology have biblical roots and are not determined by any ideology.

Class struggle

The document speaks several times about class struggle. Latin American theologians consider that its analysis is out of date. Marx himself did not invent the existence of classes. He only provided the instrument for understanding the conflicts among different classes. In response to the document, Latin American theologians have synthesized the social teaching of many social scientists. Some of their findings are as follows: class struggle is an objective situation of oppression and conflict starting with the existence of social classes. Christian love demands to eliminate or to diminish the causes which produce this division. The only condition is to do it without hatred.

Class struggle is an effort of social groups oppressed by the class structure of the society in order to overcome this division and obtain their social political liberation. This effort is legitimate in itself and Christians should join their forces in to obtain it.

Class struggle, in a technical sense, is the application of strategies and tactics to overcome a class society. Some of these tactics are not allowed to Christians because they are promoted out of violence.

Latin American theologians have never accepted to promote violence and class struggle. They have followed the orientation of the episcopal conference of Medellin which introduced a very useful distinction between the violence of the system and the oppressors and the legitimate efforts of the oppressed to overcome the first form of violence. The Latin American Bishops called the violence of the social system "institutionalized violence."

4. New challenges to Liberation Theology

The present moment of Liberation Theology is a critical one. The crisis of the socialist world and the attacks against this theology have given to the theologians the opportunity to make an evaluation, to asses their own principles and criteria and to open themselves to the new challenges coming from the changing situation. We will present a few of these new challenges.

Theology from women’s perspectives

Theology has always been a masculine enterprise. Liberation Theology in Latin America has not been an exception. The focus was the liberation of the poor without the distinction of men and women. The concept of the poor included everybody, Indians, blacks, men, women, peasants, urban workers, etc. The specific identity of women’s oppression was not present in the sociological and theological analysis of the first writings of Liberation Theologians.

Changes started to take place in the eighties. Little by little the women’s perspective entered into theological reflection. This happened not because the men changed their mind but because women themselves started studying and writing theology.

Option for the poor women

In Latin America it is accepted that women are oppressed at different levels, as poor, as Indian, as black and as women. It is said that women are doubly oppressed.

Women theologians in Latin America are dealing with the issue of women’s oppression from the traditional point of view of Liberation Theology, i.e., from the perspective of the poor. This effort incorporates the best insights of feminist theology from the United States and Europe, reinterpreted from a third world perspective. Women theologians favor the option of the women for themselves, for their legitimization, for their dignity in a world of "machines" oppression. This personal recognition does not mean in any way a sign of selfishness. Affirming their identity women are prepared to enter into dialogue with "the other". Women are prepared to enter in this way to struggle in solidarity with other women and with the men for their liberation.

A new biblical hermeneutics

Latin American women have realized that the Church and the Bible itself legitimized the oppression of women. At the same time they are experiencing great difficulty reading the Bible from their perspective To do it properly they have used the hermeneutics of suspicion, which has been elaborated by women theologians from the First World. Latin American women have read it critically and adapted it to the Latin American reality. The suspicion starts recognizing that the text has been produced by a patriarchal and anti-feminist culture.

Latin American women are forced to deny the obligation of the readings of the Bible which consider that the inferiority of women comes from God’s will. The reading of the Bible cannot content itself with the text but has to go to the deep liberating meaning of the biblical plan of God in human history.

Liberation theology from an indigenous and a black perspective

Liberation Theology from the very beginning underlined the concept of poor. This concept included indigenous and black people. Today things are changing. These strong minorities do not accept any more to be considered only as poor. They claim that their oppression has its own identity and it is necessary a specific strategy for their liberation.

The indigenous perspective

We are at the beginning of a new theological development. This theology is recognizing and assuming the rich indigenous cultures present in the continent before the arrival of the conquerors. There are already some indigenous theologians who are developing this new perspective. They are thinking from inside their traditional cultures and religions. They do not accept any more the presence of outsiders, especially white people, who pretend to speak on behalf of traditional persons.

These theologians are claiming that the option for the poor has to be translated in the option for indigenous people.

The black perspective

Black people have been able to keep their cultural and religious traditions. They have realized a powerful synthesis between their African traditions and the Christian message preached to them by the Church. They practice some form of syncretism, which expresses itself in rites and other forms of cult and devotions.

Liberation Theology is facing the challenge of integrating the black perspectives in its theological reflection. Black men and women theologians have to realize that the Churches have contributed to the oppression of black people and that it is necessary to repent before reconciliation is possible. The option for the poor has to include the option for the black people.

5. Conclusion

I wish to end my observations as I began, I join my words of thanksgiving to God with many other friends throughout the world who want to congratulate Doctor K.C. Abraham on his anniversary.

Notes:

1. The first book of Gustavo Gutierrez, Theology of Liberation was published in Lima, Peru in 1971.

2. Luke 4:18-21.

3. Exodus 3:7-8.

4. Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Liberatis Nuntius, 1984 & Libertatis Concientae, 1986. Vatican city, Rome

5. Libertatis Nuntius, p.3-15.

6. The majority of L.A. theologians wrote responses in different magazines of the continent.

7. Libertatis Nuntius, p.17-21.

8. See Juan Luis Segundo, Teologia de la Liberacion. A response to Cardinal Ratzinger. ed. Christiandad, Madrid. 1985.

9. Liberatatic Nuntis, VIII. 3, p.17.

10. Ibid., VII.10, p.19.

11. Ibid., VII. 8, p.19.

(Jose Miguez Bonino is a Methodist theologian from Argentina who has been active on the ecumenical movement, serving on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches.)

"Justice and Peace" the conjunction symbolizes a dream, an aspiration that has haunted humankind throughout history. The Hebrew Psalmist expresses it poetically:

Love and loyalty met together, justice and peace have kissed each other (Ps. 85:10)

Sometimes the vision has taken the shape of a religious hope: the heavenly Jerusalem", the new land where righteousness dwells, the new age’. In the Guarani indigenous tradition, in Brazil and Paraguay, it was seen as the pilgrimage to "a land without evils." Or it takes the shape of a political utopia: Plato’s Republic or More’s Utopia.

The impact of these visions on the life of peoples seems to be diverse and at times ambiguous:

1. Some Biblical Insights

It is Interesting and worth noting that we don’t find in the Bible general definitions of peace and justice but rather an endless number of concrete acts and events in which God and human beings ‘act justly’ or ‘unjustly’, thus, for instance,

We will look in vain for universal laws or definitions of an ideal justice that can then be applied to concrete cases. Even the ‘law’ is understood as ‘signposts’ or ‘indications’ of the best way to organize human relations for the people. When we put together these concrete indications we find some common elements which help us to understand what ‘justice’ is.

When all relationships are justly realized, we can, in biblical terms, speak of peace (shalom). "Shalom is the substance of the biblical vision of one community embracing all creation. It refers to all those resources and factors which make communal harmony joyous and effective" (Ref. to Ezek. 34:25-29a; Walter Brueggemann, Living Towards a Vision. Biblical Reflections on Shalom, 1976, p. 16) But, again, one must guard against making this definition a description of an ideal utopia. It is, rather, bringing together the concrete struggles at every level of human life.

We can close this brief biblical recollection with three very simple reflections that can help us to make a future step in the consideration of our subject:

(1) In the Bible, the divine, the cosmic and the human are never separated in the consideration of justice and peace. Separating these dimensions (worship without justice and false security when God and the neighbor are rejected) is precisely the injustice and betrayal of the covenant that is denounced by the prophets. The consequence will be God’s wrath and punishment and the absence of shalom both in their relation to God, to nature and in the community.

(2) The ‘utopia’ of peace and justice (i.e., the expectation of ‘a new age’) is not an ideal construction from which certain consequences are derived for specific situations but, on the contrary, it is the coming together in a vision of the specific struggle of the community to solve the conflicts, contradictions and difficulties that they find in everyday life -- political, social, religious, economic.

(3) Injustice and lack of peace are, therefore, fundamentally betrayals of the right relationships. Consequently, someone is wronged in these acts: fundamentally the sand and the neighbor and, as a consequence, God who has pledged himself as the defender of both. Those who are wronged, then, become the ‘test’ and the ‘measure’ of justice and peace. Both in the Old and in the New Testament, they are the poor, the oppressed, the unprotected, the despised, in their dominant forms of the time: the poor, the orphan, the widow, the foreigner, the sick, etc.).

2. From the Reverse Side of History

These last lines bring us to the bottom line in the emergence of liberation theologies -- whether Korean, Philippians, South African, Black, Tamil or Latin American. We have all learned, and perhaps this is our only contribution, that God’s purpose and action are best, and perhaps only, understood when we stand by the side of ‘the little ones’. And God has not taught us that primarily through theological reflection or clever hermeneutics but through an encounter with the massive reality of poverty, deprivation and marginalization. Thus, these theologies are not, in the first place, a reflection but a sense of consternation, a cry of compassion and anger, a prayer and a commitment. Then reflection, analysis, study followed. In it we recovered the rich heritage of the Scriptures, the prophets, above all of Jesus Christ and the line that has run, sometimes more visibly, sometimes almost lost, throughout the history of the Christian community. Peace and justice can only be understood, re-created and defended from the perspective of the poor and oppressed. Of course, reflection had to be informed by understanding and here all the instruments of human social sciences had to be recognized. And they have to be constantly corrected, and made more precise and inclusive. Besides, theologians and ethicists have to recognize that most of us do not naturally have the perspective of the poor. By birth some and by formation and education most, belong to non-poor (which does not necessarily mean ‘rich’). Some of our churches and institutions are also caught in this dilemma. For many of us and for many of our churches to take this perspective means a conversion and a learning process. In this learning process I would suggest three ‘tracks’ of thought:

In the second place, we see that the poor are neither necessarily passive nor powerless. As they become aware of the irrationality of their situation, they can discover their possibilities and assume their historical role. It has to be recognized that the deterioration of conditions and the process of mass marginalization produced by the globalization of the economic model is producing a certain amount of demoralization in certain Third World areas and that some too sanguine expectations of the Sixties and Seventies have to be reassessed. But we cannot simply accept the defeatist pessimism which has become so mesmerized by the apparent omnipotence of the technological knowledge and globalization of the system that gives up all hope of change.

Finally, we begin to discover ‘the logic of hope’ over against the ‘technical reason’ that forecloses the horizon.

3. Is There an Agenda?

Oppression is a complex reality. It has many names and faces. The struggle against it has to be also multifaceted. As Christian people and churches engage in this struggle, they have to decide where and in which ways their participation can be most meaningful. While such quest is difficult and will have to be reorganized many times, we can suggest some tentative criteria to be considered.

First of all, we should canvass the different ‘names’ of oppression: (i) The experience of dependence and the struggle for national determination took in the Sixties the form of creating the organizations of the Third World countries and the UN attempts to define a more just New International Economic Order . These attempts were to a large extent frustrated through the opposition of the powerful states and the -- frequently induced or forced -- resignation of the Third World countries. The issue, however, is by no means irrelevant. The foreign debt continues to be an issue and new voices have began to sound the need to look for ways to face it; (ii) At the national level two questions are concentrating increasing attention: one is the reassessment of the necessary role of the state to correct the distortions of a runaway market (currently discussed in Europe and in the discussions about the role the initiatives of ‘an active state has played in the economic development of Asian countries); the other is the need for a ‘participative democracy over against a purely representative formal democracy: in this sense the need to strengthen civil society with its intermediate organizations becomes an important concern; (iii) the struggle for collective and personal identity in a society in which forced immigration, dehumanizing conditions in urban marginal situations, and foreign cultural aggression and massification in many forms produce a degrading type of poverty where communal, family and personal identity are eroded and even destroyed.

Secondly, we have to look at ways in which Christians personally and Christian churches and organizations can most significantly enter the struggle. In a general sense, one can speak of four areas of struggle: (i) the system of economic exploitation and social stratification (racial segregation, women’s working conditions, unemployment and the new legislation of ‘flexibility and ‘deregulation); (ii) the ideology (the way of representing the world, social relations, etc.) that justifies the system -- the new ideologies of race superiority, the religious legitimation of competition and the so-called free market as the only and sufficient way of organizing human life (iii) the ways in which the consciousness of the oppressed, is led to interject this ideology of domination and to develop a feeling of self-denial and self-devaluation; (iv) the atomization of the society through the weakening and destruction of neighborhood, workers and local cultural manifestations. Although the struggle must be carried at every one of these aspects, I would suggest that churches and educational, cultural and even recreational institutions have their best possibilities in areas iii and iv. I will just mention some possibilities in order to open a conversation.

In these rather general notes we have tried first to look at some of the basic points of departure for a Christian consideration of issues of justice and peace. Then, a brief review of the issues from the specific consideration of the situation of the poor as a test for Christian commitment, and finally, some ways in which the Christian community and churches can participate in these struggles. Certainly, there are a number of problems and issues to be considered. The only purpose of these notes is to stimulate a discussion which has already a significant history in ecumenical life but has to be re-entered again and again in the changing conditions and demands of our societies.

(Mary Amba Oduyoye, an ecumenical leader from Ghana, is President of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians [EATWOT].)

Introduction

The Assembly of the World Council of Churches held in Vancouver, Canada in 1983 had the theme: "Jesus Christ, the Life of the World." It did not come as a surprise to anyone that while we were being called to life we had to talk about death. We would like to praise God, adore God, thank God for the gift of life. Everyday is a fresh gift from God -- we know, but we praise our Maker while we have life. We believe that when our voices are lost in death, our nobler parts shall continue to praise God: But here and now we need to live as people who recognize that life is a gift from God.

What does God expect us to do with the life he has given us? If God loves the whole world and brought it into being, we ought to relate to creation as having the same source as us -- as if we were siblings. St. Francis of Assisi caught this vision of our link with the rest of creation. If we believe that God is a God of justice, the Righteous One, dealing with compassion and showering us with well-being -- shalom, then our lives have to reflect this justice and this peace. We begin life loving, appreciating beauty and care and tenderness. We begin life acknowledging our dependence on those around us, smiling for pleasure offered us and holding firmly to friendships that are offered to us. And even before we can say it, we show that we are thankful to God for life. We are thankful to God for the healthy environment and we are thankful to God for people. We do not say it and may be we have forgotten that time was, when all we had were people and what we needed to survive was the life of another human being. JPIC (Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation, June 3-5, 1989) calls us to praise God for human beings and for all of God’s creation.

How did a conference on life pass into deliberations on death? Brokenness is an experience we all share. Barriers and fences, they and we, are divisions Set up not simply to recognize diversity, but to fence off others, to conserve for our sole use the gifts of God, and to prevent others from trespassing on what we see as ours. When we go over boundaries we do so usually to exploit, to add to what we have. The JPIC call here is to penitence and confession. To this we shall return.

Faced with a world at home with sin, John the Baptist proclaimed the word of hope, a way out of our seemingly intractable problems and irreconcilable postures -- Repent and be forgiven, turn to your neighbors and hence to God. When Jesus began his work he brought the same message and even more urgently. God reigns, he said and if you acknowledge this then your lifestyle and attitudes have to conform to life in God’s presence. Whenever the word of God is proclaimed, whether in the Old Testament, New Testament, or to us today through the events around us we are called to make a decision. All who are concerned with the human stewardship of the earth, with justice and with peace, are called to be committed to what makes for justice and for peace.

The focus on the integrity of creation, on peace and on justice has been launched because there are many who hurt, and know that they hurt. This is the sign of hope. There are people all over the world who have never doubted the interdependence, inter-relatedness and common welfare of all of creation and who have lived conscious that they have no right to pillage and despoil the earth. That is a sign of hope. All over the world there are people who cannot stand by and see others exploited and dehumanized, they themselves would never sit quietly under indignities, there are persons who have courage to call for justice and to deal justly with those they encounter, they are a sign of hope. All over the world there are people who know the injustices cannot go on for ever and that the peace of any community is perched precariously wherever there are people who hurt. More and more people have become aware that the absence of military combat does not necessarily mean peace but also that preparing for war is a waste of what may be used for better expression of humanness. Peace movements all over Europe and North America have done great work to expose the arms race, militarism and militarization which in the final analysis is a profit-earning enterprise that feed directly on human blood and human greed. All these people and organizations are signs of hope. We have not gone too far to turn back. That is the sign of hope on which we call for further efforts. We still burn with desire not to perish together. God, I believe, will continue to keep stirring in us, this love for life and this awareness of our inter-relatedness.

It is the faith that God is in our struggle for survival, that God stands for justice and for peace and that there is no part or portion of creation that God ignores, which keeps us praying. We pray not only for just and peaceful relations among human beings but for an awareness of God’s care for creation of which we are a part. How can we say we love God, we thank God for giving us the earth for a home, and then continue to ruin all that is given to sustain our lives. The litanies of our intercessions grow longer with our awareness of what we ought to be about as human beings. The creation that used to rejoice with us and to remind us of the beauty and bounty of God now groans with us as rain and snow do not come to feed our crops and as the earth grumbles and the waters spit out death. We call on God to sharpen our awareness and to give us the will to live as we pray.

We commit ourselves to all, not only other Christians. but all human beings who work for justice, who recognize that a necessary first act on the road to peace is to recognize our common humanity, our common dependence on God and the earth God has given us. All who realize that the future of humanity is linked together are beginning to subsume their physical and economic differences under the need for human survival which depends on the survival of the earth. Religious people are contributing to this search in the belief that the earth and all of creation is God’s and that our future depends on recognizing this. We, all human beings, share one human nature and our future depends on this. Recent experiences remind us of how easily we can share and spread death around. Our future depends on sharing and spreading life to all peoples. We cannot call God our common Father and live as if some human beings are expendable.

We who have met under this theme of justice, peace and the integrity of creation have done so as part of our commitment to stand together and to work. For this we share our experiences of the struggle, the joy of the signs of hope and the agonies of the barriers to shalom. We shall gather further steam to launch forward, firm in our faith that working in this is doing God’s will, that indeed we are standing together with God against death and suffering. So let me share something of what I see as the affirmations, and the signs of hope that Americans are an integral part of this struggle to manifest total humanness and to acknowledge God’s ownership and care of the whole of creation of which human beings are a part.

Creation Hangs Together

In the wisdom and religious beliefs of Africans, we human beings are linked with the earth and nature around us although we know ourselves to be children of God. We know that we depend on the earth, the sea, the rivers, all of nature to sustain the life God has given us, but also that there is a living spirit in all of this created life that we must recognize and honor. When we Africans acknowledge this by associating the spiritual powers we feel around us with these other manifestations of God’s creative power, we are despised as pagans, worshiping trees and stones. We were told to be more scientific about our relations with the rest of creation. To tap their potential for our technological development and never mind how many trees we cut down nor how much waste we pour into our waters as long as each year we produce and consume more than the previous year.

The worst of this education is that we were being prepared to open our lands for callous exploitation. The best of our forest was cut down for furniture that soon became archaic and was replaced by cutting down more forests. Land that could grow corn for staple food went for cocoa for luxury chocolates and human beings who could have developed Africa were bought and sold to grow sugar cane which today we have realized is not too good for human consumption. The recognition of the integrity of creation means for me above all the recognition that all human beings have a right to live and that our environment has to be protected and respected to ensure this life. The labels primitive people, non-technological cultures, have helped to create a hierarchy of human beings. We all live in a developing world and our common survival depends on how we understand how much we need to live and how much of what we have is a show of power and prestige.

Much of what we call culture is the outcome of how we relate to our physical environment and our sense of responsibility towards the human beings among whom we live and the rest of creation around us. Under the philosophy of development built on the illusion that change and growth are the same as progress and that any move, especially if it goes in the direction of control and exploitation of nature is to be desired, we have set up the Euro-American culture as the mark of development, and the acceptable level of human consumption.

We have argued that since theirs is a developed world all that they do must be right. Their values and relationships as expressed in social and legal systems are set up as being better than what obtains in African culture. To be developed Africans have to give up their world view and human values, take up those of Europe and make innovation and consumption the end of life.

Our very physical form is disparaged and people are simply exploited, ignored, dehumanized for no other reason than that they are black. They represent a "dying" culture, a primitive form of being human. The white world is unable to integrate black-skinned people into their view of the human species. Primitive ideas that people who look different are not quite human still rules the minds of most white people. This deep-seated disability gets rationalized into sophisticated theories that enable the white world to exploit Africa, Africans and all peoples of African descent with impunity and satisfaction. The integrity of the human race is daily disputed by our language. We speak of races, a concept which has no translation in my language. All human beings are children of God, the Akan say -- none is the child of the earth. The injustice built into global economic relations that exploit sectors of human race by color and gender disputes the integrity of humanity. Peace in the southern hemisphere is violated daily and continuously because of injustice that flows from lack of recognition of the integrity of all creation. It is stewardship turned into domination. This is injustice -- the absence of right relationships.

To Do Justly is to Live Peaceably

The ability to respond to God only comes as we relate gently (justly) to the world and to one another. Time was when we blamed poverty on indolence, attributed domination and hierarchies to natural order and appropriation of land as the will of God. Today, we are more critical about the causes of the inequities that we experience. In most of Africa, before the intervention of Europeans, land was not sold, it was not owned, it was assigned for use and when not in use reverted to the whole community. Today, land issues are central in the struggle for justice in South Africa, in other parts of the continents, small farms are giving way to commercialized plantations that take away land without providing employment.

We lament the state of family life, but today we cannot blame prostitution, child abuse, delinquency of adults and children simply on lack of morals and irresponsibility. To deal justly with the socio-economic situation of Africa, we have to agree to the necessity of social analysis and an understanding of the historical and cultural underpinnings of what we experience. Not much of this analysis is being done in Africa itself. The Africans who do so in the global context in international meetings are often made to feel like they do nothing but complain. People are tired of hearing of our colonial and missionary past and what it has done to us. But we cannot forget. We have to work with this history if we are to be just to ourselves. We have to do this analysis if we are to act effectively on root causes. Since the end of the U.N. Decade celebrated in Nairobi, a more realistic approach to the world of African women has begun. The only problem is that we African women have become objects of study. We want to do our own analysis and to seek solutions to what matters most to us. We are yet to find people who understand our position.

We would like to see how the struggle for human dignity is undertaken without having to divide the search into racism, sexism and classism, least of all to be made to prioritize our struggle. Some women’s experience is that of domination, other feel marginalized, while for some the experience is one of rejection. For women in Africa much of the injustice and lack of a sense of well-being is located in the area of technological development. So much of what the West takes for granted is, still in Africa, a struggle for survival. Women in Africa have to decide whether to abandon ourselves to the technological culture or to remain in the fire wood and water-fetching age. Left to the priorities of the men at the helm of affairs nothing will change for women in the homemaking and food production lines; men do none of this except for pay outside the home. The disabilities of women are legitimated by the exploitation of God and what is said to be natural. Violence against women may not show itself blatantly as sexual violence, but much of religious rites do violence to the self-esteem of women.

The global phenomenon of the increase in the numbers of poor applies to Africa. With modern land-use acts some women have lost their means of livelihood. In West Africa where commercial enterprises give women a fair amount of economic independence, there is an invidious language that disparages this and makes it sound unnatural for women to be wealthy. In the 1950s a whole gender of literature known as "The Onitsha market Literature of Nigeria" focused on the economic activities of Ibo women describing them as viragoes, witches and prostitutes or else portraying them as money-loving, adulterous killers. More insidious in this attempt to control the economic success of women is the Legio Maria a Namuwango church which uses confession to control women. Women are made to feel guilty for trying to acquire an independent source of income. They are accused of being greedy and of departing from Luo traditional image of a good wife. Women who succeed economically cannot be decent women, if they were, they would submit to the control of men. In this way women are made to fear the disapproval of society if they did not play the right game in a man’s world, playing this game means allowing oneself to be marginalized from most modern structures.

Justice for women would involve a just definition of development which implies that women participate in defining national development. Justice for women means the possibility to influence policies involving war and peace, militarism and militarization, the possibility of diverting resources from death-generating enterprises to life-sustaining efforts. Justice for women includes room to participate in deciding what health care is needed, what legal developments are just. Women want to and must be left in peace to organize themselves against control, domination and exploitation. The yearning for a just society is deeply woven into the bearing and caring of life.

There are several government-sponsored or -created women’s organizations in Africa, usually named National Council for Women’s Development or similar appellations. There are African heads of state who have gone out of their way to promote the political activities of women and to sponsor them as party-politicians. There are others who have been made to accept women’s participation. But there is more of the atmosphere of lip service or sheer antagonism towards women in politics. Justice demands participation.

Peace! Peace!

Women in West Africa have been known to hold governments to ransom when they have had enough of being marginalized, manipulated and managed. There were events against colonial governments in Nigeria. At least since 1956 when South African women hit the headlines with their protest against pass laws, they have never rested. They fight forced removals, they protest against the detention of their children. They continue to labor relentlessly for the birth of a South Africa that respects the humanity of all of God’s children.

There can be no just and life-giving shalom as long as forces that promote death continue to reign. There can be no peace and caring relationships in a human community that treats as less than human any group of persons within or outside of it. As Christians we affirm that one of the fruits of righteousness is peace. Opposing nuclear weapons is a good course, but we know that beyond that is the peace we are yet to understand. When there is no more physical combat will we be able to boast of an end to the psychological violence of all sorts that we experience today? When will people be able to live unmolested by laws that safeguard the interests of the powers-that-be? Shalom (peace) is the well-being of the total community, not just sectors of it. On this more than anything else, the whole community must stand together for we are in danger of perishing together. Peace and the well-being of the whole of creation is one agenda. The victims of war are victims of injustice and greed and they include human beings as well as the rest of creation. We cannot struggle for human rights in the midst of war, neither can we enjoy social and cultural developments when the conditions for peace are absent.

Response and Commitment

As Christians the struggle for the integrity of creation, for justice and peace in the human community, for compassion towards the neighbor and concrete expressions of our love of God, all flow out of our affirmation that God first loved us and gave us Jesus Christ. It is our response to the call of Jesus to take up our cross and follow him. We share the pain the rest of creation is going through as a direct result of our lack of integration of theology, ecology and technology. Our involvement in the struggle has to be one of a permanent concern that will guide our lifestyles. If we can make joint commitments, then we have to speak and act together or at least in concert as we pursue different aspects of the struggle. We have to affirm our faith together and continue to worship together so that the world may come to believe that we mean it when we say all human beings are the children of God and that this world belongs to God.

We shall join as a world of humans to commit ourselves to a theocratic world, getting rid of all patriarchies and androcentric view of life that draw us even into militarism, incessant innovations.

We need to join hands to reconceive and give birth to a model of development that is not exploitative either of humans or any aspect of creation.

We shall join as a human community in seeking to end the spiritual, psychological, intellectual and economic impoverishment of all women.

We need to create more awareness of the detrimental use of chemicals on women, rivers and plants.

We shall be dealing justly when as a Christian community we commit ourselves to the abrogation of all structures that generate external debts in the Third World.

As humans we have to rekindle our commitment to the ending of all human rights violations or else we all stand dehumanized.

There can be no peace where there is no justice-this you who belong to peace movement have to digest and act accordingly.

Europe has just been through an assembly with the theme "Peace with Justice" saying "Justice and Peace embrace each other."

Between Europe and world peace is the exploitation of the Third World.

Children die before they have lived, starve in the face of Europe coming between Europe and the peace she thinks of.

What does this ask of us but to turn back from our foolish ways. Turn back from ethnocentricity and self-justification. Turn back from the lust for scientific and technological innovation whatever it costs and however it is used. Turn back to God the Creator of all.

(James H. Cone is Briggs Distinguished Professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York.)

All other people have their own religion, which teaches them of a God whom they can associate with themselves, a God who at least looks like one of their own kind. But, we so-called Negroes, after 400 years of masterful brainwashing by the slave master, picture ‘our God’ with the same blond hair, pale skin, and cold blue eyes of our murderous slave master. His Christian religion teaches us that black is a curse, thus we who accept the slave master’s religion find ourselves loving and respecting everything and everyone except black, and can picture God as being anything else EXCEPT BLACK.²

Malcolm X

The prophetic and angry voices of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X together revolutionized theological thinking in the African-American community. Before Martin and Malcolm, black ministers and religious thinkers repeated the doctrines and mimicked the theologies they read and heard in white churches and seminaries, grateful to be allowed to worship God in an integrated sanctuary and to study theology with whites in a seminary classroom.

I remember my excitement when I was accepted as a student at Garrett Theological Seminary more than thirty-five years ago. It was my first educational experience in a predominantly white environment. Like most blacks of that time who attended white colleges and graduate schools, I tried hard to be accepted as just another student. But no matter how hard I tried, I was never just another student in the eyes of my white classmates and my professors. I was a Negro student -- which meant a person of mediocre intelligence (until proven otherwise) and whose history and culture were not worthy of theological reflection.

No longer able to accept black invisibility in theology and getting angrier and angrier at the white brutality meted out against Martin King and other civil rights activists, my Southern, Arkansas racial identity began to rise in my theological consciousness. Like a dormant volcano, it soon burst forth in a manner that exceeded my intellectual control.

"You are a racist!" I yelled angrily at my doctoral advisor who was lecturing to a theology class of about 40 students. "You have been talking for weeks now about the wrongdoings of Catholics against Protestants in 16th and 17th century Europe," I continued, raising my voice even higher, "but you’ve said absolutely nothing about the monstrous acts of violence by White Protestants against Negroes in the American South today in 1961!"

Devastated that I -- who was a frequent presence in his office and home -- would call him a racist, my advisor, a grave and staid English gentleman, had no capacity for understanding black rage. He paced back and forth for nearly a minute before he stopped suddenly and stared directly t me with an aggrieved and perplexed look on his face. Then he shouted, "That’s simply not true! Class dismissed."

He stormed out of the classroom to his office. I followed him. "Jim," he turned in protest, "You know I’m not a racist!" "I know" I said with an apologetic tone but still laced with anger. "I’m sorry I blurted out my frustrations at you. But I am angry about racism in America and the rest of the world. I find it very difficult to study theology and never talk about it in class." "I’m concerned about racism too," he retorted with emphasis. We then talked guardedly about racism in Britain and the U.S.

The more I thought about the incident, then and later, the more I realized that my angry outburst was not about the personal prejudices of my advisor or any other professor at Garret. It was about how the discipline of theology had been defined so as to exclude any engagement with the African-American struggle against racism. I did not have the words to say to my advisor what I deeply felt. I just knew intuitively that something was seriously wrong with studying theology during the peak of the civil rights era and never once reading a book about racial justice in America or talking about it in class. It was as if the black struggle for justice had nothing to do with the study of theology -- a disturbing assumption which I gradually became convinced was both anti-Christian and racist. But since I could not engage in a disinterested discussion about race as if I were analyzing Karl Barth’s christology, I kept my views about racism in theology to myself and only discussed them with the small group of African-American students who had similar views.

After I completed the Ph.D. in systematic theology in the fall of 1964, I returned to Arkansas to teach at Philander Smith College in Little Rock. No longer cloistered in a white academic environment and thus free of the need of my professors’ approval, I turned my attention to the rage I had repressed during six years of graduate education. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement helped me to take another look at the theological meaning of the black struggle for justice. My seminary education was nearly worthless in this regard, except as a negative stimulant. My mostly neo-orthodox professors talked incessantly about the "mighty acts of God" in biblical history. But they objected to any effort to link God’s righteousness with the political struggles of the poor today, especially among the black poor fighting for justice in the United States. God’s righteousness, they repeatedly said, can never be identified with any human project. The secular theologians were not much better. They proclaimed God’s death with glee and published God’s obituary in Time magazine. But they ignored Martin King’s proclamation of God’s righteous presence in the black freedom struggle.

Although latecomers to the civil rights movement, a few white theologians in the North supported it and participated in marches led by Martin Luther King, Jr. But the African-American fight for justice made little or no impact on their intellectual discourse about God, Jesus, and theology. Mainstream religion scholars viewed King as a civil rights activist who happened to be a preacher rather than a creative theologian in his own right.

It is one thing to think of Martin King as a civil rights activist who transformed America’s race relations and quite another to regard racial justice as having theological significance. Theology, as I studied it in the 1960’s, was narrowly defined to exclude the practical and intellectual dimensions of race. That was why Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Susan Sontang were read in theology courses but not Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. DuBois, and James Baldwin. Likewise Harry Emerson Fosdick and Ralph Sockman figured high on the reading lists in homiletics courses but not Howard Thurman and Martin King. White theologians reflected on the meaning of God’s presence in the world from the time of the Exodus to the civil rights revolution and never once made a sustained theological connection between these two liberation events. The black experience was theologically meaningless to them.

Unfortunately black ministers and theologians were strongly influenced by the white way of thinking about God and theology. When Richard Allen and other black Christians separated from white churches in the late 18th and early 19th centuries they did not regard their action as having theological meaning. They thought of it as a social act, totally unrelated to how blacks and whites think about God. That was why they accepted without alterations the confessions of faith of the white denominations from which they separated. But how is it possible to enslave and segregate people and still have correct thinking about God? That was a question which black ministers did not ask.

Even Martin King did not ask that question so as to expose the flawed white liberal thinking about God that he had encountered in graduate school. King thought his theology was derived primarily from his graduate education, and to a large degree, it was, especially his ghostwritten books and speeches to white audiences. As a result, he was unaware of the profoundly radical interpretation of Christianity expressed in his civil rights activity and proclaimed in his sermons.

But what King did in the South and later the North and what he proclaimed in sermons and impromptu addresses profoundly influenced our understanding of the Christian faith. King did not do theology in the safe confines of academia -- writing books, reading papers to learned societies, and teaching graduate students. He did theology with his life and proclaimed it in his preaching. Through marches, sit-ins, and boycotts and with the thunder of his voice, King hammered out his theology. He aroused the conscience of white America and made the racist a moral pariah. in the church and the society. He also inspired passive blacks to take charge of their lives, to believe in themselves, in God’s creation of them as a free people, equally deserving of justice as whites.

King was a public theologian. He turned the nation’s television networks into his pulpit and classroom, and he forced white Christians to confront their own beliefs. He challenged all Americans in the church, academy, and every segment of the culture to face head-on the great moral crisis of racism in the U.S. and the world. It was impossible to ignore King and the claims he made about religion and justice. While he never regarded himself as an academic theologian, he transformed our understanding of the Christian faith by making the practice of justice an essential ingredient of its identity.

It could be argued that Martin King’s contribution to the identity of Christianity in America and the world was as far-reaching as Augustine’s in the fifth century and Luther’s in the sixteenth.³ Before King no Christian theologian showed so conclusively in his actions and words the great contradiction between racial segregation and the gospel of Jesus. In fact. racial segregation was so widely accepted in the churches and societies throughout the world that few white theologians, did see the injustice, did not regard the issue important enough to even write or talk about it. But after King no theologian or preacher dares to defend racial segregation. He destroyed its moral legitimacy. Even conservative white preachers like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell make a point to condemn racial segregation and do not want to be identified with racism. That change is due almost single-handedly to the theological power of King’s actions and words.

Martin King was extremely modest about his political achievements and rather naive about the intellectual impact he made on the theological world. Theologians and seminarians have also been slow to recognize the significance of his theological contribution. But I am convinced that Martin Luther King, Jr., was the most important and influential Christian theologian in America’s history. Some would argue that the honor belongs to Jonathan Edwards or Reinhold Niebuhr or even perhaps Walter Rauschenbusch. (King acknowledged that the latter two, along with other white theologians, had a profound influence on his thinking.) Where we come down on this issue largely depends upon how we understand the discipline of theology. Those who think that the honor belongs to Edwards or Niebuhr or Rauschenbusch cannot possibly regard the achievement of racial justice as a significant theological issue, because none of them made justice for black people a central element of their theological program. Edwards, Rauschenbusch, and Niebuhr were white theologians who sought to speak only to their own racial community. They did not use their intellectual power to support people of color in their fight for justice. Blacks and the Third World poor were virtually invisible to them.

I am a black liberation theologian. No theologian in America is going to receive high marks from me who ignores race or pushes it to the margin of their theological agenda. But my claim about the importance of race for theology in America does not depend on one being a black liberation theologian. Any serious observer of America’s history can see that it is impossible to understand the political and religious meaning of this nation without dealing with race. Race has mattered as long as there has been an America. How then can one be regarded as the most important and influential Christian theologian in this land and not deal with racism, its most intractable sin?

Martin King is America’s most important Christian theologian because of what he said and did about race from a theological point of view. He was a liberation theologian before the phrase was coined by African-American and Latin American religious thinkers in the late Sixties and early Seventies. King’s mature reflections on the gospel of Jesus emerged primarily from his struggle for racial justice in America. His political practice preceded his theological reflections. He was an activist-theologian who showed that one could not be a Christian in any authentic sense without fighting for justice among people.

One can observe the priority of practice, as a hermeneutical principle, in his sermons, essays, and books. Stride Toward Freedom (1958), Why We Can’t Wait (1964). and Where Do We Go From Here (1967) were reflections on the political and religious meaning (respectively) of the Montgomery bus boycott (1955-56). the Birmingham movement (1963), and the rise of Black Power (1966). In these texts, King defined the black freedom movement as seeking to redeem the soul of America and to liberate its political and religious institutions from the cancer of racism. I contend that as a theologian to America he surpassed the others, because he addressed our most persistent and urgent sickness.

But two other features of King’s work elevate him above Edwards, Rauschenbusch, and Niebuhr. The first is his international stature and influence. I do not mean his Nobel Prize, but his contribution beyond the particularity of the black American struggle. He influenced liberation movements in China, Ireland. Germany, India, South Africa, Korea, and the Philippines. Hardly any liberation movements among the poor are untouched by the power of his thought.

Secondly. King was North America’s most courageous theologian. He did not seek the protection of a university appointment and a quiet office. One of his most famous theological statements was written in jail. Other ideas were formed in a brief breathing space after days of exposure to physical danger in the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Chicago and the dangerous roads of Mississippi. King did theology in solidarity with the "least of these" and in the face of death. "If physical death," he said, "is the price I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from the permanent death of the spirit, then nothing could be more redemptive." Real theology is risky as King’s courageous life demonstrated.

From King black liberation theology received its Christian identity, which he understood as the practice of justice and love in human relations and the hope that God has not left the "least of these" alone in their suffering. However, that identity was only one factor which contributed to the creation of black liberation theology. The other was Malcolm X, who identified the struggle as a black struggle. As long as black freedom and the Christian way in race relations were identified exclusively with integration and nonviolence, black theology was not possible. Integration and nonviolence required blacks to turn the other cheek to white brutality, join the mainstream of American society, and do theology without anger and without reference to the history and culture of African-Americans. It meant seeing Christianity exclusively through the eyes of its white interpreters. Malcolm prevents that from happening.

I remember clearly when Malcolm and black power made a decisive and permanent imprint upon my theological consciousness. I was teaching at Adrian College (a predominately white United Methodist institution) in Adrian, Michigan, trying to make sense out of my vocation as a theologian. The black rage that ignited the Newark and Detroit riots in July 1967, killing nearly eighty people, revolutionized my theological consciousness. Nothing in seminary prepared me for this historic moment. It forced me to confront the blackness of my identity and to make theological sense of it.

Martin King helped to define my Christian identity but was silent about the meaning of blackness in a world of white supremacy. His public thinking about the faith was designed to persuade white Christians to take seriously the humanity of Negroes. H challenged whites to be true to what they said in their political and religious documents of freedom and democracy. What King did not initially realize was how deeply flawed white Christian thinking is regarding race and the psychological damage done to the self-image of blacks.

To understand white racism and black rage in America, I turned to Malcolm X and black power. While King accepted white logic, Malcolm rejected it. "When [people] get angry,’ Malcolm said, "they aren’t interested in logic, they aren’t interested in odds, they aren’t interested in consequences. When they get angry, they realize that the condition that they’re in -- that their suffering is unjust, immoral, illegal, and that anything they do to correct it or eliminate it, they’re justified. When you develop that type of anger and speak in that voice, then we’ll get some kind of respect and recognition, and some changes from these people who have been promising us falsely already for far too long."⁴

Malcolm saw more clearly than King the depth and complexity of racism in America, especially in the North. The North was more clever than the South and thus knew how to camouflage its exploitation of black people. White Northern liberals represented themselves as the friends of the Negro and deceived King and many other blacks into believing that they really wanted to achieve racial justice in America. But Malcolm knew better and he exposed their hypocrisy. He called white liberals "foxes" in contrast to Southern "wolves." Malcolm saw no difference between the two, except that one smiles and the other growls when they eat you. Northern white liberals hated Malcolm for his uncompromising, brutal honesty. But blacks, especially the young people, loved him for it. He said publicly what most blacks felt but were afraid to say except privately among themselves.

I first heard Malcolm speak while I was a student at Garrett but I did not really listen to him. I was committed to Martin King and hoped that he would accept the invitation offered him to become a professor of theology at Garrett. I regarded Malcolm as a racist and would have nothing to do with him. Malcolm X did not enter my theological consciousness until I left seminary and was challenged by the rise of the black consciousness movement in the middle of the 1960’s. Black Power, a child of Malcolm, forced me to take a critical look at Martin King and to discover his limits.

It is one thing to recognize that the gospel of Jesus demands justice in race relations and quite another to recognize that it demands that African Americans accept their blackness and reject its white distortions. When I turned to Malcolm, I discovered my blackness and realized that I could never be who I was called to be until I embraced my African heritage -- completely and enthusiastically. Malcolm put the word "black" in black theology. He taught black scholars in religion and many preachers that a colorless Christianity is a joke -- only found in the imaginary world of white theology. It is not found in the real world of white seminaries and churches. Nor is it found in black churches. That black people hate themselves is no accident of history. As I listened to Malcolm and meditated on his analysis of racism in America and the world, I became convinced by his rhetorical virtuosity. Speaking to blacks, his primary audience, he said:

Malcolm challenged black ministers to take a critical look at Christianity, Martin King, and the civil rights movement. The challenge was so deep that we found ourselves affirming what many persons regarded as theological opposites: Martin and Malcolm, civil rights and black power, Christianity and blackness.

Just as Martin King may be regarded as America’s most influential theologian and preacher, Malcolm X may be regarded as America’s most trenchant race critic. As Martin’s theological achievement may be compared to Augustine’s and Luther’s, Malcolm’s race critique is as far-reaching as Marx’s class critique and the current feminist critique of gender. Malcolm was the great master of suspicion in the area of race. No one before or after him analyzed the role of Christianity in promoting racism and its mental and material consequences upon the lives of blacks as Malcolm did. He has no peer.

Even today, whites do not feel comfortable listening to or reading Malcolm. They prefer Martin because he can easily be made more palatable to their way of thinking. That is why we celebrate Martin’s birthday as a national holiday, and nearly every city has a street named in his honor. Many seminaries have a chair in his name, even though their curriculums do not take his theology seriously. When alienated blacks turn to Malcolm, whites turn to Martin, as if they really care about his ideas, which most do not. Whites only care about Martin as a way of undermining the black allegiance to Malcolm.

When Malcolm X was resurrected in Black Power in the second half of the 1960s, whites turned to Martin King. White religious leaders tried to force militant black ministers to choose between Martin and Malcolm, integration and separation, Christianity and Black Power. But we rejected their demand and insisted on the importance of both. The tension between Martin and Malcolm, integration and separation, Christianity and blackness created black theology. It was analogous to the "double-consciousness;" the "two unreconciled strivings," that W.E.B. DuBois wrote about in The Souls of Black Folk in 1903.

Martin King taught black ministers that the meaning of Christianity was inextricably linked with the fight for justice in the society. That was his great contribution to black theology. He gave it its Christian identity, putting the achievement of social justice at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. He did not write a great treatise on the theme of Christianity and justice. He organized a movement that transformed Christian thinking about race and the struggles for justice in America and throughout the world.

Malcolm X taught black ministers and scholars that the identity of African-Americans as a people was inextricably linked with blackness. This was his great contribution to black theology. Malcolm gave black theology its black identity, putting blackness at the center of who we were created to be. Like Martin, Malcolm did not write a scholarly treatise on the theme of blackness and self. He revolutionized black self-understanding with the power of his speech.

The distinctiveness of black theology is the bringing together of Martin and Malcolm in creative tension -- their ideas about Christianity and justice and blackness and self. Neither Martin nor Malcolm sought to do that. The cultural identity of Christianity was not important to Martin because he understood it in the "universal" categories he was taught in graduate school. His main concern was to link the identity of Christianity with social justice, oriented in love and defined by hope.

The Christian identity of the black self was not important to Malcolm X. For him, Christianity was the White man’s religion and thus had to be rejected. Black people, Malcolm contended, needed a black religion, one that would bestow self-respect upon them for being black. Malcolm was not interested in remaking Christianity into a black religion.

The creators of black theology disagreed with both Martin and Malcolm and insisted on the importance of bringing blackness and Christianity together. The beginning of black theology may be dated with the publication of the "Black Power" statement by black religious leaders in the New York Times, July 31, 1966, a few weeks after the rise of Black Power during the James Meredith march in Mississippi. Soon afterward the National Committee of Negro Churchmen was organized as the organizational embodiment of their religious concerns. It did not take long for the word "Black" to replace the word "Negro," as black ministers struggled with the religious meaning of Martin and Malcolm. Christianity and blackness, non-violence and self-defense, "freedom now" and "by any means necessary."

I sat down to write Black Theology and Black Power in the summer of 1968. Martin and Malcolm challenged me to think deep and long about the meaning of Christianity and blackness. Through them, I found my theological voice to articulate the black rage against racism in the society, the churches, and in theology. It was a liberating experience. I knew that most of my former professors at Garrett and Northwestern would have trouble with what I was saying about liberation and Christianity, blackness and the gospel. One even told me that all I was doing was seeking justification for blacks on the Southside and Westside of Chicago to come to Evanston and kill him. But I could not let irrational white fear distract from the intellectual task of exploring the theological meaning of double-consciousness in black people.

Martin and Malcolm symbolize the tension between the African and American heritage of black people. We are still struggling with the tension, and its resolution is nowhere in sight. We can’t resolve it because the social, political, and economic conditions that created it are still with us today. In fact, these conditions are worse today for the black poor, the one third of us who reside primarily in the urban centers like Chicago and New York.

It is appalling that seminaries and divinity schools continue their business as usual -- analyzing so many interesting and irrelevant things -- but ignoring the people who could help us to understand the meaning of black exploitation and rage in this society. Why are two of the most prophetic critics of the church and society marginal in seminary curriculum? If we incorporated Martin’s and Malcolm’s critique of race and religion into our way of thinking, it would revolutionize our way of doing theology, just as class and gender critiques have done.

But taking race seriously is not a comfortable task for whites or blacks. It is not easy for whites to listen to a radical analysis of race because blackness is truly Other to them -- creating a horrible, unspeakable fear. When whites think of evil, they think of black. That is why the word "black" is still the most potent symbol of evil. If whites want to direct attention from an evil that they themselves have committed, they say a black did it. We are the most potent symbols of crime, welfare dependency, sexual harassment, domestic violence, and bad government. Say a black did it, whites will believe you. Some blacks will too.

With black being such a powerful symbol of evil, white theologians avoid writing and talking black theology. Even though black theologians were among the earliest exponents of liberation theology, we are often excluded when panels and conferences are held on the subject. One could hardly imagine a progressive divinity school without a significant interpreter of feminist and Latin American liberation theology. But the same is not true for black theology. The absence of a serious and sustained engagement of black theology in seminaries and divinity schools is not an accident. It happens because Black is the Other -- strange, evil and terrifying.

But theology can never be true to itself in America without engaging blackness, encountering its complex, multi-layered meaning. Theology, as with American society as a whole, can never be true to itself unless it comes to terms with Martin and Malcolm together. Both spoke two different but complementary truths about blackness which white theologians do not want to hear but must hear if we are to create theologies that are liberating and a society that is humane and just for all of its citizens. Only then can we sing, without hypocrisy, with Martin King, along with Malcolm X, the black spiritual, "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last."

Notes:

1. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Which Ways Its Soul Shall Go?", address given 2 August 1967, at a voter registration rally, Louisville, Kentucky, in Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers (Atlanta, Georgia: Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change).

2. Malcolm X, "God’s Angry Men," Los Angeles Herald Dispatch, 1 August 1957.

3. That observation was made to me in a private conversation by theologian Langdon Gilkey of the University of Chicago. It is unfortunate that he never made a disciplined theological argument about King’s theological importance in his published writings. If he had done so, perhaps American white theologians would not have ignored the black freedom struggle and would have been less hostile toward the rise of black liberation theology.

4. Malcolm X Speaks. ed. by George Breitman (New York: Grove Press, 1965), pp. 107-108.

5. See Washington Post, 23 January 1994, p. G6.

(Felix Wilfred is Professor at the Department of Chrisitianity, University of Madras, India.)

When I recall Dr. K.C. Abraham’s great contributions to theology, a threefold "E" comes to my mind: They are Ecumenism, Ethics and EATWOT (Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians). In all these areas he has made his mark. It would be appropriate I thought that in a volume meant to honor him, I should take up for reflection some line of thought that is closer to his own theological vision. With the following reflections on contextual theologies of the Third World, I wish to express my appreciation of this great ecumenical and Third World theologian on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.

One of the stories collected by a popular story-teller in India goes something like this:¹ Once a parachutist found himself caught up in a storm, and he was swept off several kilometers away from his original destination. He landed on the top of a tree, and was only happy his life was saved. He saw someone passing by, and called out to him and asked, "Sir, can you tell me, where I am?" Came the answer, "You are on the top of a tree." The parachutist said." Are you a theologian?" At this the other man was simply wonder-struck. He asked the parachutist. "Yes I am, but how do you know that?". The parachutist replied. "Oh that is easy. Because what you said is correct, but useless!"

Theology can state many correct things, and yet become quite useless and even ridiculous when it fails to identify its topos, its location. A general theology would be a theology on the top of a tree, in the clouds. That is why every theology has to be really located, has to be contextual. This is what the experiences in our Third World societies continue to impress upon us.

In the shorter first part of this article, I will try to highlight the difference of Third World contextual theologies by contrasting it with other types of theology in contemporary times, and in the second part, I shall attempt to delineate in seven sutras (aphorisms) some of the salient features of contextual theologies.

PART I:

Contextual Theology - A Different Approach

There are several ways in which the contemporary trends in theology could be characterized. My purpose is not to go into any detailed survey of these various trends. My purpose here is to highlight the newness and difference represented by contextual theology. With this in view, I would like to make three typologies with one or other of which most theological attempts in recent years could be identified. Against these three types, one will be able to understand better the originality of contextual theologies of the Third World.

1. If we view the developments in and around the Council Vatican II, we can notice how the project of going back to the resources (resourcement) constituted an important force for the renewal in theology that had turned arid through exaggerated ratiocination and speculation. By bringing into theological reflection the early Christian and artistic sources, there came into being the so-called ‘new theology’ (theologie nouvelle). One must acknowledge the merit of this theological enterprise whose influence in the Council and in the post-Conciliar period has been remarkable. It brought greater historical concreteness to faith, to Church, to the Scriptures. It contributed to the overcoming of Tridentism.

This theological orientation has also its implicit hermeneutics. The hermeneutics at work in this type of theology is a hermeneutics of retrieval. The assumption is that the true and authentic lies in the past, in tradition. Consequently the present experiences are judged as either conforming to the tradition or as deviations and distortions to be overcome by recapturing the original. In biblical studies this method of retrieval is exemplified in the historico-critical method which attempts to reconstruct the original setting of the text and the meaning of the author.

Let me illustrate the difference of this theology from contextual theology, with reference to the issue of the local church. A theology of renewal would see the importance of a local church by contrasting it with a centralized and universal ecclesiology of the Middle Ages. It would recall the importance of locality, place. The local of the local church is with reference to the place where eucharistic celebration takes place (epi to auto). It would underline the importance of the Word of God, episcopal ministry, etc. as constituting the essential ingredients of the local church. Further, in contrast to an universalistic and centralized ecclesiology, it would remind us that the Church is a communion of churches.

Contextual theology does not deny the importance of all this. However, its starting point lies somewhere else. It rests on the conviction that the anthropological precedes the theological. This is a very foundational principle. If we begin from the anthropological foundations, then we have to go deep into the world of the culture of a people and its understanding of what is to be a community, and study the already existing forms of togetherness, community, group, etc. Then it has to enter into the conflicts and contradictions that characterize a particular situation and the struggles that are being gone through to become truly a people, a community. A contextual theology of the local church will begin from the cultural reality, from contextual experiences.

2. The second type of theology is one that wants to explain and justify faith in relation to contemporary philosophical and cultural quest. It has a strong anthropological basis in relation to which truths of faith are explained and made relevant. It tries to build a bridge between our faith and philosophy by investigating the transcendental conditions for the possibility of understanding the various truths of our faith by probing into the very foundational structure of the human spirit. We have the foremost representatives of this type of theology in K. Rahner. As expressed in the preface to his Foundations of Christian Faith, his theological intention was "to reach a renewed understanding of this message and to arrive at an ‘idea’ of Christianity . . . and . . . try as far as possible to situate Christianity within the intellectual horizon of people today."² This theology so rich in its speculative rigor and so very influential, turned out to be something which tried to respond mostly to the spiritual and cultural situation of the postwar Europe, and is quite removed from our Third World situation.

3. A third type of theology is represented by a revised co-relational model. It is called "revised" to distinguish it from the co-relational model of liberal tradition. Here the concern is to reinterpret Christianity as well as the contemporary situation in their mutual and critical relationship. At an international seminar held in Tubingen a few years ago, one tried to characterize this type of approach to theology as a paradigm shift. The shift envisaged is from the de-historical post-Tridentine model of theology as the bastion of certitudes to a model in which Christian understanding of faith takes place in the midst of changing modem situations.

Though the theology here is co-relational, nevertheless, one can see that its chief axis is on the interpretation of Christianity and its tradition resulting from the contemporary (Western) situation. In the words of David Tracy who summarized the proceedings of the seminar, "In one sense, this hermeneutical formulation is simply a rendering explicit and deliberate of the fact which unites all forms of theology: that every Christian theology is interpretation of Christianity."

Here lies the chief difference. Contextual theology is not primarily interpretation of Christianity and its tradition. It is interpretation of life and is in service of life and its promotion, and in defense of life when it is threatened. We need to only recall at this point the words of Jesus: "I have come to give life, and life in abundance" (John 10:10). Contextual theology is interpretation of life in concrete context as lived, as practiced. In service of this goal, theoretical frameworks and interpretations come into existence. To the extent Christian faith is brought in relation to the promotion of life and its defense, it acquires the character of a living faith giving birth to a living contextual theology.

The differentiation we have made permits us to glean through some of the features of contextual theologies. With that I come to the second part of this contribution.

PART II:

Some Salient Aspects Of Contextual Theology

Attempting to delineate commonalities of various contextual theologies would go against the spirit and orientation of them. In spite of the unique nature of each particular context, we can observe certain convergences. On this basis, I want to highlight some of the salient features of contextual theology.

By context is not meant simply the geographical locality. The fact that theologies are pursued in Asia, or Latin America does not turn them into contextual theologies. For, as we know from experience, right in the heart of Asia or Africa or Latin America there could be Mediterranean or Central European theology of medieval times very much at work. Context is made up of a people living in a determined cultural environment with its own history and tradition and amidst particular neighbors. Context is made up as well by the contemporary socio-political realities in the midst of which life is carried on. Contextual theology could also come out of particular experiences which cannot be reduced neither to geographical, cultural or socio-political dimensions. Such is the case for example of contextual theology that is pursued by the oppressed dalits of India. Contextual theology is a general designation, and it exists concretely as dalit theology, as eco-feminist theology, black theology, Minjung theology, etc. And in some cases, the geographical factor may circumscribe a particular contextual theology.

Sutra 1

Contextual Theology has no pretension of being a total theology.

The preoccupation of contextual theology is not to construct a comprehensive explanatory system of faith. Contextual theology is only partial and fragmentary, but always engaged and in dialogue. In everyday life-situations when we are faced with critical issues, certain dimensions and aspects of Christian faith get accentuated. No serious Christian would wait for total clarity on all the dimensions of faith, before he or she plunges into action. Such a thing is an unrealistic pretension and it never happens in real life. With the conviction and insight faith gives here and now, we try to respond to vital issues -- not seldom questions of life and death. We try to get enlightened on the situation through the light of the Gospel and bring into the context a sense of hope. In the concrete it means that we cannot have a general Christology or general ecclesiology. We get to know who Jesus Christ is concretely in the context. So too, what it is to be a community of the disciples of Jesus will depend very much on the context and not who our neighbors are.

All true theology can only be partial. Expressing paradoxically we can say that, precisely because the Ultimate Reality is total, all our theology can only be partial. This is not something new. In fact it has always been so. But the difference is that certain theologies claimed to be total theologies are unaware of the fact that they were only universalizing what has been a particular, historically and culturally limited experience. Let us take the example of Christology. There is the general assumption that the Chalcedonian formula has given us in a nutshell the essence of Christ’s mystery. And yet we know that this formula does not express all the aspects of the mystery of Jesus Christ. Where in Chalcedonian formula is the mystery of Jesus’ death, his passion and resurrection?

The partial and provisional character of contextual theologies are not to be understood as though they are waiting to be completed and made definite. Rather the partial and provisional character is the strength of contextual theology rather than its weakness. For, in this way, contextual theology understands itself as always on the way, always in search of new and wider horizons.

Here I would like to recall an experience narrated to me by a friend from Nepal who is an expert also in Buddhism. He took a group of theology students to a Buddhist monastery. After the chief monk spoke, the young students were vying with each other in putting critical questions to the monk. One of them argued this way: If Buddhism teaches that desire is the root cause of all suffering and that we should free ourselves from desires, then, there will still remain at least one desire the desire not to have desires. Perfect logic, of course! But the response of the experienced monk was simple: "This means, my friend," said the monk, you are not yet ready for Enlightenment."

We need to first walk a bit on the path to experience and understand it. This is how every authentic theology needs to begin. But where does this path lie? Life is today the path on which we encounter God, and it is in walking on the path of life in a determined context that true contextual theology takes flesh and bone.

Sutra 2

Contextual theology is one that is sustained and nourished by a definite option. It is nothing but the very option of God for the poor, the powerless and the marginalized.

In its analysis, formulation, choice of sources, etc. contextual theology is centered on what happens to those who are continuously pushed to the margins of society. It is through identification with the excluded that contextual theology derives its power and incisiveness; it acquires its true evangelic character.

If it is true that the quality of a civilization is judged ultimately not by anything else but by the way it treats its weaker ones, this can be applied in a way to theologies too. The various theologies can be judged on the basis of the extent the poor figure in its overall framework and orientation.

What is remarkable is the fact that this definite option of contextual theology represents a crucial turning point in the history of theology. For, if we look back the path theology has traversed, we can note that for the past one thousand years the central preoccupation of theology has been to assert its scientific character and within this dynamic to reconcile the demands of reason with the truths of faith. As I see, the different theologies since then have been variations on this fundamental motif or paradigm.

It is for the first time with the emergence of contextual theologies of the Third World, this foundational scientific paradigm of theology has been broken. And that explains much of the conflict and misunderstanding between the classical theologies of the First World and theologies of the Third World. Through what may appear as loss of its scientific character, contextual theology gains in its evangelical quality. It is not a matter of bidding good-bye to reason, but to rediscover reason through another path. Here is the case, wherein, to quote Pascal, "the heart has its reasons which the reason does not understand." Here is the case in which -- to state with contemporary Taiwanese theologian C.S. Song -- theology starts with the aching of the heart. This option for the poor and the marginalized will turn all contextual theologies into truly theologies of the heart, into theologies of liberation. If the option for the marginalized impregnates contextual theology with evangelical spirit, it is the same Gospel which demands it to be truly prophetic.

Sutra 3

Contextual theology calls for a different conception of universality.

Relating particularity with universality is one of the crucial philosophical questions of today which has far-reaching consequences and implications in all fields -- political, cultural, economic, religious, etc. The same problem is reflected in the field of theology also. The problem is concretely posed in terms of how we could reconcile the universality of faith or the Gospel and the particularity of theology as represented by contextual theologies.

In the first place, it is not proper to contrast the universality of faith with the particularity of the context. For, faith or Gospel is as much particular, concrete as it is universal. The problem lies somewhere else. What is required is that we need to revise and redefine our conception of universality. In other words, contextual theology requires revision of the dominant understanding of the universal which is still very much marked by the ecclesial praxis and attitudes of 19^th century Europe.

We gain a proper understanding of the question involved if we widen our perspective and view it as part of the larger question of the relationship between the Gospel and culture. There is a sense in which we can and ought to speak of faith being above cultures. But what is meant by "above" is not simply that we refer to a "transcendental signified" existing outside the concrete encounter of the Gospel and culture. If we have truly various cultural forms of faith, we need to also recognize that none of them is capable of expressing all the aspects and dimensions of faith. Every form stands in relation to others. What we call "above" is in reality the recognition of the inherent limitations of each cultural form of faith-expression and an invitation to reach out to other forms through dialogue. There takes place, then, truly a communion of faith which is at the same time a communion of cultures. This dialogue and communion are truly the way for saving the faith from being reduced to any one particular self-enclosed cultural form. Such a dialogue appears to be also the best way to effectively maintain the authenticity and orthodoxy of our faith.

Implicit in all this is the difference in the understanding of universality. No culture, no people, no institution can lay claim that Christian faith is its possession. It belongs to the whole of humanity, to all the peoples. The problem arises when one culture, one tradition pretends to be the judge and the normative instance for the faith of other peoples, other cultures and other traditions. Here then arises the conflict of universalities. To those who believe that the expression "inculturation" could still be redeemed from the misconceptions to which it is open, it should be made clear that such redemption would require, in the first place, the undergirding of the concept with a fresh and different conception of universality. If we arrive at the realization that faith is above cultures through the recognition of the limitation of all its particular expressions, we become aware of its universality by recognizing the richness of each and every cultural expression of the same faith.

In other words, we need to recognize that there is transcendence of faith. It is above cultures. But this "above" or transcendence is not achieved by creating a form of formula that is supposed to be common to all, or a form that would not belong to anyone. Rather, the "above" is primarily in the fact that no culture is able to adequately express the Christian faith, and therefore the concrete forms of Christianity as lived among the various peoples need to be in dialogue and communion with one another. Unfortunately, because of excessive centralization such a process of horizontal dialogue among people of different cultures has not really started.

In short, contextual theology calls for both rootedness and openness. None of these two poles can be given up. What that signifies could be gleaned through a thought that Gandhi made in some other context. He said that he wanted the doors and windows of his house to be wide open, but refused to be blown off his feet.

Sutra 4

Practice of Dialogue is the foundational method of all contextual theologies.

Method is a central issue in every theologizing. It also marks off one theology from the other. Where theology has been conceived as an intellectual activity, method served to build up a system of explanation for the understanding of faith -- fides quaerens intellectum. But when we understand theology as having its point of departure in the real and is centered on life, then we need a method that corresponds to such an-approach. Dialogue is the process and method through which contextual theologizing takes place. I think it is appropriate to perceive contextual theology today as "vita quaerens dialogum" (life-seeking dialogue). Dialogue is open-ended. It is the pedagogue leading us by hand into the wondrous land of the Ultimate Mystery. The path of contextual theology is not so much one from faith to the clarity of knowledge about it, but rather a movement from life to the faith-experience of its mystery through the process of dialogue. Knowledge and understanding do have a role; they are not excluded, but subsumed into the process of dialogue.

Dialogue is involved on many fronts. The exigencies of a particular context will set the accent on one or other form of dialogue. Contextual theology means, among other things, entering into a fresh dialogical relationship with our roots, our own cultures, our own primordial language through which we are, and experience the world. Particularly important is the dialogue we foster with our neighbors of other faiths with whom we share the same context of life.

Ultimately, the method of dialogue goes to the very heart of theology itself. For, we understand the divine mystery not so much as a substance as relationship. In fact, St. John reminds us repeatedly in his Gospel and letters, that God is love. The dialogical relationship in love fostered among human beings becomes the appropriate language and sacrament for the experience and expression of the divine mystery.

In the light of all this, we can say that there is no greater preparation for doing contextual theology than to increase the capacity for dialogue. That also indicates something of the type of theological programs required in our Third World countries and the type of theologians we require.

Sutra 5

Contextual theology is based on the conviction that God’s saving Word comes to us today concretely within our context and our historical circumstances. Context, therefore, is not only a place of questions but also of saving answers.

The goal of contextual theology is the encounter with the real. It is in the immersion of the real that one comes to experience the truth. That is precisely what incarnation is. In recognizing and encountering the real of every context we recognize the truth of God’s Word here and now. In this way, incarnation ceases to be simply an event of the past, and it becomes the very structure of our faith whereby we constantly encounter the real of God in every moment of our context. Otherwise, as Jon Sobrino rightly points out, "it would be contradictory to say that God really communicates himself in history and at the same time to say that this history nowhere perceives such a communication of God."⁴

The spirit behind contextual theology is that today Christianity needs to have at least as much confidence and trust in the present grace of God and in what God is revealing today, as in the grace of his past revelation embodied in tradition. In methodological terms, contextual theology breaks the simplistic framework according to which the context would be that from where questions emerge and Christian tradition are reservoirs from which the answers are derived. If we take earnestly that the present self-revelation of God in our context is part of our Christian faith, then the context is not only a place of questions, but that it contains indications for answers as well which need to be discerned through the process of dialogue. In other words, the context is itself part of the answer. This, I think, is a principle, which the experience of any authentic contextual theology will confirm. And that indicates also the different attitude of contextual theologies to the past tradition.

To express it differently, once we are really convinced that there can be no such thing as universal theology, nor can there be, on the other hand, any pretension on the part of the contextual theology to be total theology, then these convictions will naturally bear upon the relationship of contextual theologies to tradition. Congar once remarked that Christianity does not begin every time from zero.⁵ One can hardly dispute the truth of such a statement. But we need to add in the same breath that the past tradition of Christianity may not be equally applicable to all contexts. That would be to contradict the very spirit and nature of contextual theology. In any case, we cannot build everything of our future on a past in which we do not fully recognize ourselves.

As the present experience of God’s self-manifestation and the challenges it brings will be the entry point for a discerning appropriation of the Christian past, one will discern all those things which really contribute to the present. A contextual theology which is sensitive to listen to the speaking of God today will also be in a position to discern from the Christian past also those things which enable it to listen to his Words today and translate them into action. Such a starting point places us also in a position of openness and dialogue with our neighbors of other faiths.

Sutra 6

Contextual theology is one which is in constant dialogue with other sciences

This dialogue needs to be understood in its proper perspective. The motive behind this call for dialogue is not because theology is a science, and therefore it needs to relate to other sciences. Rather it is because the promotion of the grace of life, which is the vocation of theology, demands the enlisting of the support of all sciences that can throw light on the reality of life and help to respond to its contemporary exigencies. It is a common experience today that the sciences insulate themselves and thus believe to maintain their autonomy. We are far from an organic, integral and holistic vision. The fragmentation of knowledge that is happening today is one of the chief causes for the fragmentation of life in its integral nature.

Contextual theology is an attempt to gain the wholistic approach to God-given life. And in this task, theology cannot rely exclusively on any one single discipline. In the classical approaches of the past as well as in the continuation of those traditions in present times, philosophy has taken a prominent place as the science most congenial to theological enterprise. This is understandable in a situation in which the major preoccupation was to harmonize reason and faith, or faith with the modern thought. But today in our Third World contexts, for obvious reasons, theological enterprise needs to be nurtured by other disciplines such as social sciences, cultural anthropology, study of religions, political sciences, economy, etc. Theology in our Third World societies can ignore dialogue with such sciences only at the risk of betraying its vocation. But one more important word needs to be added. We envisage these sciences to be critical and not simply descriptive and functional. It is in relationship with critical sciences that theology will come to expression as a prophetic enterprise.

Today, sociology of knowledge has made it amply clear that there is nothing like a neutral standpoint. All human and social sciences have their orientation and choice. It is of decisive importance for contextual theology. which instruments, which tools it employs in analyzing, understanding and interpreting the realities around. In its dialogue with these sciences, authentic contextual theology will be guided by its fundamental option of being on the side of the powerless, on the side of the victims.

Sutra 7

In contextual theology, it is people themselves who do theologizing and in this process from their own resources.

The professional theologians have a subordinate role in so far as they help to formulate and articulate what emerges from peoples’ encounter with the realities of their context. Even to be able to do this service, the professional theologian has to immerse herself into the experiences and life-realities of the people.

As experience testifies, the most innovative and creative theology taking place today is not in academic centers or institutes of higher learning, but right in the midst of the conflicts and contradictions of everyday life.

When people are the subjects of contextual theology, the resources they employ will also be different. They will not be far-fetched, but closer to their everyday life and experience. I do not intend to present any comprehensive list of such resources. Speaking from Indian experience, I could think of, for example, in the context of dalit theology, the importance of the forgotten stories of their origin which are so very crucial to reconstruct their identity as a people. Then, there are the streams of neglected Indic religious traditions which differ from the classical Brahminic sources. We have the dalit versions of the classical epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana, in which we find reversal of roles -- the heroes of the classics turned into villains and those vilified get reinstated as heroes. In modem times, the emergence of dalit literature in almost all the Indian languages is a very remarkable phenomenon.⁶ They constitute a very important resource for the dalit people for the development of a dalit theology from out of their world of experiences. The same can be said of the tribal people in their development of a truly tribal theology.

The implications of people being the subject of theology and for employing their own resources, could be illustrated by an example. For the past one hundred years, in one form or other, there developed an Indian Christian theology. Analyzing it, we note how it has been a theology which tried to express Christian truths through the help of categories drawn from the dominant Sanskritic culture and tradition. In my view, such a theology, though taking place in India, in the Third World, does not merit to be called contextual theology. It is not a theology by the people -- the oppressed and suffering -- who would not certainly employ the tools and resources of the upper castes and classes. On the other hand, dalit theology, tribal theology are examples of true contextual theologies. Similarly, one may attempt to do theology in Sri Lanka by trying to relate with the religious world of Buddhism. And yet, it would not be a contextual theology if it fails to start from the traumatic experiences of people themselves caught in the midst of the Tamil-Sinhalese bloody ethnic conflict.

CONCLUSION

Now, to conclude, one of the early Christian writers if I rightly remember, Dionysius the Aeropagite said something like this: God’s center is everywhere and his circumference is nowhere. What he said of God is true of theology as well. There is no center for theology, for it could spring up from anywhere, from any context. It has no circumference either, because every contextual theology knows that it has not fully exhausted the mystery of God or the human, and therefore is open and in dialogue with other contextual theologies.

Contextual theology belongs to the realm of organic realities and not to the world of architechtonics. Its growth needs to be understood not in terms of a building as that of a tree. And no tree grows according to standardized patterns or pre-set programs. It has an inherent dynamics of its own, and it unfolds itself in its splendorous beauty overshadowing the world of architechtonics. It is this same dynamics which symbolizes the power of the inexhaustible mystery of the divine and the human.

With contextual theologies we stand in the face of a rich theological pluralism. In each context the truth of God’s self-communication acquires new light, new accent and emphasis. The basic pattern of God’s self-revelation as life and grace, on the one hand, and the response in human freedom through faith and deeds to the same revelation, on the other, is such a complex and multifaceted reality that it can never be imprisoned in any one single mould. It takes all the different contexts of the world to have a glimpse into the great mystery of the continuing dialogue between the divine and the human. Attempting to express it calls for a different language on our lips and a new departure into the endless horizons of that mystery into which we ourselves and our life-contexts are enveloped.

When our words fail, poetic intuitions come to our aid. Let me then conclude with the words of Rabindranath Tagore, a great modern poet of India, to say what kind of feelings and excitement the venture of contextual theology could bring to our hearts:

When old words die out on the tongue

New melodies break forth from the heart

And where the old tracks are lost

New country is revealed with its wonders⁷

Notes:

1. Anthony D’Mello, The Prayer of the Frog. Book of Story Meditations (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1988), p. 88. 1 have adapted the story to suit the theme on hand.

2. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith. An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (London: Darton. Longman & Todd, 1978), p. xi.

3. David Tracy. "Some Concluding Reflections on the Conference" in Hans Kung, David Tracy (eds.). Paradigm Change in Theology. A Symposium for the Future (Edinburgh:, T. & T. Clark Ltd, 1989), p. 462. Emphasis mine.

4. Jon Sobrino, ‘Theology in the Third World. Reflections from El Salvador" in T. K. John (ed.), Bread and Breath. Essays in Honor of Samuel Rayan S.J. (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1991), p. 36.

5. Cf. Y. Congar. "Christianisme comme foi et comme culture," in Evangelizzazione e Culture. Vol. I (Rome: Pontificia Universita Urbaniana, 1976), p. 99.

6. By way of example. I refer here just one work that has recently appeared: Arjun Dnagle, Poisoned Bread. Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1994).

7. Rabindranath Tagore. Gitanjali (Delhi-New York: Macmillan, 1918). no. 37.

(Milan Opocensky is Executive Secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, Geneva.)

I

Theological Critique of Post-Modernism

In the first part of my letter I wish to deal with some characteristics of our present era at the end of the millennium. It is in contrast to previous periods in the 19th and 20th centuries when people were proud of being modem. Does it still hold? Is it true that we live in modem times? Probably it does not apply to all part of the world equally but it is suggested because our world has radically changed and we live in a new epoch. After 1945 some thinkers spoke about the atomic age with its perils and threats to which we have gradually become immune. But there are other forces which shake the foundations of civilization and render traditional values empty and invalid. You have to judge for yourselves to what extent my comments are applicable to the situation in South Africa.

It seems that post modernism is the new philosophical background of our theological reflection and the entire Christian existence. It is a new feeling. It is a new mentality which is widely spread in the consumer societies of the affluent North. However, there are pockets of luxury and affluence in the South. Visit the Waterfront in Cape Town and you will understand what I am talking about.

According to D. Sölle,¹ nowadays the only untouchable value is tolerance. In the time of Enlightenment tolerance was essential and important in the process of seeking for truth. This is no longer the case. Today there are many non-committal truths. In place of identity there is diverse and divergent thought.

We are told that any discourse has its right. Therefore, we can speak about important concepts and values in the plural. In the aesthetic sphere "anything goes." For example, if we examine the fashion and how people dress, then indeed one comes to the conclusion that there are no rules and no regulations. The consequences for the moral sphere is radical openness. The ideal is an open person who is not impressed by anything that is absolute. The time of absolute claims is over. We have to learn to live in the jungle of what is relative and penultimate. Nothing is firm, reliable and dependable. Can a human being bear such a spiritual atmosphere?

Post-modern thinkers react to the shock of totalitarianism. They sense a kind of totalitarian thinking whenever a discourse about progress, emancipation and humanization becomes the master discourse. Anything that claims to be leading and determining is suspect. Whenever a discourse claims a special authority there is a danger of terror. In this context utopia is criticized. According to the post-modernists the utopian thinking of modem times proved to be the most merciless enemy of the people. How can we reconcile this position with the high esteem of G. Gutiérrez for utopian thinking and the expectation that a Christian community should always produce new utopias?

It is counterproductive to protest against capitalism and its recklessness. It is a sign of strength that the capitalist system has liquidated all that is noble and sacred. There is no place for solidarity. The world becomes a market and the market is god. Concepts such as suffering, struggle and solidarity should be put aside.

It is not important to better the world through struggle for peace, justice and a human environment. What really matters is the liberation of an individual. It can be achieved by immersion in the hedonistic world. People are told that sexual freedom and porno-culture are vehicles of human happiness and fulfillment. The ideal is no longer the well-being of a larger community or society. We are guided to be concerned primarily about our individual life and its success. Why bother about history, theory and metaphysics? The question of what is true and false, genuine and fake, profound and shallow is irrelevant. Humans should examine their feelings (Does it feel good?) and perhaps aesthetic experiences. You cannot be happy without being fit, without undergoing sophisticated cosmetic surgery and without regularly being exposed to the super markets of the inner city. The post-modem culture has cancelled any meaning. The real meaning lies in our becoming uncritical consumers who enjoy the present moment and are often manipulated by the market and by the flood of advertisements. Fifth Avenue in New York, Oxford Street in London or Kurfürstendamm in Berlin are the cathedrals and temples of post-modern times waiting for their worshippers who have sacrificed their lives to the idol of the possession syndrome.

It is quite obvious that the biblical (Jewish-Christian) tradition is opposed to the post-modern liberal culture as described above. The post-modern discourse rejects the polarity between life and death, good and evil, love and sin. Our culture is apathetic -- it refuses to recognize suffering and to speak about suffering. And yet, the world is full of painful contradictions. However, in order to avoid the impact of pain and suffering, the tensions and contradictions should be made muddy and invisible.

Biblical reflection is based on memory. "Your God executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and loves the strangers. . . . You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Deut. 10:17ff.). Memory and remembering, retelling the story of God’s people is dangerous. Nowadays the market is an idol, a holy place. Everything should be geared to the conditions and demands of the market. In the situation of market predominance the principal virtue is tolerance, which is forgetful and bears everything. The idol demands many sacrifices but they should not be remembered. A broad and magnanimous tolerance cannot tolerate the utopia of the future, the anticipation of freedom and of a common hope for a more equitable life on earth.

The post-modern philosophy eliminates any meta-discourse. We should not be bothered by thinking beyond our immediate needs and feelings mediated by the culture of fun and pleasure. Ideas of preceding modern times are useless. Let us forget the great designs of the Enlightenment and idealist Philosophy. Let us stop critical questioning because it loses its meaning and value. Let us forget everything between input and output. It is irrelevant whether Korean workers sleep on the floor of factories in order to save time spent in commuting. Let us put aside the difference between the elite and the mass culture. Let us try to avoid conflict stemming from a critical attitude. We live in a world where nothing is binding. There is a programed and calculated lack of overview. Our world seems to be a wonderful cultural supermarket. And yet, if we look more closely it is obvious that the perennial problems of personal and collective human existence remain. The features of need and misery may be different, but under the glittering surface we are confronted with all forms of money, power and domination.

Today, as yesterday and tomorrow, we cannot resign ourselves to the idea that there is no reason in history. Humans cannot give up seeking for truth and asking about God. We need to generate new utopias which will motivate us to struggle for a more humane and inhabitable world. We have to analyze the existing forms of escape from reality. One possibility is self-denial which is preached by fundamentalism, leading people into immaturity. Another form is reckless self-affirmation and concentration on one’s own life and individual pursuit of happiness.

Our task remains to tell the story of God’s liberation and salvation. By doing so we strengthen the dignity of human beings and sharpen the conscience of people. It is important to constantly unmask the idols and false gods. We have to cultivate the memory highlighting the suffering and infinite value of dignified life (human life and life in general). Finally, we have to resist the temptation to bless the mechanism of modern society. Post-modern society expects the Christian community to bless and so to legitimatize its ethos. The only answer to such advice has to be the unequivocal refusal and denial of such an invitation. We have to learn what it means to be "in the world but not of the world" (John 17: 14ff).

II

Christian Political Responsibility

There is no doubt that South Africa finds itself at an historic cross road. No wonder that churches in South Africa tackle the question of political responsibility in a new and urgent way. For all of us it is constantly a pressing question: What is our personal and communal political responsibility? Not only in South Africa but also in Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Botswana -- in many other African and non-African countries -- we are confronted with this difficult and urgent question.

You are not newcomers to some of these questions. We have been moved by the Belhar Confession. We have been moved and encouraged by the KAIROS document. Like the Barmen Declaration of the Confessing Church in Germany (1934) some of these statements are not only your statements and documents, these pronouncements have become our common property -- they belong to all of us in the Church Universal. I wish to express our gratitude for your struggle, inspiration, insights and encouragement.

Christian Existence is Always Political

Let me say simply that the political dimension is a part and parcel of our human existence. We cannot escape the fact that we are all political beings because we participate in political life and by our stance we influence political processes. Also a Christian community is a political factor which should not be underestimated. We am all enmeshed in political life and we should reflect this reality. Even if we say that we are apolitical -- that we don’t wish to deal with political decisions and that we withdraw from the political arena -- we are taking a political decision. Those who claim to be apolitical usually side with and support the forces of status quo.

If we speak about Christian political responsibility we say that our ethics is a political ethics of responsibility and that we derive our norms and principles from the Gospel. In our political decision-making we wish to respond to the claim of the Gospel. The Gospel comes to us as a promise -- but at the same time the Gospel claims us -- claims our entire existence -- our being a political animal. We respond to the claim of the Gospel -- we are as much responsible as we are faithful in our response to the Gospel. We have constantly to ask what is the concrete claim of the Gospel on us and whether we are obedient and faithfully respond to this claim. Each situation requires a new hearing of the Word, our asking what the will of God is a fresh and genuine decision.

The Abuse of Biblical Texts

For centuries the Bible nourished and sustained the Christian community in a unique way. However, we are also heirs of a false and one sided understanding of the biblical texts which deal with the Christian attitude towards a state and authorities. The dominating and widely agreed theology is often a theology which serves the interests of the rulers. Some classical biblical texts have been used and abused in order to affirm the necessity of uncritical obedience and submission. It is our first task to reinterpret certain texts and to teach our congregations what is the original intention of the biblical message.

For a moment, let us examine the text: Fear God, honor the emperor (1 Peter 2:17). It has to be seen in the context of the situation of the early Christian church. It is a situation on the brink of persecution. The overall ethos has been influenced by the Aristotelian political philosophy which later was embraced by the Stoic philosophy. It is an attitude of patriarchal domination in state, in household and in marriage. This ethos emphasizes law and order. In the interest of survival Christians should follow the strategy of accommodation. This is not, however, the only strategy which is proposed by the New Testament. For example, the prophetic author of Revelation sees the embodiment of Antichrist in the emperor and in Rome. The book of Revelation challenges Christians to oppose oppressive power and to accept the risk of imprisonment and death. Whenever the slaves converted to Judaism or the Christian faith the common order of the household was threatened and in this way the political setup of the state was also challenged. The non-Christian attacks make clear that Christians were considered politically subversive in the second and third centuries. Let us not forget that Jesus himself was condemned as a subversive and revolutionary who for some adversaries was also close to the zealots. It seems that the author of the First Letter of Peter wants to weaken the critical arguments against Christians. This writer understands Christian calling as a religious vocation -- it is primarily a spiritual existence. It should be clear that a Christian way of life is not in opposition to the accepted order of a household and of a state. Although we may understand the intention of the author, it is unfortunate that in the long run the strategy of survival has introduced the patriarchal ethos and domestication into the Church. Obedience and the spiritualized message of the Gospel replaced the genuine version of equality. We should bear in mind that not submission, order and obedience but this vision of equality of all races and cultures is one of the peaks of the Gospel.

The First Letter of Peter has to be seen in its proper context. In the same way Romans 13 should be understood not as a universal doctrine of state but as an apostolic pastoral word in the particular, unique situation of a Christian community in Rome. Subordination should not be interpreted as blind obedience (Kadavergehorsam). The Apostle Paul offers pastoral guidance in the difficult question of a Christian attitude vis-à-vis local and regional political authorities. Paul does not speak about the limits of these governing bodies -- he does not speak about the conflicts either. Paul speaks out of fear of anarchy -- he writes against the enthusiastic inclinations. We cannot deny the one-sidedness of Paul’s position and a certain weakness in his argument which has been abused and misinterpreted throughout history by the theology of the court (Hoftheologie) and by the rulers. Paul neither glorifies nor demonizes power. However, political power and political violence in its dialectic is not his theme. The text is short of dialectics which is necessary for dealing with a democratic process. However, in spite of this shortcoming, there is the binding lesson for all of us that we are called to serve God in the political arena.

Barmen 1934 (Thesis 5)

I wish to call your attention to the fifth thesis of the Barmen Declaration of 1934. This was the very beginning of the Nazi era. It was necessary to say a clarifying word in a situation where the Christian faith was contaminated by the ideology which was uncritically glorifying the state, German ethnicity, German mythology and Germans as Herrenvolk superior to other nations. It was the beginning of a racist period which led to the extermination of 6 million Jews and to activities and crimes committed in many other nations. Already in the Thirties we have been confronted with "ethnic cleansing." It was necessary to say that not Jesus Christ mixed-up with the ideology of "Blut und Boden" would do but that Jesus Christ is the only Word of God.

The fifth thesis says that we exist in the as yet unredeemed world. Also the Church exists in the as yet unredeemed world. The state has been appointed by God to provide for justice and peace. It fulfils this task by means of threats and exercise of force according to the measure of human judgment and human ability. The Church’s task is not to glorify the state -- to be passive or to be subservient to the state. In gratitude the Church acknowledges the benefit of the divine appointment of the institution for providing justice and peace. The Church calls to mind the Kingdom of God, God’s rule, God’s commandment and righteousness. By doing so, the Church reminds us of the responsibility both of rulers and of the ruled. By referring to the Kingdom of God the Church constantly reminds the state of its original appointment and calling. The Church does not trust and obey the state in the first place. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word by which God upholds all things. The doctrine is rejected as though the state should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life. On the other hand, the Church should not usurp the commission and the dignity of the state. In recent times-almost 60 years ago -- this was an authentic interpretation of the role of the state and of the political responsibility of a Christian community.

In the New Testament there is a polarity between Romans 13 and Revelation 13 -- between honoring the state and resisting the state. It is an indication that the institution of a state is not a priori good. The state can pervert -- it can become inhuman and anti-human. The Apostle challenges us to struggle against the demonic forces of our times. "We are contending not against the flesh and blood but against principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness . . ." (Eph. 6:12). The political powers are not isolated, autonomous (eigengesetzlich). They are related to Christ and Christ’s work is related to them as well. Regarding the state and political arena Christians have a perspective of hope. The political institutions can degenerate and can be perverted but this is not a fatum -- a necessity. Because we know of the heavenly Jerusalem we cannot make any state of this world into an idol.

Prophetic But Not Arrogant

Christians should pray for all people, especially for those in positions of authority and power. By its prayer, a Christian community carries and upholds the existence of the polis. Prayer and intercession for those who hold state power is one of the basic political tasks of the Church. If the Church forgets to fulfil this task, the Church ceases to be a church. Intercession for the state is the most central task of a church. If the state is perverted and dehumanized, if brutality and injustice reign, this institution requires our responsibility and our intercessions even more; it is our noble duty to pray for the state so that the state continues as a state in which law and justice prevail. We are responsible whether a state will be a Reichtstaat -- a state in which law and justice prevail. Hypotassesthai tini -- hypotage does not mean a blind submission and subordination but a thoughtful and active respect. A Christian is not called to be submissive. A Christian believer is free in Christ and through Christ -- therefore he/ she is responsible for the entire society which surrounds a Christian community. Because we believe in Jesus Christ as the head of the entire world we take upon ourselves the responsibility for the polis -- for the political form of society in which we live. We should participate in the process of seeking the best and the most appropriate system of political life. If South Africa today is looking for a new political system, Christians should be and must be a part of this process. Because we know of the Kingdom of God, we know the limits of all political systems. It is our duty to come up with critical questions; it is our obligation to be prophetic without being arrogant.

Christians are not indifferent with regard to the forms of political rule. We have to differentiate between order and arbitrariness, between orderly rule and tyranny, between freedom and anarchy. We have to look for a political system which serves the interest of human beings in the best way. We should favour a system which gives freedom of decision-making, freedom of expression, freedom of human existence. Sometimes these freedoms may be limited but they cannot be forgotten or denied. A Christian community is opposed to any kind of dictatorship. Political freedom is not an invitation to arbitrariness but it is a space in which we should exercise our political responsibility. Christians favor a political mechanism which is open and transparent. Any kind of secrecy and hiddenness is in contradiction to a true democracy which is based on mutual control of power. In the long run, secret diplomacy and mafia-like associations are a threat to democracy.

To Proclaim the Kingdom of God

Soon after the Second World War Karl Barth gave some lectures in Bonn, Berlin and other places in Germany in which he tried to reason theologically why it was right and necessary to embrace a socially-oriented democracy. It seems timely for South Africans to recall some of these arguments.

The word of God is both the promise of God’s forgiveness and the claim to our entire life. This makes it impossible to interpret the Gospel in an abstract, theoretical and private (individualistic) sense. We have to be vigilant with regard to structures and institutions. We are not called to bless uncritically the status quo.

The Christian community should not be absorbed by and dissolved in a society or in a state. We should keep a necessary critical distance. If we exercise our political responsibility we should not deny the fact that we are PAROIKOL -- that we are a communion of pilgrims (communio viatorum). We are seekers of the city which is to come (Heb. 13:14). And yet, we have to exercise our political responsibility in this world and for this world - each of us in our respective society, region and political community.

A Christian attitude towards a political realm is differentiated. A Christian community says NO to any absolutist ideology which comes with totalitarian claims. It says YES to a state which is religiously neutral. It is open to a reasonable argumentation in the political realm.

Because God in Jesus Christ became human and is linked with us in spite of our godlessness, human well-being and dignity will be a criterion of all things. Because of the humanity of God we are constantly engaged in the struggle for humaneness and humanization in communal life. Therefore, a Christian community struggles for structures which make possible, defend and protect a fully human life.

Because we know of God’s justice and justification by faith, we can differentiate between God’s justice and human efforts for social and political justice. There is a difference but there is a link between these two levels. We are called to struggle for a justice which gives the possibility of life and of social security.

In Christ we are liberated from powers and principalities which enslave us. We proclaim the ultimate freedom in Jesus Christ. The Gospel equally calls us to struggle against any physical, psychic slavery, against exploitation and manipulation.

The Gospel proclaims reconciliation between God and this world in Jesus Christ. Peace on earth and among people cannot be put on the same level, and yet it cannot be separated from God’s work of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18). Christ has entrusted us with the message of reconciliation. A Christian community has the responsibility to work for peace in freedom and justice in human society, against hatred and violence.

Our unique and irreplaceable political task is to proclaim the Kingdom of God. By doing so, we indicate certain limits for any human society and community which has an inherent tendency to absolutize itself. By being political (non-political) we usually confirm and sanctify the status quo.

From time to time a Christian may feel compelled to issue an explicit political statement. There is no definable boundary between the pure questions of faith and questions of estimation (Glaubensfragen and Ermessensfragen). Political themes and questions are part and parcel of our preaching and proclamation of the Gospel. We do not live in a vacuum which is totally free from the political issues of today and tomorrow.

The Word of God is concrete, personal and political, and speaks to a concrete situation. In a given situation we should ask ourselves whether we are sufficiently informed and whether we faithfully listen to God’s commandment.

For the South Africa of Tomorrow

In conclusion I would like to commend the KAIROS document. It is an inspiration for all people and especially religious communities which struggle against oppression and dehumanization. However, it seems to me that starting with the KAIROS document Christian churches and communities have to go beyond KAIROS. In this section I draw on the insights of Julian Kunnie.

1) Although it seems that the basic laws of apartheid have been dismantled, there are still important mechanisms in place. It is important to help people to be liberated from apartheid mentality. The South African state still represents a colonial power and machinery. A Christian community in this country is called to introduce such programs in its activity and education which would help people to be liberated from the colonial mind and apartheid mentality. The sin of apartheid lies in the fact that African people in their own land were exposed to the policy of disfranchisement, disinheritance and de-Africanization. I submit that churches themselves are captives of colonialism and apartheid. They are products of this history. This society needs to be liberated from its settler-colonial heritage. The idea of democratic state institutions needs to be fostered and promoted. Julian Kunnie says that in South Africa the state is non-existent -- only a colonial apparatus is. It is the responsibility of Christian churches to be a part of the process introducing a democratically functioning state. It is the primary role of the Uniting Church to make people in this country understand that in the long mm the future lies with the indigenous population.

2) In the KAIROS document I miss a thorough class analysis. What will be the future economic orientation of this country? In many parts of the world the capitalist market economy is considered detrimental to the interests of indigenous people. A Christian community cannot promote uncritically a system which is based on greed, profit-making, exploitation and commodification of all social relations. This kind of system is socially destructive. The market economy cannot be a goal in itself -- it is an instrument of economic mechanism. The failure of socialist economy in Eastern Europe should not hinder Christians from looking for an alternative to the prevailing world economic system. The failure of command economy should not be considered as a victory and justification of capitalism. Frank Chikane has said: "A vision of justice should be combined with political realism and prudence so that foreign investors do not ignore South Africa."

3) It is necessary to pay attention to the situation of women in church and society. They experience triple oppression: classism, racism and sexism, which are intertwined. The contribution of women to the struggle against apartheid has been considerable.

The immediate program in South Africa is decolonization, liberation from apartheid with all its ramifications, de-Europeanization, reAfricanization, socialization -- by which I mean social security, medical care, security for aged people. In all these areas women have a great role to play. And it is a Christian community where women can be conscientized for their active role in society. I hope that the absence of women in he leadership of African churches does not suggest the domestication and patriarchal oppression continue in churches. African women should be actively involved in the shaping of the future South Africa. This process should start in the churches in the first place.

4) Another area is the struggle for a new African self-understanding. How can we help people to confirm their African identity? With regard to South Africa churches should introduce programs which would throw light on the theme "The Gospel and Culture." By suggesting this theme I am not speaking about the racist "separate development" of cultures but rather about the interaction of cultures which are fully affirmed and encouraged. By being Christians we are not called to renounce our own culture. We are challenged to relate Christ to our respective culture and our culture to Christ. Christians need to be seriously involved in the process of re-Africanization. There is a rich religious and cultural tradition in South Africa. We all impoverish ourselves if we do not learn how to appreciate this tradition. Any theology has to be done against the background of African culture. Hic Rhodus, hic salta!

5) KAIROS fails to mention that South Africa is a multi-religious society. There has been a contribution of Muslims and other non-Christians in the struggle for liberation. Inter-religious dialogue can facilitate and promote living together with people of different cultures and races.

6) Last but not least: the struggle for Integrity of creation applies also to South Africa also. lam afraid that in South Africa also the theology of creation is neglected. The-dualistic concept of F. Bacon of res cogitans (human being) and res extensae (other creation) has found a fertile soil in South Africa as well. Today we are struggling for the survival not only of human civilization, but for survival of life on the planet Earth. Global warming, population explosion, extinction of many species, maintaining the human environment -- all this involves South Africa. Are we responsible stewards of creation or careless tyrants?

I pray that the churches in South Africa may be given the vision, courage, endurance and strength to be in the forefront of the struggle for a new South Africa.

Notes:

1. In this part I draw largely on the arguments expressed in the publication ‘Die Sowohl-Als-Auch Faile" (K. Füssel, D.Sölle, F. Steffensky), Luzern 1993.

Larry L. Rasmussen is Professor of Ethics at the Union Theological Seminary, New York.

K.C.Abraham’s leadership in ecumenical circles is well-known, especially where EATWOT and World Council of Churches circles overlap Asian ones. Steady attention to economic development and ecological issues, and the cruel choices they pose for so many poor, has been one of the passionate concerns he has given leadership within these circles. While this chapter of tribute is not an exposition of his thought on these matters, these pages are indebted to his writing and his leadership, and are meant to join ongoing attention to his persistent concerns.

Centennial Spirits

There is an extraordinary passage in the 1907 volume that helped launch the Social Gospel movement. It is Walter Rauschenbusch’s portrayal, in Christianity and the Social Crisis, of the gathering of the spirits of centuries past. "When the Nineteenth Century died," Rauschenbusch writes, "its Spirit descended to the vaulted chamber of the past, where the Spirits of the dead centuries sit on granite thrones together."¹ There the Spirit of the Eighteenth Century asked for the mandated report; "Tell thy tale, brother. Give us word of the human kind we left to thee."² What follows, as the witness of the Nineteenth Century, is only plausible as a confident expression of the extraordinary belief in Western-style Progress that Rauschenbusch and his generation and social stratum breathed daily.

In Rauschenbusch’s report, the Spirits of the dead centuries sit in silence for a while, "with troubled eyes." Eventually the Spirit of the First Century speaks and asks a series of searing questions about the claims of the Nineteenth Century that "You have made men rich.... You have made men wise.... You have set them free... You have made them one."⁴ The Spirit of the Nineteenth Century listens carefully, then its head sinks to its breast, and the Spirit says:

Pensive, and now with troubled eyes of its own, the Spirit of the Nineteenth Century can only issue a request: "Give me a seat among you, and let me think why it has been so."⁶

Rauschenbusch wrote that on the eve of the Twentieth Century’s birth, it is left to us to imagine what the Spirit of the Twentieth Century will testify in the gathering of the Spirits of the dead centuries when this one comes to a close, and what searing questions will be asked in response. No doubt we will also have to sit and, with troubled eyes, "think why it has been so."

Of course, the extraordinary fact may well be a simple one. Perhaps both the tally of unprecedented accomplishment and the litany of shame that Rauschenbusch penned could simply be repeated in 2007, only with stronger words about even starker realities. After all, the Twentieth Century both promised more than the Nineteenth and delivered on it. Goods and services increased fiftyfold. Lifetimes for millions, even billions, doubled. Equal numbers were lifted from misery. Children lived better than their parents. Education became a common treasure, as did better health. And the gifts of innumerable cultures, together with the amazing discoveries of science and invention of technology, moved far beyond their home borders.

At the same time, what were the Nineteenth Century’s domestic problems of industrializing nations have now gone global with a vengeance. Mass unemployment, severe cyclical slumps in rapid-fire investment and mobile business, the spreading distance between rich and poor in a confrontation of limousine plenty and homelessness, and limited revenues for limitless needs now afflict all societies, even if in drastically different proportion.

Still, there may be a difference of 2007 from 1907 beyond that of scale. If so, it rests somewhere near the intersection K.C. Abraham has been watching carefully in recent years: the incompatibility of The Big Economy (the global human economy) with The Great Economy (the economy of nature).⁷ Local human economies have been reduced to complications of transnational decisions, or simply left aside altogether. Governance efforts themselves are pulled apart by these transnational economic forces as the latter exercise political as well as economic power. Revolutions in communications and transport annihilate time and distance and invade traditional communities and their ways of life in destructive ways. And hardly anyone truly believes that present institutions have control over the collective consequences of The Big Economy.⁸

At the same time an intersecting phenomenon the Nineteenth Century never conceived strides front and center and qualifies everything. This is human power, chiefly techno-economic power, sufficient to outstrip earth’s capacity to restore itself on terms hospitable to life as we know it. It is, in fact, the growing revenge of The Great Economy (the economy of nature) as The Big Economy ravages it. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, soil erosion was not exceeding soil formation (or at least we didn’t notice). Species extinction was not exceeding species evolution. Carbon emissions were not exceeding carbon fixation. Fish catches were not exceeding fish reproduction. Forest destruction was not exceeding forest regeneration. Freshwater was not exceeding aquifer replenishment.⁹ Half the world’s coastlines, the most densely populated human areas, were not imperiled. Nor was anything like half the world’s human population crowded into urban areas, with fewer chances for self-sustainability than people on the land have when times turn desperate. Thus there appear at century’s close certain words which were unknown at century’s beginning "unsustainability" "carrying capacity," "the integrity of creation," and "sustainable development." More importantly, the reality that virtually every natural system essential to The Big Economy was in a state of slow degradation at century’s end was not the reality at century’s onset. (Or, if it was, it was not recognized.) The Great Economy was not on a collision course with The Big Economy. The economy of nature was not yet effectively fighting back against the human economy, even when the latter was treating the world as game and booty and land fill. Western-based globalization had not yet reached into every nook and cranny with an economy that doesn’t ask what nature’s economy requires for its own regeneration and renewal.

The Next Turn

But where do we go from here, as the Spirit of the Twentieth Century retires to contemplate "why it has been so?" (Rauschenbusch)

One necessary change pertains to the framework within which we think, and the categories we "think with" when we "think about" things (to recall E.F. Schumacher’s distinctions). If we consider one of the subjects vital to K.C. Abraham’s concerns -- theology and theological education-the recent testimony of Juergen Moltmann becomes highly significant. Looking back on his immensely productive career, Moltmann reconsiders it all, only to conclude as follows. "If I could start all over again, I would link my theology with ecological economics. The last two centuries were dominated by economic questions; the next century will be the age of ecology, in which the organism of the earth will become the all-determining factor and will have to be taken into consideration by everyone."¹⁰

This is another way of saying what was asserted above: the crucial issues before us lie at the intersection of The Big Economy and the Great Economy. But Moltmann’s specific point is that the dialogue partner for theology shifts from philosophy and the social sciences to ecological economics, that emerging mutant subspecies hardly conceivable when the century began and still marginalized by dominant economic theory and practice. Moltmann’s point, put differently, is that theology must turn to thinking within a framework "in which the organism of the earth will become the all-determining factor?’ Just finding the categories to do so will entail a theological reimagining that can only be compared with the reconstructs of great reformations. Here is the paradigm shift asked for but not yet accomplished. It pushes questions that will not be pushed back: How do we do all our theological reflection from earth-centered praxis, with "earth" encompassing of the human economy and the economy of [the rest of] nature together? How do we shift in our understanding and articulation of faith from anthropocentric and androcentric categories and habits to biocentric and geocentric frames? How do we articulate Christian vocation as quite simply fidelity to earth, and measure all our religious and moral impulses by the moral criterion of their contribution to earth’s care and well-being? (With "earth" again understood as comprehensive of nature and society together as a single, complex community that is full of life but "under house arrest," to recall the graphic description of Boutros Boutros-Ghali at the Earth Summit of 1992).

The Plowshares Institute report, Changing The Way Seminaries Teach: Globalization and Theological Education, is not sanguine about this shift. Perhaps it will come with EATWOT and other Third World leadership, and the methodology of various liberation intersecting theologies. The Plowshares Report itself is restricted to the study of twelve North American seminaries that participated in the Globalization of Theological Education Program over five years in the early 1990s. The research conclusions nonetheless likely pertain to far more institutions than this slender dozen. One of those conclusions is that in a time when "multinational, corporate capitalism" is "one, if not the, major causal force behind global interdependence," North American seminary education has given "little theological attention.., to economics in general and global capitalism in particular."¹¹ Furthermore, attention to ecological issues does not warrant attention at all, much less the huge agenda that sits where the dynamic, globalizing economy and planetary life systems rub raw against one another. The report documents in detail the need for a new "conceptual space" for theological education and argues for it. Yet "the organism of earth" as the "all-determining factor" is not conceived as that conceptual space. It is still missing as the framework within which the theological enterprise does what it does for people of faith.

If we did make the global economy and the economy of nature together key concerns for the conceptual space of theological studies, what would need to happen beyond Moltmann’s nomination of a new dialogue partner? If the Spirit of the Twentieth Century were to contemplate "why [the great developments of the century] have been so," where would that Spirit turn for insight and attention?

It is easier to say where such consideration has not occurred. Again, my reference point is North America and specifically the United States. While it is easy to make the case that economic globalization involves the most fundamental redesign and centralization of economic power since the Industrial Revolution, with far-reaching consequences for political power; and while it is easy to document how swiftly planetary life systems have been placed in jeopardy, it is difficult to find the major institutions of society attending to these in any but superficial ways. That is, it is difficult to find those institutions that know and show the "ecological" and "social" and "economic" connections to one another from the inside out. Neither the mass media, nor government, nor corporations help us understand. None of them explains, in Jerry Mander’s words,

About the only major force trying to uncover truth and speak it in power is the loose networks of NGOs¹³ that operate locally, regionally, and, by increasing measure, globally. Here something is clearly afoot. What is afoot is sometimes witting, Sometimes unwitting, backlash against the forces of globalization. What is afoot are efforts to preserve what is endangered by globalization. The largely unorganized efforts are largely "off-camera," to be sure, but they are widespread. They include local citizens’ movements and alternative institutions that are trying to create greater economic self-sufficiency, sustain livelihoods, work out agriculture appropriate to regions, preserve traditions, languages, and cultures, revive religious life, repair the moral and social fiber, resist the commodification of all things, internalize costs to earth in the price of goods, protect ecosystems, and cultivate a sense of earth as a sacred good held in common.. Churches and movements, especially those active in ecumenical networks, are significant participants here, even when their activities have not be put at the center of theological education itself. Richard Barnet and John Cavanagh, who judge this inchoate NGO uprising as presently "the only force we see that can break the global gridlock," finish their important study with a judgment about its high stakes: "The great question of our age is whether people, acting with the spirit, energy, and urgency our collective crisis requires, can develop a democratic global consciousness rooted in authentic local communities."¹⁴

"A democratic global consciousness rooted in authentic local communities" is, of course, another way to express the ancient ecumenical vision itself! The church in every place is the Church Universal and the Church Universal is legitimately represented in each place. Yet what churches face as the grave issues at the end of this century and the beginning of the next is itself the same that all other communities face: the compelling need to understand "the organism of the earth" as "the all-determining factor" that is presently endangered; the need to understand that earth-nature and society together -- is a community itself, and one without an exit; the need to understand faith now as fidelity to earth in accord with creation’s integrity as God-given.

Such counsel is only very general -- more exhortation than advice. is And our actions must be concrete. In closing, we could do worse than pose some questions on a core issue for all of us that happens also to be one of K.C. Abraham’s persistent concerns; namely sustainable development. The questions, drafted by Denis Goulet, can serve as guides for a praxis that works within a biocentric and geocentric theological frame.

1. Is sustainable authentic development compatible with a global economy?

2. Is sustainable authentic development compatible with a high material standard of living as presently defined for all human population? If limits need to be placed on growth, must there not be cutbacks in present consumption of the haves and in the future acquisitive aspirations of the have-nots?

3. Is sustainable authentic development compatible with widening global economic disparities? Does not such development presuppose, if not relative equality, at least the abolition of absolute poverty amongst the masses of the poor in the world?

4. How can strategists promoting sustainable authentic development deal with the hundreds of millions who have a vested interest in the destructive economic dynamism now prevailing in the world?¹⁶

Notes:

1. Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1907), 211.

2. Ibid.. p. 211.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., p. 212.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. The phrases, "The Big Economy" and "The Great Economy." are Wendell Berry’s.

8. For a detailed account of these and other dynamics, see Eric Hobsbawn, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991 (New York: Random House).

9. See Lester R. Brown, Hal Kane, and David Malin Roodman, Vital Signs, 1994: The Trends That Are Shaping Our Future (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1994), pp. 15-21.

10. Juergen Moltmann, "The Adventure of Theological Ideas," as cited in M. Douglas Meeks, "Juergen Moltmann’s Systematic Contributions to Theology:’ Religious Studies Review, Vol. 22, No. 2, April, 1996, p. 105.

11. David A Roozen, Alice Frazier Evans, and Robert A. Evans, Changing the Way Seminaries Teach. Globalization and Theological Education (Hartford, CT: Hartford Seminary Center for Social and Religious Research, 1996), pp. 189-190.

12. Jerry Mander, "The Dark Side of Globalization: What the Media are Missing:" The Nation, Vol. 263. No. 3, July 15/22, 1996, p. 12.

13. Non-Governmental Institutions.

14. Richard I. Barnet and John Cavanaugh, Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), p. 430.

15. 1 have attempted to elaborate what such a paradigm shift would mean for theology, ethics, spirituality, and public policy in the volume, Earth Community, Earth Ethics (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, and Geneva: WCC Publishing, 1996).

16. Denis Goulet, as cited in the EWG Circular Letter # 6, March, 1996: 23.

(Simon S. Maimela is President of UNISA and an active member of EATWOT.)

The relationship between theology and politics or religion and politics is a very difficult one for some people. There is often a misunderstanding that the coupling of theology and politics would lead theologians and churches to be absorbed in politics at the expense of the furtherance of the gospel and salvation of people.

The question as to whether there should be any relation between theology and politics has often arisen in the countries where there is constitutionally no "official state church", and therefore where the separation between church and state is invoked. In such countries ministers of religion are encouraged and indeed expected to stick to religion and to leave the realm of politics to the so-called experts or professional politicians and bureaucrats. In consequence, the extent to which political decisions and actions raise theological questions and vice versa is never clearly confronted and reflected upon and clarified. This is because people often work with the mistaken assumption of confining the meaning of "politics" to "party politics", and of casting votes in which case the church as church is expected to take a "neutral" stance in order to avoid alienating or dividing its constituents who might hold different political persuasions. Thus by involving itself in "party politics" the church might give a wrong impression that it favors one party and against another.

Put somewhat differently, it is when the word politics is understood to be identical with party politics that a confusion arises, regarding whether religion has anything to do with politics, leading some people to call on the church and its ministers to abstain from making political utterances.

However, we want to suggest that the word politics need not be understood in this narrow sense of "party politics". In its broader sense the word politics means human attempt to structure or organize life or society for the benefit of the people concerned. It is in this sense that the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, in his rejection of Platonic dualism correctly argued that human beings are by definition political beings. As such they organize life and construct structures and institutions to regulate their relationships among themselves. Even individuals, when they do such planning as budgeting for their financial needs, work in order to place meals on their tables, decide where to send children to school or do shopping in order to get the value for their money et cetera, they are involved in politics. Therefore, politics, like the air we breathe, is unavoidable whether we are consciously aware of this or not.

If "politics" is understood in this broad sense, then the church and theologians cannot afford to stand above politics in the situations they find themselves, for to do so would be an abdication of their responsibility. For, whether we admit it or not, political decisions and actions involve the people about whom God cares very much and, therefore, political exercise has theological dimensions. It is against this background that our countryman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has rightly argued that the church has to be concerned about the secular things such as politics and economics, education, medical aid, the rent and housing, food prices et cetera. This concern arises out of the fact that Christians believe that God, the Creator, is the Lord over human life in all aspects -- be it political, economic and social. Indeed, it is impossible for Christians and churches to be non-political because to do so implies that there are substantial aspects of human life over which God and the gospel have no say. Such apolitical stance will create an unacceptable dualism between the spiritual and the material aspects of life, implying that there is another Lord who is in charge of the political sphere than God, our Creator and Redeemer. Indeed, to invoke the separation between religion and politics in order to uphold this sort of Platonic dualism is to suggest that human beings somehow belong to the powers that be, that is, they are at the mercy of political authorities who can do what they please with them without any fear of rebuke from God through the prophetic ministry of the Church.

It would further mean that, as Creator, God is totally indifferent to what happens to and among human beings and how human beings treat one another. Significantly, the witness of the Church over the centuries has denied the possibility that God is indifferent to what human beings do to themselves and to the life that has been entrusted to them, because every human being must one day account for their actions before their Creator. For this reason what happens to and with human beings makes the difference as to whether they are under the dominion of some demon or the dominion of God, who cares about human life and has, in Jesus Christ, demonstrated a willingness to come to its defense. The cash value of this claim is that the problems of politics and theology are not as separable as it is often assumed by those who are ready to advise theologians and preachers to stick to religion and not meddle in politics.

It is important to note that the inseparability between religion and politics has been part of church history since 313 AD. when, for better or worse, the Emperor Constantine the Great declared Christian religion as religio licita, that is, an approved religion. From that time on Christians began to identify their welfare and the protection of the gospel with the fortunes and the security of the Roman Empire. We may, of course, regret the fact that this alliance between church and state has allowed the ruling classes to co-opt Christian religion in order to legitimate the interests, the hopes, the struggles and the ambitions of the dominant elites at the expense of the oppressed and powerless sections of society. In consequence, the Church and its theology, reflecting and being conditioned by the values of the ruling classes developed a religion of oppression and exploitation which justified the economic bondage and domination to which the majority of human family became subjected. Commenting on the misuse of religion to legitimate the interests of dominant classes no lesser an individual than the French Emperor Napoleon, when, with deep insight, observed:

It was in response to this misuse of religion that led the Enlightenment thinkers to question the idea of state churches which, in the name of religion, condemned the so-called heretics and persecuted many people who were perceived to be a threat to the security of the Church and state. Tired of these persecutions, thinkers of the Enlightenment called for a principle of Criticism so that all dogmas could be subjected to and be justified before "the bar of reason." In so doing, they helped to cultivate a spirit of anti-dogmatism, anti-religious fanaticism and toleration in matters of faith and personal conscience (Maimela 1987:9).

Taken at their face value the demands of "reasonableness" in religion and the choice in matters of personal belief appear innocent and worth embracing. However, this spirit of tolerance was interpreted by the liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries to mean that religion is a private and personal matter between God and the individual, an individual who must be left to live without interference from other authorities regarding what one must believe or how to lead one’s life. This liberal mood is summarized beautifully by Welch (1974:31) who points out what the plea for anti-dogmatic reasonableness reflects:

The consequence of this non-interfering kind of religion was the conception of God as a being who stands aloof from human affairs. After all, the Copernican revolution and scientific advances had revealed that the world and humanity operated according to certain natural laws, laws of cause and effect which should not be violated by providential interferences as religion claims.

In the 19th century both the Church and theologians were caught unprepared to deal with the liberal’s insistence that God be banished from public life through the restriction of the gospel to a private life of individuals, but the Church was willing to pay the costly price for its survival when it accepted the view that religion is a private matter. In practice, this meant that religion has no place in the realm of politics, economics, and other socio-cultural spheres -- leaving thereby the realm of law and order, science, the state, racism, sexism and classism and other forms of social oppression beyond the reach of the Gospel.

The emergence of religious revivals and pietism in the 19th century did not help much to overcome this dualism, because of its overemphasis on the cultivation of private virtue and piety. For, priests bought wholesale the motto of liberalism and its individualism, which effected the separation between the private and public life, the realm of the inner life and external realm, between the secular and the sacred spheres, and between the Sunday faith and weekday morality.

The upshot of what has been said is that the thoroughgoing separation between the secular and the religious spheres is a recent development during the 18th and 19th centuries, which lead to the confusion regarding what relation religion ought to have with politics. Regrettably, some Christians concluded that theology and the Church have no place in the public matters which are better served when they are left to the so-called experts. Not surprising, it has taken the Church a long time to develop a critical and prophetic theology with which to confront the social evils and oppression which have condemned the majority of the human family to abject poverty and dehumanizing life.

Against this dualism, between the internal and external, private and public, a dualism which has led to the exploitation and oppression of many human beings, I contend that followers of Christ have no other option but to take an active interest in the earthly, secular things such as politics and economics because Jesus would not permit us the luxury of dwelling in a "spiritual ghetto unrelated and unconcerned with real life issues". I am persuaded by Archbishop Tutu’s contention that we must resist socially oppressive forces because the God whom we worship is one who:

It is because God cares so much about the life the Creator has made that God is not useless and irrelevant to human struggles for political freedom, but is worthy of praise and worship. In consequence, Archbishop Tutu believes that he cannot be the disciple of such a caring God and remain aloof from socio-political involvement. For he is conscious of the fact that in their interactions with one another, human beings, by virtue of being social beings, are of necessity political beings whose actions have both political dimensions and involve moral responsibility before God and their fellows.

It is the God who seeks the lost, who binds the broken-hearted, who rescues the afflicted and is the comforter of the weak. Because of the love, concern and care that this God shows to those who call on him/her, the God portrayed by liberation theology is able to elicit human response of faith and trust. This portrait of God in liberation theology is impressive enough to move, inspire and involve those who have encountered God’s love in acts of love and liberation towards their human fellows. It is the God about whom Archbishop Desmond Tutu could, with exuberant tone and deep insight, testify:

Conclusion

In conclusion, the debate about the relationship between theology and religion sheds some light from another perspective, which, often betrays a conservative mind-set. Put more crudely, when people demand that religion should be kept separate from politics, and especially that the Church should not preach politics, they usually say that the preacher must not meddle in "dirty politics". The thought here is that the Gospel and the Church are concerned with things which are clean and lovely, with holy things, with the soul and the hereafter, with exalted things. By contrast, politics is seen as dirty, as concerned with "worldly" things, unworthy and unholy things, things which should not be allowed to pollute the Gospel and the Church. Politicians often solemnly admonish the Church and its preachers and clergy to confine themselves to their task and leave politics and social life to the politicians, particularly the government. These politicians, of course, do not speak of politics as dirty, but they base what they say on the same sharp distinction between the Church (or Gospel) and politics.

We may approach the question of the meaning of politics from two angles.

First, we can consider the concrete question of what is that politicians and particularly the government are doing. A government makes laws which citizens must obey. These laws govern the lives of the citizens; they set out to improve certain conditions and to create other conditions; they determine what is right and may be done and what is wrong and may not be done?

Secondly, we may look at the question from a slightly different angle. Politics, and the government in particular, have to do with the structuring of the society. It is the government which determines how the money gained from taxation is to be applied, how much is spent on armaments, how much on large industrial projects and so on. Such decisions can change the whole course of events in a country and so change the lives of millions of people. It is the authorities who determine whether national service shall be made compulsory for young men and women, how long that service shall be made compulsory for young men and women, how long that service shall be and what they will do. Have all these things nothing to do with the Gospel? Has the Gospel nothing to say about war and peace, about our lives and how our lives are changed by the projects of politicians? In South Africa politicians used to determine where men and women may live and where they may not live, where they may work and where they may not work, where they may vote and own property, who will have free and compulsory education and who will not. Such are the all embracing decisions they make! Has the Gospel nothing to do with all these? Does the Bible have nothing to say about what our community should be like? Do we not have Amos and James in the Bible?

Enough rhetorical questions, the Gospel has a great deal to do with politics. It would therefore be wrong for us to assume that the Gospel and politics can be kept in separate compartments. The Gospel has much to say to the politician and to the government. Or did Elijah and Jeremiah and Amos and Jesus not have much to say to the authorities of their times?’ But this argument still has not clarified what is meant by the term "political theology".

Let us approach the problem from another angle. People of Jesus’ time felt that they were quite defenceless against supernatural powers. They were at the mercy of diseases and catastrophes over which they had no control. Their faith in God was shaken by natural disasters. As recently as two centuries ago the earthquake in Lisbon (1755) which killed thousands of people, raised the question of the existence of a God of love, because things beyond human control, things in and outside nature threatened human existence.

The events of the Twentieth Century have made this kind of question even more pertinent. Not only have natural disasters such as earthquakes occurred; atrocities of apocalyptic dimensions have been committed by the so-called civilized nations. There was Auschwitz, a German concentration camp where millions of Jews were killed during World War II. There were Hiroshima and Nagasaki where nuclear bombs killed thousands of people in a flash: not only soldiers, but also women and children and unborn infants. These were not natural disasters, they were political disasters. These were carefully planned and executed events in which politicians and governments took decisions.

Has the Gospel nothing to say about things like these? Has the Church no message of judgement upon the racial hatred of the Germans and their murder of the Jews? All these things occurred as a result of political decisions, dirty political decisions.

Was it not, however, precisely for sinners and for the enemies of God that Jesus came? Does John 3:16 have nothing to say about mass murder and about the oppression of human beings? In truth, the Gospel has everything to do with politics.

In our century we have even come to see such matters as disease in a new light. Disease is not simply the fate of an individual assigned to him or her from above. One can become ill by working under bad conditions, by living in a badly built house, by being underfed. One can die of an illness because efficient medical services are not available. Has the Gospel nothing to do with this kind of thing? If not, then it was a mistake to do medical missionary work.

Stated briefly, we no longer live under conditions of cosmic powerlessness and slavery that characterized the lives of people from the first centuries of the Christian era until quite recently. We live in a political world, a world in which human political decisions have tremendous influence over people’s lives and opportunities and circumstances. Because the Gospel is concerned with our lives, with love to God and neighbor, the Church has an indispensable message for our political life.

Three important points need to be noted. First, it is a delusion to believe that some churches are not involved in politics. All churches and religious groups have a political influence. Even those churches that do not criticize politicians and the government are involved in politics. By their silence they support and promote the government’s actions. Simply by saying nothing, they accept what is happening and sanction it by silence.

Secondly, let us note that politics can indeed be dirty but that it does not need to be dirty. A.A. van Ruler has called politics a holy matter, and he was right. Reformed theology has always called for the sovereignty of Jesus over all society. God created the earth and mankind and has made us responsible for one another. How we live together, what our community looks like, how we act towards the poor and the underprivileged, who may marry whom, who may live where -- all these matters are God’s business. A government that does not heed the message of the gospel cannot do the will of God. Therefore, the church which is not continually expressing the will of God to the government is not fulfilling its calling. For, in the first place, no politician or government can by herself, himself or itself know the will of God for all the difficult situations in a society. They are dependent upon the word of God and on the Church as the proclaimer of that word. Further, it is often difficult for politicians and for a government to carry out God’s will, particularly if the government has been democratically elected but finds out, after the election, that it has to act in ways which are unpopular with the voters. If, in such a situation, the Church does not let its voice be heard clearly and persistently, then it is abandoning the government to its fate and denying the Lord Jesus Christ.

The third important point is: The scope of political theology is much wider. It does not concentrate only on abuses. Political theology is based on the insight that human beings are increasingly creating their own history and destiny. We are responsible for the shape which our lives will take today and tomorrow. The things that determine our lives are our own creation.

Cars, trains, the radio, machines they may never be switched off, these things which so determine our lives are our own creation. How much food is produced, and what people’s standard of living will be, are increasingly determined by planning and are less and less dependent upon forces beyond human control. This situation is usually defined as the political situation in which we live. We must accept responsibility for the world as it is today and as it will be tomorrow. This all-embracing, human-made society is created by political decisions, and so in a sense the whole of life may be called the political situation. It is here that men and women express themselves. This is where things can be changed.

Political theology, then, means the one that interprets the Bible with an eye to this political situation. Who should have a say in the decisions which determine our lives today and tomorrow? Who has the right to share in the prosperity that is now possible? Is there any limit to the things we may make and alter (heart transplants, artificial insemination, "test-tube babies," nuclear weapons -- more than enough to destroy all forms of life on earth!)? Can we regard it as acceptable that two or three people can determine the destiny of all humankind -- those people being for instance the leaders of the United States of America, the Republic of Russia and China? For whatever reason, one of these men or women could decide tomorrow to wage nuclear war and within 24 hours all human life on earth could be snuffed out.

Has the Gospel anything to say to this human-made history? This is the most fundamental and legitimate question posed by political theology. Although many forms of political theology may be unacceptable and have endorsed unbiblical concepts, the basic starting point of political theology is sound. God has created the earth and loves the world (even though it is a sinful world). This belief has decisive consequences for our activity in the out-and-out political situation in which we all live.

The view expressed above is soundly rooted in the biblical tradition (which affirms the sovereignty of Jesus Christ in all areas of life). Although most of us probably grew up in different traditions, we might nevertheless agree that people fall into either of two categories: those who accept God without the world, or those who accept the world without God. This is the basic difference (somewhat oversimplified) between Christianity and atheism. The majority of the established churches have separated God from the world, thinking that those who serve God can have nothing to do with the world. God may well be concerned with the soul, with our inner lives, with the intimate community life of our small groups, but we cannot "leave dirty politics alone." By contrast the atheist has chosen the world, and has absolutized politics, and let go of God.

Neither of these extremes is the truth. For as we have increasing awareness that creation in the world we live is not a completed act in some remote past but continues here and now and must be carried forward to its completion through political action. It is thus incumbent on theologians to develop a theology of cultural and social transformation because such a theology can be the only one which truly is political theology. Such a theology will be the one which is capable of inspiring and impelling Christians to live creatively and positively for God and their fellow humans. Political theology and creative political will thus remain a chance and opportunity to work with God for our fellows’ liberation and freedom until victory of love and justice for all is finally won. To that end God will not let us rest and a good political theology could even less afford to be tranquilizer and therefore make us slumber.¹

Note:

1. For a major statement on the theology of social transformation and creative change, see my God’s Creativity Through the Law (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1984).

References:

Lindberg, Carter. 1981. "Through a Glass Darkly: A Histoiy of the Church’s Vision of the Pour and Poverty" in The Ecumenical Review, Vol. 33.

Maimela, S. Simon. 1986. "Archbishop Desmond Tutu -- A Revolutionary Priest or Man of Peace?" in I. J. Mosala and B. Thagale (eds.), Hammering Swords into Ploughshares (Braamfontein: Skotaville Publishers).

Maimela. S. Simon. 1987. Proclaim Freedom to my People (Braamfontein: Skotaville Publishers).

Welch, Claude. 1972. Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century. Volume I (New Haven: Yale University Press).

(Aruna Gnanadason is on the staff of Women’s Desk of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, and an active member of EATWOT.)

Women have not been active in the field of theological ethics in India. Unfortunately, the theological establishment in our country have not taken seriously enough the contributions women can make to this important field of theology. There has been no strategy to empower women to become qualified in this field and therefore the non-existence of women theological ethicists is no surprise. This is indeed a shame that after so many decades of work in theology, India still paints such a dismal picture. I am therefore grateful to the editors that they have asked me to contribute to this volume being brought out to honor Dr. K.C. Abraham. On a personal note, I am very happy to write because we as a family have much to thank Dr. Abraham for - a man who as a pastor to us lived out the principles that he teaches as a theological ethicist. We have known him for many years now, and recognize the important contributions he is making to theological thought and education, in India and globally.

I have heard Dr. Abraham speak at innumerable gatherings and have read a lot of what he has written and I have been struck by the methodology he uses to link faith to the struggles for life in our societies. His starting point is of course the context of our world today and the many dangers it poses to the life of millions in our world. More recently, the rapid globalization of the world economy and the challenge that the market is posing to the quality of life, has been a central concern to him. Within this broad spectrum of concerns, it is important to note that he is increasingly paying special attention to our ethical responsibility to creation. He has from the earliest stages of his theological work emphasized the need and responsibility of Christians to get immersed into social action and movements as a theological imperative for our times. In a context where millions in our world are either excluded or have been rendered invisible by callous and inhuman policies and actions of international financial institutions and agencies (which are supposedly there to regulate trade and create the space for the powerless), to talk of ethical engagement of Christians in struggle for life, is more urgent now then ever before. I am therefore grateful to Dr. Abraham for his contributions to liberation theology which attempts to shape such a commitment of Christians everywhere.

In my paper, I attempt to open a dialogue on another area of ethical and moral engagement, which receives scant attention in India. Increasingly, women theologians in Asia, Africa and Latin America are pointing out that well-being or the quality of life has another very important dimension this is the way in which we relate to our bodies and talk of sexuality. Much of the violence women experience in the world is centered around the physical abuse and control of our bodies as women and the denial of basic rights over one’s own sexuality and sexual choice. Most Indian cultures are inherently patriarchal and have viewed women as the property of men and therefore she has very little control over what happens to her body. We live in cultures in India which have permitted the most outrageous traditional practices, with no regard for what this does to the innermost psyche of individual women and to their communities.

There are two reasons why it is important for women to get more actively engaged in ethical discourse in India, as in all parts of the world. The primary reason for this is that it is often women who find themselves in the midst of almost daily ethical and moral choices that they are called to make in their own lives but also in the life of their families or communities. Women are critical in molding the ethical consciousness of families -- to deal with the pressure of modern life and the demands it makes, on particularly the young, to break out of the norm and to experiment with life. Women are called to often make moral choice about their own bodies, their relationships as well as their lifestyles. It is matters related to women’s sexuality and sexual choice that cause the greatest unease in the church -- and therefore the inability of the church to provide a powerful moral condemnation of the violence women experience.

In 1988, the World Council of Churches launched the Ecumenical Decade of the Churches in Solidarity with Women. At the mid-point of the Decade, the WCC initiated a project of ecumenical Team Visits - Living Letters - to every member church, for the first time in its history on a single major ecumenical theme. This project is almost complete. The purpose was to reflect with the churches on how far they have come in their solidarity with women, and with them to identify the obstacles that stand in the way of change so that more creative and intentional plans can be set in place for the remaining years of the Decade and beyond. A small group of women and men, a Readers Group, has been analyzing the reports received from the teams. Yes, the WCC has been moving along in its history of standing in solidarity with women but the question is whether the churches are moving along in this history too! The anger, the frustration, the pain and agony. . . but also the extraordinary love and patient endurance and perseverance of women in the churches is very evident. The Church on the other hand, has neither responded to the pain and outrage of women, nor has it recognized this immense love women have for the Church. The Church is steadily "leaving women behind".

What we discover through the Team Visits is that now steps are being taken by many churches to "accommodate" the presence and participation of women. This indeed is not what women yearn for. The Decade process has made it clear that to most women, it is not those small concessions that the churches offer that really matter. The question being asked by women is whether the Decade will invite "the churches and the ecumenical movement to discover and nurture an enriched understanding of the very nature and mission of the church . . . growing from and supporting a new community, embodying the visions of all persons . . . ," as the Readers Group describe it in their interim report. They add, "Women are calling for the strengthening of the community of women and men in a way that will lead to fundamentally new understanding of ecclesiology."

How can the churches meet and dialogue on their brave commitments to koinonia and the unity they seek, without facing up to the fragmentation of the community of women and men? How will visible unity ever be reached as long as there is this brokenness within each of our churches and societies? The Readers Group challenges the WCC to relook at its criteria for membership and the way in which it calls on the churches to dialogue. Such claims do indeed sound presumptuous -- but is it not true that at the heart of a new community of women and men in the church lies that basic question of how we live in faith and faithfulness so that we will truly reflect in our life that we are indeed the Church of Jesus Christ?

The Team Visits have opened our eyes to the extent of violence that women experience and the resounding silence of the Church or indeed its theological legitimization of the violence. I share some images and I ask -- how can we claim discipleship when we as the Church refuse to face up to the moral and ethical challenges that images, such as these described below, evoke?

The image of a woman who is battered for 20 years by her clergyman husband and who would forgive him, "because the Bible tells her to," the image of a young mother and father who cannot understand why their three-year-old daughter was sexually abused in the day care center to which they had entrusted her each morning; the image of a woman who was sacked from the women’s program of her church because she refused to comply to the request of the president of the church that she and the other women vote for him in his election campaign; the image of a 14-year-old migrant domestic worker who faces the death sentence on trumped up charges, because she would not give in to the sexual demands of her employer; the image of a male priest of a church saying that every time he beats his wife she should thank him, because she is one step closer to salvation; or the priest who would make sexual advances on a woman who out of vulnerability turns to the church for pastoral comfort. . . these are but a glimpse of the many such images that are gathered during the course of this Decade. The Ecumenical Decade is challenging the church not to ignore this reality but to courageously speak out and stand in solidarity with women. How can the churches not face up to their responsibility to hold each other mutually accountable for the violence in their midst? How can we make statements about our evangelistic witness to issues of justice, peace and the integrity of creation in the world, when even within the womb of the church, there is no safety for women?

Even as I write this article, I have before my mind’s eye a letter I received recently from a woman in Nigeria. She has both her Masters in Theology and a Masters in Education, and yet she writes: "I am in a very difficult and life-threatening marital situation and it is imperative that my children and I get to safety as soon as possible (before I become a statistic of domestic violence). . . ." For her the ethical choice is clear whether to live on in a farcical and dangerous relationship so as to serve the demands made on her by society . . . or to protect herself and her children. Hers indeed is the kind of moral choice which millions of women are being forced to take, increasingly.

To speak of the violence we experience as women is not easy -- every encounter is surrounded by the tears of women. We weep together, but we also reflect on the theological challenge to us as women, to transcend our victimization and transform our pain into political power and action. It is true that it is the very personal faith, a childlike spirituality that has sustained women who live in contexts of violence . . . but we so easily see the inseparable link between our faith and our obedient action in the world and demand a violence-free and safe world.

The second reason why women must get more engaged in this discourse is because they have something radically new to offer -- a new way of understanding society, of human relationships and even of being church. Women are speaking with a new voice, a courageous voice which challenges many traditional assumptions -- the most important is the challenge to the notion that women are required, by tradition and by the biblical heritage, to submit to all forms of inhuman treatment. The courageous work that women in theology do in all parts of the world, to deconstruct basic theological and reconstruct more inclusive and life affirming principles, is an example of this.

In this article I would like to explore what implications this issue has on the Church on the basis of two basic principles: the question of "the common good" and the use of "power and authority."

To Be or Not to Be: To Live for the Common Good

I have opted to use this as an ethical yardstick, because often women, or rather the women’s movement in India, has been targeted and blamed for the breaking up of the family unit. I often have it said to me, when I speak in gatherings, that women always only speak of negative images, never affirming what is positive and good in our lives -- but is there not a basis on which women are forced to speak out, or is silence preferred? In the Indian psyche, the sanctity of the family is to be maintained at all costs for the common good, even if it requires a woman to live in daily violence, even in jeopardy for her life. It is disheartening to see how the work of a core of committed women in the women’s movement in India is so often trivialized or rejected. The work they do to avoid perpetuating or acquiescing in the oppression of women but rather to contribute, whenever possible, to the further understanding of dissolution of sexual inequality, has often been branded and labeled as "Western" and therefore rejected as not being related to the India’s "cultural ethos." But then, it is out of a commitment to "the common good" that the women’s movement in India is to be weighed. It must be recognized for what it is: ". . . the women’s movement represents, not merely an oppositional force fuelled by anger, a rather negative reaction to oppression, but the development of a distinctive female culture, a positive creative force inspiring men and women alike," write Johanna Liddle and Rama Joshi.¹

In fact, I will boldly claim that the women’s movement has at its central binding force a commitment to "the common good." Perhaps the most striking example of this truth is what happened in Beijing in September of 1995. Over 30,000 women gathered in the holiday town of Huairou, some 60 km. from Beijing, for the parallel NGO gathering of the IV UN World Conference on Women, Peace and Development. They came from all parts of the world, they came with their commitment and courage, they came with their multitude of concerns and voices but they came to meet each other, to share their stories of struggle and pain. It was clear that the women gathered often entered the struggle from different vantage points, they did not always agree with all that was spoken, but what could not be ignored was that there were some common issues that did draw them together -- it was not accidental or designed that over one-third of the 4,000 workshops by different women’s groups, from all regions of the world, focuses on the issue of violence against women -- some of the best being organized by Indian women, What was at the heart of Huairou was the commitment of the women present to draw energy and support from each other -- it was a consciousness that they were doing it all "for the common good." Women have through the centuries been devoted to ending all forms of violence. This commitment extends beyond what happens to individual women, it is built on the determination that war, poverty and cultural and social practices are the forms of violence that destroy the fabric of families and societies.

However, Asian women draw attention to the fact that the family in Asia is a source of control of women:

All this is in fact what does breaks the family unit. There is the constant demand on a woman to give up everything, most of all her dignity, even if this demands submissiveness and silence in the face of outrageous and inhuman treatment, so as to serve the common good. There are in India proverbs, teachings and cultural norms which are taught to a woman from childhood, preparing her for such a life of hardship and injustice. There is for instance the old Hindi saying that accompanies a woman from the family of her birth into that of her marriage: "A woman is like spit, once spat out she cannot be taken back in." She is expected to give up her identity, her dignity, and in cases even her name for "the common good." She cannot "be taken back" even when she tries to warn her family that her life is in danger. The almost daily newspapers stories of "accidental deaths" of women in their homes reveals the consequence of our silence.

One way by which the control has been achieved is by privatizing violence against women into the domestic realm. Corrine Kumar. writes:

And in the traditional human rights discourse there is no place for women. Human rights was born of a specific world view which endorsed the relegation of women to the private domain. The privatization of crimes and violence and crimes as a domestic issue made these violations invisible, denying them their public face and any political significance or social reparation. The assumptions of gender intricately woven into the international covenants on human rights articulated in 1948 legitimated the denigration of women. The founding fathers of the liberal tradition from Hegel to Rousseau understood the feminine as woman’s biological nature, lack of political consciousness, emotionality, irrationality, all of which made her a threat to public life and citizenship. Women could contribute by rearing citizens, but not by being citizens. Liberalism and the politics of the nation-state sought to make men good citizens and women good private persons."³

And to this is added, the theological dimension which again privatizes women’s pain...

"Christ died for you on the Cross, why can’t you bear some suffering too?", "Your husband is your cross . . . you have to carry whatever comes, silently." "Christ forgave . . . you must also forgive . . . such statements are no figments of my imagination -- they are words of advice given by clergy, or in other words, the Church, to women who finally opt to seek refuge in the Church when the daily violence becomes unbearable or dangerous. This indeed is what makes the discussion on violence so difficult to deal with -- the fact that it is a theological problem and that the violence is so often legitimized by religious practices and teachings -- including that of the Church. The silence is rooted in these theological convictions and teachings. The doctrine of forgiveness, the doctrine of the Cross as a symbol of redemption, the myths and the mysteries surrounding the human body and human sexuality, the identification of sin and temptation with femaleness, the Image of God, the mind/body dualism that devalues female life, the depreciation of creation . . . these are some of the problems Christianity poses, giving subtle sanction to the violence women experience. Sometimes the church tends to engage in an unqualified affirmation of sacrifice and suffering for the sake of the larger community -- the common good -- without taking into consideration who sacrifices what, for whom and within what kind of relationships.

The Church’s reluctance to deal with the issue of human sexuality is at the heart of the problem. All religious traditions have tended to convey warped images of sexuality, providing quasi-divine legitimization for rape and abuse of women’s bodies. It is therefore easier to discuss, for example, the economic and political roots of prostitution than the reason why men seek out prostitutes. The Church would rather take a moralistic stand on the women involved in prostitution, blaming them for their lack of a moral code of behavior than challenge the men to examine their depraved sexuality. Joy Bussert writes: "Christian theologians like Luther projected ‘uncontrolled sexuality’ and thus responsibility for the fall, onto women, as the object of sexuality, since sexuality appears to be what they feared most in themselves."⁴

To achieve this order of power women had to be kept in control in the private sphere, with rituals, religious practices, customs and traditions, defining "the common good" from a particular vantage point which will render women invisible. What is needed is a radical reclaiming of what we mean by the common good. Keep silent and listen . . . the women of India and of the world are reclaiming their right to do just this, out of their deep commitment to preserve life.

Power and Authority. . . Can the Church Sing Another Song?

Women often as they struggle for justice in painful situations are ridden with feelings of guilt. Often they will say, "but does not the Bible say that as women we must be submissive?". . . or "I will have to obey my husband, this is what my pastor told me is the expected behavior of a ‘good’ woman." To convince women in such situations that there is another truth which has to be unraveled, is not always easy. Such a dilemma is related to two central concerns of theology and ethics: power and authority. Therefore women theologians have recognized the need to also deem it important and some new insights are emerging. Letty Russell, in much of her writings explores this theme, as she attempts to demonstrate what constitutes genuine authority. She writes that in fact, "everything feminists touch in a patriarchal society seems to turn into a question of authority."⁵

Women theologians have particularly drawn attention to the fact that it is the "authority" of the scripture and tradition that are problematic. This is because the starting point for women’s theological work, in all regions of the world, is their day to day, existential experience of life. How they understand their daily experiences of struggle, informs how they understand the place and authority of the Scriptures and other religious traditions. Kwok Pui Lan, "rejects both the sacrality of the Bible and the canon as a guarantee for truth." She writes:

I cite Kwok Pui Lan as one example of what women raise as central in all parts of the world. The Church has held women ransom for too long, based on what in fact constitutes the basis for the authoritative voice of control of women.

Letty Russell writes that "if authority is understood as authorizing the inclusion of all persons as partners, and power is understood as empowerment for self-actualization together with others, then the entire game of authority shifts. . . ." ⁷

Ecclesiology and Ethics --- A Way to Reconstruct Anew Authority and Power?

I understand the new work on ecclesiology and ethics which the World Council of Churches has launched to be a way to find new ethical principles to interpret the very nature and being of the Church. Of course throughout Church history there have been efforts to discover the connections between ecclesiology and ethics. The entry point into the debate has varied, but there has always been an awareness in the Church that the search for visible unity and the communion the churches seek, is connected inextricably with the authority with which the Church interprets and lives up to its traditions, but also the way in which we act as Christians in the world. In fact it is in servanthood to Christ that the Church discovers its basis and this is what formulates its ethical and moral authority in the world. The Ronde Consultation on "Costly Unity," which drew together the work on ecclesiology and ethics put it this away: "the Church not only has, but is, a social ethic, a koinonia ethic."⁸

Such an affirmation, of course gives to the Church the responsibility to engage in the moral formation of its community -- it is to "help shape both character and particular moral choices and action people take, singly and together. In doing so, they teach and embody virtues, values, obligations and moral visions."⁹

But then, new questions have been raised in recent times about this authority of the Church by what many see as the complicity of the churches in political conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and Burundi, in South Africa and in Northern Ireland. In all the situations cited, a section of the Church was in itself directly involved in provoking and participating in the violence -- often giving theological legitimization for the conflicts or for the oppression of "the other." Though slightly different in context, one could add an event that must not be forgotten: the silence of the Indian church during the Emergency period (1975-1977) even though everyone knew of all the atrocities committed by the Indira Gandhi regime. But then, equally shameful was the protest lodged by the officers of the NCCI, against WCC for having condemned emergencies. All this has led to an understanding that for the Church:

Unfortunately, as women, we have found it difficult to persuade the churches and the ecumenical movement that the issue of violence against women is as much an issue of ecclesiology as is complicity in political conflicts, because women have been silent for too long and the churches too have been complicit by their often silence, but also by their sometimes legitimization of the violence theologically. The Decade has pointed this out repeatedly to the churches-first that the veneer of silence with which violence against women is dealt with is a moral failure of the Church and secondly that outrageous biblical and theological legitimizations of violence, calling into question the authority and power of the church, as a moral community. In a recent discussion on "impunity" against the former corrupt political regime in Argentina, individual after individual present spoke out in shame against their silence in the face of oppression -- each one felt that they had succumbed to the fear of repression, maybe of the possibility of "disappearance" -- but now they recognized that their silence had sanctioned so much of the violence.

This had meant that many corrupt leaders who had been accused of crimes against humanity escape without being charged, tried and punished for criminal acts committed, with official sanction, in times of war of dictatorial rule. "Impunity can happen by default -- the deliberate lack of action at all."¹¹ Suddenly, in the midst of that litany of voices from various people, a woman spoke up. She was middle-class and smartly attired. She spoke of the many years of violence she had experienced in her home in the hands of her husband and her shame at the silence that she had decided to maintain. She recognized her submissiveness as granting impunity to the perpetrator of the violence against women -- perhaps her only option is to get away from that abusive and life-threatening relationship. Does this not challenge the churches and the ecumenical movement to respond to the issue of violence against women as an ecclesiological concern, as serious and as vital as are other issues of moral engagement to which the Church is challenged?

To continue Konrad Raiser’s analysis of the new debate, all of which comes alive, if we would only look at violence against women in the same framework. He writes, "The radicalizing of these questions becomes especially clear if we take seriously that the scope of ethical responsibility is no longer confined to life in personal relations or in social structures. What is at stake is the preservation of the very foundations of life itself."¹² He is of course referring here to our inhumanity to all creation, but then the question I ask is whether such an enquiry can ignore the fact that for women living in unsafe environments it is life itself that is constantly at threat. Added are the new forms of violence being heaped on women by the colonizing of our wombs by bio-technology and other scientific methodology, controlling the reproductive choices and capacities of women -- threatening the "very foundations of life itself."

The Voice of Hope from the Margins. . .

from the Excluded

Women have found ways to deal with the violence. They have moved away from their victimization into recovering a sense of their identity and integrity. Out of such a commitment to discover the sources of their power, women have been able to be creative in the conceptualization of new forms of community and relationship. Corrine Kumar raises this in the form of a series of questions which are the challenges that women pose to each other and to the Church:

The patriarchal ethic has only violent answers. We need a radically new ethic, another vision of the world. Can we women who know the sacredness of life return the spiritual to the material? Can we rediscover the feminine in the increasingly violent male ethos of civilizations? Can we bring back the sacred to the earth? It is not difficult to see that we are at the end of an epoch. Can we find new words, seek new ways, create new possibilities out of the material and human spirit to transform the existing exploitative social order and discern the great human potential?¹³

Corrine speaks Out of a "secular" consciousness of the women’s movement which increasingly seeks the "sacred," the "spiritual." The feminist theological movement in all regions of the world attempts to discover a theological response to these "secular" questions. It begins where women in theology attempt to deconstruct basic ethical principles such as "the common good" and "the question of moral power and authority," but from there it moves to the creative impulses we see around us, as women in faith and faithfulness reconstruct the future image and face of the Church as a "community of Christ, bought with a price, where everyone is welcome,"¹⁴ as Letty Russell describes it. Her image of the Church in the Round -- of round table talk and of leadership in the round is an exciting image of the church inclusive and open, welcoming, hospitable, comforting, prophetic and visibly present in the struggles for justice and life. Indeed she aptly sums up what women are saying. The ecclesial reality of the Church is intricately interwoven with its life as a moral community -- it has to constantly test its authority to be the moral voice in the world against its ability to respond with courage and conviction to the voices of the excluded, the voices from the margins. The Decade has gathered together the voices of women globally -- it is now the responsibility of the Church and of the ecumenical movement to stop and listen . . . for wisdom flows from here . . . .

Listen to the women

Listen

Listen to the women

They are arriving

Over the wise distances

On their dancing feet

Make way for the women

Listen to them. . .¹⁵

Notes:

1. Johanna Liddle and Joshi, Daughters of Independence. Gender, Caste, and Class in India (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1988), p. 5.

2. From the Bali Declaration, Asian Regional Meeting on Violence Against Women held in Bali, Indonesia, organized by WCC, the Christian Conference of Asia and the Asian Women’s Human Rights Commission, 1-6 August 1993.

3. Corrine Kumar. "The Universality of Human Rights Discourse, in Gnanadason, Kanyoro Musimbi; McSpadden Lucia Ann, Women, Violence and Non-Violent Change (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1996). p. 42.

4. Joy Bussert, Battered Women: From a Theology of Suffering to an Ethic of Empowerment (Lutheran Church in America, 1986).

5. Russell Letty M., Household of Freedom, Authority in Feminist Theology (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1987), P. 59.

6. Kwok, Pui Lan, quoted by Chung Hyun Kyung, Struggle to Be the Sun Again (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1993), p. 107.

7. Russell Letty M., op. cit., p. 61.

8. "Costly Unity?’ Final Statement of World Council of Churches Consultation on Koinonia and Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation. Ronde, Denmark, February 1993.

9. Best Thomas and Robra Martin (eds.), Ecclesiology and Ethics; Costly Commitment. WCC Consultation in Jerusalem, November 1994.

10. Konrad Raiser, "Ecumenical Discussion of Ecclesiology and Ethics," The Ecumenical Review, Vol. 48, No. I, January 1996, pp. 7-8.

11. Harper Charles, "From Impunity to Reconciliation" in Impunity, An Ethical Perspective, WCC Publications, 1996. p. ix.

12. Raiser Konrad, op. cit., p. 8.

13. Kumar Corrine, op. cit., p. 53.

14. Russell Letty M., Church in the Round, Feminist Interpretation of the Church (Westminster: John Knox Press, 1993), p. 14.

15. Corrine Kumar, op. cit., p. 30.