Liberation Theology and Marxism Flashcards
what is liberation theology
- Contextual theology, aims to re-read the Gospel in the light of the situation in which it is being read
- Came out of Latin America, where the poor were being oppressed, offers hope
- Turns traditional theology on its head, action comes first, explanation afterwards. Orthopraxy comes before orthodoxy
- Lib Theo should engage with structural and social sin to try and bring about change. Corporate responsibility is key; seen in the Bible when God tells the Israelites they are corporately responsible for their wrongdoing
inspiration - Oscar romero
- Born in El Salvador, worked as a priest
- Military Junta came into power in 1979, many civil rights abuses. Romero criticised this and criticised the USA for supplying military aid
- 21st March 1980 – performing mass, was shot and killed
- Previous day had pleaded with the soldiers not to continue exploiting the poor, was labelled a communist
- He was NOT a Lib Theologian, but views underpinned Lib Theo
context for lib Theo
- Polarisation of wealth in Latin America, poor lived in shanty towns in favelas (60% of the arable land was controlled by 2% of landowners in Brazil)
- El Salvador – lots of murders and crime was generally very high
- Lib Theo believed that theologian should start with people’s lives
- Began in 1964 – meeting of young Catholic theologians who pledged to work out the truth of the Xian message in the light of the poverty in Latin America. Meeting included Gustavo Gutierrez and Jon Sobrino.
- Developed from the work of Paulo Freire, who invented the term ‘conscientisation’ – the way in which someone becomes aware of how the power structure in society affect people, and how we should subsequently encourage people to transform society.
subcategories of Marx thought
theory of alienation
religion
capitalism and materialism
his vision
Marx context
- Karl Marx was a 19th century theorist and philosopher, works include Communist Manifesto.
- Humans are social animals who have to work to survive and society is not made up of individuals, but is rather the sum of connections and relationships which people find themselves in.
marx - theory of alienation
- Theory of alienation: all people who are alienated are at the mercy of social institutions that have been shaped by powerful people
o Alienation can be summed up in four ways:
♣ Alienation from their work (it has no intrinsic value or enjoyment as they do not work for themselves)
♣ The product (when they do not own what they produce)
• Harmony can occur when people produce exactly what they require, but when people start to create surplus to their needs, class divisions begin to occur between those who control the surplus and those who don’t. First seen in the medieval times when feudal lords owned the land and the serfs worked on it, they became alienated. Means of production is a cause of exploitation and alienation.
♣ Other workers (constant competition between them)
♣ Their own human nature (they work for someone else and are not autonomous)
Marx - religion
- ‘opiate of the poor’
o Belief in God leads people to be alienated as religion tends to give power to a state or a ruling group
o Promotes the idea that some are less fortunate than others but that it will all be resolved in the afterlife
o Religion teaches people to accept alienation, gives people a false sense of hope
Marx - capitalism and materialism
o Capitalism brought in wage labour which could be bought and sold. This resulted in social division where the worker is ‘depressed, therefore, both intellectually and physically, to the level of a machine’
o Materialism is the basic force that runs the world
o Material forces can make humans feel stable, however, it often goes wrong. Marx calls this ‘historical materialism’ which is this cycle of harmony and then collapse that happens due to financial conditions.
o Period of harmony seen within a family setting, where they completely share means of production without anyone being exploited. However, this eventually all falls apart, usually due to greed and disputes.
o Work and capitalism are bound together, especially seen in factory production where people are dehumanised and exploited
Marx vision
o Envisioned a class struggle between the different groups in society with those being oppressed (proletariat) rising up against the oppressive structures (owners of production). o Saw religion and capitalism as the roots of human alienation, put forward the idea of a communist way of living, share all material and intellectual goods. o Praxis is key: as history is changing humans have the ability to understand the conditions that make them change and their ability to do something about it. Criticised Philosophy, think about the world but never do anything about.
links between Marx and lib Theo categories
bottom up theology oppression social sin structural sin praxis capitalism
marx and lib theo - bottom up theology
a. Lib Theo begins with orthopraxis (action of dealing with the situation of the poor) and then reflects upon it with orthodoxy, like Marx.
b. Lib Theo uses Marxist tools of analysis with regards to alienation
c. Both emphasise starting with the actual suffering and alienation of the people. In the light of this, Lib Theos reinterpret the Kingdom of God not as a heavenly idea, but rather as the dramatic transformation of society here and now.
marx and lib theo - oppression
a. Both claim that by reflecting on the causes of oppression, it is clear that any attempt by people to fail to share the products that they have created will lead to exploitation and alienation
b. Shown in the work of Jose Porfirio Miranda, uses Marx’s suspicion of private ownership of land as the basis of the roots of injustice. Miranda sees this as at the heart of the Bible as well. Develops the ideas of Marx: injustice is not just because of external material causes but also because of the fallen nature of mankind. Marx’s atheism means that he fails to give a good understanding of this. Miranda looks towards the 10 Commandments, are told not to be idolatrous, sees this as a direct rejection by mankind of these fundamental Commandments.
marx and lib theo - social sin
- (collective effort of many personal sins which make up attitudes and behaviours that harm others)
a. Marx emphasised industrialisation as a leading causing of alienation due to the injustice it brings.
b. Structures that support industrialisation become a part of other areas of life such as government etc. causing injustice to be institutionalised.
c. Gutierrez adopts Marx’s analysis of social sin, argued that to be a Xian, you must be political. Felt that it is the role of the Latin American church to be a voice against exploitation and alienation. Used Marxist terminology to describe ‘the class struggle (that) is a part of our economic, social, political, cultural and religious reality’
marx and lib theo - structural sin
- (when social sin becomes encoded into unfair laws and structures in society)
a. Current system accepts and supports structural inequality and this creates structural sin which is seen in the injustices between the rich and the poor.
b. Structural sin means that people are alienated from eachother and Faus cites the great earthquake in Mexico where the owners of a factory rushed to save their machinery before their workers.
c. Lib Theo and Marxism both accept that capitalism fails to satisfy the needs of the poor, suggest socialism as an alternative.
d. Acceptance of structural sin led them to create a hermeneutic of suspicion where they question traditional interpretations of Biblical texts. E.g. the story of the rich young ruler is reinterpreted to say he probably had to gain his riches through owning land and exploiting others.
e. Must engage with both social and structural sin to bring about change. Corporate responsibility is found in the Bible as God frequently told the Israelites that they were corporately responsible for their wrong doing. Hence, the Church is guilty of contributing to oppression by not using its power to stop it.
marx and lib theo - praxis
a. Lib Theos reapply Marx’s idea of philosophy to theology; they say that it should not be used just to question the world but to change it.
marx and lib theo - capitalism, segundo
a. Segundo: Xians must make a political choice between capitalism and socialism
i. Capitalism: ‘a political regime in which the ownership of the goods of production is left open to economic competition’
ii. Socialism: ‘is a political regime in which the ownership of the means of production is taken away from individuals an handed over to higher institutions whose main concern is the common good’
iii. Calls on Latin Americans to decide ‘whether or not we are going to give individuals or private groups the right to own the means of production that exist in our countries’.
iv. He calls this ‘the option between capitalism and socialism’.
The poor challenge the ‘naïve belief that the word of God is applied to human realities inside some antiseptic laboratory that is totally immune to the ideological struggles of the present day’.
