Liberation Theology. God favors the oppressed. The tenet is sound, but scary as hell itself. For I, white, middle class, American, educated, am not oppressed. I am not a widow. I am not an orphan. I am not an alien.
The phrase has entered into conversation twice this week. My conservative, evangelical background shys from anything not mentioned by Augustine or Spurgeon or C. S. Lewis. In such a moment I rejoice in friends who believe in a God big enough to save heretics. Some seminaries teach students to start using that word early. Even hinting threats to the establishment must be dismissed by a powerful label, conjuring up images of the Inquisition or gnostic witchcraft. Thankfully, ours is a God who fears not the questioning of His character; He is not afraid of heresy. We are welcome to wonder, even at the cost of doctrinal soundness. Props to Steve Brown for freeing me to become heretical in my pursuit of God.
In Liberation Theology, we find a discomforting challenge to institutional Christianity. The established church quivers, be it in the halls of the Vatican or protestant seminary. But a thorough reading of scripture cautions against siding with almost anything resembling an institution.
Thus I will question.
Given my aforementioned status of being decidedly unoppressed, I meet Liberation Theology with reluctance. What does such a doctrine imply about my standing with God? In the Psalter, we meet the God of the brokenhearted, the lonely, the sinner. In Jesus we find a man who persistently rejects the systematic theology of learned men to touch lepers and women. James cautions our proclivity to honor the honorable. These simple truths have been components of my faith for as long as I remember. But what if these components are, in fact, the center?
So who is oppressed? Walking the streets of Southside, I see black people, homeless people, gay people and disabled people. Each of these, according to the social structure of modern day Birmingham, have found some sort of oppression given the mentioned characteristics.
In class this week, the issue of race arose. Despite the civil rights movement and the 2008 election, I firmly agree with Derrick Bell that racism is a permanent and integral part of American culture. We are inherently racist, a fate sealed by a myriad of intractable factors, both biological and environmental. What's more, our generation's politically correct denial of the presence of intrinsic racism is a fertile medium for the perpetuation of implicit, unspoken racism. What can be done?
Where is the Church?
