Freedom and Liberation in Galatians!

8/13/2019 Freedom and Liberation in Galatians!

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ARTICLES

Six Theses ConcerningFreedom in Christ

and Liberation:Liberation in Galatians, Luther,

and Liberation Theology

Rudolph H. Blank

Introduction

The Greek wordeleutheria,which is translated as freedom, liberty,or liberation in the New Testament occurs with greater frequency inPaul's Letter to the Galatians than in any other New Testamentwriting.

1 Maybe that's one of the reasons Galatians became one of

Luther's favorite epistles. Luther was enamored with the wordeleutheria and the concept behind it. During the heady days after theposting of theNinety-Five Theses, the great reformer was in the habitof referring to himself not as Luther but as Eleutherius, the free

man.

2

The Epistle to the Galatians was written in a moment of greatpassion and turmoil in the apostle's life. Certain unnamed teachershad infiltrated the fellowship of Galatian believers and were in theprocess of turning them from faith in the Gospel to reliance oncircumcision and the Law of Moses. In Galatians 5:1 Paul deliberately

federico Pastor Ramos,La Libertad en la Carta a los Glatas(Madrid: EAPSA,

1977).2Roland Bainton, Lutero, trans. Raquel Lozada de Ayala Torales (Editorial

S d i B Ai 1955) 135


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used emotionally charged liberation terminology to shake up theGalatian believers in an attempt to bring them to their senses. Alreadyin Paul's day "liberation" was a loaded word. In a society where almostfifty percent of the population were slaves, liberation talk was boundto have a strong emotional impact. The last thing a freed slave woulddesire would be to be enslaved anew. But that's precisely what peopledo when they turn from justification by faith to justification by theLaw.

Liberation talk still produces strong emotions today. It is still aloaded word. During the traumatic 1960s, when the Viet NamWarwasraging, the world witnessed the birth of many new social, economic,and religious movements. By now, thirty years later, all of these

movements have faded awayexceptone.That movement is LiberationTheology. Liberation Theology has not only survived; it has developedany number of offshoots, clones, and mutants. From their LatinAmerican base, liberation theologians have spawned spin-offs in all themajor regions of the world. Today, one hears of Black LiberationTheology, Feminist Liberation Theology, Minjung Theology, DalitTheology, 'Water Buffalo Theology," besides Jewish, Palestinian, andChicano theologies of liberation.3

The question that presents itself as we survey the growth of all

these liberation theologies isWhat is the relation between them andthe freedom in Christ in which Paul calls us to stand fast in Galatians5:1? Is it the same thing, or are Galatians and Liberation Theologytalking about two completely different kinds of liberation? What wepropose to do in this paper is compare Liberation Theology, especiallyRoman Catholic Latin American Liberation Theology, with the theologyof Galatians in six major areas of concern.

In doing this some word of caution is in order. Liberation Theologyis admittedly a very controversial and potentially a very divisivesubject. It is a subject about which Lutherans have expressed varyingshades of agreement and disagreement. The purpose of ourInternational Lutheran Conference4is to foster unity, cooperation, andpartnership, not division. For the sake of Lutheran unity, it wouldhave been easy for me to stress in this paper only those elements inLiberation Theology about which all are agreed. In spite of the manycategorical denunciations made against all liberation theologians, there

3Otto Maduro,The Future of Liberation Theology(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989), p.i


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are still many positive things they have to teach us. We could withprofit dedicate ourselves to the study of these positive elementswithout ever getting into the controversial areas. This, however, wouldnot be responsible theology. There also are in Liberation Theologiesideas and concepts which are not only antagonistic and antithetical toLutheran Theology but to all that historic Christianity has stood forduring the last two thousand years. To pretend that such differencesdo not exist or blandly to affirm that all of liberation theology iscompatible with Biblical Christianity would be the height of theologicalirresponsibility.

It is no secret that even within the Lutheran family of churchesmany ecclesiastical leaders and theological students are uncritically

incorporating the perspectives and praxes of liberation theologies intotheir ministries without seeing the doctrinal, ecclesiastical, andmissiological implications of their actions. For that reason alone, acritical evaluation of Liberation Theology is in order. As responsibletheologians and Christian leaders we need not only to evaluatecontemporary theologies of liberation but also humbly to hear out theevaluations that these theologies make of us and the theologicalcommunities to which we belong. Many ecclesiastical leaderscategorically dismiss everything that has to do with liberation

theologies as heretical, satanic, and Marxist without first askingwhether God might be using some to the trumpeting of currentliberation theologies to awaken and renew our churches. We need notonly to evaluate liberation theologies but ourselves. We mustremember that if the worldwide Christian church had constantly livedout the Gospel that it claims to proclaim, there would have been noneed for liberation theologies to arise.

The first area of difficulty that we encounter as we try to engagewith Liberation Theology has to do with our theologicalpresuppositions, with the way we read and understand the Scriptures.Unlike many First World theologians, both Liberation Theology andLutheran theology believe that the Scriptures are relevant to what ishappening in the world today, and for that reason they seek to applythe Scriptures to our individual and corporate Uves.

Thesis I. Reformation theologians and liberation theologiansoperate with two contrasting canons within the canon.

A careful reading of Paul's Letter to the Galatians will reveal thatth f d hi h th G l ti d t d f d i


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because the Galatian believers have been justified that they are freedfrom the necessity of securing their salvation through circumcision andthe rites of the Mosaic Law. Seeking the security of their sonshipthrough circumcision would be a denial that justification by faith is the

only way through which people are freed from slavery and madecitizens of the new eschatological Jerusalem which is from above. Onlythose who have been justified by faith are truly liberated. Those whoseek justification in any other way are children of Hagar, sons anddaughters born into slavery.

In stressing liberation from the Law in his Letter to the Galatians,the apostle Paul is fighting to preserve the Galatians from being ledastray by another gospel which is no gospel at all. Any kind of

liberation which is not a consequence of justification is not gospel; itis not true liberation at all, but another form of slavery. Thus, in orderto understand Paul's liberation language in Galatians, we must see itin the light of what he writes about justification by faith. Justificationby faith is the hermeneutical key for understanding liberation or anyother major Biblical concept. This is why reformation theologians talkabout justification by faith as that teaching upon which the churchstands or falls. Those texts which most clearly enunciate what

justification by faith means have come to function within the churches

of the Reformation as a canon within a canon. They are the touchstoneby which all other theological constructs are tobejudged. Those texts,especially those found in Romans, Galatians, John, and First Peter,have come to be regarded by Lutherans and other sons of theReformation as the canon within the canon.

In order to understand Liberation Theology we need to bear inmind that Liberation Theology also operates on the basis of a canonwithin a canon. Liberation theologians, in working with basic ecclesialcommunities composed of the poor, the oppressed, and themarginalized, have come to believe that God's solidarity with theoppressed and His commitment to their liberation is the heart of theGood News which is proclaimed in both Testaments. This "preferentialoption of God for the poor" is to serve as a guide to understanding boththe Scriptures and human history. Liberation theologians claim thatGod is to be found in the world today in those situations in which thepoor experience liberation, solidarity, and concientizacin(consciousness raising). It is through their experiencing of God's

liberating activity among the poor today that liberation theologianshave come to believe that the liberating activity of Jesus in the Gospelsand the Exodus experience of the oppressed Hebrew slaves are the


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Many liberation theologians such as Leonardo Boff of Brazilbelieve that the leaders of the primitive church who produced our NewTestament were concerned to protect the church from persecution byRoman and Jewish authorities. According toBoff,this led the church

to highlight those elements in the Jesus tradition that would portrayJesus as a purely religious leader. Such a Jesus would not be conceivedof as a threat by those controlling the reins of power. In other words,liberation theologians believe that the words and works of thehistorical Jesus were subjected to a process of spiritualization by Hisfollowers who either did not understand or who were uncomfortablewith the political implications of His ministry and mission. In spite ofthe efforts of the authors of the New Testament to water down the

political and social aspects of Jesus' activity, liberation theologiansargue that there is still a substantial substratum of materials in theNew Testament that testify to the political and social thrust of theoriginal Jesus movement.5

In their reading of the New Testament, liberation theologians seekto separate those texts which reflect Jesus' original liberating praxisfrom later interpretations of the apostolic church. For example, thosetexts which present Jesus as a liberator rather than as a Hellenisticsavior-god are to be taken as more original and closer to the Jesus of

history. Those texts which speak of Jesus as a substitute for lostsinners or as a sacrifice for sin are to be viewed as laterinterpretations of the church that are not binding upon the faith andpractice of Christians in the twentieth century.6However, those textswhich present Jesus as a liberator who has come to establish God'skingdom on earth cannot and must not be pushed to the side. It isthese texts that function for liberation theologians as a canon withina canon. Liberation theologians claim that in reading Scripture in thisway they are taking the text seriously. They claim that they want toget into the Word and to apply that Word to concrete situations in thelives of people who are living and suffering in our world today.

Liberation Theology claims that it does not want to spiritualize butto recover the original meaning of the text which has been obscuredand buried by tradition and the interpretations of establishmenttheologians. Liberation Theology feels that traditional establishmenttheology has spiritualized away the real meaning of many texts inorder to protect the privileges of the dominant elites.Boff,for example,

holds that establishment theologians tend to spiritualize Christ's


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command to the rich young man. They say that the meaning of thestory in Matthew is that followers of Jesus should be spirituallydetached from riches. But this, saysBoff, is not what the text says.The text very literally says that the rich should sell their possessionsand give them to the poor because unless wealth is given to the poorit is corrupting, idolatrous, and ultimately damning.

Gustavo Gutirrez of Peru complains that the Old Testamentpromises of a transformed earth have been interpreted literally byJews and spiritually by Christians. This, says Gutirrez, is because forcenturies an unbiblical Western dualism has operated within Christianhermeneutics. This dualism has led interpreters of the Bible to busythemselves in searching for a hidden meaning behind the plain sense

of the text. This, however, is for Gutirrez a distortion of theScriptures: "The coming kingdom and theparousia refer to historical,earthly, and social realities. The peace and justice, the love andfreedom about which Jesus preaches are not only private realities orinternal attitudes, they are social realities, implying a historicalliberation."7

Liberation theologians claim that they are working to recover theoriginal message of Jesus which has been watered down, domesticated,and made to serve the interests of the power groups that control both

society and church. Liberation Theology wants to liberate the Word ofJesus so that it can function to liberate the oppressed, the poor, themarginalized, and the dehumanized children of God who are dailybeing crucified by the dominant elites, corrupt power groups, and thenational security state.

The emphasis given by liberation theologians to the dangers ofspiritualizing the Scriptures can well serve us as an antidote toGnostic and over-spiritualistic interpretations of the Bible. While we

say this we must recognize that liberation theologians operate with ananti-spiritualistic bias which has led them to an overly materialisticreading of the Word of God which is ultimately dependent upon aMarxist socio-economic analysis of history and historical texts.8Sucha total rejection of all spiritual interpretations does not do justice tothe fact that long before New Testament times the concept of freedomand the vocabulary of liberation were used with a wide assortment ofmeanings, both materialistic and spiritual. For some Greekphilosophers liberation meant being autonomous, being in control of


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oneself, having dominion over inferior things and over the fear ofdeath. Liberation terminology was used by other thinkers to mean

beingfree fromdominationbymatter, theirbodies,or by intermediate

spiritualbeings.

As has been pointed out,Paul uses liberation terminology in a

spiritual sense when he exhorts theGalatianbelievers not to fall into

slavery tocircumcision and the Mosaic Law. If what Paul is doing isspiritualizingChrist'smaterialisticteachingaboutliberation,thenthis

was done in one of the earliest New Testament documents thatpredatedby at least ten years the first publishedGospel.

Theattemptby manyliberation theologiansto read andinterpretthe New Testament through a onedimensional, materialistic,

interpretivelensthatjudgestheauthenticityofBiblicaltextsaccordingto theirconformity to a preferentialoptionfor the pooris bound to

producedistortionsandmisinterpretationsofmuchBiblical material.

Thisis especially evident in those parts ofthe Scripturesthat speak

aboutsalvation.Wegiveattention tothisaspectofLiberationTheologyinour second thesis.

Thesis : In Galatians, Paul speaks ofjustification by faith inChristasbeingtheonly way tosalvation.LiberationTheology,

however,operates on thebasisof adualplanof salvationonefor the poor and another for those who are not poor.

Moststudents ofLiberationTheology consider GustavoGutirrezto be the founder of the movement, even though we could adduce a

number of arguments to question that designation. According toGutirrez and most other Roman Catholic liberation theologians, there

exists in the economy of God two plans of salvationone for the poor

and one for the non-poor. According to this scheme, the poor are thosewho are saved by grace and by faith. Gutirrez talks about the poor as

being sinners, but their sins are of a different nature from those of therich. The sins of the proletariat apparently are not as serious and

damning as those of the bourgeoisie. According to Gutirrez, the

primary sin of the poor is despair and fatalism.9 This fatalism and

despair are produced by the oppression and injustice which the poor

suffer because of the sins of the rich. The poor are saved when theybelieve in the Gospel which is proclaimed to them. However, the


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content of this Gospel is not that Jesus has freed us from the Law,from sin, and from death as it is in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians.

According to Paul faith is to be centered in Jesus Christ, the Son

of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Behind the words "gavehimself for me" is all that Paul has said elsewhere about salvation. InGalatians 1:4 the apostle speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ who gaveHimself to rescue us from "the present evilage."In 2 Corinthians 5:21Paul says that "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so thatin him we might become the righteousness of God." The very heart ofthe Gospel is vicarious substitutionary atonement. But this is not whatliberation theologians consider to be the Good News.

According to most liberation theologians, the Good News in which

the poor must believe is that they are not alone and abandoned in theoppression and injustice which they suffer. As with the Hebrews inEgypt, God has heard the cry of His people because God is the God ofthe outcasts, the marginalized, and the slaves. He is not the Godwhose Word and authority the rich and the oppressors can use to

justify their exploitation of the wretched of the earth. The Gospel isthat God has heard the poor and that He is present among them,working even now to establish His kingdom. This kingdom is a trulyegalitarian society in which there is justice and in which the strugglebetween social classes has been eliminated. The poor are justified whenthey abandon their despair and fatalism and believe in the message ofthe kingdom. When the poor experienceconcientizacin (consciousnessraising) they come to see that their poverty, misery, and suffering arenot the result of original sin, predestination, karma, fate, destiny, thewill ofGod,or their belonging to an inferior race.10

Through believing the Gospel of the kingdom, the poor come to seethat their suffering is due to the sins of the rich and the unjust

structures which have been imposed upon the poor. Once the poor areconverted to this message of the kingdom, they will actively begin towork for the transformation of the world. In this way the poor willbecome the agents of their own liberation. The poor then are savedwhen they abandon their despair and fatalism and believe that God iseven now at work among them building the kingdom. According toGutirrez, this faith by which the poor believe in the message of thekingdom is in itself a gift of the grace of God. It is a gift which thepoor do not deserve. It is through this faith given by grace that the

poor are saved. Thus, Gutirrez claims salvation is both by faith and


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by grace. For those who are not rich there is another way of salvation.This salvation is to be encountered in the neighbor, for the neighbor isconsidered to be a sacrament of salvation for those who are not poor.Traditional theology used to deny that there was any salvation outsideof the church, extra ecclesia nulla salus. Gutirrez, however, wouldrephrase that to read that there is no salvation outside of the neighbor.According to Gutirrez and the majority of liberation theologians, "Godis only with us when we love the neighbor." Thus, whoever loves thepoor neighbor is already within the sphere of Christianity. One of thefavorite texts of liberation theologians is Matthew 25:31-46, in whichJesus proclaims to those at His right hand: "Inasmuch as ye have doneit unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

On the basis of this text, liberation theologians claim that Christ ispresent in the poor as a sacrament of salvation to the non-poor. It isin the poor, and only in the poor, that the non-poor will be able to findChrist. It is through loving the poor and identifying with them in theirstruggle for liberation that the non-poor become members of thekingdom of God. In loving the poor neighbor as oneself the non-poorfind a gracious God. However, this poor neighbor is not found isolatedby social, political, and economic realities. This means that the poorneighbor cannot be loved abstractly. The love of the neighbor is not

only a matter of the heart, but of giving oneself to transform thestructures of society and the relationships of oppression which denythe humanity of the neighbor. The love of the neighbor in which wemeet God is then a love which becomes involved in the transformationof dehumanizing social, economic, racial, political, and culturalrealities.11

The stress upon the poor as that sacrament through which humanbeings may find God and enter into communion with Him has led

many liberation theologians to devalue or reinterpret Baptism, theLord's Supper, and sacramental worship in general. This brings us toour next thesis.


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Thesis III: In Galatians Paul declares that believers have beenfreed from Old Testament ceremonies such as circumcision.According to Liberation Theology, Christ has come to free

human beings from enslavement to ceremonial worship,sacraments, and liturgy.

The freedom in Christ which Paul proclaims in Galatians isliberating because it frees people to worship God out of a grateful heartand to serve the neighbor out of love. When a person is consumed witha passion to work out his own salvation, he has no time for the trueworship of God or the true service of the brother. He is too busy goingon pilgrimages, obtaining indulgences, and mortifying his flesh. In the

Ninety-Five ThesesLuther took aim upon those who refused aid to theneedy brother because their funds, their time, and their efforts wereall dedicated to the task of gaining merit and buying indulgences.Luther made it clear that such individuals did not purchase salvationbut eternal condemnation. By setting us free from the necessity ofhaving to justify ourselves, Jesus liberates us for liberation. Heliberates us from having to serve God and the neighbor out ofcompulsion, fear of earthly punishment, or the terror of eternaldamnation. He liberates us to worship and adore God out of puregratitude and thankfulness. Moses demanded that Pharaoh set God'speople free so that they could worship Yahweh and not the gods ofEgypt. Christ sets us free to worship God in Spirit and in truth. Heliberates us to serve the brother. Service to sin and self would beanother form of slavery.

Although some liberation theologians like Gustavo Gutirrez stressthe nurturing of a devotional and sacramental life, their views are notshared by all liberation theologians. Jon Sobrino, Jos Comblin, and

Leonardo Boff claim that one of the priorities of Jesus' mission was toliberate human beings not only from Old Testament ceremonial law,but from all cult, liturgy, sacraments, sacred ceremonies, and prayers.According to these theologians, Jesus freed His disciples frominvolvement in cultic practices and devotional exercises so that Hisfollowers would be free to dedicate their lives and energies to the taskof humanizing society and dismantling unjust structures. LeonardoBoff claims that most priests in Latin America spend practically all oftheir time closeted in their churches reciting masses and performingother sacramental acts when they should be out in the world workingfor a more just society. According to Boff, priests should be catalysts


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Comblin's opinion, Jesus did not practice the religious acts of Hispeople. He instead wanted to emancipate them from cult. Jesus did notparticipate in sacred ceremonies or recite prayers. He did not visit the

synagogue regularly, nor did He participate in the liturgy. NeitherJesus nor His disciples were very religious. They did not belong to anyof the religious groups like the Pharisees, Sadducees, or Essenes. Theywere all laymen.12

Comblin asserts that Jesus acted in this way because God neitherwants nor needs worship from anyone. God is not interested in havingpeople converse with Him. He is interested in having us becomeconcerned with the liberation of other human beings. True worship ofGod is the authentic humanizing of oppressed peoples. The movement

of liberation which Jesus began is different from what we call religions.Religions are concerned primarily with God and unconcerned abouthuman beings. Their concern for people serves only as propaganda onbehalf of their God. The Jesus movement, on the other hand, isconcerned primarily with the humanizing of people, not with God.

Comblin would put Christian worship, cult, liturgy, and formalreligion in the same basket with the circumcision of the Judaizers. Allof these things are for him a form of ceremonial law which helps toencapsulate the church and get God's people concerned aboutthemselves and their relation with God instead of carrying out theirreal missionhumanizing the world. In a similar vein, Jon Sobrinoinsists that God's principle concern is not that people worship Him butthat they would commit themselves to the liberation of the poor andthe oppressed. Sobrino holds that in the original version of the "GreatCommandment," which Jesus taught as the sum of the Law and theProphets, there was nothing about loving God with all one's heart,with all one's soul, and with all one's mind. According to Sobrino, the

part about loving God above all things is a gloss which was added bya scribe who misunderstood the intention of Jesus and was concernedthat God receive more honor than human beings.13 Sobrino assertsthat the only true worship of God is loving and doing justice to thepoor. For Sobrino, God is not to be found in the temple, the cult, thesacraments, or the external ethical schemes of the Pharisees.14 The"privileged locale of access to God is the poor." Although God iseverywhere, He cannot be found in every place, but only in that place


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in which He told us He would be. That place is the world of thepoor.15

Such a devaluation of worship in favor of service to humanity is

not something that originated with liberation theologians. AlbertRichtel was saying similar things over a hundred years ago. In fact,Christ's own disciples took Mary of Bethany to task for hersentimental devotion to the person of Jesus when she should have beengiving priority to the poor. The fact that Jesus defended Mary andaccepted her worship and her costly devotion should serve as a lessonto us that liturgy(leiturgia)is not the enemy of service(diakonia) butits presupposition.16 It is in the Word and the Sacraments that weexperience the love and forgiveness of Christ which enable us to love

and serve all of mankind. Liturgical worship is no adiaphora forChristians who take the Scriptures seriously, because it is throughBaptism, the Lord's Supper, and the proclaimed Word that the HolySpirit is given to human beings. Without the Spirit there can be notrue liberation. Liberation theologians, of course, would also affirmthat there is no liberation without the Spirit, but they would disagreethat it is only through the means of grace that the Spirit iscommunicated to human beings. It is this difference of opinion whichconstitutes our fourth thesis.

Thesis IV. Paul holds that the Galatian believers came topossess the Spirit through Baptism and through hearing theWord with faith. Liberation theologians believe that the Spiritis given to all people at birth as one of the gifts of creation.

According to Paul's Letter to the Galatians, the life of those whohave been liberated and found freedom in Christ is a life which is

made possible by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit was poured out upon theGalatians when they believed in the preaching of the Gospel. InGalatians 3:2 the apostle asks "Received ye the Spirit by the works ofthe Law, or by the hearing offaith?"The Spirit is not something whichthe Galatians had before the Gospel was proclaimed to them. Speakingof the Galatians in their pagan state, Paul says, "Formerly, when youdid not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are notGod." They were slaves to the weak and beggarly elements.


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It was because the Galatians by nature did not possess the HolySpirit that the works of the flesh were manifest in them. However, inGalatians 3:27 the apostle declares: "For as many of you as have been

baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew norGreek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female:for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." It was through Baptism that theseGalatians who formerly were slaves of sin put on Christ. Among otherthings, the phrase "putting on Christ" means receiving the Holy Spiritand His gifts. The equality which the Galatian believers experience isbased on the fact that each one of them received the same Holy Spiritat Baptism. It is not based on social, political, or economic equality butequality in the Holy Spirit. It is quite clear that according the Paul's

Epistle to the Galatians, the Holy Spirit is given only through thepreaching of the Gospel and through the Sacraments. It is onlythrough this Holy Spirit given in Word and Sacrament that theGalatians can produce the fruits of the Spirit.

It is because the Galatians have received the Spirit through thepreaching of the Gospel and through Baptism that they can stand fastin the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. Their lives are underthe control of the Holy Spirit, not their own spirit nor other spirits.Those whose lives are not under the control of the Holy Spirit are notfree. They are enslaved to other powers that control their lives.

In contrast to the view that the Holy Spirit is given only throughthe means of grace, most liberation theologians hold that the HolySpirit and His gifts are given to all human beings at birth. Accordingto Gustavo Gutirrez, all people, Christians and non-Christians alike,receive the Holy Spirit, love, grace, and salvation at birth, and notwhen they are baptized. This is the reason why Gutirrez can talk ofcreation as already being salvation. Because the Holy Spirit is said to

be given to all people at birth, all people are thereby enabled to love,identify with the neighbor, and follow a liberating lifestyle. Howeverin most people this love of the neighbor is latent or dormant withinthem. The Holy Spirit and His gifts which are dormant within peoplemust be awakened or stirred up by the preaching of the kingdom or

concientizacin. In Gutirrez' opinion, although all people have beengiven salvation at birth, this salvation will do them no good unless itis appropriated through love. Salvation can be lost by refusing to bethe Good Samaritan who responds to the cry of the neighbor.17

We can see in all of this that liberation theologians assume thathuman beings, on the basis of God's grace, given in creation, have


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within them the capacity to produce the kind of love of which Jesusspeaks in the Great Commandment. This says something about theanthropology of Roman Catholic liberation theologians like Gutirrez,

Boff,and Segundo. While they would not deny human sinfulness, theydo not see human depravity as being that profound, perverse orpernicious as do Augustine, Luther, or Calvin. This is the reason whyit is easier for Liberation Theology to attribute a larger share of evilto political, social, and economic structures. Due to their overlyoptimistic anthropology, liberation theologians are overly optimisticabout the capacity of human beings to build the kingdom of Godthrough the changing of political, social, and economic structures.18

The overly optimistic anthropology of most liberation theologians

goes hand in hand with another characteristic of Liberation Theology:the tendency to interpret all texts relating to the demonic as beingsymbolical references to structural evil. Evangelical Christians wouldbe much more reticent than liberation theologians about seeing theHoly Spirit as the moving force behind the many new social andpolitical movements that have surfaced in our times. EvangelicalChristians believe that new social and political movements can beinspired by the Prince of Darkness as well as by the Holy Spirit. This

contrast in viewpoints can be summed up in the following thesis.

Thesis V: In Paul liberation is not only from circumcision, sin,and death, but also from occult powers. In Liberation Theologythe occult powers are symbols of structural evil.

It is well known that Paul's Epistle to the Galatians is his mostemotional and passionate apostolic writing. Outbursts like those inwhich Paul addresses his spiritual children as "foolish Galatians" who

have been bewitched are triggered by a father's anguished concern thathis children not throw away their freedom and enslave themselves tothe powers of death. The freedom that Paul proclaims in Galatians isa freedom which can be lost. The designers and builders of the statueof liberty in New York harbor have portrayed liberty as a lady. Ladiescan be assaulted, and their virtue can be lost. Ladies need to bedefended and protected. Paul is concerned tha t the liberty of God's newpeople be protected and defended.


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While Paul in Galatians speaks of freedom and liberty primarilyin terms of freedom from circumcision and from the impositions ofMosaic Law, the concept offreedomin Galatians and the rest of Paul's

epistles is much wider than just freedom from the Law. The freedomof those who belong to God's new people includes freedom from occultpowers. This is especially the case of those Gentile members of theGalatian congregations who formerly worshipped idols and wereinvolved in all manner of occult activity. In Galatians 1:4 Paul greetsthe Galatians in the name of God the Father and our Lord JesusChrist "who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us fromthis present evilworld."Paul uses this same terminology elsewhere toinclude the demonic rulers who are part of this evil age.

The liberation of which Paul writes to the Galatians is alsoliberation from Satan; it is freedom from the enemy and his power. InJesus' parable of the strong man, the Stronger One comes to bind thestrong man and take his possessions. The strong man is Satan who asa robber baron has filled his house or kingdom with illegally gottenpossessions. These possessions are people who have been enslavedthrough their participation in idol worship and occult activity. TheStronger One who invades Satan's kingdom to set free his slaves is

Jesus Christ. Jesus in His programmatic inaugural sermon in thesynagogue in Nazareth quotes Isaiah 61:1-3 and proclaims Himself asthe liberator who has come to set free those who are in bondage. Jesusfollows up that sermon with a prophetic act which proclaims in deedwhat His sermon proclaimed in word. Jesus' first act after Hisinaugural sermon is to set free a person who is in bondage to anunclean spirit in the synagogue of Capernaum. The exorcisms of Jesusare to be understood as evidences of the presence of the kingdom ofGod, which is breaking into the present age to bring God's liberation

to those who are in bondage to the evil ruler of this age.19One cannot speak of liberation from the Law without at the same

time speaking of liberation from Satan andfromthe occult. The powersof darkness can exploit the Law and use it as a tool to hold God'speople in captivity to the elemental spirits of the universe.20 InGalatians 4:3-9 the Galatians are accused of changing one form ofslavery for another. The samestoicheia (evil powers considered to berelated to the stars) that regulated the pagan way of life are also seento be active in using a misunderstanding and misuse of Jewish Law toenslave the Galatian believers. Legalism and pagan religion are two


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systems used by the occult powers to deprive God's children of thefreedom for which they were created.

During Paul's lifetime Stoic writers like Seneca and Manilius

averred that all of human life was predetermined by astral spirits andcould not be changed by human effort or religious practices. Maniliuswrites: "Set your minds free, mortal men, let your cares go and deliveryour lives from all this pointless fuss. Fate rules theworld;everythingis bound by certain laws; eternities are sealed by predeterminedevents." The pagan masses like thosefromwhich many of the GalatianChristians were drawn also believed like the Stoics that human fatewas determined by the planets and the stars. But unlike the Stoics,the masses believed that the astral spirits could be propitiated and

manipulated so as to change one's fate. One of the gods who wasthought to have great power to change fate or destiny was EphesianArtemis, or Diana, whose devotees caused Paul considerable problemsin Ephesus. Artemis, who drew worshippers from all Asia and Galatia,was depicted as wearing the signs of the zodiac as a necklace as a wayof showing her power and authority over fate and over astral spirits.21

Millions of oppressed and marginalized people in the time of SaintPaul tried to free themselves from slavery to fate by involvement inthe occult, but in so doing they became enslaved to Satan. One way ofloosing the liberty of the sons ofGodis by becoming involved in occultactivity.

Like Saint Paul, liberation theologians are also concerned to freepeople from fatalism. Liberation theologians and social scientists arein agreement that one of the greatest contributing factors in the social,political, and economic enslavement of people in the Third World isfatalism. Anthropologists and historians of religion write case studiesabout the culture of poverty whose members have come to believe that

it is their divinely decreed fate always to be at the bottom of the heap.Any attempt to change one's destiny or karma would be disobedienceor rebellion against God or the fate-determining powers of this world.Other members of the First, Second, and Third Worlds feeling trappedin a life determined by political, social, and political forces out of theircontrol are trying desperately to change their fate even through itmeans participation in the occult. In thousands of basic ecclesialcommunities around the world liberation theologians and theirdisciples are trying to bring the masses to see that the reason for theirpoverty, enslavement, marginality, and hunger is not fate, destiny,


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original sin, karma, divine punishment, astral spirits, or some form ofpredestination. It is rather the sins of the dominant elites, the richlandowners, bankers, international corporations, conglomerates, the

military, and last but not least, the religious leaders who provide thetheological justification for the domination of the poor by the rich. Thisis what consciousness raising, orconcientizacion,is all about.

But unlike Paul, liberation theologians do not believe in theexistence of occult powers from which enslaved human being are to beset free. Satan and the occult powers are thought to be personificationsof unjust and dehumanizing structures which impede the realizationof God's kingdom on earth. There are liberation theologians whobelieve that the legion of demons that was expelled from the Gadarene

demoniac were meant to symbolize the Roman legions and theirHerodian running dogs. These are the demons that had possessedPalestine and who needed to be expelled. Since it would have beenpolitical suicide for the leaders of the early church to include withinthe New Testament direct attacks on the unjust political structureswhich Jesus came to undermine, many liberation theologians feels thatthese attacks have been disguised under the accounts of Jesus'exorcisms.22However, Jesus' exorcisms today need to be interpretedas justification for the involvement of Christian communities inprograms ofconcientizacion, prophetic protest, and participation inmovements dedicated to the overcoming of structural evil. In order todo this, traditional ceremonies, rites, sacraments, liturgies, andfestivals which have been used to justify, reinforce, and perpetuateunjust structures must be reinterpreted so that they can function asinstruments of liberation and not of oppression. The enslavingdoctrines of demons which must be exorcised are those of compulsiveconsumerism, Reaganomics, exploitative capitalism, and the national

security state.According to liberation sociologists and anthropologists people are

drawn to the occult and satanic sects because they feel trapped bysocietal structureshelpless to change the course of their lives.Everything that happens in life seems to be controlled by the greattransnational and international corporations, by corrupt political,military and economic elites. All movements of social reform aresquashed by the police and the national security state. In manysocieties these corrupt structures have their existences justified and

defended theologically and morally by the state religionorthe religious


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establishment. It appears that God is on the side of the unjuststructures which enslave society. Subconsciously people are drawn intooccult activity and satanic sects as a way of protesting against the

unjust god or idol that is used by the establishment to justify itsexistence.23 According to liberation theologians, the only way to putan end to occult activity is for the church to put into practice thepreferential option for the poor. Then and only then will the oppressedmasses see that the God of Jesus Christ is their ally and not theiroppressor.

There is much that we can and should learn from liberationtheology about the ways in which political and economic structures canbecome demonic. There is much that we can applaud and emulate in

the work that basic ecclesial communities are doing to overcome thefatalism which has enslaved those who are caught up within theculture of poverty. However, by interpreting all that the Scriptureshave to say about demonic forces and occult powers in terms of unjuststructures, liberation theologians are overestimating what humanbeings are capable of doing and underestimating the power of evil. Oneof the consequences of this overly optimistic anthropology is theoveremphasis given to the very real possibility of constructing the

kingdom of God through structural change and political and economicprograms. Jesus did, however, say: "Howbeit this kind goeth not outbut by prayer and fasting."

Thesis VI: In Liberation Theology Christ functions primarily asa model or paradigm to be imitated, while in Galatians Christfunctions as sacrament and gift

The more one reads liberation theology the more one becomes

aware that Christ's primary function within that theologyis,ironically,not that of liberator, but as a model or paradigm for our own liberatingpraxis. As in the great Gnostic systems of the second and thirdcenturies in which the Logos comes not so much to set people free asto impart secret wisdom by which souls enslaved in matter may freethemselves, so in liberation theology the liberating praxis of Jesusimparts to the enslaved masses the model that must be followed if theyare to become the subjects of their own liberation. While the heart andcenter of Christology in Galatians is on what Christ has done for us,


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extra nos9 the focus of liberation theology's Christology is on theimitation of Christ.

For many liberation theologians, the center of the Gospel message

is that we are to imitate Jesus and follow His example in fulfilling therole of the Good Samaritan. According to LeonardoBoff, the GreatCommission is not "Go and make disciples of all nations" but"Goanddo likewise""Go and be a Good Samaritan to the poor and plunderedof the earth."24Boff holds that being a Good Samaritan in the ThirdWorld today involves such activity as the defense and promotion of therights of the poor. Boff points out that the Scriptures themselves nevertalk about human rights; they talk about the rights of the poor. Jesusactions on behalf of the oppressed and marginalized provide us with a

model that we are to follow in our struggles to affirm the rights of thepoor. Jesus' example shows us that we are to distinguish betweenbourgeois rights and the rights of the poor. When the dominant elitestalk about human rights they give priority to those human rightswhich are of direct interest to the privileged strata of society such asthe right to private property. Boff complains that too often priority isgiven to such bourgeois rights as freedom of the press, freedom ofexpression, and religious freedom, while such rights of the poor as theright to decent housing, a fair wage, and an adequate diet are pushed

to one side.25In all talk of human rights there must be a preferentialoption for the poor because God Himself has such an option. Such apreferential option must not be understood in terms ofGodloving somepeople more than others, but rather as that of a mother who loves allof her children, but prefers the one who is ill.26

For liberation theologians, Jesus is the supreme example of theGolden Rule put into practice. Above all else, Jesus through Hisexample shows us what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.

This love of the other is not the external form of the Law, but it is thetrue meaning of the Law. Therefore, according toBoff, Sobrino, andComblin, what makes a person right in the eyes of God is his or heropenness to other human beings. These theologians affirm that aperson can be a true Christian without professing orthodox Christiandoctrines, belonging to the church or bearing the name Christian.Wherever true love exists and egoism is surpassed, when humanbeings seek justice, reconciliation, and forgiveness, there we have trueChristianity.


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What makes people right in the sight of God is not being washedin the blood of the Lamb, reconciled by the sacrifice of the Son, or

justified by faith without the deeds of the Law. It is loving the

neighbor that makes us good in the sight of God. However, when lovingthe neighbor becomes a demand upon which our being right in God'seyes is conditioned, then loving the neighbor becomes a new andalienating law that is capable of putting a tremendous guilt trip uponany person who is really honest with himself or herself and with thekind of love of which we are capable.

When love is demanded, love becomes a law. Furthermore, a lovewhich is demanded or forced is not the love of Christ. Genuine love canonly flow from gratitude, and genuine gratitude can come only as an

unworthy sinner's response to having been washed in the blood of theLamb and reconciled by the sacrifice of the Son. C. F. W. Walthersummed this up in the following quote in which he makes gratitudethe basis for Christian ethics:

The real good works are works to which gratitude toward Godprompts us. Whoever has true faith never thinks of meritingsomething good for himself by his service. His heart has been

changed: It has been softened by the riches of God's love whichhe has experienced.27

Saul of Tarsus, who became the apostle who wrote the Epistle tothe Galatians, was a person who had become transformed frompersecutor and enemy of Christ to one completely dedicated to God andto serving the other. Paul was liberated from the Law, from sin, fromdeath, and from Satan to be a truly free person. Paxil used his freedomnot as an occasion for the flesh, not in order to serve self,and not in

order to be free from God and from his neighbor. Paul, like Luther,used his liberty in Christ in order to become a servant and slave ofGod and the neighbor. What worked this transformation in Paul andLuther was not the imitation of Christ but the substitutionary andexpiatory sacrifice of Christ on their behalf. For Paul and Luther,Christ's incarnation, passion, and death were not primarily models orparadigms to be imitated, but God's action to liberate those who couldnot liberate themselves. For Paul and Luther, Christ is above all God'sgracious gift. He is the supreme sacrament of salvation. In liberationtheology Jesus Christ as model and paradigm to be imitated takesprecedence over Jesus Christ as sacrament and gift. According to most


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liberation theologians, God's kingdom is apprehended more throughthe imitation of Christ than it is through the reception in faith ofChrist's completed work accomplished once and for all in the

incarnation, cross, and resurrection.This becomes very clear in the way Leonardo Boff talks about thedeath of Christ. In the theology of LeonardoBoff,Christ's death has nosalvific function. His death was simply the fate of all the prophets.Jesus did not come in order to die for the sins of His people or to offerHimselfupas a sacrifice in order to redeem us. According toBoff,theinterpretation of Christ's death as a sacrifice for the sins of the worldand the doctrine that He had to take upon Himself the whole curse ofthe Law represent the attempts of Christians to find a meaning which

could explain the death of Christ. All of these theories are, forBoff,notpart of the Gospel but interpretations of the Gospel. It is clear thatBoff does not consider these pious but"mistaken"interpretations to bebinding or necessary for faith today.28

Another leading liberation theologian, Jos Comblin, used evenstronger language than Boff to deny that Christ's death in some wayfunctions to liberate human beings from sin, death, and the devil.Comblin frankly states:

What about the usual picture of the efficacious nature of hisdeath, in which he is punished for our sins so that humanbeings may attain salvation? This rationalization is franklyhorrible. The image of Jesus' meritorious death as"satisfaction" which is based on the feudal notion ofsatisfaction for injuries is wholly irrational. The whole schemaof merit is sheer moralism. It makes salvation something thatdescends on us, and is based on an abstract principle that is a

vestige of paganism.29

For Martin Luther the fact that salvation is something thatdescends upon us from above or from outside of us is the very heart ofthe Good News. If salvation is not something that descends upon us,then it is no longerextra nos;it then is no longer grace or gift but theresult ofourdoing. When salvation is no longer Christ's work but ourwork, then the Gospel has been turned into Law.

If Christ did not die as a substitutionary vicarious sacrifice for the

sins of the world, why, in the view of liberation, did He die? According


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toBoff, the Father allowed the crucifixion to take place in order todemonstrate to humankind the depth of His commitment to humanliberation and the truth that the way to liberation takes place notthrough violence but through sacrifice and love.30What Christ's deathdoes do is serve as a model or paradigm for our liberating praxis.

Boff,Comblin, Sobrino, and others emphasize again and again thatthe primary function of the death of Christ is to serve us as anexample of the being-for-others which is intrinsic to the kingdom ofGod. The message of the crucifixion is that Christians called to humanliberation are not to give up hope as they struggle to build thekingdom of God. It tells them that even in disaster, abandoned byfriends, and even by the Father, Jesus did not give up; He still

believed in the kingdom. So also we are not to give up the struggle; weare to imitate Christ in our identification with the oppressed even if itleads to persecution, abandonment, and death. Christ's death teachesus to love the neighbor and give ourselves for him even if it meansmartyrdom. Christ's passion, suffering, and death show us how toovercome hatred by love and how to live in the weakness of God in theworld.

A close reading of the major Roman Catholic liberation theologiansreveals that they all present Christ as a norm or example of what itmeans to be truly human. Christ is He who must be followed andimitated by us if we are to be regarded as sons and instruments of thekingdom. All of the liberation theologians I have investigatedspecifically reject interpreting the Christ event in terms of asubstitutionary sacrifice or atonement. Liberation theologians do notsee the cross as a symbol of accomplished redemption but as aparadigm of what we should expect to suffer if we follow Jesus in Hisliberating praxis. The cross is not primarily a sign of the price paid by

Jesus to redeem us from death, hell, and the devil, but a sign of theprice which we must be willing to pay as we commit ourselves tocompleting the liberation begun, but not finished, by Jesus. The GoodNews of the Gospel does not involve an unrepeatable act of God whichdecisively changes history and the relationship between God andhuman beings. The Good News rather consists in revealing tooppressed human beings something which has always been true butwhich has been hidden from the poor by the dominant elite and their"theological running dogs." What is revealed to the poor in Christ is

the fact that God has always been on the side of the oppressed andthose who have no hope.


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According to Liberation Theology, the Good News is that God's verynature compels Him to become involved in history and in historicalacts of liberation. In other words, Christ functions primarily as arevealer of that which has always been so. Jesus has not come as adivinely sent savior whose incarnation, death, and resurrectionchanged forever the course of human history. It is indeed ironic thattheologians who have so forcefully rejected Gnostic interpretations ofthe Scriptures and insisted upon presenting God as "he who acts inhistory" should so rob the Christ event of its history-changing dynamicand reduce His role to that of a model for human imitation and as arevealer of processes set into motion at the beginning of evolutionarytime.

In saying all this we must not forget that the stress on the love ofthe neighbor and the imitation of Christ's love for the other are alsobasic to the theology of Saint Paul and Martin Luther. But there is adifference. In Luther's theology Christ as example is subordinate toand dependent upon Christ as sacrament and gift; however, in thetheology of Boff and other liberation theologians, Christ as example isnot only separated from Christ as sacrament but replaces Christ assacrament. Christ is made to function as Law, a Law which has beenseparated and isolated from the Gospel. And in the last analysis, any

Law which is separated from the Gospel will inevitably come tofunction as bad news. Those who are confronted by a Christ who is thesynthesis of all that I ought to be and am not will produce in me nota liberating love of the other but a severe guilt trip such as thatexperienced by Simon Peter when he cried out: "O Lord, Depart fromme,for I am a sinful man" (Luke 5:8) or Isaiah's "Woe is me! For I amlost; for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a peopleof unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

(6:5). It is only when the Christ as example is accompanied by Christas sacrament and gift that I can in love take up my cross and followHim unafraid in sacrificial and voluntary service of the needy, poor,and oppressed neighbor.

Conclusion

Time does not permit us to pursue our topic any further. Indeveloping the six points or theses above, I find that have been more

negative and one-sided in my presentation than I had originallyintended. As the reader will note, my problems with Liberation


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today. Although many brush aside these interpretations as so muchMarxist rhetoric, it should be noted that the prophetic denunciationsof liberation theologians depend as much upon the Old Testament

prophets as they do on Karl Marx. In fact, they contain some of themost effective contextualized preaching of the Law that we can find inthe world today. On the whole, Liberation Theology is very effective inunmasking human unrighteousness and injustice, both individual andcorporate. It is very forceful and compelling in its call for contrition,confession, and satisfaction. According to the Reformers, that is whatthe Law according to its theological function is supposed to do.

We can also applaud much of what liberation theologians havebeen doing in basic ecclesial communities as they work with the poor

in an effort to construct a more egalitarian, just, and humane society.The Law, according to its first or civic function, has this goal in mind.The problem is that liberation theologians are loathe to recognize thatwhat they are doing falls into the category of Law and not that ofGospel. Because of the way in which oppressive governments, both civiland ecclesiastical, have in the name of the Law oppressed the poor,Native Americans, Blacks, and women, most liberation theologians shyaway from talking about the Law in a positive way. They claim thatthe dominant elites have used Thomistic natural law categories to

justify the exploitation of the masses. For this reason liberationtheologians prefer to refer to their message as the Gospel, God's GoodNews for the poor. It is as this juncture that Lutherans in dialoguewith liberation theologians must object. There is much that is valid inLiberation Theology if we understand it as Law, but this Law dare notbe confused with the Gospel.

The Gospel of God's forgiveness through Christ's sacrificial love onthe Cross is the missing element in Liberation Theology. Although

social, economic, and political solutions may for a time be able tochange some of the unjust structures which so oppress the poor, thesechanges will be short lived if they are not accompanied by an internaltransformation which only the Gospel can bring about. This is whatLiberation Theology most needs if it is to succeed in its goal oftransforming society and achieving a more humane, just, andegalitarian world. Because of the deteriorating plight of the poor andoppressed around the world, Liberation Theology in one form oranother is bound to be around for a long time. However, many analystsare already writing off Liberation Theology as a force which has anychance of achieving its goals of actually transforming society If


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out the consequences of the Good News we proclaim. The mostpersuasive argument that we could bring to any dialogue withliberation theologians would not be found in a paper such as this, butin works of love, service, and solidarity with the oppressed that flowfrom hearts that have been transformed by Jesus' cross, Hisforgiveness, and His love.


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Freedom and Liberation in Galatians!