Toward a Liberation Theology for the "Oppressor"

American Academy of Religion

Toward a Liberation Theology for the "Oppressor"Author(s): Glenn R. BucherSource: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Sep., 1976), pp. 517-534Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1462822 .

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JAAR 44/3 (1976) 517-534

Toward a Liberation Theology for the "Oppressor"

GLENN R. BUCHER

Abstract Amidst the absence of methodological consensus and the

divergent theologies which presently characterize traditional theological circles, liberation theologies from the black, feminist, and Third World perspectives stand out as the most discernible development in Christian thought. Because implicit in these theologies is a distinctiveness concerning the nature and scope of theology, and because they include a social critique which links the destinies of the "oppressed" and the "oppressor", those who stand outside communities of oppression but inside the community of faith are challenged to take seriously liberation theologies and their far-ranging implications. The inter-relationship of "oppressed" and "oppressor" is explicated in the theologies of Freire, Cone, Gutierrez, Ruether, and others. All address the dialectical themes of particularity and universality in the Christian tradition. "Can a theology for the oppressed also become a theology for the oppressor" is the question raised by Robert McAfee Brown, though Frederick Herzog and others also have queried the North Atlantic theological community and its corresponding churches. That is, can those outside the movements for liberation develop a liberation theology of their own; one which will affect their theological and human renewal and complement the obvious quests for liberation and the theological explication of them? And if so, how is that to happen? The major thesis of this essay is that the theological methods employed in black, feminist, and Third World liberation theologies are the clues for understanding this new development and also the key to theological renewal elsewhere. Beginning with corporate reflection on the struggle for justice, identity, and meaning, liberation theologies then move to an interpretation of concrete experience, the application of Judaic and Christian themes

GLENN R. BUCHER is Associate Professor of Religion at The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio. He co-edited Confusion and Hope: Clergy, Laity and the Church in Transition with Patricia R. Hill. He has had articles published in The Journal of Religious Thought, Theology Todar, Christian Century, Brethern, Life and Thought, Intellect, and others. This essay is a revised version of a paper delivered at the 1975 AAR meeting and part of a larger project on liberation theology.

517



518 GLENN R. BUCHER

which illuminate the human situation of oppression, and finally to praxis-to a practical implementation of theology in social struggle, though this attribute pervades the whole of doing theology around liberation. Were such a theological method to be employed in circumstances other than those characterized by oppression-in the traditional theological circle, its churches, and among those regarded in the liberation literature as the "oppressor"-a "liberation theology for the 'oppressor' " would be in the offing.

The "theologies of liberation" certainly represent an opportunity for the universal Church. And what the theology of the western world might well be tempted to disregard as an "anti-theology" could become the condition of its own renewal.'

Claude Geffr&

"WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THEOLOGY'?"

T is noteworthy that in 1975, the year the United States of America inaugurated its Bicentennial, eighteen theologians and two popular journals of Christian opinion exposed the uncertain condition of

contemporary theology. The Hartford "Appeal for Theological Affirmation," Christian Century's "New Turns in Religious Thought" series, and the "Whatever Happened to Theology?" issue of Christianity and Crisis all were efforts at theological clarification.2 The value of these popular expressions was that they constituted barometers of religious thought and sieves whereby the contents of professional theology was made accessible to the public. Hence, the theological conditions they reflected, and those they ignored, remain important for future developments in theology - ones which will mold, in part, how the Christian community responds to our nation's search for identity and purpose in a changing world.

In her contribution to the Christianity and Crisis issue, Rosemary Ruether provided one explanation for the theological uncertainty evident in the Appeal and the two journals:

For the foreseeable future the pioneering edge of [theological] thought will come not from these traditional institutions [universities and seminaries in North America and Western Europe] but from places on the edge with little prestige, from the meetings and communities of those who can recognize this crisis [in traditional theology], not as the "end" but as the only avenue to new hope.3

'Claude Geffre, "Editorial: A Prophetic Theology," The Mystical and Political Dimension of the (hristian Faith, Claude Geffr6 and Gustavo Guttifrez [sic], eds. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1974), p. 16.

2"The Hartford Debate," Christianity and Crisis, 35, no. 12 (July 21, 1975), pp. 168-69; The Christian Centuriy, January 1-8, February 19, March 19, April 23, May 21, June 25 - July 2, 23- 30, August 20-27, September 24, October 15, November 19, December 31, 1975, and January 28, 1976; Christianity and Crisis, 35, no. 8 (May 12, 1975).

3Rosemary Ruether, "Whatever Happened to Theology?," Christianity and Crisis, 35, no. 8 (May 12, 1975), p. 110.



THEOLOGY FOR THE "OPPRESSOR " 519

She had in mind liberation theology as it continues to emerge from black, feminist, and Third World communities through James Cone, J. Deotis Roberts, Mary Daly, Letty Russell, Gustavo Gutierrez, Juan Luis Segundo and others.4 Compared with the theologies of secularity, play, and phantasy, liberation theology does seem to represent a major development, as its accumulating corpus evidences and as the durability of its theological precursor, political theology (Moltmann, Metz, S611e, etc.) indicates.5 It is safe to suggest that liberation theologies will continue to frequent the theological scene for some time since they do not arise from the "edge" but from the emerging, vast, human center only misperceived by some as the "edge." Because the social setting, worldview, paradigm of consciousness, conception of God, and biblical exegesis of liberation theology often differ from those of what Benjamin Reist (Theology in Red, White, and Black) calls "North Atlantic theology," it has not only struggled for recognition but also for a fair assessment in traditional theological circles.6 This is evident in the popular expressions mentioned above.

The Hartford Appeal is the product of a January, 1975, deliberation on the current condition of Christian thought. Eighteen Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox theologians found thirteen "false and debilitating themes" which they exposed. The Appeal has been interpreted by Gregory Baum, John C. Bennett, Letty Russell, and others as a repudiation of liberation theology.7 Given the theological views expressed in other publications by Peter Berger and Richard Neuhaus, the Hartford convenors, this analysis seems reasonable.8 Themes nine ("Institutions and historical traditions are oppressive and inimical to our being truly human; liberation from them is required for authentic existence and authentic religion."), ten ("The world must set the agenda for the Church. Social, political and economic programs to improve the quality of life are ultimately normative for the Church's mission in the world."), and eleven ("An emphasis on God's transcendence is at least a hindrance to, and perhaps incompatible with, Christian social concern and action.") lend credence to the interpretation for all of these "falsities" can be found, in more modest form, in liberation theologies.9

4James Cone, God of the Oppressed (New York: Seabury Press, 1975)(May 12, 1975); J. Deotis Roberts, A Black Political Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974); Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973); Letty Russell, Human Liberation in a Feminist Perspective--A Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974); Gustavo Gutibrrez, A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1973); and Juan Luis Segundo, The Community Called Church, vols. 1-5 (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1973).

5Jtirgen Moltmann, Religion, Revolution, and the Future (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1969); Johannes Metz, Theology of the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969); Dorothee S611e, Political Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974). For a discussion on the differences between political theology and liberation theology, see Francis P. Fiorenza, "Political

Theology and Liberation Theology: An Inquiry into Their Fundamental Meaning," Liberation, Revolution, and Freedom, Thomas M. McFadden, ed.,(New York: Seabury Press, 1975), pp. 3- 29. See also Juirgen Moltmann, "On Latin American Theology," Christianity and Crisis, 36, no. 5 (March 29, 1976), pp. 57-63.

6Benjamin Reist, Theology in Red, White, and Black (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975). 7"The Hartford Appeal: A Symposium," Worldview, 18, no. 5 (May, 1975), pp. 22-27. 8Peter L. Berger, Piramids of Sacrifice: Political Ethics and Social Change (New York: Basic

Books, 1975); Richard John Neuhaus, "A Pilgrim Piece of Time and Space," The Christian Century, 92, no. 6 (February 19, 1975), pp. 161-65.

9John C. Bennett, "Silence on Issues of High Priority," Worldview, 18, no. 5 (May, 1975), pp. 23-24.



520 GLENN R. BUCHER

Coupled with these implicit criticisms of liberation theology is a collection of theological generalities which do not make the Appeal a step forward, a fact that the more recent "Boston Affirmations" illustrates.10

The Christian Century series also is indicative of the current theological situation. Thirteen "New Turns in Religious Thought" essays have appeared. None are written from a liberation theology perspective with the exception of Professor Roberts'. Perhaps the editors assumed that theologies of liberation are established and do not represent a "new turn." But as a fad, a movement, or a school of thought, such theology is not that old. Why it is missing, therefore, is not clear, suffice it to suggest that Christian Century's invitation list was limited to North American white males, save for one woman and two blacks. Even so, the diversity of opinion and the absence of any notable consensus illustrate the lack of theological clarity which characterizes our time.

To a different extent the same is true of the Christianity and Crisis' issue on "Whatever Happened to Theology?" Jose Miguez-Bonino says that "a new theology is being born because (and to the extent that) a new postbourgeois Christianity is appearing in the struggle for a postbourgeois society.""' Professors Ruether and Frederick Herzog also speak of liberation theology. But Van Harvey does not mention theological situations other than North American, Gordon Kaufman sees liberation theology as a prostitution of classical theology, and David Tracy regards it as narrow in interest and scope. Given the stature and contemporaneity of the contributors to Christianity and Crisis' effort, the lack of sympathetic attention to liberation theologies and the absence of consensus on theological issues suggest that few are certain about where contemporary theology is headed.

As a consequence, two conclusions can be offered: (1) Contemporary theology, as measured by these three popular expressions, is characterized by "explorations, forays into the unknown, flashes of illumination in the midst of uncertainties," but "no panoramic theological assurance," as Roger Shinn says.12 There are no prevalent systems, only periodic agreements and few clues for the future, or so it seems. (2) In traditional North American theological circles, liberation theology - the major development of the present - struggles for widespread recognition, thoughtful assessment, and the stature it has acquired elsewhere in the world even though, as Beverly Harrison has said, it represents "the most serious, sustained and theologically informed challenge the Western, dominant Christian paradigm has so far received."'3

These conclusions point to an important question. If traditional theology has an uncertain future, if the present theological momentum rests with those who do liberation theology, if the locus for doing theology has shifted, therefore, from traditional settings to "meetings and communities on the edge," and if liberation theology has precipitated some of the turmoil in religious thought, then what is the theological future for those who stand outside oppressed communities, inside

"'Harvey Cox, "The Boston Affirmations," Christianity and Crisis, 36, no. 2 (February 12, 1976), pp. 23-27.

•'Jose Miguez-Bonino, "Whatever Happened to Theology?," Christianity and Crisis, 35, no. 8 (May 12, 1975), p. 112.

'2Roger L. Shinn, "Whatever Happened to Theology?," Christianity and Crisis, 35, no. 8 (May 12, 1975), p. 113.

3Beverly Wildung Harrison, "Challenging the Western Paradigm," Christianitiy and Crisis, 35. no. 17 (October 27, 1975), p. 254.



THEOLOGY FOR THE "OPPRESSOR" 521

traditional North Atlantic theological circles and the corresponding communities of faith, and eager to move through the theological malaise with religious insight which will speak to the present and nurture the future? In my opinion, Ruether and others are correct that this situation does not constitute the theological end, but rather hope for a new beginning. But those who exist outside the black, the feminist, and the Third World communities experience difficulty in regarding liberation theology as a new beginning for them, since it does not arise from their experience, speaks only indirectly to it, and then in highly critical ways. At the same time, liberation theology does provide for the Church in the western world, and other privileged communities, "the condition of [their] own renewal," as Geffre says. Given the present state of theology, that possibility at least is worth investigating.

CAN THE "OPPRESSOR" BE LIBERATED?

In Political Theology, Dorothee S611e says that "political theology is ... a theological hermeneutic, which, in distinction from an ontological or existential point of view, holds open an horizon of interpretation in which politics is understood as the comprehensive and decisive sphere in which Christian truth should become praxis."'4 Likewise, in liberation theologies, social, political and economic analyses provide the hermeneutical tools by which the human condition is understood and the Christian faith interpreted. The essential interpretive category is that of "oppression." For black theologians it is racism, whereas for feminists it is sexism and for Latin Americans, classism. This has led to the use of "oppressed" and "oppressor" as linguistic means for comprehending the context within which liberation takes place. The fact that blacks, women, and Third Worlders are not discussing the ways in which the oppressions of race, sex, and class intersect indicates the distance which must still be traveled in bringing critical refinement to this analysis." But the two categories do provide an initial means for comprehending in liberation theologies the interrelationship between oppressed and oppressor, and within this context, the meaning of liberation. Hence, if those who stand outside the communities of oppression from which liberation theologies arise (non-blacks, non-feminists, non-Third Worlders) want to understand liberation theology as the occasion for their own renewal, they can begin by asking whether renewal, i.e. liberation, for the oppressor is possible within the systems of liberation theologies themselves. Paulo Freire, James Cone, Gustavo Gutierrez, and Rosemary Ruether are helpful in this regard.

The Brazilian humanist Paulo Freire has provided conceptual foundations for many who write about theological liberation today. Though primarily an educational philosopher, he approaches education as "the practice of freedom"

14Slle,Political Theology, p. 59. '5The 1975 Detroit "Theology in the Americas" Conference which brought together black,

feminist, and Third World theologians revealed that dialogue between them is new and characterized by disagreements on the most fundamental of issues. See Harrison, "Challenging the Western Paradigm," and Robert McAfee Brown, "Reflections on Detroit," Christianity and Crisis, 35, no. 17 (October 27, 1975), pp. 251-56. In a recent address, "Do Theological Tools Assist in Understanding and Developing Liberation with Regard to Race, Class, and Sex?"' (Conference on Race and Class, Berkeley, California, January 25, 1976), Dorothee S61le identified the issue of interrelated racial, sexual, and class oppression as one of the essential matters which theologians of liberation need to address.



522 GLENN R. BUCHER

with strong theological instincts.16 In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire discusses the relationship between liberation for the oppressed and the oppressor:

As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanized. As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressors' power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression.

It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors. The latter, as an oppressive class, can free neither others nor themselves.'7

This assessment of the oppressor's inability to work out his own liberation is emphatic. It underscores Freire's contention that only the power of weakness is strong enough to effect the freedom of all. He establishes what some theologians of liberation insist upon: that only the oppressed can initiate their own, and their oppressor's, liberation.

Though this theme dominates Freire's work, however, more must be said. Particularity and not exclusivity characterizes his notion of liberation. Through the oppressed, the oppressor is freed. Liberation for all arises out of the particularity of oppression. This universality enables the oppressor to participate with the oppressed in a mutually beneficial freedom struggle:

The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor - when he stops making pious, sentimental,and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love. True solidarity is found only in the plentitude of this act of love, in its existentiality, in its praxis.18

Here Freire completes the dialectic. The oppressor can free neither the oppressed nor himself. That is initiated only by the oppressed. But in a risked act of love, the oppressor and the oppressed can be one. In his essays on educational process, Freire's attention to dialogue as opposed to antidialogue, persons as subject and not object, communication as compared to manipulation, and change as contrasted with permanence reflects his desire to move beyond confining polarities.

This dialectic of particularity and universality is also present in the black theology of James Cone. An uncritical reading of his work may yield the conclusion that the oppressor, faced with his own dehumanization, is immobilized.'9 He can only wait for the oppressed to free him. Cone says:

When the oppressed affirm their freedom by refusing to behave according to the master's rules, they not only liberate themselves from oppression, but they also liberate the oppressors from an enslavement to their illusions. Therefore, the basic error of white comments about their own oppression is the assumption that they know the nature of their enslavement.20

The oppressor does not know how he is dehumanized. Cone reminds one of Freire

16See Paulo Freire, Education for Political Consciousness (New York: Seabury Press, 1973) and Dennis Goulet, A New Moral Order (New York: Orbis Books, 1974).

'7Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), p. 42. ilbid., pp. 34-35. '9James Cone, God of the Oppressed; Black -Theology and Black Power (New York: Seabury

Press, 1969); A Black Theology of Liberation (New York: J. B. Lippincott Comp., 1970). '2Cone, Liberation, pp. 185-86.




when he says, "The oppressors are enslaved and dehumanized by their own will to power . ... If they are to be liberated from such megalomania, it must be done by the oppressed."21

But there is also in Cone's work the other pole of the dialectic: universality. It is evident in the meanings he associates with "black." In Liberation, Cone admonishes whites that the blackness of their existence in the world is a prerequisite for comprehending his theology. The most obvious meaning of black pertains to black-skinned people. But blackness also is a symbol for all people who participate in the liberation of persons from oppression; the struggle for political, social, and economic justice; those who labor and are heavy laden; the faithful Christian in conflict with a racist culture; and the Church as it struggles against a totalitarian state. These images expand his literalistic definition. They suggest that oppression appears in numerous forms, that blackness can be partially acquired via experience, that though costly, the oppressor can enter into the oppressed's struggle for liberation, thereby enhancing his own. At the 1973 Geneva Conference on "Black Theology and Latin American Theology of Liberation" and in his latest work, God of the Oppressed, these themes continue to appear.22

Despite the liberation literature that has succeeded it, Gustavo Gutierrez's A Theology of Liberation remains a formidable work. For him, theology is the critical reflection on human nature, its basic principles, and the world in light of the Gospel's transforming liberty. Gutibrrez insists that liberation has to be undertaken by the oppressed themselves and must stem from the values proper to them. This is the only context in which a true cultural revolution, consistent with the Gospel, can be effected.

Guti6rrez struggles at length with the oppressed-oppressor dichotomy in light of Christian love. As he juxtaposes the oppressed's human conditions with the need for liberation, and the oppressor with the class struggle, he says, "One loves the oppressors by liberating them from their inhuman condition as oppressors, by liberating them from themselves. But this cannot be achieved except by resolutely opting for the oppressed, that is, by combatting the oppressive class."23 The universality of Christian love must be incarnate to be real. To love all people is to express that love in the exploited person, in the concrete community which struggles to live humanly. Christian love is not authentic unless it is embodied in class solidarity and social struggle. The class struggle is the means whereby a commitment to universal love can be expressed. Here is where love is particularized.

Gutierrez accepts the reality of class struggle but also wants to reach out to the oppressor. Hence, in his thought one finds the dialectic between particularity and universality. Implicit in it is the possibility that the oppressor, via relocation in the class struggle, can begin to comprehend himself and liberation's agenda within the context of oppression. In a recent essay, "Liberation, Theology and Proclamation," he develops this theme in the notion of "identification with the neighbor."24 Gutierrez is aware of his own privileged position in Latin America and of what "solidarity with the poor" means.

21Ibid., p. 185. 22Cone, God of the Oppressed, passim, pp. 39-83.

23Guti6rrez, A Theology of Liberation, p. 276. 24Gustavo Gutierrez, "Liberation, Theology and Proclamation," The Mystical and Political

Dimension of the Christian Faith, pp. 57-77.



524 GLENN R. BUCHER

Finally, Rosemary Ruether sets her theology of liberation within the context of semitic, black, Third World, and sexual oppression. Capturing the irony of Christian faith in the world, she says that it has been employed to support oppression but can be used to nurture liberation. At the heart of her theology is a vision of salvation and the role of the people of God in it whereby the disfigured Kingdom of God is recreated. Liberation, the Gospel, erupts amidst oppression, transforming it into authentic human life.

In Liberation Theology, Ruether pays attention to the matter of the oppressed and the oppressor. About the intention of her theology in this regard, she says: "It will be looking to what transformations need to take place to transform Christianity from a Constantinian to a prophetic religion, from an ideology of the oppressor to a gospel of liberation for the oppressed, and through the oppressed, for the oppressor as well."25 She sees the oppressed as initiating liberation which will reach the oppressor. Unlike Freire, Cone, and Gutibrrez, however, Ruether raises cautions about the validity of the oppressed-oppressor dichotomy. She sees the dualism between them as rooted in marginal biblical apocalypticism, insisting that in the prophetic tradition there is also the notion of self-judgment. To revolt

unredemptively against an oppressing community and to project all evil upon the

oppressor is not consistent with major biblical themes. At the same time, she

grants the capacity of theological discernment especially to the oppressed. Ruether says about the oppressed:

There is a sense in which those who are primarily the victims of an oppressive system are also those who can most readily disaffiliate their identities with it, for they have the least stake in its perpetuation. In their revolt against it, they can thus become the prophetic community, which witnesses against the false empire of the "beast" and points to "God's Kingdom." But, in their very situation as victims, they have also been distorted in their inward being in a way that does not immediately make them realized models of redeemed humanity; i.e., the victims are not "saints."26

Because the oppressed have internalized dominant social images of themselves, they must experience a liberation of self, moving from self-hatred and destruction of autonomy and self-esteem. Via salvation as self-affirmation, the oppressed take the lead in the renewal of humanity. Ruether insists, though, that the oppressor's humanization must also be kept in mind, since he is the primary problem. If the oppressed detach themselves and their witness from the oppressor, repudiate him, or call for a reversal of power, they abort the possibilities of liberation for themselves and the oppressors. The oppressed must be cognizant of the interconnections between the two groups. As is also evident in her writings on the oppression of women in Christian tradition, Ruether insists that salvation necessitates that the categories of oppressed and oppressor be eliminated permanently.

The dialectic between particularity and universality is present here. The oppressed are particularized. They are victims of social oppression and have unique attributes for comprehending God's liberating work. At the same time, it is the oppressor who must be saved if human beings are to be delivered from oppressive and exploitive forms which exist as the prevalent mode of life in the world. This will be accomplished as the oppressors are confronted by the

:'Rosemarv Ruether, Liberation Theology' (New York: Paulist Press, 1972), p. 1.

:'lbid.. p. II.




oppressed. Some oppressors will exhibit a sympathetic response through active forms of resistance against oppression. And in the consequent freedom, all will be saved.

This analysis of Freire, Cone, Gutierrez, and Ruether yields two conclusions. (1) All the theologians accentuate the Divine particularity in which the Gospel as liberation is manifest in the world. The oppressed are the initiating agents in liberation's cause. Their enslavements give them peculiar gifts for the discernment of God's work in history. (2) But in each case, this particularity is not exclusive. It is set within a dialectic, the other pole of which is universality. Freire speaks of a risked act of love, Cone of blacknesses, Gutierrez of the class struggle, and Ruether of a sympathetic response and active resistance.

In Is Faith Obsolete?, Robert McAfee Brown identifies two prevalent and popular North American responses to liberation theology: (1) "I object to the underlying premise that there is a clear dividing line between oppressors and oppressed, and particularly to the assumption that I must always end up as an oppressor." (2) "Liberation theology is a distortion of the faith it purports to proclaim. Christianity brings about reconciliation while liberation glorifies conflict."27 In the previous discussion, these objections partially are laid to rest, even though important theological and social issues underlying them have not been exhausted. That the interconnection of oppressor and oppressed, and the liberation of the oppressor, receive attention in liberation theologies is substantiated by considerable evidence.

The oppressed-oppressor dichotomy functions as a hermeneutical tool in liberation theologies. Though it arises in social, political, and economic analysis, it is carried over into biblical exegesis and theological formulation. That liberation theologians have not offered a full-blown definition of liberation is explained partially by the imprecision which characterizes their analysis of oppression and their usage of the oppressed-oppressor dichotomy. Nevertheless, the oppressor's liberation is not beyond their scope of concern. A risked act of love, blackness, relocation in the class struggle, and a sympathetic response and active resistance are categories of praxis. They arise at the intersection of theory and practice and constitute a social ethic whereby the oppressor can begin to identify with the oppressed and work at his own liberation within a larger context of struggle. Though they make sense within the parameters of liberation theology, it is my view that they cannot initially be appropriated in formulating a liberation theology for the oppressor. Before one can speak of a social ethic for the oppressor, there are fundamental methodological and theological matters which must be faced.

"CAN A THEOLOGY FOR THE OPPRESSED ALSO BECOME A THEOLOGY FOR THE

OPPRESSORS?"28

I have suggested that in traditional theological circles where liberation theologies are struggling for recognition and acceptance, there is a lack of theological clarity and direction. It is equally clear that liberation theologians address the liberation of the oppressor; i.e., there is a universal as well as a particular dimension in their assessment of the human condition and the meaning

27Robert McAfee Brown, Is Faith Obsolete?(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974), pp. 126-28.

28Ibid., p. 130.



526 GLENN R. BUCHER

of Christian truth. That is why it is possible to agree with Claude Geffr& when he says that liberation theologies provide the occasion for renewal among those who stand outside oppressed communities and inside the "theology of the western world" and "the universal Church." If this is so, then the next question seems obvious. It is that of Robert McAfee Brown which serves as the heading above. Can the theologies of the oppressed be appropriated by those outside the context of oppression? Can those atop the human pyramid and within the circle of Christian faith employ theologies of liberation to effect their own theological renewal and their reassessment of commitment and priority patterns? Some observers of the contemporary theological scene, favorably disposed to liberation theology, express great misgivings about whether this development will be taken seriously in traditional theological circles, in the university community, and in the churches.29 Robert McAfee Brown and Frederick Herzog are two exceptions to this conjecture. To examine their understandings of the transfer value of liberation theologies moves this discussion toward an answer to the question, "Can a theology for the oppressed also become a theology for the oppressor?"

In 1972, Professor Herzog published his exegesis of the Fourth Gospel, Liberation Theology. There, as in subsequent articles, he argued that the structure of Christian theology needs rethinking in light of theologies of liberation.30 At the time, the impetus for his reassessment came from James Cone's black theology, though his recent work reflects attention to theologies emerging from Native American, feminist, and Third World communities. Still, he continues to argue that racism is the primal paradigm for oppression in the United States of America and that, therefore, "whites," "white Christianity," and "Christian America" represent the oppressor.

In Liberation Theology, Herzog said that theology today must begin in identification with the wretched of the earth, the marginales, the marginal figures of life who are still struggling for personhood and dignity. After suggesting that traditional theology via Cobb-Ogden (process), Dewart (presence), and Cox (future) cannot provide the tools necessary for "thinking black", because they rely on the Cartesian, i.e., bourgeois, self as theology's starting point, Herzog says,

We have to learn to "think black" theologically. To "think white" is to turn in upon the Cartesian self, to engage in "navel-gazing." The black self over against the white self is the compassionate self. .... It is the corporate self in which the "I" shares . . . . To "think black" means to be able to think from the perspective of the underdog . . . . Thinking black ("thinking Indian") has to be radically tied to the originating event of the Christian faith in order to be theological.3'

Essentially, Jesus Christ is identified with the wretched of the earth. In the Christ event, liberation happens for those who locate themselves there. Explaining his notion of "praxiology" (theory in praxis), Herzog concludes that "liberation theology will be learned first of all in prison, in the migrant camp, on a cotton field, in an Indian reservation or in the church that will not ordain a woman as minister."32

29See Harrison, "Challenging the Western Paradigm," p. 253, and Brown, "Reflections on Detroit," p. 256.

30Frederick Herzog, Liberation Theology (New York: Seabury Press, 1974); "Liberation of White Theology," The Christian Century, 91, no. 8 (March 20, 1974); and "Liberation Theology Begins at Home," Christianity and Crisis, 34, no. 8 (May 13, 1974).

3'Herzog, Liberation Theology, p. 15. 32Herzog, "Liberation Theology Begins at Home," p. 98.




Herzog wants to redefine the theological task. He observes that traditional theology has been too much a product of the status quo. For him, it must be the

consequence of identification and solidarity with the oppressed. Taking the

methodology of liberation theology and its notion of God as a continuing historical actor seriously, he asks: "How do I know what I think until I see what God does?" That is the first question for any theology today. From here, his notion of Church, that community which is formed and comes together where God liberates, emerges. He contends:

The one who follows Jesus thus does not find the church in the religious establishment, but also not in the liberated church or the liberation church, but in liberation, in the fact that God liberates man. Where this liberation takes place should not be difficult to see: in the struggle for freedom among the oppressed. The trouble is, we do not look for the church there. But we need to find the outcast and join God there. Otherwise we won't find the church.33

In other words, the Church is the product of God's liberation whenever, wherever, and in whatever situations, that happens.

The response of Robert McAfee Brown is somewhat different. In two 1973 publications, Frontiers for the Church Today and Religion and Violence, he spoke about the importance of liberation theology.34 As he then moved toward "theology as story" in an American Academy of Religion paper and a related article, Brown responded to the issue with which I am concerned. On the concept of story, he said,

I am constantly balancing - or juggling - a number of ways of telling my own story: the masculine version, the American version, the human version, the Christian version, the university professor version, and so on. But I am also constantly reviewing those stories by seeing them in relationship to some other stories of my time: the feminine version, the black version, the Third World version, the Jewish version, the blue collar version.35

Brown concludes that as his story, other contemporary stories which illuminate his, and the Christian story converge, his existence and, therefore, his future story are inevitably transformed as he tries to reduce the contradictions between who he is, what others see him as, who he wants to be, and what he claims to believe.

It is in Is Faith Obsolete? that Brown raises the matter of liberation theology's transfer value most explicitly. Establishing the dialectic between faith and struggle ("works"), he insists that "white middle-class America" has been addressed by liberation theology and that it poses a theological and ethical challenge which requires an enlightened faith response.36 For him, liberation theology's message to the oppressor is this:

Things must not remain as they are. God takes sides against you and denies you his help when you deny to others the full liberation he wills for all. The social structures that benefit you are destroying others, and must themselves be destroyed. You cannot forge the tools for your ongoing emancipation by denying

33Herzog, Liberation Theology, pp. 196-97. 34Robert McAfee Brown, Frontiers for the Church Today (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1973); Religion and Violence (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973). 35Robert McAfee Brown, "My Story and 'The Story'," Theology Today, 32, no. 2 (July, 1975),

p. 167. 36Brown, Is Faith Obsolete?, p. 117.



528 GLENN R. BUCHER

similar tools to those who are not yet free. Your future is increasingly closed to the degree that you deny these things.37

Brown suggests that liberation for the oppressor will come through acts which seek to give power to the powerless. Therein, the oppressor begins to identify with the oppressed. Regarding the interpretive theological framework within which this identification occurs, Brown says only that in light of liberation theologies, traditional theologians must correct their parochial sociology with Marxist analysis, thereby exposing interpretations of faith to the realities of economics and class. In responding to the 1975 Detroit "Theology in the Americas" Conference, he put it this way:

If we take seriously its [liberation theology's] demand for engagement with and on behalf of the poor and its option for some kind of socialist rather than capitalist structure, if we internalize how trenchantly it pinpoints our own middle-class complicity with systemic evil in the world and recognize how blatantly the U.S. and the multinational corporations are today's oppressors par excellence, we are going to have difficulty maintaining a hearing or even a place from which to speak and act.

And yet, a message growing out of such components is the message that must somehow set our own North American theological agenda.38

The responses of Professors Herzog and Brown to liberation theologies are important. They indicate that the theological work of blacks, feminists, and Third Worlders is taken seriously by some in the traditional North Atlantic theological circle. Hence, a discussion has been initiated which must continue; that concerning the implications of liberation theologies for those who stand outside communities of oppression but inside the community of faith. Though the above treatments necessarily are brief, it should be evident that both theologians recognize the challenges of liberation theology. How Herzog and Brown perceive these challenges and articulate responses to them informs efforts to assess the transfer value of liberation theologies.

Herzog sees liberation theologies as providing an alternative to the methodological and structural foundations of traditional theology. Employing the notion of praxis, principles from the sociology of knowledge, and Cone's contention that theology must be done in an "existential situation of an oppressed community," Herzog argues that locus or place ("the perspective of the underdog") is fundamental to the proper interpretation of Christian faith. Only if one is with the "outcasts" in prison, migrant camp, etc. and experiences freedom there will the Gospel be comprehensible. In Herzog's thought, this emphasis on place also has implications for theological method and content. Within the locus of oppression, one moves out, inductively, to reflect on experience and the Christian faith. Via the new perspectives which this inductive methodology and location in oppression lend to the theological task, new insights on the meaning of Christian faith in the world are discovered.

Brown's response focuses on liberation theology's impact on values and ethics in "white middle-class America." Though he recognizes the implications in this theological tradition for the "North American theological agenda," he does not develop this thesis. Suggesting that the oppressor must and can begin to identify with the oppressed through acts which transfer power to the powerless, he argues

37Ibid., p. 134. 38Brown, "Reflections on Detroit," p. 256.




that as middle-class churches understand the ways in which their parochial theologies have obscured complicity in systemic evil, they become participants in a remnant "within which Christians can sustain one another, not only in the need for hardheaded analysis and personal immersion in struggle with the oppressed, but also in the need for the sustenance of the Gospel that promises hope and courage and freedom even when things look discouraging."39 Essentially, Brown contends that in "oppressor praxis," liberation theology's transfer value becomes apparent for those outside oppressed communities.

Can a theology for the oppressed become a theology for the oppressor? Herzog and Brown say it can. For both, that happens in the oppressor's identification with the struggle against oppression, though Herzog also develops the implications in that act for the methodological and structural foundations of theology. Here, both theologians reflect the Latin American insistence that "any possibility for a transcending horizon for Christian theology rests in the starting point of solidarity with the oppressed rather than in any a priori universal possessed by Christians as such,"40 an idea that is implicit in the concepts of a risked act of love, blackness, relocation in the class struggle, and a sympathetic response and active resistance mentioned earlier.4' However, there is another sense in which linking liberation theology's transfer value to the oppressor's identifying with the oppressed violates a basic methodological assumption of liberation theology itself. As Miguez- Bonino says: "Theologies are not born of theologies. Or, rather, they are not synthesized in vitro. They are begotten in the intercourse of human life, thought, struggle - as these take place under the grip of faith and the Spirit."42 In other words, theology begins in the life, thought, and struggle whereby one is defined at any moment and not in ethical action, doctrinal orthodoxy externally prescribed, or in theologies foreign to one's experience.

This leads me to conclude that a theology for the oppressed cannot become a theology for the oppressor, but it can lead to it. That is, those in the North Atlantic theological circle and its churches must begin theologizing on liberation in their own Sitz im leben, vis-di-vis their life experience as it relates to Christian faith and freedom for them. My contention is that if the distinctive theological method of liberation theologies is employed in privileged faith communities, that can facilitate a liberation theology for the oppressor - one that is complimentary to the theologies of the oppressed. Professor Tom Driver hints at this possibility when he says,

I say only that the Gospel may reside also in sinners, and that until they know this their sins will compound themselves. But they cannot know it by being talked at. They can only know it by awareness of those parts of their behavior and experiences of which they are as yet unaware.43

It is to an explication of this methodology and its use in traditional North American theological circles and churches that I turn in conclusion.

WHATEVER CAN HAPPEN TO THEOLOGY?

Liberation theologies are shaking the foundations of traditional theology, in 39Ibid. 40Harrison, "Challenging the Western Paradigm," p. 254. 41See the section in this paper "Can the 'Oppressor' Be Liberated?" 42JoseMiguez-Bonino, "Whatever Happened to Theology?," p. 112. 43Tom F. Driver, "Whatever Happened to Theology?," Christianity and Crisis, 35, no. 8 (May

12, 1975), p. 119.



530 GLENN R. BUCHER

part because the ontology, epistemology, methodology, and sociology they incorporate differ significantly from the traditional equivalents. Consequently, diverse conceptions of the theological task necessitate that one no longer speak about theology without returning to essential issues - ones addressed in A Different Heaven and Earth (Sheila Collins), Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (Miguez-Bonino), God of the Oppressed (James Cone), and elsewhere.44 These recent works include comparisons of traditional North Atlantic and liberation theologies and indicate that liberation theologies are distinguished from their predecessors by the definition, methodology, and structure of theology. Without insisting that the response to liberation theologies presuppose a static notion of theology - liberation or otherwise - I do want to suggest that if it is to be a theology of liberation, then it is bound to be faithful, at least initially, to the structural components of liberation theologies. For those in traditional theological circles, theologizing in this manner will seem existentially awkward and intellectually unsound. But given the vitality of liberation theology and the theological ambiguity in American Christianity, can we not consider its potential?

(1) Liberation theologies arise in corporate experience as black, feminist, and Third World communities search for a meaningful history, identity, and future. Here, doing theology is a process characterized by corporateness. In the black folk traditions which he interprets theologically, Cone identifies the process whereby slave communities theologized in relationship to existential oppression and the eschatological visions of biblical faith.45 Sheila Collins declares, in the first words of her book, that "feminist theology is a communal theology." She says that as women define their experience, reflect upon it, and discern its meaning, they discover the truth of existence.46 Theology, then, is the identification and interpretation of this truth. And in A Theology of Human Hope, Ruebem Alves contends that theological language arises where identifiable communities reflect on solutions to their existential problems in light of Christian faith.47 It is clear that the communal nature of the theological process is one of the essential structural components of liberation theologies, and the context from which they emerge.

To speak of a liberation theology for those outside communities of oppression, then, is to suggest that the process whereby it is nurtured will be communal. It will be the intentionally-corporate theological effort of a particularized community: "middle-class America" (Brown), "whites"(Herzog), "North Atlantic" theologians (Reist), "white America" (Cone), "white males" (Russell), "those who wield economic and political power in today's world" (Gutierrez), and so on. As these and other persons come together to think aloud about themselves and their faith amidst contemporary struggles for freedom, another liberation theology can be born. The process whereby it happens will be inductive, open-ended, and ongoing; neither defined by a specific goal or dogma nor terminated when one is achieved. If to do liberation theology is to immerse oneself in a communally- reflective task, then that can also happen as persons of privilege come together around their needs to search for meaning within the worldwide community of faith.

44Sheila D. Collins, A Different Heaven and Earth (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1974); JoseMiguez-Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975); and Cone.

4See especially Cone's latest work, God of the Oppressed. 4"Collins, "Acknowledgments." 4Ruebem Alves, A Theology of Human Hope (Cleveland: Corpus Books, 1969), passim.




(2) Recently, Professor Carol Christ said that the reason traditional theology is so boring is because it has not been exposed to real experience. Theology must be attached, she suggests, "to the concrete, to ourselves."48 This second structural component of liberation theology, human experience, gives shape to the corporate process. Expanding on Christ's notion, Collins insists that theology must begin with reflection on lived experience; for women, on inner feelings, self-awareness, deep aspirations, conscience, new identity, and sisterhood. One of the feminist theologian's tasks is to explicate the religious meaning of these experiences. Concurring, Miguez-Bonino says that as human beings dig down to their traditions, as they articulate their identity in different ways, as they locate new sources for human support, they participate in the kinds of human experiences out of which theology is born and in which it is interested.

It is real, concrete, human experience, then, that those in pursuit of a liberation theology for the oppressor will attend to when they assemble. They will not focus on the oppressed, on liberation theologies, on doctrines of God, or on Christian tradition, but on themselves. Those who exist outside oppressed communities today have a specific set of particularizing experiences upon which to reflect. They, too, have inner feelings, self-awareness, conscience, traditions, and identities which constitute important segments of their lives. Only they know the internal dimensions of complicity with oppression and systemic evil. And their personal and corporate realities can be exposed to the social, economic, and political analyses which liberation theologians use to interpret the nature of contemporary existence. The implication in liberation theologies is that if an equivalent theology for the oppressor is to develop, then that will begin with reflection upon these human realities - the specific experiences by which those outside oppressed communities are defined.

To emphasize communal process and human experience as two essential ingredients of a liberation theology for the oppressor suggests that existential truth cannot be separated from liberation, theologically understood. Hugo Assmann, a Latin American theologian, states it this way: "I reject any logos which is not the logos of a praxis."49 That is, there is no truth outside or beyond the concrete historical events in which human beings are involved as agents. What I am suggesting in the call for communal process and attention to life experience is not that Assmann's implied ontology and epistemology are beyond reproach, but rather that those outside oppressed communities can begin to discover what constitutes truth for them through communality and experience. But the very nature of theological reflection on liberation is that it is also being done by oppressed communities; hence, the truth discovered about North American existence must be juxtaposed with that of others. And this kind of reflection also implies that the search for truth is done within an interpretive theological framework which is made present via historical traditions; that is, there is truth in Judaism and Christianity which claims those searching for religious meaning in the present. This leads to a third ingredient. (3) Liberation theology revolves around two major axes: human experience and

the traditions of Judaism and Christianity. Miguez-Bonino says that it is begotten in the intercourse of human life as life takes place under the grip offaith. These

48Carol Christ, "Whatever Happened to Theology?," Christianity and Crisis, 35, no. 8 (May 12, 1975), pp. 13-14.

49Quoted in Miguez-Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation, p. 88.



532 GLENN R. BUCHER

axes are also evident in Sheila Collins' work. While insisting that feminist theology must grow out of feminist experience and cannot be constricted by any system of

religious truth, she cannot divorce herself from the language and theology of Judaism and Christianity. For both theologians, tradition protects experience from introversion, and experience protects tradition from irrelevancy. Both axes are important structural components of liberation theology and must, therefore, be incorporated into a theology for the oppressor.

Liberation theologians interpret biblical faith as the paradigmatic story of God's liberating acts in history and view the historical traditions arising therefrom as accounts of the mixed faithfulness of "the people of God" to these continuing impulses. Specific perspectives on oppression function as hermeneutical tools for

interpreting faith and tradition. In fact, liberation theologians insist that the

experience of oppression provides the only valid perspective from which Judaism and Christianity can be interpreted properly since it was out of that experience that the core of biblical faith arose. Though there is biblical evidence to support this call for a normative theological locus, there are also those trying to be faithful to these traditions who do not presently stand in that locus. If the oppressor must begin theologizing around liberation where he is, it is important to ask about the questions those who stand outside oppressed communities will bring to an interpretation of faith and tradition - questions the answers to which may well necessitate that they alter their locus.

If the biblical record is the account of the oppressed's being freed, then what does it say about the oppressor and his being and act in standing against God's liberation? How is the oppressor employed in that liberation? What does biblical faith say about the way in which oppressors understood God's work? What does it

suggest about their salvation and liberation? And what does the biblical record say about God's response to "the chosen" when they become the oppressor? Turning to tradition, other basic questions arise. Are there historical examples of the Church as an oppressed community? Are there circumstances in which it has been allied with the oppressor or been the oppressor? Are there situations in which it has faced the choice? How has it decided which way to turn, and what has its response been in each case? What kind of theological statement has the Church made in each instance? How has the Church understood itself in these different contexts? In other words, the theological response I am describing will necessitate new exegetical, historiographical, and theological work - work that may expose heretofore unexamined areas and illuminate the present.

(4) Finally, in God of the Oppressed, Cone introduces his discussion of ethics by saying that "the black Christian ethic must start with Scripture and the black experience. We must read each in the light of the other, and then ask, 'What am I to do?'"50 Here it is evident how experience and tradition function as the two axes around which his liberation theology revolves. It also indicates that ethics, or praxis, arises where these two axes intersect. This is not only true of black theology. Professor Letty Russell puts it this way:

The action-reflection methodology of liberation theology can be a valuable asset in searching out the usable past that can help to shape the future. Out of the reflection on tradition in the light of concrete situations come new models of thought and action.5'

5"Cone, God of the Oppressed, p. 205. 51Letty Russell, "Liberation Theology in a Feminist Perspective," Liberation, Revolution,

and FreedTom, Thomas M. McFadden, ed. (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), p. 104.



THEOLOGY FOR THE "OPPRESSOR " 533

It is in Latin American theologies of liberation, however, where the concept of praxis receives its fullest development. From Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Latin Americans have adopted the notion of praxis developed by Marx, Sartre, and others. In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx said,

The question whether human thought can arrive at objective truth is not a theoretical but a practical question. It is in praxis that man must prove the truth, that is, the reality, the exactness, the power of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking isolated from praxis is a purely scholastic question.52

Here it is clear that praxis is at the heart of Marxist ontology and epistemology. Praxis is also linked to the ontology and epistemology of theologies of liberation. It points to the context in which theology is done, provides the framework within which it is evaluated and projects theological work into the realm of action and reflection.

In discussing Freire, Cone, Gutierrez, and Ruether, I indicated that a risked act of love, the blackness of existence in the world, relocation in the class struggle, and a sympathetic response in forms of resistance were ethical categories whereby these theologians linked the fate of the oppressor and the oppressed. I also

suggested that a liberation theology for the oppressor cannot begin at this socio- etnical level because there are methodological and theological issues which precede it. Having now mentioned three components of liberation theology, something must be said about a social ethic, a lifestyle, a praxis for those outside

oppressed communities. In fact, praxis in the tradition of liberation theologies must pervade the whole of the theological task and not be attached as a prescriptive conclusion as is often done with ethics in traditional theologies. This is so because action, and reflection on it, provide the foundation upon which theology is built as it constitutes itself as critical reflection upon the transformation of human history.

Praxis for those who do not experience social, political, and economic oppression firsthand will be grounded in theology and the visible expression of it, since theology and ethics cannot finally be separated. It will occur in the situation and among the persons where the oppressor is. That is, the social ethic in a theological response to liberation theologies will be expressed in the same places that the theologizing itself takes place. The agenda of oppressor praxis will be informed by the oppressed, but it will also reflect the oppressor's struggle against his own dehumanization. If the oppressor takes seriously the whole transformation of human life with which liberation theologies are concerned, then an appropriate ethic will need to address the personal and corporate dimensions of human existence. It will need to include modes of political and personal behavior designed to liberate the oppressor from those institutions, structures, and realities by which he profits and through which the oppressed are continually enslaved. But it will also be characterized by a freedomfor those conditions of life which reflect justice as defined by the entire human community. This suggests to me that oppressor praxis will be made visible in social and political policy and in paradigms which, in middle America and elsewhere, practically illustrate and embody a liberated life contending with forces of domination and oppression.

It will be appropriate to include in the early socio-ethical questions, asked by those within the community of faith and outside oppressed communities, ones

52Quoted in Henri Lefebvre, The Sociology of Marx (New York: Vintage Books, 1969), p. 32.



534 GLENN R. BUCHER

which emerge from liberation theologies themselves. What does risking an act of love in order to identify with the oppressed entail? How does one take on the blackness of existence in the world? Can the class struggle be a means for oppressor-oppressed liberation? How? What is a sympathetic response and how does it manifest itself in active forms of resistance? But there will also be questions about ethical behavior which arise from within the oppressor's own theological work. How is systemic injustice to be transformed? How is one who profits indirectly from such injustice to formulate a public and personal response to it? And what are the practical implications for privileged communities of faith in the continuing struggle for social justice?

These four essential components of liberation theologies are offered here as a means for initiating a "liberation theology for the 'oppressor'." My contention is that such a theology can become an important counterpart of black, feminist, and Third World theologies as it arises via the adaptation of the structure of liberation theology. An occasional theology at the outset, this theological response will reflect specific issues in a particular set of circumstances. Though it should not become a new theological system, a liberation theology for those outside oppressed communities can complement the oppressed's theological work. It can become a way for doing theology in traditional theological circles and among laity, clergy, and others which reflects the seriousness of liberation theology, assists the oppressor and other privileged persons and communities in comprehending themselves and their world in light of freedom, theologically understood, and provides one possible way through the present theological malaise.

CONCLUSION

This essay commenced with a Latin American statement about the potential impact of liberation theologies upon the worldwide theological and ecclesiastical communities. Said Claude Geffre: "The 'theologies of liberation' certainly represent an opportunity for the universal Church. And what the theology of the western world might well be tempted to disregard as an 'anti-theology' could become the condition of its own renewal."53 How this renewal can be facilitated and particularized in the North Atlantic theological circle and its corresponding churches is the question which has inspired this study. My thesis is that the method of interpretation and the structure of theological reflection in theologies of liberation, if adopted by those who stand outside communities of oppression but inside the community of faith, can spawn still another liberation theology - one which I have called, for want of a precise label, a "liberation theology for the 'oppressor'." In the theological work on liberation which continues to emerge from black, feminist, and Third World communities, the universal, as well as the particular, dimensions of liberation are evident. It is my view that those who take these interconnections seriously and are prepared to think and act on the meaning of liberation for themselves within the context of the struggles of the oppressed will need to develop a theological and ethical method as an essential ingredient of praxis. Toward that end, this thesis has been advanced and developed.

53Geffre, "Editorial: A Prophetic Theology."



Documents

Toward a Liberation Theology for the "Oppressor"