I’m researching this weekend for a paper on liberation theology. If you aren’t familiar with the concept, liberation theology attempts to incorporate religious elements into the struggle of the poor and oppressed in this world to be liberated from oppressive forces. Many of these liberation theologians use scripture in inventive and unorthodox, sometimes even very questionable ways. However, this is not always the case. Martin Luther King Jr. made theology a central part of his campaign against racism without really being “unbiblical.”
What I am presenting here are the thoughts of Clark Pinnock, an author whose essay I really enjoyed. He intends, as a more “orthodox” Christian, to interact with the thoughts of liberation theology. At times he takes his thoughts too far, but our need to answer the thrust of his claim as “people of the Book” must not be ignored. In fact, even if you hold no faith or trust in the Bible, his argument ought to be met with repentance and action as a matter of human decency, mercy, and justice. With Easter on everyone’s mind, it is good today to think about what Jesus did in sacrificial example, and how we are to follow.
From Clark H. Pinnock, “A Call For the Liberation of North American Christians,” in Evangelicals and Liberation, edited by Carl E. Armerding (Grand Rapids, Mich., Baker, 1977).
We are summoned to enter into the same struggle, to hear the Word of God ourselves in a world of poverty and dire distress. Evangelicals have in recent years been rather more inclined to defend the gospel than to practice it. Yet a defending of the gospel which is not matched by a living of it is hollow and ungenuine. (128)
The general shape of our discipleship also is made unmistakably clear as an orientation to the cross of Jesus, a life patterned in accordance to the normative event of the gospel. In the cross, as Peter says, Christ has left us an example that we should follow in his steps (1 Pet 2:21). Because He was among us as one who serves, we are to be present in the world after the manner of servanthood. (129)
North Americans – and Christians are not an outstanding exception – are continuing to consume the products of earth at indefensively high rates and appear to be firmly set on reaching even higher levels, at the very time when it is a matter of public record that unaccounted millions are seriously malnourished and even starving. To put it most mildly, we are insensitive to the cries of the world’s poor. Like the rich man with Lazarus at his gate, we are largely indifferent to the distress of the needy. Like ancient Sodom, we “have surfeit of the food and prosperous ease, but do not aid the poor and needy” (Ezek. 16:49). Of course humanitarian aid has not been wholly lacking. Mission and relief agencies in particular have faithfully tried to channel funds to needy situations. Even the U.S. and Canada have been active in aid to the poor countries. But it should be recognized that, although these gestures are good, the effort hitherto has been meager and half-hearted. A serious attempt to assist the world’s poor has not been made except by a very few, and we stand condemned as pretty largely indifferent to the problem. How then do we suppose we shall escape the wrath of God, we who hold down the truth in unrighteousness? God’s Word warns us: “He who closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself cry out and not be heard” (Prov. 21:13). How can we deny that the attitude of North Americans in general is callous, pleasure seeking, and hardhearted in the face of the world situation? Are we not behaving in a merciless manner that is both globally irresponsible and morally depraved? (130-131)
We, the wealthy six percent of the earth’s population, cluster around the well of the earth’s resources and drink deeply from it, while the vast majority of peoples are shunted aside lapping up the trickles that spill from our cups. (131)
Although God’s word is unequivocally clear in such matters it would seem that “the cares of the world, the delight in riches, and the desire for other things have entered in, and choked the Word so that it proves unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). The Word of God is choked in the churches of North America. Our comfortable life and culture have blinded our eyes to the scriptural teaching about tenderheartedness, stewardship, and justice. I see no way to deny, though I wish it were not so, that the context in which the Bible is to be responsibly read and applied today is that of a suffering and poor world, containing a small pocket of affluence, in which the privileged, among whom are to be counted most North American Christians, are largely indifferent to the hungry millions at their gate. If the Bible is to be believed, and if this situation is not changed by the costly repentance of these favored few, all we can expect is the wrath and indignation of the God who regards the needy and hears their cry. Where is there mercy and justice amongst us? 131-132)
As we have become successful and established, we have come to identify with the interests of the ruling classes and the established order, producing bourgeois Christianity, a church no longer willing to care for the needy and hear their cry. (134)
God is calling for political obedience. For the first time in history, the necessities of the situation and the obligations of the gospel practically coincide. (136)
…only one-half of the world’s annual expenditures on armaments would fund all the works of mercy and peace for an entire decade and result in significantly alleviating all of the major problems presently obstructing the prospect of a decent kind of life for the world’s peoples. (135-136)
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