One of These Things is Not Like the Other: Scripture & Liberation Theology by Tamice Spencer
Latin philosophers and theologians developed Liberation Theology in the 1950’s and 60’s.
The most prominent figures of this movement are individuals like Jon Sobrino, Leonardo Boff, Juan Luis Segundo, and Gustavo Gutiérrez. It wasn’t until the 1970s that evangelical leaders like Orlando Costas, René Padilla, and Samuel Escobar, popularized the term in the US.
Liberation Theology weaves Christian theology, ethics, social analysis, and critique into one ideology. Its gift is the lens it offers to interpret the teachings of Jesus and the commands for those who follow him from the perspective of the poor and disadvantaged.
Liberation Theology is about the underdog.
It is almost always involved and engaged in the struggle for civil and human rights, which is why it so quickly found a home in the Black Community. Black Liberation Theology thus deals with the same issues but in a way that was contextualized for the plight of Black peoples. Black Theology focuses on Christianity’s relevance to civil rights, Black power, and Black consciousness.
Arguably the most profound contribution Black Liberation Theology has made is the revelation that all theology is contextual – even systematic theology.
It is essential to define theology at this point—wrong definitions of this word have caused much harm and division within the body of Christ.
Theology is what we do with the Bible; theology is not the Bible. Put another way; theology refers to how we integrate and apply Scripture in our lives.
For example, studying the way a particular passage of Scripture applies to our way of doing life is called exegetical theology.
Considering the rational connections of Biblical information is known as systematic theology. When a person focuses on studying the historical narratives in Scripture they are engaging in Biblical theology. Without a doubt, the aforementioned are the most common ways of doing theology, but they are not by any means, the only way.
Understanding that truth will help us to appreciate rather than to react to new ways of thinking about how we assimilate, ascertain, and apply the richness found in the Bible.
For instance, Dr. Carl Ellis, assistant professor of practical theology at Redeemer Seminary in Dallas, Texas, and the associate pastor for cultural apologetics at New City Fellowship has aptly identified a way of doing theology that in my opinion, is most prominent in the Black community; he calls it precedential theology. He defines this way of applying Scripture as the application of the basic patterns of the Biblical life situations.
Is it any wonder why Black indigenous people of color whose cultures value oral tradition, place, narrative, movement, and harmony might gravitate to this type of theology; or why the oppression of this population (in the name of systematic theology)—would birth a counter theology of liberation based upon the Biblical text?
Theology is a dynamic and rewarding study but divorced from diversity, humility, and sobriety it can be menacing.
When theology happens within a homogenous environment, it produces narrow-minded conclusions, and when those narrow-minded conclusions become synonymous with orthodoxy, entangled with power, and institutionally enforced—counter theologies concerning survival, liberation, and uplift are inevitable.
As lovers of God and Scripture, let us avoid the temptation to demonize the theology of another persons theology without examining the possible menacing implications of our own.