[THO] EcoFraud

I keep finding myself more and more upset with our present government in Canada. Of course my current readings aren't helping! This semester I'm doing two courses in Ethics, one is a history of ethics and the other is more of a liberationist course on ethics and economy in a globalized world. Personally I find much of what happens in classic moral philosophy (ethics) becomes so focused on a particular ideology (deontology, teleology, etc.) that it is unable to cope adequately with the complexity of life. But that is to be expected from my background in liberation theology.

What kills me is that we continually work for solutions that are potentially worse than the problems! Take the new light bulb plan of the Harpur government. I haven't found any of these new light bulbs that do not contain mercury. Mercury is nasty shit! So how about one of these lights breaking in your kids room? It happens. Plus they might last a long time, but what do we do with burnt out mercury filled lights? I agree that we need to cut our power consumption, in fact I am planning on doing all I can to ensure we cut our usage at least by 10% this summer. But we have to step back and really think through the problems. That is where the liberation theology methodology really helps.

An easy way to understand LT methodology is with the slogan: see - judge - act. But this is not to be mistaken with an immediate response to a percieved need. LT is self-critical of its own responses. The problem with shortsighted responses is that they come back to bite us in the future - like those mercury filled bulbs! See is the most important part of this, you need to understand, really understand what is going on, what are the implications and who stands where in the situation. Obviously the government has a lot of balls to keep balanced in the air. I appreciate that, and that is why we elect a government. But we also expect them to think it through. It isn't about trying to make the least amount of voters pissed so you can get re-elected. It is about doing what it right for Canada and the world. Harpur and his Conservatives fail on both accounts.

LT methodology also adds another component. There is no LT without action, and we realize that actions sometimes create different injustices. That is why the cycle starts again and again. I wish our government would be more self-critical than trying to tread water until the poles seem to be in their favour. I really want a government that is willing to do what is right instead of what they can get away with.

I offer you the site EcoFraud, the Suzuki video alone is worth the browse.

[THO] Malcolm X

Reading James Cone yesterday I kept running into references to Malcolm X. I had bought this film at a yard sale in the summer but due to its length I've put off trying to watch it. That is until yesterday, I wanted some context and what I got was a brilliant movie. Malcolm X is Black Theology worked out in the life of a very charismatic man. At one powerful moment in the film a police officer makes the comment about Malcolm's charisma, "that is too much power for one man to have." I wonder if the same would have been said of Moses by the Pharoah's warriors!

This is a raw movie, you really get the sense that the fight for liberty is so all consuming that it blinds one to other injustice. Watch how Malcolm treats women and sympathetic white folk. Spike Lee really captures the whole of the man, warts and all. What is really profound is that Malcolm, like Romero, has a series of messy conversions. These are true horizon expansions. His message continually reflects the evolution of his heart as he becomes more and more aware of how big the struggle for freedom really is.

I was chatting with my neighbour about the film and was saddened because he seemed to not be interested in hearing about the life of a Moslem. My comment was that this man, Malcolm X, was doing theology. As I reflect on that, it is never comfortable when we do theology. Especially when we realize how much we are personally implicated in the systems of injustice. If you haven't seen this movie, it is worth watching. Brother Malcolm was a truly great man of God, let his life speak to you about your own committment to justice.

[THO] Romero

My community watched the film Romero last night. It is my third time seeing the film that explores the life of El Salvadorian Archbishop Oscar Romero. I highly recommend this film, it is full of insight. I wanted to share a few here.

Right at the beginning of the film Romero is talking with his friend Father Rotullio and Romero, troubled by what he overhears in the marketplace, cautions his friend about fostering subversive ideas. The response was profound: How can I love God whom I cannot see if I cannot love my neighbour whom I can see.

Romero's conversion is slow and painful, full of wrestlings. It is, in other words, very real. There are many uncomfortable moments. But to see this "man of books" find courage within himself to recover the violated host from the occupied church really moved me. I often wonder what I would do if faced with a similar circumstance - would I risk my life for the gospel? Romero encourages me that in that moment there is a strength that cannot be gained from books, and that strength is sufficient.

Finally listening to the radio this morning they were talking about global climate change. The concensus is that 90% of scientists agree that the climate is changing and that we are responsible. Driving home last night a fellow preacher had the oddacity to suggest that if the climate is changing that's just God's will, fatalism like that drives me nuts. Even though I felt the speakers on CBC held too much faith in a technological solution they were calling for a social transformation. Romero says that economics is the root cause of the injustice in his country. That critique is common to Liberation Theology and is apt. In fact all of the world is implicated in this injustice. This must be part of the social transformation, a conscientization, if we are to see justice not just ecologically but socially and politically as well. We can't afford to throw up our arms in the face of crisis, and we can't afford to ignore the fact that our economic choices have global repercussions. We need to find a better way.

[THO] Introducing Liberation Theology

"So the criticisms made of liberation theology by those who judge it on a purely conceptual level, devoid of any real committment to the oppressed, must be seen as radically irrelevant. Liberation theology responds to such criticism with just one question: What part have you played in the effective and integral liberation of the oppressed?"

- Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology, p.9. (Orbis, 2006)

[THO] Theology in Praxis

This is proving to be a difficult semester, not that the material is any more difficult but this is the first year where I think I'm actually getting it. Theology is making a demand on me and it is scaring the crap out of me.

Last year I studied ecology and it did change me, I did become more ecologically conscious, I did become more vocal about our responsibility for the environment and I did reduce my ecogical footprint. But this semester that seems like childsplay.

Usually I am good at making the connections between my courses, ecology and grace flowing together, ecclesiology bringing about a point of praxis for implementing the theology I'm engaging with. But while I made those connections last year, this year the connections are making themselves! It is as if everything I read is challenging my ideological framework and asking me - what have I done as my response to the death and resurrection of Jesus? Have I simply built up a nice fortress (status quo) and lived there with a slightly edgy message but still safe in my own ivory tower? Or have I stepped into the world of the oppressed and said truly that I will live the message that I have come to preach? It is never easy and it is never safe.

But isn't that Jesus? What makes us think that following the most revolutionary characters ever to step onto the stage of history will be safe? What blindness we must read the bible with. What arrogance we must bring to the liturgy week in and week out.

So far this semester I think for the first time I've understood that being a Christian means being political. I've fought that my whole life. And this isn't what most Christians think being political means, it isn't trying to make sure that those who will support the status quo get in power. No it is intensely revolutionary. It is stepping into the face of those who continue oppression in this world. It is getting in the faces of those who support systems that profit from the plight of the oppressed poor of our world. It is refusing to arogantly think that we deserve luxury, entertainment and ease while so many groan in agony for their redemption. I mean, of course, that this is my sin that I must get right.

Repentance is not just saying we are sorry, it is an intensly political orientation towards God and God's project in this world. It is about becoming a people of the Kingdom. It is about becoming a people of liberation. It is about saying yes to Jesus call that we take up our crosses and follow him. It is a lot harder than our self-serving personal piety would have us believe.

Someone once said the greatest lie the devil ever told was that he didn't exist. I think the greatest lie he told is that we can live our lives as Christians as if Christ doesn't matter. The supports for that lie in my life are cracking all around me. This is a hard year. I doubt I will be the same person at the end of it.

[THO] Tillich as quoted by Cone as quoted by Segundo

"I am not unaware of the danger that in this way [the method of relating theology to culture] the substance of the Christian message may be lost. Nevertheless, this danger must be risked, and once one has realized this, one must proceed in this direction. Dangers are not a reason for avoiding a serious demand."

Paul Tillich (from Liberation of Theology, Juan Luis Segundo)

[REV] A Quick Drink from the Well

Last week I had 7 days to read Gustavo Gutiérrez's We Drink From Our Own Wells. I hate power reading such a deceptively profound book. And I would commend it to anyone who is wrestling with Liberation Theology, especially to evangelicals who think that Liberation Theology is just Socialism dressed up like Christianity. Gutiérrez reveals that Libeation Theology is deeply embedded in the experience of God in the midst of situations all of us would find intolerable if we were truly to face them ourselves. Liberation Theology is an orientation towards hope and the pursuit of justice that can only be described as the inbreaking of God's Kingdom in the lives of the oppressed. I am carefully using the term oppressed because we have some romantic notions of poverty in North America that do not describe what it means to be poor in 'developing' nations.

Gutiérrez begins with the definition of a Christian "as a follower of Jesus" (p.1) a great place to start for any theology. Because he begins here I think this book would be incredibly accessible to folks who have been afraid to Liberation Theology. He then begins to describe a spirituality that arises in the midst of a foreign and oppressive land (foreign to the Kingdom that is). "We are confronted with a reality contrary to the reign of life that the Lord proclaims." (p.10) It is this that is the reality of many oppressed in our world.

His insistance though is that it is in the face of such adversity that spirituality is born. And from the depths of spiritual experience a profound theogical reflection is able to occur. This is the experience of German Political Theology in light of the horrific Second World War. I find it interesting that in the evangelical world there is a glamourization of martyrdom. Something deep inside us knows that real theological reflection occurs in the midst of real social challenges. Yet that same evangelical world is quick to dismiss what is going on in neighbouring countries, right under our noses. To this Gutiérrez makes an incredibly bold claim, one we need to consider. "There is no authentic evangelization that is not accompanied by action on behalf of the poor." (p.44)

The other aspect of this book that I think makes it accessible to evangelicals is how Gutiérrez works with scripture. This book is predominantly a scriptural study - profoundly contextualized, but a study of scripture much like I would expect from contemporary evangelical writers. I think that is also what makes this book deceptively simple. It is not a simple text. There is something profound in what Gutiérrez is asking his readers to take in. It challenges our whole notion of what it is to do theological reflection. It calls us to be aware of the deep injustices that occur in our world, but not to lament and throw money at them - but rather to come along side in solidarity with the oppressed in a way that changes our own comfortable views of reality. In that place we encounter the Lord, surprising though that may be.