Basic Ecclesial Communities/Bible of the Oppressed/The Finger of God/Worship and Politics/The Challenge of Liberation Theology/To Change the World
Hennelly, Alfred T.
Books: BETWEEN FIRST & THIRD WORLDS IT HAS BEEN extremely discouraging to witness American foreign policy toward the third world in the past several years. The attempt to utilize these nations as...
...From Latin American, African, and Asian liberation theologies through Euro-American political theologies to North American black theologies and feminist theologies, the theological landscape has been irretrievably changed...
...Barreiro achieves concreteness throughout the book by describing actual communities in different areas of Brazil...
...Generalizations such as that the Eucharist is "a school of liberation" never acquire any real substance...
...He is clear-eyed in his recognition that "to preach the word of God relevantly in South Africa is to walk through a minefield-blindfolded...
...Her study, concentrating for the most part on the Old Testament, analyzes oppression among nations and within nations, the identification of oppressors and oppressed, and the forms and methods of oppression...
...For the pastoral approach of forming and nurturing small Christian communities represents a phenomenon that in one form or' other has now spread to every sector of the globe...
...Called morrales (literally, saddle bags containing food for a journey), these are the means by which theology nourishes the real grassroots of the church...
...Tamez charges that European and North American scholars have almost totally ignored (for ideological reasons) the theme of oppression in the Bible, whereas she believes that oppression (and its correlative, liberation) constitute the essential historical context for understanding the entire Bible...
...The rest of the book presents a dozen examples of precisely this kind of sermon to blacks in South Africa today...
...The same kind of question is raised regarding the function of the sermon in The Finger of God...
...As one of the few women theologians on the Latin scene, she is especially sensitive to the multiple oppressions of women, both in Scripture and in Central America today...
...and how is one to make sense of the statement that "the content of the Latin American Eucharist is (or should be) the history of Latin America...
...The first book is based on a conference on the topic held at the University of Chicago in 1979, while the second is a series of essays centering on the role of Christology in liberation theologies...
...It has also generated intense controversy, as some welcome its emphasis on community with great enthusiasm, while others view it as a threat to their more pyramidal model of church...
...However, his major objective is to present a biblical reflection on the theme of God's preferential option for the poor...
...Yet he makes a strong case in an introductory chapter for ethical or political preaching, that is, preaching that recognizes the real situation and struggles of the listeners and addresses them in terms they can understand...
...A Colombian layman, Avila is blunt in his assertion that the Eucharist is "the most radical of liberations," but that it "has been so extravagantly barricaded with rubrical sandbags" that it has become a wall rather than a bridge to the people...
...In this context I have sometimes dreamed that perhaps the highly-placed Catholics in the administration would actually read some of the theology being produced at a prodigious rate by their co-religionists in the third world and get some glimmer of what is really going oil...
...Barreiro's topic is also of critical importance in contemporary ecclesiology...
...One thing to keep in mind is that actual books constitute merely the tip of a very large iceberg of theological production in Latin America...
...I am not persuaded, moreover, that North American churchgoers will ever envision the gifts of bread and wine as symbolic of the relations of production in our society...
...Most of the book is devoted to a study of the sociopolitical context in the evolution of Jewish worship and then of Christian ritual within this matrix...
...The Challenge of Liberation Theology and To Change the World are serious attempts at dialogue among the various theologies of liberation...
...But Avila has pointed to a very important problem for the Christian churches...
...The chances for this seem bleak, but here at any rate I will survey some of the recent literature in this area...
...Written by a Brazilian Jesuit, it is one of the relatively few books translated from the Portuguese in this Country...
...After finishing this book, one wonders somberly what the future has in store for this prophet in South Africa...
...He is also extremely hopeful that the base communities will effect the evangelization of the universal church, that is, its conversion to the cause of the poor...
...Bible of the Oppressed is another example of the keen interest in biblical studies in both Protestant and Catholic circles in Latin America...
...In summary, the two books may serve as models of serious conversation between first and third worlds, even though they do not answer or even raise many fundamental issues...
...My hope is that there will be many more, for I am convinced that the Brazilians lead the entire continent with regard to the extent and profundity of their theological production...
...Boesak, a black South African minister, focuses much more intensely here on his own situation than he did in Farewell to Innocence (1977...
...This may seem obvious, but not if we recall that most first-world studies of liberation theology are either neo-conservative diatribes or superficial academic efforts to make stale theology appear relevant...
...The author is a seminary professor and member of an ecumenical theological center (DEI) in San Jose, Costa Rica, and readily admits that her interpretation is deeply influenced by the viewpoint of oppressed people, a perspective which Gustavo Gutierrez has referred to as the "underside of history...
...Her own political christology is heavily influenced by Latin American authors, especially Jon Sobrino, but she adapts it creatively to first world issues such as Jewish-Christian relations, feminism, and ecology...
...Professor Ruether begins with a critique of the influential contemporary christologies of Hans Kiing and Edward Schillebeeckx, which she faults for presenting diverse portraits of an apolitical Jesus...
...Perhaps the most influential "theology" at present may be found in the one- or two-page outlines that are composed for the liturgies of the base communities...
...The attempt to utilize these nations as pawns on the East-West chessboard has been, and will continue to be, futile and counterproductive, since it views the game through North-South lenses, that is, as northern developed nations (including Russia) versus southern developing ones...
...Moreover, it is in Brazil that the greatest number of base communities has arisen, and thus their experience should have great value for the rest of world church...
...They are rooted in Scripture, incisive, and blunt in their condemnations, especially as regards the dominant sin or "estrangement" of apartheid...
...In my view the most radical essay is by Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza, on a feminist approach to biblical interpretation...
...Well, then, how does this service actually function, as a weekly tran-quilizer or anodyne, or as a stimulus to critical social consciousness and commitment...
...Most people's contact with these churches comes during the service of worship...
...The Chicago volume contains a number of responses and of basic disagreements among the participants, especially the sharp exchange between Dorothy Soelle and Schubert Ogden...
...Also, one of the most common, indeed platitudinous, objections against Latin American theology is that it is too horizontal, that is, not sufficiently concerned with transcendent and spiritual verities...
...Basic Ecclesial Communities is an important book for a number of reasons...
...What both have in common is competent research and a careful articulation of arguments...
...It is somewhat ironic, then, that the three Latin books reviewed here are concerned with such vertical and "religious" matters as the church, Bible, and liturgy...
...Since my special interest is Latin American theology, I will concentrate there and include examples of the dialogue with it that is now flourishing in many parts of the world...
...But there will be abundant time ahead to deepen and broaden the dialogue, as is clear from the observations of the influential Catholic theologian, David Tracy, in his introduction to the Chicago conference: It is now clear that the major breakthrough in Christian theology in the last decade has been the explosive emergence of political and liberation theologies...
...Many of the essays in the volume are followed by responses, but unfortunately there is no response at all to Fiorenza's many challenging questions, e.g., can the historical Jesus be a role model for contemporary women and is being a woman and being a Christian a primary contradiction...
...Especially moving is a sermon delivered after the death of Steve Biko in a South African jail, where Boesak acknowledges a deep-rooted "fear of our own liberation," but argues eloquently that this can be overcome by a love that "searches openly, honestly, and actively for justice and rejoices in it...
...Worship and Politics, I must admit, impressed me much more by the importance of the subject than by the author's contribution to an understanding of it...
...The final part, concerned with the design of a renewed Eucharist, comes as a disapr pointment after this interesting initial discussion...
...On a trip the summer before this to Mexico and Central America, I was amazed at the number Alfred T. Hennelly and variety of different publications, ranging from periodicals to popular writing on all levels, including comic books...
Vol. 109 • October 1982 • No. 17
