Beyond Liberation Theology

By Roseanne Ramirez [2008-10910]

Secularization theories are not theories of religious decline. This came as a surprise to me when I first read about them, since to me the word always conveyed the dying of religion, or at the very least the relegation of the same. But it is about the increasingly dynamic interaction of the religious and the secular. The continuing institutional differentiation between them led Pieper and Young to claim that we are now living in the age of “Post-Secular” Politics – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Secularization,” Pieper and Young write, “understood as the differentiation of religious and temporal institutional authority, is a not myth but a real historical process or set of processes, processes characteristic of modernity.” (2010: 349)

Reinhold Niebuhr provides five frameworks by which to analyze the interaction between religion and secularization. Of particular significance to my discussion is the category “Religion as the Transformer of the Secular.” It is when the religious response to secularization is transvaluation, essentially evaluating old ideas using new standards or principles. It is best represented by something we touched upon in class: Liberation Theology.

Liberation theology was introduced in 1973 by Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian Roman Catholic priest. “It is a school of thought among Latin American Catholics according to which the Gospel of Christ demands that the church concentrate its efforts on liberating the people of the world from poverty and oppression.” (Global Christians, n.d.)

It is “at once an example of religion as powerful agent of cultural transformation, and also a site of multiple contestation between radical clergy, their orthodox superiors, and an increasingly oppressive state.” (Pieper and Young, 2010: 358) Even though they were discussing this in the context of Latin America, it’s not difficult to relate the description to the Philippine situation during Martial Law.

The principle behind Liberation Theology was quite simple. After the Second Vatican Council there emerged a new political reading of the Gospel which interpreted the “People of God” as “Poor People,” who had Christ as their emancipator… From their current economic and social conditions. It’s basically Catholic Faith dancing the waltz with Marxist Theory. They were focusing on things that one wouldn’t expect the Church to focus on (because weren’t we supposed to live in poverty after all?).

In the Philippines, Liberation Theology played a large part in deposing the infamous Ferdinand Marcos. “It is well known, for example, that the Catholic Church, at both the official and lay level, supported the People Power movement in the Philippines in the mid-1980s, providing crucial material and moral resources for the Marcos opposition.” (Zunes, 1999) Father Conrado Balweg of the Society of the Divine Word is perhaps the most famous of the radical clergy, but there were a number of priests and nuns who joined the New People’s Army.

As discussed in class, the Church was caught between a rock and a crazy place. They were torn between wanting to end Martial Law, but what if the communist party took over once the dictator was overthrown? Under the leadership of Cardinal Sin, they took the stance of “critical coordination.”

Well we all know the conclusion of Martial Law turned out to be incredibly favorable for the Church.

Liberation Theology (and the ecclesial base communities) declined in the 1980s when it was suppressed by the Vatican and when the Protestant competition grew strong enough to overshadow it. In Latin America, it gave way to the politics of accommodation. That is to say that Latin American Catholics and Protestants “accommodated their religious values and visions to the increasingly pervasive logic of pragmatic politics and bureaucratic methods.” (Pieper and Young, 2010: 360)

In the Philippines, we seem to have taken a different track. The Catholic Church and the secular forces continue to be in a constant tug of war, while other players have entered the field such as the Iglesia ni Cristo who are said to much more significant as far as political clout is concerned. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially since there have been more and more challenges to orthodox beliefs in light of “modernization.” Our debates on the RH Bill, on divorce laws, and on same-sex marriage will definitely change the dynamics between Church and State. So far, the CBCP has taken a very active stance, even threatening to initiate civil disobedience. Are we headed towards a setup where religion is versus the secular? Your guess is as good as mine.

References:

Global Christians (n.d.) “Liberation Theology: General Information” retrieved from http://www.globalchristians.org/politics/2/Liberation%20Theology.pdf on 8 July 2011.

Pieper, C. and Young, M. (2010) “Religion and Post-secular Politics” in Leicht, K. and Jenkins, J.C. (eds.) Handbook of Politics: State and Society in Global Perspective (New York, Dordrecht, Heidelberg and London: Springer), pp. 349–365.

Zunes, Stephen (1999) “The Origin of People Power in the Philippines.” In Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective. Edited by Stephen Zunes, Lester R. Kurtz, and Sarah Beth Asher. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.