Christ the King! Only Jesus Saves!! By the grace of God and the power of the good Holy Spirit!!!

2009-09-21T02:02:00.001-07:00

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.

Matthew 5:3, New International Version
http://www.SearchGodsWord.org/desk/?query=Matthew+5:3

My child, listen and be wise: Keep your heart on the right course.

~ Proverbs 23:19, NLT

John 7:
Exposition
John 7 starts with the rejection of Jesus by his own brothers as they prepare to go to the feast of the Tabernacles in Jerusalem. Jesus kept away from the Feast of the Tabernacle. Jesus's time had not yet come, so he decided to keep in Galilee and not travel to Judaea. Some of Jesus's own disciples did not believe in him.

There is evidence for the deity of Jesus -- good, strong,
historical , cumulative evidence; evidence to which an honest
person can subscribe without committing intellectual suicide.

-- John Stott

It was compulsory during the Feast of Tabernacles for all Jewish males within 22 miles of Jerusalem to be in the Temple at the time of the Festival. So Jesus could afford to opt out as he was quite beyond that boundary in the Galilee. It has been commented that there was atleast six months of ministry involved between John 6 and John 7.

Jesus said to them, "The right time for me has not yet come. Any time is right fo ryou. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I keep telling it that its waysare bad. You go on to the festival. I am not going to this festival, because the right time has not come for me." He said this, and then stayed on in Galilee. John 7:6-9.

Then Zebedee's wife came to Jesus. Her sons were with her.
The mother bowed before Jesus and asked him to do something
for her. Jesus said, "What do you want?" She said, "Promise
that one of my sons will sit at your right side in your
kingdom. And promise that the other son will sit at your left
side in your kingdom."

-- Matthew 20:20-21 (ERV)

Why did Jesus go alone to the Temple during the Feast of the Shelters? in secret? obviously because he did not want to attract attention. But he went to the extent of knowingly putting people off the scent, so as to speak, by telling his brothers that he would not be coming to the Festival. One lesson we can understand from the attitude of the ruling authorities to Jesus's absence at the Festival was their active quest for him. Jesus was not the first person to come out of the Judean desert so as to speak claiming a following and preaching liberation in the unsettled times in Palestine during the Roman occupation of the region. They were fully ready to confront him over his projected aspirations to lead the people against the Roman occupiers of Palestine. Its interesting to note in this context the varied opinions that people had about Jesus, as regards his purported ability to lead the people in the face of their joint exploitation at the hands of the Jewish authorities as well as the Roman authorities. As usual the first thing that the Rabbinical authorities had to ask Jesus was where he got the authority to speak as he did, as he was obviously a man without training and 'the right caste.'Verse 18 is crucial here: 'A person who speaks on his own authority is trying to gain authority for himself. But he who wants glory for the one who sent him is honest, and there is nothing false in him.'

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to
offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God --
this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to
the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's
will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will.
-- Romans 12:1-2
http://www.SearchGodsWord.org/desk/?query=Romans+12:1-2

Blessed are the people of whom this is true; blessed are the
people whose God is the LORD.

Psalm 144:15, New International Version
http://www.SearchGodsWord.org/desk/?query=Psalm+144:15

2009-09-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

Time waits for no man!

The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing!!

O Lord, you show mercy to those who have no one else to turn to!!!
Hosea 14:3 (TEV)

2009-09-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

Those who doubt most, and yet strive to overcome their doubts,
turn out to be some of Christ's strongest disciples.

-- Selwyn Hughes

Reversal! WHAT JESUS DID! -- http://www.heartlight.org/

2009-09-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Reversal!

"So the people that have the last place now will have the
first place in the future. And the people that have the first
place now will have the last place in the future."

-- Matthew 20:16 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
Reversal! When God settles all the accounts, then things are going to
be valued by his standards and not the world's standards. The people
whose hearts are yielded to him will be recognized as his children no
matter their lack of rank or riches in worldly society. Those who
recognize their grace at being included in God's Kingdom will be given
places of honor. So our goal as disciples is to value things now as God
will later. Our job as disciples is to keep searching and including the
lost, the last, and the least in the Kingdom and not just those who can
bring us some outward benefit. Remember, God doesn't look at us the way
people do. People look at the outward appearance, but God knows our
hearts.

TODAY'S PRAYER:
O Lord God, your grace to me is marvelous. Your promises are thrilling.
I can't wait until you send Jesus with power and show things as they
should be and reward people based on their character, their hearts, and
their gratitude for your grace. To you be all praise and honor and
power and glory belong, both now and forever. In Jesus' name. Amen.
c/o WHAT JESUS DID! -- http://www.heartlight.org/

2009-09-19T01:27:00.000-07:00

Follow God's example in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love for others, following the example of Christ, who loved you and gave himself as a sacrifice to take away your sins. And God was pleased, because that sacrifice was like sweet perfume to him.

Ephesians 5:1-2 (New Living Translation)
Provided by Christ Notes

2009-09-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

“The seminary years are a time of journeying, of exploration, but above all of discovering Christ. It is only when a young man has had a personal experience of Christ that he can truly understand the Lord’s will and consequently his own vocation”

Pope Benedict XVI, Address to Seminarians (World Youth Day 2005)

2008-02-13T03:15:00.000-08:00

Ephesians commentary continuation! Read on !!

2008-01-21T08:59:00.000-08:00

Paul's Letter to the Ephesians.
-----------------------------------
1:1 In the first verse, Paul is quite clear that he is an 'apostle' of Christ Jesus.....by the will of God. He makes this comment despite not knowing Jesus personally during his life in Roman Palestine. Paul feels justified in Christ himself, in making this comment. His work for Jesus and knowledge of the mind of Christ himself seemingly equips himself to make this comment and appropriate this description to himself. He also sees this as a justification of his calling. Paul feels so divinely called that he can righfully claim divine choice to be known as an apostle of Jesus Christ, if even only by default. Taking Paul's life in toto from his miraculous conversion where Jesus actually appeared to him in a divine visitation on the road to Damascus as he was going to persecute more Christians (Acts 9) to his ceaseless work after that for the sake of Christ's kingdom across the then entire known Meditterranean world, striving against all hardships to propagate the kingdom of God against all odds and against so many powerful forces, including finally all-powerful Rome, maybe we also can say with Paul and definitely with our Lord as well, well done good and faithful servant, you deserve this ultimate accolade of being an apostle of our Lord and one of the chosen few, perhaps the man only really worthy to replace Judas Iscariot, the traitor who betrayed Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane.

In the second part of the address of this letter, Paul makes it very clear that he is addressing the believers in Ephesus in today's Turkey, those people in this Greek city in Asia minor who believed in Jesus and called on his name, indeed who are as the verse reads 'faithful in their life in union with Christ Jesus.' The idea's one can derive from this 1/2 verse are tremendous, particularly from an evangelical perspective. Paul, even is his introduction to the letter is actually asking the people in Ephesus to remain faithful as they always have been to Jesus in actual continuous union with him. This indeed is an ongoing exhortation and one that is applicable to all people in Jesus Christ at all times. The exhortation to be faithful to Jesus always. Jesus Christ alone is our heavenly bride-groom and just as we are faithful to our spouse, so also we must be faithful to Jesus, our heavenly bride-groom. Truly our life is and must be spent always in union with our Lord, in constant prayer and supplication, in always thinking about our Lord and in remaining in unbroken communion with him and his presence in our life. The fragrance of Jesus must always be with us, in all that we do, all that we say and all that we think. He must be prime in our thoughts and the first thing we think about when we wake in the morning. We should reach the state when we rise at night just to be in communion with our Jesus. Jesus should be all in all for us, our thoughts at all times should be focussed on Jesus and God, the author and perfecter of our faith at all times.

May we always say only Jesus! his name be praised at all times! Glory be to him!

Amen!

1:2 The second short verse indeed carries on from the first in that Paul quite clearly exhorts the Ephesian church and believers that only God in Jesus Christ could offer them grace and peace.

1:3 Paul exhorts all the believers in Ephesus to thank God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is again is a reflection of much of Pauline writing, in that there are continuous exhortations to thank God from whom all goodness flows. God blesses us everday with life and air. He lets the wind blow so that we get relief. He cares so much for us that he protects us daily from so many evils. He is truly a good God and most important of all, He gives us each day our daily bread, both physical, material and spiritual. May God be blessed in all things in Jesus Christ. Amen!

1:3b Provided we maintain our (marital) union with Christ, God has promised to bless us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm! What a great promise, to be the divinely ordained inheritors of all God's great blessings spiritual. Can man want anything more in life on this dry earth. Let us praise God from whom all blessings flow. He is truly a good God! Oftentimes we forget this promise of God that He will bless us if we hold on to Christ. Do you yearn for spiritual satisfaction in your relationship with God, then hold onto Christ and ask God through Him. He will provide you with all the blessings you want! Do you want tongues or the gift of healing. Ask God in fasting and prayer and all will be provided as and when you're ready in God's eyes who knows each one of us so well. Praise the Lord! Glory to his name in Jesus Christ! Amen!

1:3 Jesus has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. We must believe this. God will bless us only if we believe. Praise be to Him. All we need to do is to claim these blessings in faith. Praise His Holy Name. All blessings are out there. One just needs to claim them. The secrets made known to us in Jesus Christ are hidden from so many others.

1:4 Paul exclaims that even before the world was made, our sovereign Lord had already chosen us to be His alone throught our union with Jesus Christ as a result of which we would be sanctified and rendered without blemish before our God. Its just incredible to think of and we bow in awe before the grandeur and might of God that He could consider us worthy of being called and loved us sufficiently to give his only Son on the cross for us. A secret so easy to understand and yet so difficult to accept for the vast majority of people on this earth. Truly a secret revealed to babes and those people so inconsequential that they are never noticed by the top-up people of this world, but Christ came to call the humble and the downtrodden. Praise be to Him. May we love God and Jesus so must that we too might offer our bodies in loving and holy sacrifice for the betterment of his kingdom. We can only approach God through Jesus. He alone can save us and make us worthy and clean to face our maker, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. Oh reader! if you have never made a commitment to accept Jesus, do so today. He loves you so much and is just waiting for you to make a decision. Say you love Jesus and would like to accept Him as saviour and Lord and he will come into your heart and grant your rest and peace and solace. Then you will discover the secret of a life well lived, you will discover meaning in life and will seek to live for others, instead of yourself.

1:5 God loves us so much that through Jesus, he has made us sons and inheritors of his great Kingdom that will never end, praise be to Him!

God loved Jesus so much that He made Him a living sacrifice for us and our sins. All our sins and evil were wiped away by the blood of Jesus, praise be to Him!

It was God's pleasure and purpose alone that made us His sons! Not our capabilities or gifts, but the Grace of God alone. he alone called us and entrusted us with this divine covenant and great commission. But we must be faithful. Many are the people who have fallen away from the calling. We must not be part of that group but must stand firm so that we get the crown that he has promised to those who are faithful!

1:6 All glory, honour and praise to God in Jesus Christ for the free gift of love that he made available to us in Jesus Christ. Praise Him a million times.

Jesus freely died on the cross of His own divine will that all of us sinners might be granted salvation, hope, joy and delight in Jesus and that we might hope for a better tomorrow in heaven where we shall be called with a multitude of others to praise and worship God.

1:7 The sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross, itself almost a replica of another earthly man who was willing to sacrifice His own son to God as a test of his faith fulness, was meant to set us free from all sins and evils. All our sins were forgiven by this one act of Jesus on the cross. The grace of God is so great as to enable him to give it to us in great measure, over-flowing, etc. The grace of God is available for us to take in large measure, much more than we have now and indeed as much as we want. We need to claim our measure of divine grace in full. The Lord says "Ask and you shall receive." God has given us so much grace to live in this world, so much that we never need to complain again. His promises are so vast, praise Him!

Our problem is that we often do not seem to claim the blessings God is so willing to give us. He says again as above in Mathew 7:7-8 that one must ask to receive from God in Jesus Christ. In fact Mathew 7:11 quite clearly states that our heavenly Father is just waiting to give good things to those who ask Him. So go ahead and ask and get good things from God, all asked in the name of Jesus! Praise His Holy Name!

Paul writes in 1:9-10 that God was kind and loving enough to us to make known to us nobodies the 'secret plan' he had conceived before the ages to bring to fruition through Jesus Christ on the cross. The plan which is still to be completed involves the bringing together of all known creation under heaven and earth, with Jesus Christ Himself the Son as Head.

1:11 Paul exhorts us to believe that all things are done according to the divine plan of God, decided much before the ages. Indeed Paul considers the message of God's choosing so important that he frequently repeats it in this letter, emphasizing the 'divine' choosing of each of us based on God's plan made manifest in the ages and revealed in each of us.

1:12 Paul then exhorts the Ephesians as other Church people in Asia Minor called to know God through Jesus Christ as a result of Paul's preaching and the grace and will of God to truly praise God''s glory. Praise Him indeed!

1:13 Paul states that the Holy Spirit alone is our guarantee of freedom willing to bless us exceedingly and shower us with all spiritual blessings. Receiving the Holy Spirit is our divine guarantee of freedom in Jesus Christ!

Once we believe in Jesus Christ, God puts the sign of approval on us by sending His Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of all good things that we will receive in Jesus Christ if we believe, pray and have faith and hope and trust! One thing we can be sure God gives complete freedom to those whom he loves. Let us indeed praise His glory! Complete freedom in Christ in the Holy Spirit! What more does man need!!

Think positive always!

2008-01-21T05:35:00.000-08:00

Think positive always and God will bless you!

Praise the Lord!

Carlos Mesters, 'Defenseless Flower,' 1989, p.9

2008-01-18T11:38:00.000-08:00

"The (poor) people's main interest is not to interpret the Bible, but to interpret life with help of the Bible. They try to be faithful, not primarily to the meaning the Text has in itself (the historical and literal meaning), but to the meaning they discover in the text for their own lives...The Bible of life was their lives, in which they tried to put into practise and incarnate the word of God. And it was even more: life itself is for them the place where God speaks."

Praise Yah! review by Eliot Weinberger of The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter c/o LRB

2008-01-18T04:56:00.000-08:00

Praise Yah
Eliot Weinberger
The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter

Out of the mouths of babes; apple of the eye; fire and brimstone; out of joint; sleep the sleep of death; sweeter than honey and the honeycomb; whiter than snow; oh that I had wings like a dove for then would I fly away; the meek shall inherit the earth; tender mercies; clean hands and a pure heart; I have been young and now am old; my cup runneth over; many a time; clean gone; the days of old; I am a worm and no man; his heart’s desire; the heavens declare the glory of god; go down to the sea in ships; at their wits’ end; the valley of the shadow of death; make a joyful noise; go from strength to strength . . .

The 1611 King James Authorised Version of the Book of Psalms – and of course of the entire Bible – is so deep in the English language that we no longer know when we are repeating its phrases. Inextricable from the beliefs and practices of its faithful for four hundred years, it has been transformed from the translation of a holy book into a holy book itself. Poets, however, know from experience that there are no definitive texts, and over the centuries an assembly of angels has been singing the Psalms in its own way: Wyatt, Sidney, the Countess of Pembroke, Campion, Milton, Crashaw, Vaughan, Smart, Clare, Hopkins and Kipling among them. Some were setting lyrics to new tunes; some were performing metrical exercises with familiar material; some were expressing private prayer; some were simply writing a poem. St Augustine said that all things written in the Psalms are mirrors of ourselves and it was inevitable that, when English poets were still largely Christian believers, they would look into the mirror of this foundational anthology of poetry, as Chinese poets looked into the Confucian Book of Songs.

In the Modernist era, the poets, as Pound wisecracked, have been more interested in Muses than Moses and though bits of the Psalms have inevitably been embedded in poems, new translations have become the province of theologians and academics. The latest is a handsome edition, complete with the requisite red ribbon, by Robert Alter, and it has arrived accompanied by a joyful noise, widely acclaimed in the press as the Psalms for Our Time.

New translations of a classic text are either done as a criticism of the old translations (correcting mistakes, finding an equivalent that is somehow closer to the original, writing in the language as it is now spoken) or they are a springboard for trying something new in the translation-language, inspired by certain facets of the original (such as Pound’s Chinese or Anglo-Saxon versions, Paul Blackburn’s Provençal, Louis Zukofsky’s Latin). Alter, whose concern is Biblical Hebrew and not contemporary poetry, is in the former camp. As he explains in the introduction, his project is to strip away the Christian interpretations implicit in the King James and later versions and restore the context of the archaic Judaism of the half-millennium (roughly 1000-500 BCE) in which the Psalms were written. His poetics is an attempt to reproduce the compression and concreteness of the Hebrew, ‘emulating its rhythms’ and ‘making more palpable the force of parallelism that is at the heart of biblical poetry’. As for mistakes, it is surprising that the King James apparently has so few. Alter corrects very little, sometimes unconvincingly, though he is more specific on flora and fauna.

His de-Christianisation is largely in the avoidance of frequent King James terms such as ‘salvation’, ‘soul’, ‘mercy’, ‘sin’ and its sister, ‘iniquity’. He translates the KJ line ‘my soul thirsteth for thee’ (63) as ‘My throat thirsts for You,’ explaining in the introduction that although the Hebrew word nefesh ‘means “life breath” and, by extension, “life” or “essential being” . . . by metonymy, it is also a term for the throat (the passage through which the breath travels)’ – a translation, in other words, more literal than the original. Elsewhere, ‘my soul’ becomes ‘my being’, or sometimes merely ‘I’. For ‘sin’ he prefers ‘offence’; for ‘mercy’, ‘kindness’. For ‘iniquity’ he often chooses ‘mischief’, which, in American English, is more likely to be associated with frat-boy pranks on Halloween than treachery in the desert. Thus the KJ ‘they cast iniquity upon me’ (55) becomes ‘they bring mischief down upon me’ and the KJ ‘Iniquities prevail against me’ (65) becomes ‘My deeds of mischief are too much for me.’ The strangest choice of all is the replacement of the often reiterated ‘salvation’ and its cognates with ‘rescue’ (the noun), in ways that seem to have no connection with English as it is spoken: ‘rescue is the Lord’s’ (3) or ‘the cup of rescue I lift’ (116) or the KJ ‘A horse is a vain thing for safety’ (33), which becomes the incomprehensible ‘The horse is a lie for rescue.’

The parallelism that is the organising principle of the psalmodic line (and of much archaic poetry) has been plain in English since the translations of Miles Coverdale in 1535. Coverdale marked the division into hemistiches (or what Alter, following Benjamin Hrushovski, calls ‘versets’) with a colon, a practice followed, inconsistently, by the King James. Bishop Robert Lowth explained it in detail in 1753 in Oxford, and inspired Christopher Smart, who attended the lectures, to use the form for his Jubilate Agno. Alter emphasises this by splitting each line into two, with the second one indented, giving the poem a more ‘modern’ look, but it is hard to see why this is ‘more palpable’ than previous versions. Open any page of the KJ version and the parallelism is quite clear: ‘Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together’ (98) – a line I picked at random – seems little different from

Let the rivers clap hands,
let the mountains together sing gladly

– though Alter is, characteristically, slightly more awkward.

To illustrate how he has rendered the condensed language of the original, Alter, in the introduction, takes an unfortunate example, the famous line from Psalm 23: ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’ He explains that the Hebrew has eight words and 11 syllables, but the King James translation ‘weighs in’ at 17 words and 20 syllables. Alter has brought this down to 13 words and 14 syllables, an admirable diet, but there are few who wouldn’t prefer the chubbier version to this:

Though I walk in the vale of death’s shadow,
I fear no harm.

Over the last century, there have been many translation strategies for giving a sense of the denseness of classical languages such as Chinese or Sanskrit: layout on the page, enjambment, the dropping of articles when possible, a reliance on Anglo-Saxon rather than Latinate words. Alter tends to use the possessive. The opening line of Psalm 19 in the King James, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God,’ becomes ‘The heavens tell God’s glory’; if nothing else, cutting three syllables. Its concluding lines, which are repeated thrice daily by observant Jews, ‘Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer’ are turned into lines that would have the prayerful stumbling:

Let my mouth’s utterances be pleasing
and my heart’s stirring before You,
LORD, my rock and redeemer.

Considering that the Psalms are meant to be spoken or sung, many of Alter’s lines are difficult to say: ‘Your throne stands firm from of old,/from forever You are’ (93) is one for elocution class, and the KJ ‘Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord’ (70) has been turned into a stammer: ‘God, to save me,/Lord, to my help, hasten!’

Translation comes from somewhere, the language and literature of the original, but it also goes somewhere, into the language and literature of the translation language. Too often the experts in one know very little about the other. The cliché that only poets can translate poetry is half true. More exactly, only poetry-readers can translate poetry: those familiar with the contemporary poetry of the translation language, the context in which the translation will be read. On the evidence here, Alter seems to know very little about the last hundred years of English-language poetry.

He is partial to Victorian language, perhaps in the belief that it is more ‘poetic’. The result is that, at times, he sounds more dated than the King James. He’s in ‘death’s vale’ where the KJ was in ‘the valley of death’. His Lord is ‘my crag and my bastion’ (18) where the KJ’s is ‘my rock, and my fortress’. He has a ‘people aborning’ (22) where the KJ has a ‘people that shall be born’, and a ‘sojourner’ (94) for the KJ’s ‘stranger’. The KJ’s ‘I have considered the days of old’ (77) is now ‘I ponder the days of yore.’ And the famous line ‘I have been young and now am old’ (37) has been turned into A.E. Housman: ‘A lad I was, and now I am old.’

Worse, like many writing poems for the first time, he is in love with inverted syntax: the trees ‘fresh and full of sap they are’ (92); ‘they fix to the string their arrow’ (11); ‘His handiwork sky declares’ (19, better known as ‘the firmament sheweth his handywork’); ‘orphans they murder’ (94). Sometimes he merely inverts the King James phrases. ‘For I am poor and needy’ (86) becomes ‘for lowly and needy am I’; ‘The sea is his, and he made it’ (95) turns into ‘His is the sea and He made it’; or similarly, ‘Thy way is in the sea’ (77) is now ‘In the sea was Your way.’ There are inversions on nearly every page and after a while, wonder, one does, if it’s not the swamp of Yoda the Jedi Master we’re in. That sinking feeling hits bottom as early as Psalm 23:

The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
In grass meadows He makes me lie down

(And, almost needless to say, for ‘He restoreth my soul,’ Alter has ‘My life He brings back.’) The incessant inversion, combined with the predilection for possessives, leads to many examples of the kind where la plume de ma tante would become ‘My aunt’s is the pen.’ The first line of Psalm 24 is straightforward in the King James: ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.’ Alter’s line needs to be diagrammed: ‘The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness.’

He seems to have no ear for American English, from the alpha (2: ‘Why are the nations aroused,/and the peoples murmur vain things?’) to the omega (150: ‘Let all that has breath praise Yah’ – a construct rather like ‘All who is going should get on the bus’). He is oblivious to American slang, not realising that Psalm 66 (KJ: ‘Make a joyful noise unto God . . . Say unto God, how terrible art thou in thy works!’) in his version (‘Shout out to God . . . Say to God, ‘‘How awesome Your deeds”’) sounds like a Christian rock band warming up the crowd. He sometimes slips out of register: ‘The wicked man borrows and will not pay,/but the just gives free of charge’ (37). And he apparently can’t hear that the line ‘Free me, Lord, from evil folk’ (140) is best spoken in the voice of George Bush.

Inversion, the possessive, the unpronounceable and an unfortunate word-choice all converge in Psalm 18, where he transforms a dull line in the King James (‘As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me’) into: ‘At the mere ear’s report they obeyed me,/aliens cringed before me.’ There are many other lines that would cause the meek to tremble, though perhaps not aliens to cringe. Among them: ‘With their dewlaps they speak haughty words’ (17); ‘All day long I go about gloomy’ (38); ‘Like sheep to Sheol they head’ (49, KJ: ‘Like sheep they are laid in the grave’); ‘All the wrongdoers bandy boasts’ (94); ‘For all gods of the peoples are ungods’ (96); ‘I hate committing transgressions’ (101); ‘I resemble the wilderness jackdaw’ (102); ‘for we are sorely sated with scorn’ (123); and, perhaps the worst of all, the anatomically perplexing ‘The wicked backslide from the very womb’ (58). But fortunately, as Edward Dahlberg once remarked, ‘there are many psalms that even the droning of a priest cannot kill.’

As one reads along, the suspicion grows that perhaps this book is not about the poetry at all, but about the commentary. Usually half, and sometimes more, of every page is taken up by Alter’s notes. Certainly there are many editions where the notes are more interesting than the texts, but the commentary here divides between lexical minutiae, of interest largely to Hebraicists (though this is a heavily promoted mass-market book) and a running exegesis for freshmen, in a relentless reiteration of the obvious. The line ‘My being like thirsty land to You’ (143) is glossed: ‘Rain in this climate and therefore in this body of literature is characteristically thought of as a desperately needed blessing. Hence God’s responsive presence is metaphorically represented as the rain that the parched land awaits to quicken it with growth’ – though one presumes that, by page 493, the reader has already figured out that these people are living in the desert. ‘Sing to the Lord a new song’ (149) needs this explanation: ‘The idea of a “new song” is highlighted in several psalms. In a sense, this is a kind of self-advertisement of the psalmist, as if to say “here is a fresh and vibrant psalm that you have never heard before.”’

It is remarkable that, in some two thousand of such notes, most of them longer than these, very little outside of Alter’s own interpretations is ever mentioned. He takes issue with some of the King James readings and very occasionally disputes some (usually unnamed) biblical scholars, but not once does he cite any of the translations from the history of English poetry, the uses to which individual psalms have been put, the detailed Christian exegeses of everyone from St Augustine to John Donne (and only very rarely the Jewish exegeses of Rashi and Avraham ibn Ezra), or even – except where there are specific references – other passages in the Bible. (This is contrary to Jewish tradition, which tends to pile up citations and defer to the long tradition of transmitted wisdom.) There is one far-fetched mention of Mallarmé, explaining why, in Psalm 65, Alter translates a certain word as ‘silence’. And he defends his transformation of the well-known line ‘sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb’ (19) into ‘and sweeter than honey,/quintessence of bees’ – despite his own injunction against multisyllabic Latinate words and the inappropriate alchemical term – by modestly noting: ‘The English equivalent offered here may sound like a turn of phrase one might encounter in the poetry of Wallace Stevens, but it offers a good semantic match for the Hebrew.’ (The Hebrew had merely put together two words that both mean ‘honey’.)

St Hilary said that the Book of Psalms is a heap of keys that can open every door in a great city, but that it is hard to find which key opens which lock. For translation, the opposite has been true: many poets have discovered many different keys to unlock certain doors.

For emotional power, Thomas Wyatt, circa 1536:
From depth of sin, and from a deep despair,
From depth of death, from depth of heart’s sorrow,
From this deep cave, of darkness deep repair,
Thee have I called, O Lord, to be my borrow.
Thou in my voice, O Lord, perceive and hear
My heart, my hope, my plaint, my overthrow,
My will to rise, and let by grant appear
That to my voice thine ears do well intend.

(130)

For concision and straightforward speech, Arthur Golding – whose translation of Ovid was loved by Pound and plagiarised by Shakespeare – in 1571:

My heart is boiling of a good word.
The work that I indite shall be of the King.
My tongue is the pen of a swift writer.

(45)

(Alter: ‘My heart is astir with a goodly word./ I speak what I’ve made to the king./My tongue is the pen of a rapid scribe.’)

The lute music of Philip Sidney in the 1580s:

How long (O Lord) shall I forgotten be?
What? ever?
How long wilt Thou Thy hidden face from me
Dissever?

(13)

And Sidney’s sister, the Countess of Pembroke, ten years later, bringing in the whole orchestra:

Lord, crack their teeth! Lord, crush these lions’ jaws!
So let them sink as water in the sand.
When deadly bow their aiming fury draws,
Shiver the shaft ere past the shooter’s hand.

(58)

Thomas Campion in 1612, similarly alliterative, but restoring the psalm to the clarity of a single human voice singing:

Aloft the trees that spring up there
Our silent Harps we pensive hung:
Said they that captiv’d us, Let’s hear
Some song which you in Sion sung.

(137)

(Alter: ‘On the poplars there/we hung up our lyres./For there our captors had asked of us/words of song,/and our plunderers – rejoicing:/“Sing us from Zion’s songs.”’)

Milton, in 1653, the master of syntactical inversion:

Rise Lord, save me my God, for thou
Hast smote ere now
On the cheek-bone all my foes,
Of men abhorred
Hast broke the teeth. This help was from the Lord;

Thy blessing on thy people flows.

(3)

The sheer goofiness of Richard Crashaw in 1648, translating ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ as:

Happy me! O happy sheep!
Whom my God vouchsafes to keep;

(23)

(And later, ‘He leadeth me beside the still waters’ becomes, in part: ‘At my feet the blubb’ring Mountain/Weeping melts into a fountain.’)

Isaac Watts in 1719, making an entirely new song out of ‘O sing unto the Lord a new song’:

Joy to the world – the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King:
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing.

(98)

Christopher Smart in 1765, turning a single line (KJ: ‘He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes’) into one of his typically bright and idiosyncratic stanzas:

His snow upon the ground he teems,
Like bleaching wool besides the streams,
To warm the tender blade;
Like ashes from the furnace cast,
His frost comes with the northern blast
To pinch and to pervade.

(147)

Thomas Merton, who as a Trappist monk recited them every day, wrote that ‘the Psalms teach us the way back to Paradise.’ Indeed, ‘they are themselves a Paradise.’

Curiously, many of Alter’s goals were achieved in the 1960s in the Jerusalem Bible, an English translation by an anonymous committee (though the translation of Jonah has been attributed to Tolkien), directed by Alexander Jones, of a decades-long French project by the (Catholic) School of Biblical Studies in Jerusalem. It is without literary pretension and its literal, plain-spoken minimalism takes one far from the courtly elegance of the King James and into the world of the desert tribes. Its narratives, at times, seem as straightforward and unadorned as Icelandic sagas, those other great tales of vengeful shepherds. And its deadpan translation of the interminable, detailed rules and prohibitions underscores how selective the so-called fundamentalists of our age are: ‘When two men are fighting together, if the wife of one intervenes to protect her husband from the other’s blows by putting out her hand and seizing the other by the private parts, you shall cut her hand off and show no pity’ (Deuteronomy 25.11-12). Moreover, it manages, in the Bible’s deepest strata, to summon up the archaic world where Yahweh was not the only God, but the chief among many gods – Canaanite and other eclipsing figures – simply by naming him. (Alter refuses to do this, in deference to the Orthodox Jewish taboo against saying the name, and resorts to the standard ‘Lord’ in small capital letters.) Here are a few lines from Psalm 29, in the Jerusalem Bible translation:

The voice of Yahweh over the waters!
Yahweh over the multitudinous waters!

The voice of Yahweh in power!
The voice of Yahweh in splendour!

The voice of Yahweh shatters the cedars,
Yahweh shatters the cedars of Lebanon,
making Lebanon leap like a calf,
Sirion like a young wild bull.

The voice of Yahweh sharpens lightning shafts!

The anonymous Jerusalem Bible translators, who make no claim for poetry, have inadvertently written a Beat poem – by Allen Ginsberg or Anne Waldman or Michael McClure – a reminder that the Psalms have set the tone and standard for what an oracular and ecstatic poem should sound like: in English, from the King James to Whitman to Ginsberg; and in the rest of the world from Whitman to Neruda and Senghor, among so many others. Where the usual ‘Lord’ carries millennia of evolving interpretations, and an inherent benevolence, calling Yahweh by his name – as we would a Greek or Hittite or Hindu god – confers a mythological otherness: an unsophisticated warrior god of the neolithic Hebrews, far from the deity now invoked in suburban synagogues.

We tend to remember the songs of praise and thanksgiving, but most of the psalms are preoccupied with vengeance. The psalmist is surrounded by enemies who slander him, bring lawsuits against him, cheat him in the marketplace, and he calls on Yahweh to destroy them. Or the Hebrews are surrounded by hostile tribes and they call on Yahweh to destroy them. Everyone knows Psalm 137, the beautiful song of exile (‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion’), but few remember how it ends, here in Alter’s translation:

Daughter of Babylon the despoiler,
happy who pays you back in kind,
for what you did to us.
Happy who seizes and smashes
your infants against the rock.

Alter comments that the psalm ‘ends with this bloodcurdling curse pronounced on their captors, who, fortunately, do not understand the Hebrew in which it is pronounced’. A cheerful thought, but language is more than the meaning of words and somehow one suspects that if this curse was indeed once spoken aloud, the Babylonians, knowing nothing of the original, would still have been able to translate it.

Eliot Weinberger’s most recent books are An Elemental Thing and What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles. ‘What I Heard about Iraq’ was published in the LRB in 2005, its sequel in 2006.

Pentecostalim in Brazil! Brazil Greets Pope but Questions His Perspective By LARRY ROHTER and IAN FISHER May 9, 2007 c/o The NYT

2008-01-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

May 9, 2007
Brazil Greets Pope but Questions His Perspective
By LARRY ROHTER and IAN FISHER
SÃO PAULO, Brazil, May 8 — Pope Benedict XVI arrives here Wednesday for his first foray into Latin America, hoping to stanch the church’s steady loss of followers in the region. But some of the faithful frankly wonder whether an 80-year-old pontiff from Germany can speak to their needs.

When Pope John Paul II first visited here in 1980, nine of every 10 Brazilians described themselves as Roman Catholics. That percentage has dropped by one percentage point a year for nearly two decades. Today only two-thirds of Brazilians consider themselves Catholics, according to a recent church-endorsed survey.

Much of that ground has been lost to surging Pentecostalism in a region that has traditionally been home to nearly half the world’s Catholics.

“This is why he wants to go there,” Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, a Brazilian and former archbishop here, said in an interview in Rome. “Because he is worried. Because Latin America cannot be lost. I say that Latin America could be lost.” He was appointed last year as head of the Congregation of the Clergy.

“If you lose Latin America,” he added, “it would be a substantial loss, that could be irreparable.”

The trend in Brazil is so worrying that, according to church officials, the pope lobbied to have a 19-day conference of Latin American bishops, which opens Sunday, held here, after seeing the results of the survey.

“Brazil has become a country with a lot of religious mobility, a mosaic,” said Silvia Fernandes, a sociologist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro who worked on the survey, which had been conducted at the request of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops. “A disposition to change and experiment and to question doctrine has been growing for 30 years now, and Pentecostalism has been the biggest beneficiary because it is a more emotional religion.”

Another recent survey, by the nondenominational World Christian Database, showed that Brazil had recently overtaken the United States as the country with the world’s largest Pentecostal population. Based on numbers that churches themselves provided, the survey calculated that 24 million Brazilians belong to Pentecostal churches, while 138 million are Roman Catholic.

The challenge from Pentecostalism, say theologians and other religious experts, is likely to be one of the most important challenges of Benedict’s papacy. Philip Jenkins, a professor of religious studies at Penn State University who has written several books about the church in the developing world, called the spread of Pentecostalism in Latin America “the greatest single crisis facing the Catholic Church worldwide.”

Some segments of the Latin American church have responded by emphasizing the theology of liberation, which merges faith and politics. Others have incorporated Afro-Brazilian and indigenous rites into the Mass.

Another increasingly popular response has been the emergence of a charismatic renewal movement, which borrows liberally from the Pentecostal liturgy. Its most visible symbol is a young priest named Marcelo Rossi, a former personal trainer who is a devotee of the Virgin Mary and the rosary.

Blessed with matinee-idol looks and a strong singing voice, he draws thousands to the concrete warehouse where he celebrates his televised Masses. He has sold millions of records and even starred in a movie.

“I come here because the Mass is relaxed and informal, gets me more involved than at my old church and transmits a feeling of happiness,” Edilanis Diniz, a 31-year-old store clerk, said one recent Sunday as Father Rossi sang “God is a 10” to a rock ‘n’ roll beat. “I think this is the right path for the church, especially for young people.”

But Father Rossi’s popularity makes some traditionalists here uneasy. He has been excluded from any visible role during the pope’s five-day visit, and has also been cautioned about toning down the entertainment in his worship services.

“Priests aren’t showmen,” Archbishop Odilo Scherer, whom Benedict chose in March to be the new archbishop of São Paulo, said late last month in a clear reference to Father Rossi. “The Mass is not to be transformed into a show.”

As lay people, the bishops and other clergy members gather this weekend in Aparecida, a center of devotion to Brazil’s patroness, the Virgin of Aparecida, they will be looking to Benedict for guidance on these and other issues when he addresses the bishops’ conference there on Sunday.

But there is widespread curiosity, and even some skepticism here, about the personality and beliefs of the new pope. The faithful here will thus be alert for signs from Benedict that this region’s concerns can compete for attention with the central challenge for the church in Europe, namely rising secularism.

“The European church has its reality, and we can feel that this papacy is quite preoccupied with that,” said Agenor Brighenti, a Brazilian theologian who is the author of “The Church of the Future and the Future of the Church.” “But the survival of the church is not the problem we face here in the third world, and so we hope he can feel our reality, too.”

That reality includes poverty, social injustice and a shortage of priests.

At the 2005 conclave that chose Benedict, Cardinal Hummes was seen as a contender to become the first pope from Latin America, and there was much disappointment here when he was not chosen.

When a military dictatorship was in power here, Cardinal Hummes, now 72, was known as “The Workers’ Bishop” because he gave refuge to labor leaders, including Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, now president of Brazil, and sympathized with popular causes.

Benedict, in contrast, “is seen in many quarters as a quintessentially European figure, and I think the early line on him in many parts of the south is, quite frankly, that he doesn’t have much to say to us,” said John Allen, who wrote a biography of the pope. “It is therefore important for him to come across as someone who understands that part of the world and someone whose message is relevant to that part of the world.”

In recent weeks, the pontiff has sought to dilute that image by speaking out on issues of special interest to Latin America, which he described Sunday as “the continent of hope.” Last month, for instance, the Vatican released a letter in which Benedict recommended ways in which rich countries could help poor ones through relaxed trade rules, debt cancellation and medical assistance.

John Paul II’s first trip to Brazil lasted two weeks and included visits to squatter slums that so moved him that he donated his papal ring to one of the communities.

By contrast, and in recognition of his more advanced age and reduced stamina, Benedict’s itinerary does not include any events of that nature. But he is scheduled to visit a treatment center for drug addicts.

“In the course of his activities, seeing how he responds to the problems he faces will allow us to make an evaluation of him,” said Eduardo Moreira, a 56-year-old metalworker from the industrial suburbs here. “We hope that he is coming not just to teach, but also to learn.”

Larry Rohter reported from São Paulo, and Ian Fisher from Rome.

A PENTECOSTAL REVIVAL TEXT Acts 2:1-4 by Mark Hardgrove c/o www.churchnetwork.com/suwaneecog

2008-01-16T10:42:00.000-08:00

A PENTECOSTAL REVIVAL
TEXT Acts 2:1-4
by Mark Hardgrove
www.churchnetwork.com/suwaneecog

Introduction:
What is a true "Pentecostal" revival? The picture of Acts is often a
far cry from what we see in many Pentecostal churches. First let's look
at what it is not.
A Pentecostal revival is not:
a revival of programs
a revival of human personalities
a revival of pomp and circumstance
I. IT IS A REVIVAL OF....PASSION
When they came down out of the upper room they didn't come down
whispering, they didn't hide in the shadows, they came down with a
revived passion.
True passion always comes out in the speech and actions of the
passionate. If people do not see and hear Jesus in us, then our passion
is lacking. On the day of Pentecost, the passion would not be
contained or concealed in an upper room, it had to make its way, like a
river, into the city, and eventually, all the world.
A few years ago, when Latin America was experiencing phenomenal growth
in the Pentecostal churches, Roland Vaughn said the reason was not
because of education, or facilities, or finances, or programs; "the
reason they are growing," he said, "is because the people have a passion
for God."
James, in his Epistle, said true religion and undefiled is to minister
to the needs of widows and orphans. True religion has enough
compassion to do something about the plight of the outcast of society.
True religion has enough passion to care and to create ministries which
will make a change in people's lives.
There is no Christianity without compassion, and there is no
"com-passion" without "passion." Christ was often moved with
compassion to minister to the masses. Compassion moves us, it motivates
and compels us to do something.
Far from the placid figure portrayed in modern media, Jesus was a
passionate man. He was also moved with passion to rebuke the
religionists, and to clear the temple of money changers.
O for a passionate passion for souls,
O for a pity that yearns!
O for the love that loves unto death,
O for a fire that burns!
O for the pure prayer-power that prevails,
That pours itself out for the lost!
Victorious prayer in the Conqueror's Name,
O for a PENTECOST
-Amy Wilson Carmichael
Paul told Timothy, "Stir up the gift of God, which is in thee..." (2
Tim. 1:6)
A passionless church is a church which has left its first love, it is a
church which is neither flowing with cool refreshing streams nor the hot
therapeutic springs, but is lukewarm, half-hearted, empty, apathetic and
complacent. Don't let the passion die, don't lose your first love
fire!
Oh that the Spirit would blow across the glowing embers of the
Pentecostal movement again and revive within us a passion for the lost,
a passion for prayer, a passion to praise, a passion for God in all of
His splendor!
II IT IS A REVIVAL OF....POWER
They went out in power and turned the world right side up.
Jesus said, "But ye shall receive POWER, after that the Holy Ghost come
upon you: and ye shall be witnesses into me both in Jerusalem, and in
all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."
I thank God we serve a God of POWER. Not like gods of wood and stone
which have hands but cannot save, ears but cannot hear, eyes but cannot
see. Not like the gods of secular humanism which have no power to
transform a man, or lift him out of his sins. But our God is an awesome
God. "God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power
belongeth unto God" (Ps 62:11).
But not only does God have power, He wants that Power to work through
us. "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly according to
the power that worketh in us," (Eph. 3:20)
Power for what? Power to shout? I'm like T. L. Lowery, "I started
shouting the day the burden of sin was lifted off my shoulders and I
haven't quit yet! Shouting is not a sign of power, shouting is a sign
of joy!"
We have been given power to witness and to walk the walk. It grieves
me to see people talking about having the Power of the Holy Spirit, but
can't quit smoking, can't quit talking about their neighbors, can't quit
sinning and won't witness for Jesus. If they've got power then there
will be enough power to witness and to live right!
III. IT IS A REVIVAL OF...PRESENCE
The early believers lived in His presence, they walked in the Spirit.
In John 14 Jesus said, "I will not leave you Comfortless" He said, "I
will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He
may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth"
The Holy Spirit doesn't want to visit us on Sundays, or when we have a
revival, the Holy Spirit was sent to "abide" with us. He wants to take
up residence within our heart and soul continually bearing witness with
our spirit that we are the Children of God.
We cannot be satisfied with going through the motion, we must long for
the presence of the Lord, He is the source of revival.
The Psalmist said, "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I
seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my
life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple"
(Ps 27:4).
CONCLUSION:
Do these attributes of a Pentecostal revival grace your life? If not,
then you need revival. Come and experience the Passion, the Power and
the Presence of Pentecostal Revival in your life.

Next pastoral dedication and Sunday service meeting 20th January 2008 5 PM @ South Street Baptist Church, Exeter.

2008-01-16T09:52:00.001-08:00

Please all readers come to our pastoral and mission dedication service this Sunday at 5 PM @ the South Street Baptist Church's Palace Gate Christian Centre. Come and be blessed as British Assemblies Of God (BAOG)Pastor Rob from Bristol does the laying on of hands and dedicates three pastoral candidates and their spouses to mission work in London and Exeter among, but not primarily among the burgeoning Asian Christian community in the UK. The meeting will be from 5.00 PM- 8.30 PM all are cordially invited irrespective of national, racial and ethnic affiliations!

Thanks for all your prayers!

2008-01-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks and God's blessings to all who prayed for my Ph. D studies and my meeting with my supervisor. It was a great success and now its full stream ahead with finishing my Ph. D to the glory of God. May his name be blessed!

God bless you!

2008-01-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

Dear All,

Hope you had a nice day so far. May God go with you the rest of the day. May the spirit of Jesus be with you and may the Holy Spirit bless you this day and always!

Victory Church News Alert: English service starts: February 2008!

2008-01-15T11:05:00.000-08:00

Watch out for details of the start of the new English service on this blogspot in the coming days. Keep praying for our fledgling church, that it will be blessed and the city of Exeter will also be blessed as a result of our prayers and meeting. May Christ and the Holy Spirit be with us all!

Pray for our Pastor!

2008-01-15T10:56:00.000-08:00

Pray for our Pastor Abraham and his wife Vincy as they minister mightily across the UK and even in Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world as well as greater Commonwealth. Pray that they will be used mightily in His service!

Pray for all the programs of our Victory Church in the South West of England and in Scotland-Ireland!

Latest News flash! -January 20, 2008!

2008-01-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

For the notice of all reader's!

Pray for the January 20th 2008 dedication service where two of our brothers, Bro. Reji and Bro. Wilson along with their spouses are being anointed as Pastor's to lead congregations in London and Exeter, repectively. Also pray for me, Bro. Sam and my wife Saira as we are dedicated as missionaries-evangelists in Exeter by the grace and to the Glory of God through Jesus Christ alone.

May His name be praised always!

in Christ,

Pray for Orissa now!

2008-01-15T08:47:00.000-08:00

May I ask all readers right now to pray for the state of Orissa in India, where persecution against Christians is going on right now. Pray that the Authorities and the Government of India will do something instead of denying the problem. Pray that Christians world-wide will put pressure on their Churches and governments to condemn the atrocities and lobby the Indian government to take firm measures against the Hindu fundamentalists responsible for the atrocities and destruction. Please pray for all, Hindu's as well as Christians, that all will come back to normal and that reconstruction and rehabilitation will soon start.

in Jesus name!

Interview c/o Catholic News Service: Cardinal Cormac welcomes Polish migrants LONDON - 15 January 2008

2008-01-15T08:45:00.000-08:00

LONDON - 15 January 2008

Cardinal Cormac welcomes Polish migrants

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has expressed his hope that Polish migrants living in England and Wales will be able to feel part of the family of the Catholic Church and stressed the great value of their contribution to the Catholic faith.

In a wide ranging interview with Polish Journalist Rafal Laczny, which was first published in December 2007 by Poland's church-owned news agency KAI, he acknowledged that language problems may make it hard for recent Polish migrants to become integrated into the Catholic life of England and Wales. However, he expressed the hope that over time they would be able to become part of local parishes.

In a separate response to recent press comments about apparently different approaches to integration by Polish Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said on Wednesday 9th January 2008: "We have to look at the changing circumstances with the shared desire that the Polish people have their spiritual needs met."

Full transcript of interview with Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor by Rafal Laczny

RL. Many Polish people are interested in Great Britain, the main reason is of course is that they can work here but that means they are interested in Catholic Church as well. Can Your Eminence describe the situation and condition of the Catholic Church in England and Wales?

The first thing I would like to say is that the Polish people who come to this country and particularly to my own diocese are very welcome. There are very, very many who have settled here in London and I meet many of them in the parishes, so that, for me, is very good. They will find the Catholic Church here in England strong in the sense that it has a very public witness for what it means to be Catholic, witnessing to our Christian faith in a secular society. Of course the Catholic Church in this country is a minority church, not like in Poland where most of the country is Catholic. Here we are a small proportion of the population of this country, about 5-10%, and therefore the mission is to be strong, to be faithful and to feel free and brave enough to express our Catholic faith in Britain.

RL. You mentioned the secular society and this is only one of the tasks for the Catholic Church in England. Unfortunately many Catholics are leaving the Church.

It is quite true to say that there are a number of Catholics who do not go to Church. Many of them, I suppose, after being baptised and brought up as Catholics have then decided not to practise any more. And therefore I think that Catholics, when they grow up and become adults, have to make another commitment of themselves to their Catholic faith. Of course, I lament when those leave the Catholic Church and do not practise and therefore the task of evangelisation is to show people, especially those who are baptised as Catholics, that this is the real church, this is the community of faith and hope and love, come and renew your Catholic faith, come and join us. Christmas I think is a particular time when people realise that my Christian faith does mean something even if I don't go to Mass every Sunday as I should.

RL. Another problem for the Church is the liberal laws in England. For example, this year is the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act.

I think that many of the moral laws, laws which affect the Catholic Church, are perhaps increasing because the secular culture means that certain social and moral matters, and particularly ethical matters regarding family, are matters in which the government make decisions which impact on the Catholic Church. One is of course the permission of abortion and I and the other Catholic bishops have constantly fought against the wrongness of abortion. It's not only that there are other aspects of legislation to do with adoption, IVF, homosexuality that make it difficult for the Catholic Church. Now we see that certainly what is legal is not necessarily moral. And one's got to be very careful to distinguish that. But with regard to abortion, I did say in a recent letter with the Cardinal Archbishop of Edinburgh, in which we spoke up very strongly against abortion, that we ought to do more to help women who have pregnancies that they don't want to enable them to have their children, to help them, to counsel them, and I think that's very important. And we also said that politicians should, at least as a first step, work to reduce the age at which abortion becomes legal or illegal.

RL. One of the most important tasks for the Catholic Church in England and Wales is dialogue with the Church of England and with the Muslims living in Great Britain. What is the position of this dialogue?

Of course the dialogue with the English Church, the Anglican Church, the Church of England, is very different to our dialogue with Muslims. The dialogue with the Anglican Church, the Church of England, is one that has been going on a long time and we are in many ways very close together. We have many doctrines and the order of church ministry is the same. Sadly, there are many obstacles to full unity with the Anglican Church which have emerged, particularly over the last 20 years, particularly regarding moral matters, regarding matters of ministry and other matters, particularly, I would say, the matter of authority. But that said, we cooperate very well with Anglicans in every part of the country where bishops and priests and people do unite together in a common kind of witness, as much as we are able to do. And that, I think, is very good. With regard to the Muslims, particularly, the dialogue is a different one. I think, it's a dialogue for peace in the world, for certain values that we hold together and I have to say the dialogue has yet to grow, I think, and partly because it's rather difficult to get leadership within the Muslim community that want to interact with us. I think, the question of theological dialogue does not arise with the Muslims because we have a very different concept of God and an interpretation of how He speaks to us. But there can and should be a dialogue, if you like, of culture, of work for peace, values such as the dignity of the human person and the family, these are the sort of things on which, in fact, we can work together for the common good.

RL. Are you optimistic about the dialogue with the Church of England?

I am an optimist, I would say a hopeful person, which is slightly different. In other words I believe that the work of ecumenism is not an optional extra it is part of Catholic teaching, part of the mission of the Church, to be ecumenical to reach out to fellow Christians and see in whatever way we can how do we grow towards that unity which is the will of Christ and I think when things seem very difficult we've got to remember it's the work of the Holy Spirit and that He can do things we can't even dream of.

RL. In Great Britain there are now more than 1 million Polish people, most of them are Catholics. Do you think this has changed in some way the Catholic Church in this country?

I think clearly the million or so Polish who are here are a welcome addition to this country and to the Church. I think that it can be quite difficult in some ways for the Polish people to become integrated into this country. Partly the problem is language it's difficult for Polish people, I think, to learn the English language, to be familiar with it. But I think I am also anxious that they don't become, as it were, a separate church, if you see what I mean, a Polish church for the Poles, another church for the rest of the Catholics. No, I want the Polish people to become integrated into the Catholic life of this country. They will be a great strength to our parishes. Now, this can only be done gradually but I want the leadership of the Polish church in this country and the Polish people themselves to realise that, as soon as they can, I mean as it were learnt the language, to become part of the normal parishes where they will be not only welcome but have a great contribution to make.

RL. So maybe Polish people should evangelise the British?

We all have a task, as Catholics, to evangelise the English. It's my job, your job, it's everybody's job as a Catholic to evangelise. And I think that the Polish people themselves will evangelise by their example. You see in the early church people said those Catholics, those Christians, how they love one another. How they work for the common good, how they are an example. I think the Polish people can at least evangelise in that way. And as they gradually become more integrated into the life of the church will use their own particular gifts, I think, to evangelise the English. I myself come from an Irish background. Well the Irish came over here, like the Polish, many, many hundreds of thousands and they had to become integrated and in a sense now you see their children and children's children evangelising the English by their example, by their witness.

RL. Polish people are a part of the large group of immigrants in Great Britain. In an interview you spoke about a 'grey zone' of millions of immigrants living in England without any elementary rights. This situation is a great task for the Church as well.

I think there are problems for immigrants who come to this country, I think, social problems, problems of justice, the Catholic Church particularly wants to be sure that immigrants, whether they are Catholics or not, are not exploited, that they get a fair wage and therefore are able to live decent lives. I do think that the Polish people in as much as they are part of the Church will realise that they live alongside lots and lots of other people of other ethnic origins. We have in London a most extraordinary mix of 47 ethnic chaplaincies and when I go round the parishes here in London I find people of 20, 30 different ethnic backgrounds and they worship together, they are glad to be together, they belong to one faith. It seems to me that a particular gift to London, I'm talking about my diocese now, of this variety of people who have come to London of different ethnic backgrounds is to show the government and others that people of different ethnic backgrounds can live together, can pray together, can be a kind of witness together to what it means to be a Christian and I think in that sense I think the Catholic Church has a hugely important part to play. But it must not forget to try and help those who are in difficulties in terms of social integration, some of the injustices that are done to immigrants and to remind the government what can and should be done with regard to just treatment of people who've come to this country.

RL. In a couple of weeks we will celebrate Christmas. What could you wish for the Polish community in England?

I wish the Polish people to celebrate Christmas in a Polish way. By that I mean they will pray, they will celebrate the Holy Eucharist, they will be with their families or as many of them as can and celebrate a great mystery, the mystery of the incarnation, the mystery that God became man in Jesus. And I hope that just as Jesus, as it were, was welcome as a kind of stranger when he was born, so that the Polish people won't feel strangers in London, or indeed in any part of the country, that they will feel that they are part of a family, the family of the Church and will know that they are welcomed, that they are esteemed and that their particular contribution to the Catholic faith and Church in this country is much valued by myself.

Source: Archbishops House

© Independent Catholic News 2008

New Information: Details on Orissa Persecution c/o Gospel for Asia Monday, January 14, 2008

2008-01-15T06:22:00.000-08:00

Monday, January 14, 2008

New Information: Details on Orissa Persecution

Gospel for AsiaASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

ORISSA, INDIA (ANS) -- New details about the severe persecution that Christians faced over the Christmas holiday in Orissa, India, continue to pour in from Gospel for Asia field correspondents. Many of the victims, which include GFA native missionaries and other believers, are still enduring opposition from anti-Christian extremists. The latest incident occurred on January 5 when a group of radicals smashed a plaque that hung on a Jesus Well in their village. The well was recently built by a GFA-related church where native missionary Puru Nilay is pastor.

“I serve the living God, and I will not bow down to anyone except Him,” Matish told the mob. Upon hearing this, they began beating him in front of his family again.
“We want the well, but we do not want Jesus,” the extremists told the believers while the well was being constructed. They also sternly commanded Puru not to place the Christian plaque on the well.

Wanting to give glory to the Lord, Puru and the believers did attach the plaque to the Jesus Well. Then last Saturday, the extremists completely destroyed it. Following the vandalism, they threatened Puru, telling him to stop ministering in their village. The radicals did not damage the well, just the plaque.

Beaten and Humiliated for the Gospel In another area of Orissa, all of the GFA missionaries were persecuted and many have been forced to go into hiding. Matish Junni, the missionary who extremists beat and shaved his head, is serving in this district.

On December 23, Matish and his family boarded a bus to spend the Christmas and New Year holidays with a church in a nearby village where he serves as pastor. A member of an extremist group followed them onto the bus. When they pulled into a remote village the radicals told the bus driver to stop and then kicked Matish out of the bus and onto the ground.

After extremists destroyed their church and burned their belongings and home, GFA missionary Anand Nipun and his family are still in hiding.
*Eyes blacked out for security purposes.
Immediately, a group of 30 extremists surrounded Matish and began severely beating him. Although Matish’s wife and children stood by weeping loudly and calling for help, no one came to their rescue. As the beating continued, Matish’s eyes, nose and ears started bleeding, and he fell unconscious.

Then the mob dragged Matish to a local barber shop and forced the barber to completely shave his head. They also applied a red powder to his head and dressed him in their traditional religious garb. Parading Matish around the village, the extremists took him to their temples and tried to force him to bow down to their gods.

“I serve the living God, and I will not bow down to anyone except Him,” Matish told the mob. Upon hearing this, they began beating him in front of his family again. Then finally, one of the radicals told the mob to stop. Before leaving, they stole all of Matish’s belongings and told him never to minister in their area again.

Following the attack, police took Matish into their custody in order to protect him. His wife fled with their children to his uncle’s home in another village. After Matish was examined at a local hospital, the police released him and he joined his family where he is still recuperating.

On December 28, while the family was in hiding, the extremists went to Matish’s home and burned it down. The attack destroyed everything the family owned. Matish and his family are seeking the Lord for His direction in their ministry.

A Church Destroyed

This is the GFA-related church where Anand Nipun serves as pastor. The building was destroyed by anti-Christian extremists.
Anti-Christian extremists in this area of Orissa left a GFA-related church building in ruins on December 26. The believers had used the brand-new building for a Christmas service the day before and were planning an official building dedication service for January 3.

The radicals had opposed the building’s construction by threatening GFA missionary Anand Nipun, the pastor of the church. But because the construction had already begun, Anand and the believers decided to go through with building.

On the morning of December 26, the extremists sent a message to Anand telling him to leave the village immediately or he would be killed. So Anand and his family sought refuge in another village. That evening, the extremists vandalized and destroyed the building. They also wrote on a wall of the church, “Constructing the church in this place will cost you your life.” Then the mob went to Anand’s home and set his belongings on fire inside, damaging much of the house as well.

They Have Nothing but Faith

Extremists burned all of GFA missionary Anand Nipun’s belongings in his home. This is all that is left.
GFA native missionary Bidra Nayak was also forced to seek shelter from angry extremists in the area where he ministers. After being severely threatened, he escaped from the village on Christmas Eve.

The radicals also threatened many of the believers who attend Bidra’s church. One believer even lost his livelihood when a mob burned down the grocery store he owned.

Bidra remains in hiding, as the anti-Christian sentiments are still strong in this village. He is praying that the Lord will make a way for him to return to his ministry there soon.

Countless other reports of continuing atrocities against Christians in Orissa have recently been shared. According to a GFA field correspondent, more than 1,000 homes have been burned and more than 12 people have been killed across the state since Christmas. Several church buildings have been damaged or destroyed as well.
Many Christians, including GFA missionaries, have sought shelter in the forests. Because tensions are still high, there is little hope for them to be able to return home anytime soon.

GFA missionaries are doing everything they can to minister to the people in these areas. They request prayer that the attacks from anti-Christian extremists would stop and their attackers would come to know the love of Christ. They also ask for prayer for the many believers who are being threatened and attacked, that the Lord would give them strength and peace to endure these difficult situations.

Pray for Bro. Bijoy & Sis. Moncy!

2008-01-15T02:52:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers All in Christ,

Please pray for a Brother of our Victory Church Bijoy whose wife Moncy's brother Wilson died tragically yesterday night of a massive heart-attack. Please pray for the family here in the UK and in India. They are leaving tomorrow for the funeral in Kerala, India.

José M. de Mesa CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGIZING: FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

2008-01-14T10:20:00.000-08:00

José M. de Mesa

CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGIZING: FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

Joe M. de Mesa, a Filipino lay theologian, is professor of Applied Systematic theology at De La Salle University, Manila. He earned a PhD in Religious Studies from the Catholic University, Louvain, Belgium. A member of the Louvain Theological and Pastoral Monographs, he is also on the advisory board of Concilium. He has written extensively on issues of theology and culture.

Concept of Contextual Theology

Negatively, contextual theology is not adaptation, assimilation or indigenization. It dissociates itself from the assumption that there is only one theology which is considered readymade, perennially valid and applicable to all places and all times. This kind of theology needs only to be learned and passed on from church to church, generation to generation. Contextual theology is a radical critique of such theology and theologizing.

Rather, contextual theology is the doing of theology with keen awareness of contextuality. Contextuality connotes a number of things. It means attentiveness: it listens to the cry of the poor, the marginalized and the excluded, and hearkens to the Spirit active in the history of humankind and in the world. It means conditioning, conscious as it is of being affected by the context in which it is done. But it also refers to its conscious and intentional rootedness in the culture, in religion, in the historical currents, in the social locations and situations of people as well as in gender. Contextual theology, furthermore, is transforming. It takes shape according to the demands of the context, but is also aimed at altering conditions in the Church and in society that are counter to the deep intent of the Gospel. Finally, contextuality means inclusivity as it endeavors to include voices which have been excluded in the participative process of theologizing.

In view of these considerations, it can be asked whether even the very notion of theology itself needs to be changed. In our use of the word, we necessarily bring with us its past, perhaps more as a liability than as an asset.

Philosophy of Contextual Theology

All theology is contextual. Every theology, for good or ill, is conditioned by its context. In this sense, there can be good and bad contextual theology. If context affects theology this way, it must be said that theology done in a contextual manner also affects context and aims at transforming it. Doing theology in a contextual manner means taking experience as a constitutive element in understanding, appropriating and communicating the faith. This implies a dialogue with praxis and requires taking, in accord with the Gospel, a stance vis-à-vis the context. All dimensions of the context, local as well as global, impinging on the local, are taken into account so that contextuality pervades all theologizing, teaching and structuring of theological education. As such, this way of understanding and transforming reality requires an interdisciplinary approach. Its way of theologizing implies the integration of context rather than a negation or separation from the context as was the case in pre-Vatican II theology. Such contextual mindset is not realized by adding some new subjects about contextual theology in a traditional curriculum of theological education, but by a restructuring of it so that all the subjects support the main concern of contextual theologizing.

By way of deepening our reflection on the contextuality of theology, we can consider the points presented by the document, Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973) of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the historical conditioning of doctrine (Cf. Neuner and Dupuis 1998:63-4). It states that doctrine, while not merely relative, is nevertheless influenced in four ways: by the question it is trying to answer; by the presuppositions operative in the Church and in society; by the thought patterns being utilized in formulating the doctrine; and by the available vocabulary which can be utilized to express the intent of the doctrine. Thus neo-scholasticism of the 19th and early 20th centuries, for example, can be contextually analyzed in this way. Answering the questions posed by science regarding God’s existence, authorship of creation and significance to humanity, neo-scholastic theology worked with the presupposition that the essence of being human is rationality aimed at true knowledge, utilized the thought patterns associated with “natural” and “supernatural,” and articulated the meaning of “revelation” and “faith” in terms of “truth.”

The diversity of understanding and expression which contextual theologizing engenders leads to the question of the relationship between the local and the universal. This indeed is an important question in doing theology contextually. One can further ask how the contextual way of doing theology will affect the denominational accents in understanding the Christian faith.

Method of Contextual Theology

The basic framework of contextual theologizing is the mutual interaction between the Gospel and the context. It may be described as a mutually radical critique, where a fresh understanding and an impetus to action are given birth to and expressed in an open-ended formulation of theology. Contextual theologizing begins with a risk-taking experience, from one’s context, from below rather than from the bible, doctrine or any church document. To make clear the context of theologizing, a critical analysis of it is imperative. In no way does this imply a devaluation of the Gospel. Rather, it wants to bring out the meaningfulness of the Gospel precisely in context, so that not only will the Gospel impact on it, but that the context may bring out its real meaning through a deconstruction via a hermeneutics of suspicion and a reconstruction of its particular expression.

As we are discussing theological education and the need for interdisciplinarity in contextual theologizing, it may be helpful to look into the area of education itself as a dialogue partner. It has been said in educational circles that in order to teach Johnny arithmetic, one has to know both Johnny and arithmetic. In trying to enhance the learning process in theological education, we may want to consider the theory of multiple intelligences of Howard Gardner (Lazear 1991). According to experts of this way of thinking, the right question is not how smart you are but rather in what way you are smart. Thus learning is not restricted to the logical/mathematical way, but includes the verbal/linguistic, the visual/spatial, the musical/rhythmic, the body/kinesthetic, the interpersonal and intrapersonal as well. We may want to connect to this what has been articulated in our discussions about the importance of incorporating the experience of the beautiful and the appreciation for the arts or even the performing arts. Besides, the Theological Commission of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences has already recommended the development of storytelling as a theological method.1 Stories, like that of the parables of Jesus, are a participatory way of analyzing life situations.

Brain studies point out the manner of thinking done with the left brain or the right brain and suggest that the two sides of the brain should be developed together (Jensen 1998). It has also been discovered that the brain emits different electrical frequencies or waves for different activities. Studies indicate that certain brain waves are conducive to learning. Alpha waves, for example, occur when we are both calm and still aware of our surroundings. At such times, we are most receptive to information. Creativity and insight, on the other hand, are associated with theta waves, which predominate when we are in a state of deep relaxation like between moments of being awake and being asleep. Brain studies suggest too that listening to particular types of music enhances learning.

Contextual theologizing requires attentiveness to the ever changing contexts of societies in which we live as well as to the advances in the various theological disciplines. In relation to this, the growing trend in education regarding “learning how to learn” can benefit professors and students alike in their collaborative study of the various aspects of contextual theology. The accelerated pace of change necessitates continuous learning in the most effective manner (Gross 1991). In short, theological education may find a real partner for inter-disciplinarity in the discipline of education in general, and in brain studies in particular.

Contextual theologizing, because of its inclusive character, may be a fruitful way to transcend the historically-caused divide in churches between a theologically educated clergy and a theologically non-educated laity. As education in the style of contextual theology aims at equipping the church community as a whole theologically (Cobb, Jr. 1994), its development can provide an opportunity and the occasion to ensure the education of the whole people of God. Besides, a theologically educated laity is likely to enrich both the contextual theological process and content. They are normally already immersed in the realities that candidates to priesthood and pastorship still need to be exposed to in their training. As a result their knowledge and understanding of life as well as insight into it come from their first-hand contact and experience of the context, a desirable in present-day theological education as a number of newly developed curricula indicate. Such experiences will throw light on the Gospel even as they allow the Gospel to throw light on their experiences and permeate their lives.

NOTES

1. “Theses on the Local Church: A Theological Reflection in the Asian Context,” FABC Papers 60, 54.

REFERENCES

Cobb, John Jr.

1994 Lay Theology (St. Louis, Missouri: Chalice Pres).

Lazear, David

1991 Seven Ways of Knowing: Teaching for Multiple Intelligences (Palatine, Illinois: Skylight Publishing).

Gross, Ronald

1991 Peak Learning: A Master Course in Learning How to Learn (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam).

Jensen, Eric

1998 Teaching with the Brain in Mind (Alexandra, Virginia: ASCO).

"Christian Revolution in Latin America: The Changing Face of Liberation Theology" by Ron Rhodes

2008-01-14T10:15:00.000-08:00

"Christian Revolution in Latin America:
The Changing Face of Liberation Theology"
Part One in a Three-Part Series
on Liberation Theology
by Ron Rhodes

In 1985, a leader of the conservative wing of the Roman Catholic church in Latin America, Bishop Hoyos, denounced liberation theologians, saying: "When I see a church with a machine gun, I cannot see the crucified Christ in that church. We can never use hate as a system of change. The core of being a church is love."[1]

Theological controversies are often confined to seminary classrooms or theological journals. But the controversy provoked by Latin American liberation theology has been public and it has been worldwide - involving the Vatican, orthodox and not-so-orthodox priests, lay people, sociologists, socialists, capitalists, economists, government leaders and their military, and much more. Liberation theology has certainly not been the passing fad some analysts thought it would be when it first emerged in the late 1960s.

Strictly speaking, liberation theology should be understood as a family of theologies - including the Latin American, Black, and feminist varieties. All three respond to some form of oppression: Latin American liberation theologians say their poverty-stricken people have been oppressed and exploited by rich, capitalist nations. Black liberation theologians argue that their people have suffered oppression at the hands of racist whites. Feminist liberation theologians lay heavy emphasis upon the status and liberation of women in a male-dominated society.

This article, the first of a three-part series on liberation theology, will focus on the Latin American variety - examining its historical roots, growth, doctrine, and present status in the world. Primary emphasis will be on how the movement has changed since its emergence in the late 1960s. In Parts Two and Three respectively, I will examine the Black and feminist varieties.

With a few notable exceptions, Latin American liberation theology has been a movement identified with the Roman Catholic church. For this reason, I shall direct most of my attention to the views of Roman Catholic liberation theologians. First, however, we must become acquainted with the roots of this controversial theology.
EUROPEAN ROOTS
Some of the theological roots of Latin American liberation theology can be traced directly to the writings of certain European theologians. Three of the more notable of these are Jurgen Moltmann, Johannes Baptist Metz, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Without going into detail, Moltmann has suggested that the coming kingdom gives the church a society-transforming vision of reality as opposed to a merely private vision of personal salvation. Metz has emphasized that there is a political dimension to faith, and that the church must be an institution of social criticism. Bonhoeffer has issued a call to redefine religion in a secular context. His theology emphasizes human responsibility toward others, and stresses the value of seeing the world with "the view from below" - the perspective of the poor and oppressed.

Though liberationists have borrowed from these theologians, they nevertheless charge the European theologies with being "theoretical abstractions, ideologically neutral, [and] neglecting the miserable, unjust present for some 'Christianity of the future.'"[2] The theological methodology developed by liberation theologians specifically addresses these perceived deficiencies.

MARXIST INFLUENCES
Marxism has also exerted a profound influence on liberation theologians. This should not be taken to mean that they have espoused Marxism as a holistic plan of political action, for they have not. Their interest has been limited to using Marxist categories for social analysis.

According to Marx, man once existed in a simple, primitive state. At that time, there was happiness and tranquility. This primitive state of happiness was disrupted, however, by the rise of economic classes where one class sought to oppress and exploit another for its own economic advantage. Marx believed all of man's problems are the direct result of this class exploitation. He portrayed capitalism as the chief culprit that gave rise to this undesirable state of affairs.

Marx was adamant that man can never be truly happy or free in a capitalistic society. Man, he said, has become an alienated being and does not feel "at home" in a capitalistic environment. However, this alienation will not last forever. Marx believed that history is inexorably moving toward a climactic day when the oppressed workers of the world, the proletariat, will rise up and overthrow their capitalistic oppressors, the bourgeoisie. In the place of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms, there will be a harmonious society in which there is equity for all.

THE THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION
Drawing from European theologies and Marxism, Latin American theologians developed their own theology by radically reinterpreting Scripture with "a bias toward the poor." Let us now briefly survey key aspects of the theology of liberation.

Liberation theology begins with the premise that all theology is biased - that is, particular theologies reflect the economic and social classes of those who developed them. Accordingly, the traditional theology predominant in North America and Europe is said to "perpetuate the interests of white, North American/European, capitalist males." This theology allegedly "supports and legitimates a political and economic system - democratic capitalism - which is responsible for exploiting and impoverishing the Third World."[3]

Like Bonhoeffer, liberation theologians say theology must start with a "view from below" - that is, with the sufferings of the oppressed. Within this broad framework, different liberation theologians have developed distinctive methodologies for "doing" theology.

Gustavo Gutierrez, author of A Theology of Liberation, provides us with a representative methodology. Like other liberationists, Gutierrez rejects the idea that theology is a systematic collection of timeless and culture-transcending truths that remains static for all generations. Rather, theology is in flux; it is a dynamic and ongoing exercise involving contemporary insights into knowledge, humanity, and history.

Gutierrez emphasizes that theology is not just to be learned, it is to be done. In his thinking, "praxis" is the starting point for theology. Praxis (from the Greek prasso: "to work") involves revolutionary action on behalf of the poor and oppressed - and out of this, theological perceptions will continually emerge. The theologian must therefore be immersed in the struggle for transforming society and proclaim his message from that point.

In the theological process, then, praxis must always be the first stage; theology is the second stage. Theologians are not to be mere theoreticians, but practitioners who participate in the ongoing struggle to liberate the oppressed.

Sin. Using methodologies such as Gutierrez's, liberationists interpret sin not primarily from an individual, private perspective, but from a social and economic perspective. Gutierrez explains that "sin is not considered as an individual, private, or merely interior reality. Sin is regarded as a social, historical fact, the absence of brotherhood and love in relationships among men."[4]

Liberationists view capitalist nations as sinful specifically because they have oppressed and exploited poorer nations. Capitalist nations have become prosperous, they say, at the expense of impoverished nations. This is often spoken of in terms of "dependency theory" - that is, the development of rich countries depends on the underdevelopment of poor countries.

There is another side to sin in liberation theology. Those who are oppressed can and do sin by acquiescing to their bondage. To go along passively with oppression rather than resisting and attempting to overthrow it - by violent means if necessary - is sin.[5]

The use of violence has been one of the most controversial aspects of liberation theology. Such violence is not considered sinful if it is used for resisting oppression. Indeed, certain liberation theologians "will in some cases regard a particular action (e.g., killing) as sin if it is committed by an oppressor, but not if it is committed by the oppressed in the struggle to remove inequities. The removal of inequities is believed to result in the removal of the occasion of sin [i.e., the oppressor] as well."[6]

Salvation. Salvation is viewed not primarily in terms of life after death for the individual, but in terms of bringing about the kingdom of God: a new social order where there will be equality for all. This is not to deny eternal life per se, but it is to emphasize that the eternal and the temporal "intersect" in liberation theology. "If, as the traditional formulation has it, history and eternity are two parallel (i.e., nonintersecting) realms, our goal within history is to gain access to eternity."[7] But if history and eternity intersect, "if salvation is moving into a new order--then we must strive against everything which at present denies that order."[8]

God. Liberationists argue that the traditional Christian doctrine of God manipulates the divine being such that He appears to favor the capitalistic social structure. They claim the orthodox view of God is rooted in the ancient Greeks who saw God as a static being - distant and remote from human history. This distorted view of a transcendent deity has, they say, yielded a theology that understands God as "out there," far removed from the affairs of humankind. As a result, many Latin Americans have adopted a passive stance in the face of their oppression and exploitation.

Liberation theologians have thus tried to communicate to their compatriots that God is not impassive. Rather, He is dynamically involved in behalf of the poor and downtrodden. And because God stands against oppression and exploitation, those who follow Him must do likewise. Indeed, Gutierrez says that "to know God is to do justice."[9]

Jesus Christ. While liberation theologians do not outright deny Christ's deity, there is no clear-cut, unambiguous confession that Jesus is God. The significance of Jesus Christ lies in His example of struggling for the poor and the outcast. The Incarnation is reinterpreted to represent God's total immersion into man's history of conflict and oppression. By His words and actions, Jesus showed us how to become true sons of God - that is, by bringing in the kingdom of God through actively pursuing the liberation of the oppressed.

Most liberationists see Jesus' death on the cross as having no vicarious value; rather, Jesus died because He upset the religious/political situation of His time. Leonardo Boff says Jesus' followers fabricated the idea that Jesus' death had a transcendent, salvific significance: "The historically true events are the crucifixion, the condemnation by Pilate, and the inscription on the cross in three languages known by the Jews. The rest of the events are theologized or are pure theology developed in light of the resurrection and of the reflection upon the Old Testament."[10] Jesus' death is unique because "he historicizes in exemplary fashion the suffering experienced by God in all the crosses of the oppressed."[11] Liberationists acknowledge Jesus' resurrection, but they are not clear on its significance.

The Church. Liberation theology does not ask what the church is, but rather what it means "to be the church in a context of extreme poverty, social injustice and revolution. In the context of liberation theology the mission of the church seems to be more important than its nature."[12]

Gutierrez and other liberation theologians say the church's mission is no longer one of a "quantitative" notion of saving numbers of souls.[13] Rather, the church's mission "is at all times to protest against injustice, to challenge what is inhuman, to side with the poor and the oppressed."[14]

Related to the doctrine of the church has been the formation and growth of "ecclesial base communities," since the 1970s. These are "small, grassroots, lay groups of the poor or the ordinary people, meeting to pray, conduct Bible studies, and wrestle concretely with social and political obligations in their settings."[15]

These communities have been effective in showing workers and peasants how to organize for their own social welfare. Gutierrez says that "in most Latin American countries, the church's base communities are the only form of social action available to the poor."[16] Indeed, they have become "the major vehicle for the spread of liberation themes beyond academic circles. By 1980 there were as many as 100,000 base communities meeting in Latin America."[17]

ROMAN CATHOLIC OPENNESS
Since the emergence of liberation theology and its rapid growth via ecclesial base communities, divisive rifts have taken place between Vatican leadership and Roman Catholic theologians in Latin America. Over the past few decades, however, the Vatican has become progressively open to the concept of liberation.

For example, Vatican Council II - held in Rome from 1962 to 1965 - decried the wide disparity between the rich and poor nations of the world. Church leaders therefore proclaimed a "preferential option for the poor." Three years later, the Medellin Conference of Latin American Bishops (1968) denounced the extreme inequality among social classes as well as the unjust use of power and exploitation.[18]

Pope John Paul II has for years devoted himself to establishing a balanced policy on political activism for Roman Catholic clergy. He has staunchly advocated social justice, but has also consistently warned the clergy about becoming too involved in secular affairs and about the dangers of Marxism.

The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the Vatican's watchdog for doctrinal orthodoxy - issued two important statements on liberation theology. The Instruction on Certain Aspects of the "Theology of Liberation" (1984) warned that it is impossible to invoke Marxist principles and terminology without ultimately embracing Marxist methods and goals. Marxism should therefore be avoided altogether.

Two years later (1986), the Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation affirmed the legitimacy of the oppressed taking action "through morally licit means, in order to secure structures and institutions in which their rights will be truly respected."[19] However, "while the church seeks the political, social and economic liberation of the downtrodden, its primary goal is the spiritual one of liberation from evil."[20] The statement accepted armed struggle "as a last resort to put an end to an obvious and prolonged tyranny which is gravely damaging the common good."[21]

This relative openness of the Roman Catholic church was largely responsible for liberation theology's rapid expansion. As we shall see shortly, however, the church's concerns over Marxism have proven justified in view of recent world events. Vatican leadership has breathed a collective sigh of relief that Marxist elements in liberation theology now seem to be waning. SHIFTING SANDS: 1990

Since the emergence of liberation theology in the 1960s, some aspects of the movement have remained constant. In his recent book, Liberation Theology at the Crossroads (1990), Paul E. Sigmund observes that liberation theology stills sees the world as more characterized "by conflict than compromise, inequality than equality, oppression rather than liberation. It also still retains its belief in the special religious character of the poor both as the object of God's particular love and the source of religious insights."[22] Despite these constants, however, liberation theology has also seen significant changes in recent years.

We begin with the observation that 1989 saw almost the whole of Eastern Europe rise up in revolt against Marxist ideology. The major reforms occurring in the Soviet Union and East Bloc nations represent an admission that Marxism has failed.

Michael Novak, who holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., raised a penetrating question in view of recent European events: "What will become of the liberation theologians of Latin America and elsewhere who have so long praised the ideals of Marxist-Leninism, but now must see how hollow they are?"[23]

Novak argues that a close reading of the Latin American theologians suggests that they "have begun to worry that they earlier invested too much credence in the social science they picked up from the universities."[24] For this reason, he says, "liberation theologians in the last few years have become much less hopeful about social structures, and increasingly concerned with issues of spirituality. They seem to be turning less to politics, and more to faith."[25] Sigmund agrees, noting that now "the greater emphasis [is] on the spiritual sources and implications of the concept of liberation."[26] (We shall address this "new spirituality" shortly.)

The shift in perspectives on socialism is one of the most important developments in liberation theology. In the recent writings of many liberation theologians, we find the concession that "the once-favored approach of substituting socialism for dependency or capitalism simply doesn't work, as has been seen in Eastern Europe."[27] Without necessarily deserting socialism, liberationists have shown an increasing ambiguity about what socialism really means, as well as an increasing tolerance of competing systems and an acceptance of Western-style democracy as a legitimate weapon against oppression.[28] Arthur F. McGovern, a Jesuit, comments that "the new political context in many parts of Latin America has led liberation theologians to talk about building a 'participatory democracy' from within civil society. Socialism no longer remains an unqualified paradigm for liberation aspirations."[29]

Another significant development in liberation theology is that its theologians are speaking much less of dependency theory - the idea that the development of rich countries depends on the underdevelopment of poor countries. To be sure, liberation theologians are still predominantly anticapitalist, but many have recognized that dependency theory has rightfully been criticized for some of its fundamental assertions.

The fallacy of dependency theory has been demonstrated by sociologist Peter Berger of Boston University. Berger has pointed out that "the development experience of Japan and the 'four little dragons' of East Asia - Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore - represent 'empirical falsification' of the socioeconomic assumptions of dependency theory and liberation theology." On the other hand, Berger stressed, "there is simply no evidence of successful development by socialist third world nations anywhere or at anytime."[30]

Moreover, the liberationist's solution to the dependency problem - a socialist break with the capitalist world - has looked less attractive to liberation theologians because "the models of socialism either seemed to be bankrupt, or were resorting to market incentives and private enterprise, even inviting multinational investment."[31]

Besides shifts in thinking on socialism and dependency theory, many have had second thoughts about liberation theology because of the bloodshed it has provoked. A Los Angeles Times article focusing on liberation theology in El Salvador notes that "the deaths of some of those who have challenged the establishment have brought sober second thoughts about both the basis and the practice of liberation theology."[32] The article also observes that "such a violent counterrevolution here and in other Latin American nations - along with the failure of Eastern European Marxism and the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua to bring social, political and economic justice - have led to calls for a new look at liberation theology."[33] Indeed, "some of the basic analytical assumptions and practical applications of liberation theology are being questioned, not just by the conservative elements of the [Catholic] church but also by some of those thinkers who first conceived the philosophy."[34]

Sigmund has observed that in view of the bloodshed associated with the movement in recent years, liberation theologians are no longer offering the easy justifications of the necessity of "counterviolence" against the "institutionalized violence" of the political establishment.[35] He also notes that the most obvious change in liberation theology "is from an infatuation with socialist revolution to a recognition that the poor are not going to be liberated by cataclysmic political transformations, but by organizational and personal activities in Base Communities."[36]

We have already noted that liberation theologians are focusing more on issues of spirituality. First and foremost, this means that liberation theologians are deriving more of their liberationist concepts from the Bible as opposed to social theory. Early books by liberation theologians focused primarily on social analysis and had very few biblical references. Now the situation is practically reversed: recent books by liberation theologians contain many biblical references and very little social analysis. There is much more "theology" in liberation theology these days. But their methodological approach is still one of a preferential treatment to the poor.

Besides greater rootedness in the Bible, there also seems to be more interest in spiritual disciplines - such as prayer, devotions, exercising faith, and fellowshiping with other believers. Much of this takes place at a grassroots level in ecclesial base communities. Bible studies on "liberation passages" (such as Mary's Magnificat, Luke 1:46-55) are common. The goal is to discover how Scripture applies to specific problems in the lives of the oppressed.

We have noted that liberation theology is predominantly a Roman Catholic movement. An important factor now impacting the movement in Latin America is the explosion of evangelical Protestantism there. "Latin America is no longer the Roman Catholic monolith it once was. Since the late 1960s, the number of Protestants has surged from 15 million to an estimated 40 million, about 10 percent of the population of Latin America."[37] Brazilian bishop Monsignor Boaventura Kloppenburg says that "Latin America is turning Protestant even faster than Central Europe did in the sixteenth century."[38] The overwhelming majority of these Protestants are Pentecostal.

As to why so many are presently turning to evangelicalism, one analyst suggests that "there now is a widespread recognition that liberation theology overlooked the emotional, personal message most people seek from religion. At the simplest level, liberation theologians preached salvation through social change - meaning, in effect, socialism in one form or another. The evangelicals preach individual salvation through individual change."[39]

David Martin, author of Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (1990), suggests that economic advancement is another underlying cause of the Protestant explosion. He argues that "evangelical religion and economic advancement often go together[they] support and reinforce one another."[40] Carmen Galilea, a sociologist in Santiago, said that the typical Pentecostal "is well-regarded. He is responsible. He doesn't drink and is better motivated and better paid. As a result, he rises economically."[41] Pentecostal preaching "puts great emphasis on the demand to develop yourself," thus contributing to the economic rise.[42]

In a recent article in Insight magazine, Daniel Wattenberg suggests that another factor linking Pentecostalism and upward mobility is "the mutual material support available within the Pentecostal faith community (the churches provide a network that often functions as a job or housing referral agency)."[43] Moreover, volunteer work in the church "utilizes peoples' talents and creates opportunities to develop new skills that may give them a sense of usefulness and fulfillment for the first time in their lives."[44] The skills learned in a church context also give an edge to church members in seeking work outside the church.

Big changes are occurring in Latin America, and it remains to be seen where it will all lead. The likelihood is that (1) Marxism will continue to wane; (2) liberation theologians will continue to focus more on issues of spirituality; (3) the Protestant explosion will continue, with an emphasis on personal transformation; and (4) all this will probably have some positive effect on social and economic conditions in the region.

THE BIBLE AND POVERTY
Critics of liberation theology at times come across as though they are detached and unsympathetic to Latin American poverty. No doubt some of these critics actually do lack concern. Before offering criticisms of this controversial theology, therefore, it is important that we first affirm that there is a strong scriptural basis for helping the poor.

In the Old Testament, God gave the theocracy of Israel specific guidelines for taking care of the poor. He commanded that the corners of fields were not to be reaped so that something would be left for the needy to eat (Lev. 19:9-10).

God also promised a special blessing to all who gave to the poor (Prov. 19:17), and judgment to those who oppressed the poor (Ps. 140:12). Robbing and cheating the poor were condemned (Hosea 12:7). Widows and orphans - who were especially vulnerable to oppression - came under special protection from the law (Exod. 22:22-23).

God in the law also made provisions for poor sojourners who were not a part of Israel's theocracy. Gleanings from the harvest were to be left for them (Deut. 24:19-21), and they were ranked in the same category as widows and orphans as being defenseless (Ps. 94:6).

Jesus is very clear about our responsibility to the poor and oppressed. Christ's strong warning that eternal condemnation awaits those who do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners (Matt. 25:31-46) shows that the disadvantaged are not merely a peripheral concern of His. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus taught that anybody in need is our neighbor (Luke 10:29f.).

The biblical view of the poor and oppressed is such that God's people everywhere should be appalled at the poverty of the people in Latin America. Liberation theologians and the people of Latin America have a legitimate gripe. Indeed, how can the church in Latin America not act to help relieve the suffering of its people?

Nevertheless, a legitimate and commendable concern for the poor and oppressed must never be used to justify a theological methodology that leads to a gross distortion of Christianity - the only true means of liberation. Evangelicals maintain that this is precisely what Latin American liberationists have done.

A FAULTY FOUNDATION
Inasmuch as the liberationist's views on God, Jesus Christ, the church, sin, and salvation are an outgrowth of his or her theological methodology, it follows that the starting point for a critique of liberation theology would be its hermeneutic. We shall therefore narrow our focus to this one issue.

Method is everything when interpreting Scripture. With an improper methodology, one is bound to distort the author's intended meaning - the only true meaning (see 2 Pet. 3:16).

The word method comes from the Greek methodos, which literally means "a way or path of transit." Methodology in Bible study is therefore concerned with the proper path to be taken in order to arrive at scriptural truth. Latin American theologians have chosen a "path" intended to produce liberation. But have they distorted the author's intended meaning in the process?

The Problem With Praxis
Foundationally, the liberation hermeneutic (which makes praxis the first step, and theology the second) is completely without any controlling exegetical criteria. Vernon C. Grounds is right when he says that "there is no exegetical magic by which new meanings can without limit be conjured out of the Bible under the illuminating creativity of new situations."[45]

In liberation theology, the basic authority in interpretation ceases to be Scripture; it is rather the mind of the interpreter as he "reads" the current historical situation. It is one of the canons of literary (not just scriptural) hermeneutics, however, that what a passage means is fixed by the author and is not subject to alteration by readers. "Meaning is determined by the author; it is discovered by readers."[46]

Only after the meaning has been discovered by the reader can it be applied to the current situation. Certainly we all agree that Christians must practice their faith in daily life. But from a Scriptural perspective, the way a Christian conducts his or her life is based on the objective, propositional revelation found in Scripture. Christians must know God's will as revealed in Scripture before they can act on it. Without a preeminence of Scripture over praxis, the Christian cannot know what to believe or what to do. Evangelicals therefore reject any suggestion that "we must do in order to know, and hope that orthodoxy will arise from orthopraxis [right action]."

An examination of Jesus' use of the Old Testament shows that He interpreted it as objective, propositional revelation (see Matt. 22:23-33). His hermeneutic knew nothing of making praxis the first step for discovering theological truth.

Truth that Transcends Culture and Time
Evangelicals have criticized the inability of liberation theology's hermeneutic to develop a culture-transcending theology with normative authority. Liberation theologians have shown little or no recognition of the fact that there are teachings and commands in Scripture that - owing to their divine inspiration (2 Tim. 3:16) - transcend all cultural barriers and are binding on all people everywhere. Key teachings of Scripture - such as man's sin, his alienation from God, his need for a personal Redeemer - speak universally to the human condition and can never be bound to particular cultures or situations.[47]

Moreover, evangelicals criticize the liberationist idea that theological truth is in a constant state of flux, changing along with the temporal conditions of society. Nunez has noted that "there are chapters of liberation theology that cannot be written at the present time, because they have to be the result of a given practice."[48] Applications of Scripture can change as the temporal conditions of society change - but the Scripture-author's intended meaning from which those applications are drawn are fixed and cannot be relativized.

Alien Preunderstandings
A "preunderstanding" of a preferential option for the poor is the very heart of liberation hermeneutics. Liberationists argue that "the reader of the Bible must deliberately choose his eyeglasses before he begins reading, and that the 'preferential option for the poor' means just that - a deliberate bias or perspective. Without this, the true meaning cannot be known. We must discard our North Atlantic lenses, we are told, and put on Third World ones - we must lay aside the eyeglasses of the rich to use those of the poor."[49]

Relevant to this issue is a small book published in 1983 by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. Entitled Explaining Hermeneutics, Article XIX declares: "We affirm that any preunderstandings which the interpreter brings to Scripture should be in harmony with scriptural teaching and subject to correction by it. We deny that Scripture should be required to fit alien preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself."[50] The point of this article is to avoid interpreting Scripture through an alien grid or filter (liberationism, for example) which obscures or negates its true message. This article acknowledges that "one's preunderstanding will affect his understanding of a text. Hence, to avoid misinterpreting Scripture one must be careful to examine his own presuppositions in the light of Scripture."[51]

Now, we must frankly admit that all interpreters are influenced to some degree by personal, theological, ecclesiastical, and political prejudices. Evangelical scholar Emilio Nunez has rightly conceded that none of us approaches Scripture in a "chemically pure" state. This is why Article XIX above is so important: preunderstandings must be in harmony with Scripture and subject to correction by it. Only those preunderstandings that are compatible with Scripture are legitimate.

Graham N. Stanton, Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of London King's College, elaborates on the corrective nature of Scripture: "The interpreter must allow his own presuppositions and his own pre-understanding to be modified or even completely reshaped by the text itself. Unless this is allowed to happen, the interpreter will be unable to avoid projecting his own ideas on to the text. Exegesis guided rigidly by pre-understanding will be able to establish only what the interpreter already knows. There must be a constant dialogue between the interpreter and the text."[52] If this methodology is followed, "the text may well shatter the interpreter's existing pre-understanding and lead him to an unexpectedly new vantage point from which he continues his scrutiny of the text."[53]

Had liberation theologians followed this one procedure, the theology of liberation would have turned out to be a horse of a different color. Indeed, a theologian who approached Scripture with a "preferential option for the poor" would have found - upon submitting this preunderstanding to the correction of Scripture - that his preunderstanding was unbiblical. For, from a scriptural perspective, both the poor and the rich, both the oppressed and oppressors, are afflicted by sin and are in need of salvation. Romans 3:23 says that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Our Lord preached the gospel of salvation to the poor (Luke 7:22) but He preached the same message to the rich (Luke 5:32; 10:1-10). God is "not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9).

Now, evangelicals concede that God has a special concern for the poor, and salvation is - by His own design - more readily accepted by the less fortunate (Matt. 19:23). Nevertheless, from Genesis to Revelation Scripture has a clear "preferential option" for the fallen.

By submitting his preunderstanding to Scripture, the liberationist would have also discovered that the gap between the rich and the poor is not the cause of man's predicament; it is merely one symptom of it (see Jer. 5:26-29). It was not primarily the bourgeoisie that needed to be overthrown; it was man's sin - his selfishness and greed - that needed conquering (1 Pet. 2:24). It was not fundamentally a political revolution that was needed, but a revolution in the human heart - something found only in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), who came not to be a model political revolutionary but to die on the cross for man's sins as the Lamb of God (Matt. 26:26-28).

We repeat, then, that if we are to understand the author's intended meaning in Scripture (the only true meaning), it is imperative that preunderstandings be in harmony with Scripture and subject to correction by it. Only then will it be possible to develop a truly biblical theology of liberation - a theology that at once emphasizes the fundamental need for liberation from sin, but at the same time stresses the biblical injunction to reach out in compassion to the poor.

A CHALLENGE TO EVANGELICALS
Are evangelicals as concerned as they should be about the plight of the poor and oppressed in our world? And if they are not, is this because there is a defect in their theology that ignores the biblical emphasis on caring for the poor and the needy? If liberationists have approached Scripture with a preunderstanding that "opts" for the poor, is it possible that some evangelicals have unwittingly approached Scripture with a preunderstanding that filters out sufficient concern for the poor and oppressed?

These are difficult questions, and it is incumbent upon every Christian to examine his or her heart on this issue. Certainly, evangelicals have little right to criticize the theology of liberation if they are not prepared to criticize possible deficiencies in their own theology in regard to caring for the poor and oppressed of our world.

Scripture is clear that we have a God-appointed responsibility to take whatever steps we can to help the poor. Yet, at the same time, we as evangelicals must insist that ultimately the transformation of any society depends on the prior transformation of the individuals that make up that society. This is the Christian counterpart to "dependency theory." The revolution so earnestly sought in society will best be accomplished as greater numbers of people in that society experience the revolution of new birth and the ongoing renewal of life in Christ.

NOTES
1"An Attack on Liberation Theology," Orange County Register, 1 Dec. 1985, A10.

2 Harvie M. Conn, "Liberation Theology," in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 388.

3 Dean C. Curry, A World Without Tyranny (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 68.

4 Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1971), 175.

5 Justo L. Gonzalez and Catherine G. Gonzalez, Liberation Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1980), 23.

6 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), 592.

7 Ibid., 895.

8 Gonzalez and Gonzalez, 24.

9 Jason Berry, "El Salvador's Response to Liberation Theology," The Washington Post, 4-10 Dec. 1989, 25.

10 Leonardo Boff, Jesucristo y la liberacion del hombre, 292; cited by Emilio Nunez, Liberation Theology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985), 232-33.

11 Douglas D. Webster, "Liberation Theology," in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984), 637.

12 Emilio Nunez, "The Church in the Liberation Theology of Gutierrez," in Biblical Interpretation and the Church, ed. D. A. Carson (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), 174.

13 Gutierrez, 150.

14 Monika Hellwig, "Liberation Theology: An Emerging School," Scottish Journal of Theology 30 (1977):141.

15 Conn, 389.

16 Kenneth L. Woodward, "A Church for the Poor," Newsweek, 26 Feb. 1979, 20.

17 B. T. Adeney, "Liberation Theology," in Dictionary of Christianity in America, ed. Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1990), 649.

18 Harvie M. Conn, "Theologies of Liberation: An Overview," in Tensions in Contemporary Theology, ed. Stanley N. Gundry and Alan F. Johnson (Chicago: Moody Press, 1979), 344.

19 Paul E. Sigmund, Liberation Theology at the Crossroads (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 11.

20 Don A. Schanche, "Vatican Document Accepts Some 'Liberation Theology,'" Los Angeles Times, 6 April 1986, 5.

21 Richard N. Ostling, "A Lesson on Liberation," Time, 14 April 1986, 84.

22 Sigmund, 181-82.

23 Michael Novak, "The Revolution That Wasn't," Christianity Today, 23 April 1990, 18.

24 Ibid., 20.

25 Ibid.

26 Sigmund, 181.

27 Kenneth Freed, "The Cross and the Gun," Los Angeles Times, 9 Oct. 1990, H8.

28 Sigmund, 196.

29 Arthur F. McGovern, Liberation Theology and Its Critics (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 230.

30 Dean C. Curry, "Liberation Theology in 80s: Is There Something New?" Eternity, November 1985, 13.

31 Sigmund, 179.

32 Freed, H8.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Sigmund, 177.

36 Ibid.

37 Daniel Wattenberg, "Protestants Create an Altered State," Insight, 16 July 1990, 9.

38 David Neff, "God's Latino Revolution," Christianity Today, 14 May 1990, 15.

39 John Marcom Jr., "The Fire Down South," Forbes, 15 Oct. 1990, 66-67.

40 Daniel Wattenberg, "Gospel Message of Getting Ahead Inch by Inch," Insight, 16 July 1990, 16.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 Vernon C. Grounds, "Scripture in Liberation Theology," in Challenges to Inerrancy, ed. Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce Demarest (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), 344.

46 Norman L. Geisler, Explaining Hermeneutics (Oakland, CA: International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, 1983), 7.

47 Ibid.

48 Nunez, in Carson, 173.

49 W. Dayton Roberts, "Liberation Theologies," Christianity Today, 17 May 1985, 15.

50 Ibid., 14-15.

51 Geisler, 15.

52 Graham N. Stanton, "Presuppositions in New Testament Criticism," in New Testament Interpretation, ed. I. Howard Marshall (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), 68.

53 Ibid.

Glossary
exegesis: Derived from a Greek word meaning "to draw out." Refers to the obtaining of a Scripture passage's meaning by drawing the meaning out from the text rather than reading it into the text (which is eisegesis).

hermeneutics: Refers to the science of interpretation. It is that branch of theology that prescribes rules and guidelines by which the Bible should be interpreted.

normative authority: Authority that is binding upon us in terms of what we are to believe and do.

praxis: From the Greek prasso (meaning "to work"), praxis involves revolutionary action on behalf of the poor and oppressed - and out of this, theological perceptions will (liberationists believe) continually emerge. In other words, praxis refers to the discovery and formation of theological "truth" out of a given historical situation through personal participation in the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed.

propositional revelation: The view that God in the Bible has communicated factual information (or propositions) about Himself; the view that God's special revelation in Scripture has been given in propositional statements.

(An article from the Christian Research Journal, Winter 1991, page 8)

Whatever happened to liberation theology? New directions for theological reflection in latin America Kater, John L Jr Anglican Theological Review > Fa

2008-01-14T10:12:00.000-08:00

Anglican Theological Review > Fall 2001

Whatever happened to liberation theology? New directions for theological reflection in latin America

Kater, John L Jr
Thirty years ago, Christians around the world were introduced to Latin American liberation theology, a powerful theological movement emerging among Christians in that part of the world but with links to currents stirring in many other places. A generation later, the context in which liberation theology took shape has changed significantly, its advocates are older and the concerns and aspirations it touched have also changed. Other theological voices have taken center stage, liberation theology has disappeared from the front pages of the newspaper and is virtually unmentioned even in many academic journals. After two decades of evolution and growth, the nineties proved to be a period of reevaluation and redirection.

But in spite of the changes that have occurred, the theological enterprise among Latin American Christians remains vibrant and creative-and of importance to North American Christians, even if that is not always recognized. The purpose of this article is to summarize what has happened to liberation theology in the last decade, to identify what seem to be areas of future development, and to offer some suggestions with regard to the future dialogue between Christians from North and South.1

When Gustavo Gutierrez published his seminal study A Theology of Liberation in 1971, it was as if a bombshell had exploded among Latin American Christians. Only a few years before, at its meeting in Medellin, Colombia, the [Roman Catholic] Latin American Bishops' Conference (CELAM) had taken seriously the encouragement given by the Second Vatican Council to evaluate and restructure its pastoral ministry in light of the context in which it is carried out. That mandate is indicative of the Vatican Council's intention, under the leadership of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, to bring the Roman Catholic Church into the modern world, epitomized by Pope John's hope of aggiornamento ("today-ment") and summarized in the Council's affirmation that "the Church exists to serve the world."

While liberation theology in Latin America is undoubtedly indebted to the impulses affirmed by Vatican II and especially the Medellin Conference, it was not unrelated to other currents already moving in various places in the aftermath of World War II. Africa and Asia were feeling the results of a powerful movement to end the colonial control of territories dominated by the wealthy industrial countries. In South Africa, the churches were challenged to become involved in the struggle of the Black majority to end apartheid and the World Council of Churches (WCC) had spearheaded international support for that cause. In the United States, the civil rights movement was struggling to end the effects of slavery and segregation, Native Americans were demanding justice, the anti-war movement was leading many to oppose the United States' support for repressive governments in South Vietnam and elsewhere, and the feminist movement was insisting on equality for women. In Germany, theologians like Johannes Metz and Jurgen Moltmann had already attempted to rethink Christian faith in light of an orientation towards the future. And in 1968, a powerful wave of revolt by young people and their supporters-in South Korea, the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Italy-was demanding freedom, a cry which was to produce profound cultural and social changes as well as provoking harsh resistance in many places.

It was truly a time in which revolution-political, social, cultural-was in the air. The Argentinean Lutheran theologian Guillermo Hansen argues that the WCCs Church and Society Conference, held in Geneva in 1966, gave an early and significant forum to voices calling for Christian participation in the revolutionary movements blossoming in many parts of the world.2 Indeed, at that conference American-born Richard Schaull, a Presbyterian missionary working in Brazil, called publicly for a "theology of revolution."3

There are indications that something great and terrible is going to happen. The foundations of the world are shaking. The powerful are constructing fortresses of money and arms. They became rich and their pride grew on the dead. The bankers, the dictators, the rich countries, the armies of the right and the left .... But all over the world a great sigh is raised, the sigh of the poor, of the oppressed .... And this sigh is more than a human sigh: it is the sigh of God. The cry of those who suffer: the vengeance of our God.4

Already in Schaull's passionate and prophetic words some of the principal themes of liberation theology can be discerned: the sense of kairos, the moment pregnant with great and earth-changing events; the energetic drawing of attention to the plight of the poor from whom the rich and powerful minority have unjustly derived their gain; and the insistence that the real God, the God of the Bible, is on the side of the poor who are crying for an end to their misery.

Gutierrez himself summarized what he considered the most significant elements of Latin American liberation theology in an article published in 1995.(5) The "option for the poor"-the demand that the Church ally itself with history's victims as the fundamental ethical commandment for Christians who are not poor-remains, he believes, "the most important contribution of the life and reflection of the Church in Latin America, and beyond Latin America, as the Christian message."6 Liberation theologians responded to the "distinct presence of the poor"-their emergence as an active force in history after millennia of being considered a necessary part of reality. Focusing on the causes of poverty-recognizing that far from being the design of Providence, it is the product of social forces, conflicts and human greed and power-leads the Christian who is aware of this truth to a position of solidarity with those who are its victims. "Poverty," Gutierrez insists, "signifies death."7

But what Gutierrez and his colleagues affirm is that the God of the Bible is clearly on the side of life, and therefore of the oppressed. It is for this reason that theologians often spoke of the "preferential option for the poor," God's willingness to take their side and therefore the need for a faithful Church to do the same. The biblical concept of the "reign of God" seemed to them to articulate the fullness of God's intentions for humankind and, indeed, the whole creation: a "new world order" marked by economic justice, compassion, peace, ecological harmony, abundance, celebration and festivity, and the perceived nearness of a God whose will is done at last, just as the ancient promises had anticipated.

The broad assumptions of Gutierrez and many others, both Catholic and Protestant, offered an ecumenical underpinning upon which a complex pastoral and political structure was based. If the reign of God affirmed the dignity and value of every human person, especially of the most despised, then Christian pastoral practice must be directed towards them. The evolution of the "comunidades eclesiales de base" (Christian base-communities), made up of poor people who met regularly for prayer, Bible study and shared reflection, seemed to call into question the value of traditional parishes and congregations. The radical priests, pastors and religious who organized and directed them sought a style of leadership that was mass-based and non-hierarchical, and that encouraged the emergence of grassroots leaders.8 Not surprisingly, this perceived threat to structures of Church power caused grave disquiet among many in authority.

But far more troubling was the overtly political dimension of liberation theology. The clergy and others who served as its prime movers were themselves the heirs of a progressive European socialscience tradition, which had profoundly affected Latin American intellectuals as well. The encouragement given to Christians at Vatican II and Medellin to use academic approaches to understanding the world they wished to serve in fact nearly guaranteed that the tools of Marxist analysis would be most congenial to their work. This in fact proved to be the case, provoking alarm not only among Church authorities but also at the highest levels of many governments, including both Latin American military regimes and the Reagan and Bush administrations.

While no liberation theologians would have claimed Marxism as their defining ideology, many-perhaps most-did consider that the insights of Marx with regard to the economic causes of misery and the need for class struggle to eliminate them were to be taken with great seriousness by committed Christians. Rereading the Bible from the vantage point of the "reign of God," one of the most significant hermeneutical tasks undertaken by scholars committed to liberation theology, it was easy to identify the "preferential option for the poor" affirmed in the Gospels with Marx's claim that the working class was the "motor of history" by which oppression would be overthrown and a socialist order congruent with the biblical demand for justice would be established. Hence the door was open to Christian participation in Marxist-led struggles for socialism.

The question whether that struggle must inevitably be a violent one divided liberationists within both the Catholic and Protestant traditions. Most supported movements like the Cuban revolution, the Sandinista struggle and subsequent government in Nicaragua, and guerrilla movements in El Salvador and Guatemala, viewing the violence associated with them as unfortunate but justified responses to the systemic violence experienced by the poor. Few actually took up arms; the Colombian Camilo Torres, who left the Roman Catholic priesthood to become an active guerrilla insurgent and whose writings were widely read by liberation-minded Christians, was a notable exception.

On the other hand, liberationists were committed to active participation in the political struggles shaking Latin America throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In Chile, the influential "Christians for Socialism" was formed to support the freely elected Socialist government of Salvador Allende. In Nicaragua the Sandinista government included among its Cabinet ministers three Roman Catholic priests, all of whom considered their service to the revolution as an integral part of their priestly ministry. The outspoken support provided by many Christians in a variety of settings caused some Marxist leaders, even including Fidel Castro, to revise their traditional distrust of religion as inevitably allied with the political status quo.

While they held many elements in common, advocates of liberation theology approached their tasks from a variety of backgrounds, assumptions, philosophical biases and pastoral emphases. Some were academics; others, popular educators; still others were primarily pastors and preachers. But whatever their prejudices, they were united in their conviction that God was doing new and marvelous things in Latin America, and that the poor of the continent were a "privileged locus" where God's purposes could be perceived with special clarity. Their conviction was often expressed with a kind of missionary zeal, which not only defended the appropriateness of their theology in the face of challenges from other, more conservative and "orthodox" voices (especially the Vatican and American government sources), but also claimed to have grasped the fundamental meaning of the Gospel in a way that is meaningful not only in their own context but for Christians in other places as well. This eruption of theological passion was often compared to the Reformation. Even though some of its advocates were born in other places, they shared an awareness of, and pride in, the first flowering of an authentically Latin American theology, the first to be born out of the peculiar realities of that continent and one which honors that context with absolute, even ultimate seriousness.9

Given the high hopes and passions associated with the flowering of liberation theology during the post-World War II generation, we must ask just what happened, both within and beyond the churches and the settings which produced it, in more recent years.

It is unquestionable that liberation theology has been less affected by specifically religious events than by political, economic and social upheavals on the global stage at the end of the 1980s which have had drastic, unforeseen and highly damaging consequences in Latin America.

One important change that affected liberation theology was a decline in confidence in traditional Marxist analysis following momentous world events, the most spectacular being the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist states of eastern Europe. While liberation theologians had always been careful to distance themselves from what they considered the "excesses" and "deviations" represented by the Communist systems in place in Europe and Asia, they had relied on support from the East in their opposition to Western capitalism. Cuba, Nicaragua and a number of leftist revolutionary movements throughout Latin America received considerable material support from the Eastern Bloc. Overnight this support was withdrawn and the consequences were far-reaching. In Nicaragua, following years of war with the U.S.-backed Contras which left its resources exhausted, the Sandinista government was defeated in elections. Lengthy negotiations between armed revolutionary movements in El Salvador and Guatemala resulted in their abandoning the struggle in favor of participation in a peaceful electoral process.

But in some ways economic developments were even more significant than politics. A so-called "new world order," endorsed by governments and financial organizations in the developed countries and supported by institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, dismissed the value of policies designed to protect local business and employment in favor of a global economic system marked by free trade across borders which privileged multinational corporations at the expense of more home-grown enterprise. Burdened by colossal debt incurred decades before, poor countries had no choice but to submit to the draconian measures mandated by the banks and the IMF: drastically reducing government-funded social services, lowering or eliminating tariffs and other government controls to open markets and investment, firing state employees, and clearing the way to corporately induced ecological disaster.

This "neo-liberalism," the unbridled free market imagined by capitalist thinkers from earlier centuries, is epitomized by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed by the United States, Canada and Mexico. It has left tens of millions of people the victims of unemployment and created conditions that seem beyond the means of poor countries to improve. It has taken advantage of the end of the Cold War and the successes of the "third technological revolution" to create an enormously changed international economic climate with disastrous results for poor countries. The presumed "success" of neo-liberalism has only widened the gap between the small Latin American elite who have profited from it and the majority for whom it has been bad news indeed.

In the light of such catastrophic change, some liberationists have determined that the old ways of understanding how the world economy functioned are now obsolete.10 Furthermore, many have come to believe that in the face of what some call "the monster of neoliberalism" questions of who controls political power are insignificant; what matters is not politics but economics. "Hope does not pass through the taking of power," which is both "impossible and irrelevant in a globalized world."11

The apparent success of the neo-liberal juggernaut has also privileged its heavy cultural bias in favor of Western-style individualism, making it more difficult to resist not only its economic policies but the media-based consumerism on which it depends. Such is the power of the media to glamorize the supposed opportunities for individual advancement afforded by the new order that many are captivated by its promises. The prevailing morality, says Jose Comblin, is "the morality of self-promotion."12 Historian Arturo Piedra notes:

We still don't understand how, theologically speaking, we can define or explain this big monster, neo-liberalism. In the past we used to say, "Organize a guerilla movement. Organize the unionists. Organize a popular movement.". . . We've had guerrilla movements, we've organized unions, we've had popular movements, and we still couldn't defeat capitalism. In the 1980s we had an elaborate and sophisticated theory. Now we just say, "We don't know." It's such an invisible animal we now have it in our houses. So how do we confront it?13

The crisis provoked among liberation theologians by such upheavals has led many to revisit their earlier assumptions and practices with a critical eye.

Jose Comblin reexamined the pastoral style of much liberation theology and pointed out that the comunidades de base, considered the building block of a popular Christian movement on behalf of the poor, in fact never touched more than five percent of the Roman Catholic majority of Latin America.14 He characterizes the base-- communities in their traditional form as a sort of "community utopia," representing nostalgia for the lost world of the countryside and its values, and succeeding in the cities only among recent arrivals from the country.15 Furthermore, he argues, in spite of its commitment to the poor as the creators of their own history, liberation theology was always dominated by intellectuals, including the clergy. Indeed, "the people" were never part of the vanguard; they were too busy trying to survive. And where base-communities were most committed to social action, many experienced liberation in the intense personal religious experience offered by the Pentecostal churches.16

Writing from a Nicaraguan context, Jorge Pixley agrees that most peasants and workers were never genuinely committed to revolutionary change. He considers that the enthusiasm generated by liberation theology was in fact the result of a transitory conjuncture of elements which produced a "cultural boom" and a sense of coming victory during the 1960s and 70s. But with the victory of a global market economy, liberation theology "is no longer an integral part of the culture," which is now shaped by forces emanating from the United States.17

There has been self-criticism over the last decade about some of the theological and ideological assumptions common in earlier reflection. Assmann and Elsa Tamez, among others, point out that a heavy emphasis on the experience of liberation was not matched by equal attention to a perspective on freedom. But Assmann asserts that freedom is Paul's name for what Jesus means by the reign of God, and is "humankind's very reason for being." Liberation theology cannot be a true theology unless it develops a theology of freedom.18

Tamez does not fault earlier theologians' failure to address the theme of freedom. "The situation," she observes, "demanded immediate actions of liberation from oppressive structures" and the very concept of freedom tended to be understood in an "individualistic and abstract manner."19 Nevertheless, she believes, new attention to the Christian concept of freedom is needed, especially as it is developed in Paul's letter to the Galatians. This is because the current "economic, social, political and cultural situation is so bad" and "leads us to restudy Paul's critique of the law, beginning with grace, and ask ourselves how we can be free and live with freedom in our society, which is oriented towards economic, political and cultural globalization."20

Assmann renders an even more trenchant critique of what he identifies as an idiosyncratic use of the concept of "historical subject" by many theologians of liberation. "Where," he asks, "is it found in the Bible that the poor, through their reliable leaders or representatives, would be the drivers of a radical transformation of history?" In retrospect such pretensions seem to him an "ahistorical gnosis, a kind of terrorism of linearity, without true dialectic and without attention to the principle of complexity that governs any true process."21

There is general consensus among liberation theologians that by depending on a Marxist analysis of poverty, they had overlooked other endemic forms of discrimination: in particular, sexism and discrimination against Native peoples and Blacks. Furthermore, in the face of an unfettered free-market economy, many consider traditional goals of employment and an organized workforce to be irrelevant. In the global workplace, it is now possible to have full employment and still to experience terrible poverty. The primary reality for the majorities in Latin America goes beyond want and is better understood as exclusion: exclusion from the possibility of a decent life by social, cultural and economic forces.22

How best to understand and begin to come to terms with this strange new world? Hugo Assmann sees the underlying ideology of neo-liberalism as "the greatest and principal religion, which subordinates and determines the minor religions."

The oikoumene which now claims to usurp the task of the basic humanization of the Planet is that of capitalism, by means of the market .... Capital is the Giver of Life. The other gospels are barely particular, with the mission of complementing.

Do we perceive the novelty? What is new in the current world conjuncture is that capitalism arrived at a stage in which it is presented as an integrated whole: market, liberal democracy and capitalist culture. It is in its character of integrated whole that it proposes itself to the world as a global solution. It no longer admits alternative systems and it is not disposed to make concessions.

In this mode, he notes, free-market capitalism has been "messianized" and the dogma of a self-regulating market, working for the common good without any human intervention, is presented as a world-saving gospel. Assmann's perspective leads him to posit an economic analysis of neo-liberalism as a "sacrificialism" in which "all the sacrifices are 'necessary.'"23

Franz Hinkelammert, of the Ecumenical Department of Research in Costa Rica, has also undertaken study of the underlying assumptions and structures of the neo-liberal "gospel." He points out that it pretends to be the most "rational" of economic systems, yet its rational efficiency is calculated only in means and ends. If the enormous human cost of the system is taken into account, its vaunted rationality turns out to be entirely irrational: "The business oriented by calculating money and earnings rationalizes its proceedings, but this rationalization is the origin of an irrational process of destruction of the human being and nature."24

Others, whose approach is primarily philosophical and ethical, place their analytical reflection in the context of modernity and its critics. The Mexican ethicist Enrique Dussel points out that globalized liberalism represents "the only 'world-system' that there has been in planetary history."25 But, he insists, its utopian nature is revealed "in the light of its own pretensions of freedom, equality, wealth and property for all, and of other myths and symbols in contradiction with themselves, since the majority of its affected participants find themselves deprived of fulfilling the necessities that the system itself has proclaimed as rights" (emphasis mine).26 "The neoliberal utopia of the total market," like that of Soviet Communism and Nazism, is a utopia "that justifies] the existence of the victims."27 Nor does postmodernism offer a solution, since "the postmoderns deny any subject and therefore eliminate the possibility of strategic organization among subjects."28

To pursue reflection from a perspective that affirms the fundamental value of human life over against a dominant viewpoint that considers most people expendable, "extra" and therefore fundamentally useless, raises profound spiritual questions. Some liberation theologians now ask why they permitted Marxism to define not only their analytical tools but even their understanding of the Gospel and of Christian faith. Many more recognize that if neither politics nor economics as they are currently practiced offers any sense of ultimate human value beyond potential usefulness to the market, what is called for is a radical affirmation of the Gospel that speaks in God's name to each human being: "You are my beloved child." What is required is an articulation of the Gospel that transcends political categories in favor of a broader understanding of spirituality that encompasses the whole of the human reality in its relationship to God.

As liberationists have turned away from political activism and towards new explorations of spirituality and Scripture, they have also reexamined their conflicted relationship with institutional Church bodies, and in many cases reestablished ties with authorities from whom they had been estranged. Nowhere was that conflict more intense than over the relevance and appropriateness of class struggle in the formulation of Christian theology.

The original version of Gustavo Gutierrez's Theology of Liberation included a chapter section headed "Christian Brotherhood [sic] and Class Struggle." In it, Gutierrez argued that class struggle was a fact, part of "our economic, social, political, cultural and religious reality" towards which neutrality was impossible. The Church, he argued, does not create the struggle but identifies and names it. Its purpose is not the struggle itself but the elimination of class distinctions: "to construct a socialist society, more just, free and human." To refuse "conscions and active participation in the class struggle that is happening before our eyes" is to side with the oppressors of the poor.29

How, then, could the universality of God's love be reconciled with conflict between classes? Love's universality, he replied, must become "concrete history." Loving the oppressors means "liberating them from their own inhuman situation." Universal love "becomes concrete and effective when it is incarnate in the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed." Unity "is not something already given, it is a process and the result of overcoming whatever divides people."30

The rapprochement between many liberation theologians and Church authorities can be seen as the product of the wholesale abandoning of Marxist premises and the willingness of some to place their work within the context of the Church's official teaching. It is also surely in part the result of the institutional Church's growing awareness of the limitations of neo-liberalism on a global scale. (Indeed, Pope John Paul II has spoken frequently about its dangers; those critical comments seem to have had much less impact than his attacks on Marxism.)

The effects of the changed climate can be clearly seen in the revised version of A Theology of Liberation prepared by Gutierrez nearly twenty years after its first edition. While the original version made liberal use of the social sciences and very little of the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, Gutierrez recast his work within the framework of the recent teaching of the Church, beginning with the Second Vatican Council and including extensive citations from the encyclicals of Pope John Paul II.

In a new section, "Faith and Social Conflict," which replaced his earlier writing on class struggle, Gutierrez describes the present as a time of "various oppositions between persons, groups, social classes, races and nations," all of which can lead to violence. He reminds his readers of the Medellin Conference's clear affirmation of the Church's option for the poor, but states that "confrontation is not acceptable either from a human or a Christian viewpoint." To identify a conflict requires critical analysis, revealing economic and racial aspects and other divisions, above all the situation of women. Overcoming these conflicts requires "going to the causes" and "abolishing what produces a world of privileged and dispossessed, of superior and inferior races." Solidarity with the victims does not promote conflict but seeks to eliminate it by ending its causes.31

Furthermore, he writes, Christians' preferential option for the poor is not to be identified "with an ideology or a determined political program; these options may be among the legitimate options for a layperson but they by no means exhaust the experiences of the Gospel."32

If liberation theology has been transformed in such dramatic ways, it is fair to ask: What, if anything, remains of this challenging enterprise that had such an impact on the theological world of the last generation? What new elements and perspectives mark its current development?

There is nearly universal consensus among theologians who have been part of this movement that the misery and oppression which provided the impetus for its development not only remain; in fact, they have worsened.

Modernity goes on towards its end, sowing on the earth, in the majority of humanity, fear, hunger, disease and death... among those excluded from the benefits of the World-system which is being globalized.... It is raised as a criterion of truth, validity and possibility and destroys human life, treads on the dignity of millions of human beings, fails to recognize equality and much less affirms itself as re-sponsible [sic] for the otherness of the excluded and accepts only the hypocritical juridical demand with regard to complying with the duty of paying a (fictitious) international debt of the poor nations on the periphery, although the debtor people perish.... It is a massive assassination; it is the beginning of a collective suicide.33

At the same time, the basic ethical-theological stance which engaged the reality of poverty and exclusion continues to motivate both reflection and action. Mindful of the awareness that poverty stretches beyond economic deprivation to include "non-persons, "the left-over population," "the excluded," Gutierrez considers the option for the poor as "the most important contribution of the life and reflection of the Latin American church," and "beyond the region as the fundamental Christian message." That option has the effect of "taking the poor out of anonymity," giving them a face and a name.34 Jorge Pixley argues that liberation theology in fact "rediscovers the central themes of the Gospel, of the Bible." The cross emphasizes commitment with the expectation of being defeated; the resurrection means "for those who direct themselves to the cross the confidence that God will rescue from their defeat life for the poor for whom [Christ] dies."35 Nor has the mandate for solidarity with the struggle of the victims changed. Gutierrez notes that Deuteronomy 15 demands that there be no poor in the land; but since there are, "we already know what must be done. ... There is no commitment to the poor if we don't struggle against the causes of poverty."36 Commenting on the need for fidelity, he observes, "blessed are the stubborn," and adds, "every saint is stubborn."37 Solidarity, says Pablo Richard, is rooted in

our faith in the God of life: the God of the Exodus, the God of Abraham, the God who demands the sabbath, the sabbatical year and the Year of Jubilee; the God of the prophets, the God of the wisdom and the prayer of Israel; the God of Jesus, the God of the Reign of God, the God of Paul of Tarsus who proclaims salvation by faith and not by the law, the God of John, who has loved us first and who is revealed as the God of Love, the God of Revelation who orients history towards a new heaven and a new earth.38

Addressing the "impasses and new directions" of liberation theology in a context of globalization, a team of Brazilian theologians argue that it is not a question of "abandoning or replacing its originating perceptions," but the "lengthening and deepening of its conceptual, methodological and thematic horizon." Far from being a time of decline, the situation is promising for the development of liberation theology. As it opens itself to new movements, "it is confirmed precisely in its capacity to move. Its methodology is not sacrificed; it is exercised and confirmed."39

Perhaps the accuracy of their comments can best be seen in the appearance of new voices from the ranks of those previously excluded not only in Latin American society but from the ranks of its theologians as well: most especially the voices of Blacks and Native peoples and those of women.

Elsa Tamez observes that this process represents the emergence of new historical agents from among the excluded, one of the primary intentions of liberation theology since its earliest appearance. But she notes that privileging previously excluded voices also implies new categories of analysis. Earlier theologians relied almost entirely on the social sciences; the new voices depend upon other tools. Hence theology is now incorporating ecology (which theologians like Leonardo Boff have used to provide new analytical paradigms) as well as anthropology and symbolism to reflect upon experiences of otherness.40

For Adriana Mendez-Pen ate, an Ursuline religious working in Mexico, participating as a woman in the theological enterprise affects not only the nature of the base-communities and their style of ministry, but also how the Bible is read, how Christians see the earth, and ultimately the very nature of spirituality.

Mendez-Penate comments that Christian base-communities and other popular organizations are important concrete ways of seeking to resist the powerful forces of oppression that are part of everyday life.

We must recognize that in base-communities all over Latin America, women are the majority presence. Although our brother priests resist it and lament the absence of men, the reality is that they depend almost solely on women for the majority of the church's activities. The male not only does not attend but is sometimes the greatest obstacle to the woman's making her contribution.... In the base-communities, women are feeling ourselves as persons" but are still a long way from discovering ourselves as "persons of the female sex." Perhaps this is due to the fact that we are still very subject to what the padrecito41 says or commands; or perhaps, that the padrecito likes "to have the frying pan by the handle" and does not encourage feminine initiatives out of fear, ignorance, the kind of training he received, or for some other "very good reason."42

But the process of reflection on experience and Scripture ("seeing-thinking-acting") on which the life of the base-communities depends calls for a mode of reflection which takes seriously women's perspective:

It seems that our feminine process of seeing-thinking about Life and the Bible is very original. It is much more contemplative and intuitive than mediating and rational. It is closer to a hop than to two steps.

In our search to open new doors and paths towards the Reign, we are using the word "woman" as a clue or key of reading. With it we are opening Life and the Bible. We are seeking a feminine hermeneutic and studying everything about the feminine and maternal characteristics of God and of Jesus in theology and the Scriptures. We are seeking all the women in the Bible and rereading the texts with our heart (from the left side). We are seeing Mary in a different way. We have discovered Jesus and how he developed his feminine side. We have found that the Eucharist and his death on the cross are two of his "maternal expressions."43

The emergence of women's voices among liberation theologians results in reclaiming the feminine figures of the Bible, especially of Mary; the expression of strong experiences of identification with the earth; the "festive and self-valuing experience" of women,

an evangelical, creative and feminine experience. This implies, in the end, a great novelty, a new evangelization; very new and good news, that we are daughters (Lk. 8:48) and women and we have a peculiar way of appropriating to ourselves, assimilating, expressing and allowing ourselves to be fertilized by the seed of the Word, the gospel.44

This feminist hermeneutic interprets a staggering experience of oppression on the part of women in Latin America, where -- an average of 65 of each 100 married women suffer some kind of mistreatment from their husband. One of each three married women has been enduring domestic violence for more than twelve years. Single or abandoned mothers, or those who live with a married man who has other commitments, number millions. Girls hardly study and have responsibilities that keep them from playing, while their mothers go out to work. They frequently suffer some sexual abuse and almost always from some relative in the same house. Many times they even kill them because the foetus is feminine. Why is it that in countries like Ecuador, the birth-- control plans are free and carried out by the Armed Forces of the country?45

Maria Arcelia Gonzalez Butron observes that "besides belonging to a category of gender, women as persons belong to a social class, a racial or ethnic group, a residential and occupational group, and are at the same time individuals with a unique personal history."46 But, she says, "for many years we have shared in feminist movements and movements of women in general that our fundamental struggle is not only economic, political, social and cultural, but before everything, for the right to be."47

Gonzalez Butron insists that the perspective of gender is absolutely essential for an adequate epistemological critique of neoliberalism. This critique will challenge not only the patriarchal and sexist assumptions behind the emphasis on competition and capital which motivate neo-liberalism; it will also sustain a theoretical alternative based on corporeality-that is, on the satisfaction of human needs and the creation of a world with room for everyone.48 Only in this way can women move from being "mere abstract or variable entities... considered as a resource or demographic variable" and become full participants in life-changing decisions, the "protagonist agent-- subjects," which is the goal of all liberation theology.49

This participation means the inclusion of the perspective of women in the realms of social development and public policy, particularly in areas that directly affect women. These include identifying the special needs of women, valuing their (often unpaid) work, especially in the home, as an integral part of a society's resources; creating means whereby women may participate in shaping development policies; and "the participation of the State and civil society in encouraging women and achieving equality between genders."50

In the diverse spectrum of Latin American societies, the descendants of the Native peoples and of the slaves brought from Africa have historically been excluded from power and privilege; in the strange new world of neo-liberalism, their exclusion only worsens. "Orthodox" Marxist analysis insisted that their misery could be explained as a function of economic forces and overcome through class struggle. In hindsight, it is obvious that their situation was far more complex, involving cultural issues alongside issues of power and wealth and demanding not only access to the benefits of society but entrance to history as the ongoing work of taking responsibility for their own destiny. This is nowhere expressed more clearly than in the document Entramos otra vez a la historic ("We enter again into history"), the manifesto issued by the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, published in 1994. That document describes the infernal dialectic between the wealth of the powerful and their own poverty, between those with abundance and those with nothing, between the knowledge that supports the status quo and the ignorance of its victims. It also notes that lack of awareness without which the dialectic could not have functioned:

Our children died by a force that we did not know; our men and women walked in the long night of the ignorance that overshadowed our steps. Our peoples walked without truth or understanding. Our steps went without destiny, we only lived and died.

The manifesto affirms that it was by listening to the wisdom of their elders and their remembered traditions that they learned that "the long night of grief of our peoples came from the hands and words of the powerful" and that "on the bones and dust of our ancestors and our children a house for the powerful was built."51

Black Latin Americans share with the Native peoples of the Americas the assault on their historic identity and the attempted destruction of its spiritual bases. But while Native people suffered exile and exclusion in their own land, Africans were permanently exiled from the land of their origin. Some Blacks are descended from slaves imported by the Spanish during colonial times; others are the descendants of West Indians who came as agricultural or construction workers (the railroads across Costa Rica and Panama and the Panama Canal were built largely with West Indian labor). The survival of the English language and of customs brought from the islands remain an important mark of identity among Latin Americans of West Indian descent. The profound racism endured by both Blacks and Native peoples cannot be explained-or cured-simply by economics. Affirming those social and cultural elements that preserve a sense of identity-- of "peopleness"-are an integral part of the contribution now being made by Black and Native liberation theologians.

Another important part of their contribution is the uncovering of the onslaught on their spiritual heritage by centuries of oppression and the demand that the starting point of their liberation theology be the experience not only of poverty but of racial oppression. Furthermore, they insist that the analytical tools for their reflection include those memories and concepts which are part of their experience of God.

There is no question that the contribution of Native and Black theologians, like that of women, has demonstrably broadened the perspective within which liberation theology is now undertaken. Gustavo Gutierrez observed that the diversity of its distinct currents results from "the expansion of theology outside its original frameworks," and that "the cultural, racial themes, those of the situation of women" are "steadily more important" for liberation theology, demanding evernew tools of social analysis to take into account the growing awareness of the complexity of the issues.52

Recent work by some Latin American theologians has begun to address seriously the implications of the ecological damage done to the continent in the past and especially in a global market economy, but the nature of their approach depends in part upon their expectations for the future.

Roy May points out that in spite of the growth of industrialization and financial, commercial and information activity-"characteristics" of modern economy-many Latin American economies continue to depend upon agriculture. Indeed, various countries base their economic reactivation on agriculture and the export of primary products, whether coffee, bananas and pineapple in Central America, grapes, apples and trout in Chile or shrimp in Panama.53

May observes that recent developments adversely affect the traditional inhabitants of the land in several ways. The export sector is controlled by large corporations which demand ever more land, forcing peasants and native peoples who traditionally farmed small holdings on an ever dwindling percentage of available farmland. "Globalization," he points out, "values peasants only in the measure that they are converted into workers and that they deed their lands to the estates of the business interests."54 Rapid deforestation and widespread strip mining also threaten the survival of small farming. Even the development of golf courses as part of huge tourist complexes designed for affluent foreign visitors has grave consequences for land use, requiring large tracts of space, application of agro-chemicals and prodigal use of water in areas where it is often in short supply. The human costs are enormous.

Globalization provides the incentive for a type of agriculture that will not be able to be maintained over the long term, because of the damages it provokes in the ecological system.

The first to suffer the consequences are the peasants and native people. They lose their resources, their lands become unproductive, and they suffer in their own bodies the results of the inappropriate use of agro-chemicals. Environmental destruction limits them to the options of seeking "new land" or emigrating to the city. Environmental destruction uproots them from the land and their traditional forms of life.55

Some consider that the disappearance of the traditional peasant way of life is inevitable. Jorge Pixley notes the massive abandonment by young people of traditional farming to seek work in the city, and considers that "the peasantry does not have a future."56 In a similar vein, writing from Brazil, Jose Comblin believes that the peasants are disappearing.57

May disagrees. He admits that "agrarian reform" and "struggle for the earth" may sound like "anachronisms that belong more to the frightening revolutionary times than to the current times of globalization." Nevertheless, he notes, the struggles over land use are not disappearing. On the contrary, they are increasing. As evidence he points to the massacre of landless peasants in northern Brazil, armed revolts of peasants and native people in Mexico, assassination of native leaders and the massive occupation of banana plantations by peasants in Honduras, confrontations and forced removals of squatters from lands in Costa Rica, the formation of a national movement in Paraguay, and evictions in Chile-"events that illustrate that `the earth,' far from being a theme from the past, is all too present."58

Leonardo Boff notes that in fact there are a number of different approaches to ecological themes that reveal much about the perspectives of their authors. Some are purely conservationist in approach, paying little attention to the human cost of environmental destruction. In the developed countries, this is sometimes carried to the extreme of ignoring the human component of the environment, and is often focused on specific areas set aside for the purpose. Human ecology attempts "to define what is the type of relationship that human beings establish with their environment" and also takes into account the cultural perspective. Boff argues for the concept of social ecology, first developed by Uruguayan social scientists, which he identifies as a "Latin American product that goes beyond Human Ecology."59 A social-ecology approach is not merely a simple acceptance of the "other."

The other is not there because I have not been able to eliminate him [sic], but because I need him, because he complements me. This is the discourse of complementarity. Because together, in this inter-relation, we carry on constructing our existence. And not only in complementarity, for there exists a reciprocity, an opening to all the beings of the creation. We are bound to reality on all sides: inward, upward, downward.60

Unlike most liberation theology of earlier decades, Boff's work identifies clear connections between attention to the environment and the conditions under which human beings participate in their environment.

The more we raise up a culture of complementarity and reciprocity, the more we will reduce the rates of social inequality, of conflicts produced by exclusion, because the cause of the processes of social unravelling are the processes of exclusion. In the culture of exclusion, the subject excludes and monopolizes others, denies being enriched, denies reciprocity and symbolically kills the other.

What is most frustrating for the human being is being excluded. Affectively [sic] it is equivalent to being murdered, to being cut down. That is the human being's most de-structuring feeling. Because the human being is the being of participation. [The human being] lives from participation and all beings become accomplices in our existence.61

Furthermore, our attitude towards the environment not only shapes our attitude towards other human beings; it also shapes our behavior.

When we speak of Social Ecology we want to say that a minimum of ecological justice is necessary for social justice to exist. If I mistreat nature, if I affront it and submit it to pillages it is because I have social structures and mechanisms with which I also wound social classes, different races, minorities. Nature is wounded with the same logic that the working class is wounded. Social justice must go in hand with ecological justice. In other words, we must respect the plants' biological cycle, respect the trees, respect the soil.

Citing Einstein's discovery that matter and energy are interchangeable, he pleads for attention to the fundamental truth that "democracy is a cosmic democracy, the stars are citizens too, the sun and the moon live with us." Social Ecology "attempts to grasp that and seek balance, while it denounces how the type of society we organize under the hegemony of capital is profoundly aggressive and causes the breakdown of the ecosystems."62

Boff raises the spiritual dimension of the environmental crisis in dialogue with recent developments in both biology and psychology that attempt to demonstrate "that we possess [subjective] structures that lead us to a greater solidarity and greater collaboration." The "radical or holistic ecology" encountered in the work of authors such as Frank Capra contributes to Boff's vision of a universe shaped by grace: "We do not live in a world that threatens us, but a world that is in partnership with our life. We should make a revolution to rescue the lost bonds that tie us to the stone in the road and the snail that painfully drags itself along, to the flowers and the most distant stars."63 The emergence of themes better described as cultural and social than as strictly political represents both a reaction to, and a further refining of, the goals which have motivated Latin American theologies of liberation.

During the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, and continuing even until the collapse of European socialism at the end of the 1980s, the revolutionary change proposed by numerous political movements provided theologians with what appeared to be a concrete political articulation of the hopes symbolized by the image of the reign of God. With the disappearance of those goals, many who previously associated themselves with political utopias can be seen to be struggling to find new ways to articulate the hope that once seemed so tangible. Josh Comblin believes that

the kind of socialism [practiced under the influence of European models] is simply no longer a possibility in today's world .... [T]oday the market economy is unavoidable.64

Jorge Pixley continues to insist that "the Gospel confesses that God intends to establish [God's] reign on this earth." Nevertheless, he considers it crucial "to disconnect liberation theology from an illusory triumphalism of the 60s and 70s."65 Jose Gonzalez Faus agrees that "history has an eschaton of freedom, salvation and fullness." But that endpoint is identified now "in the form of small liberations, anticipations and signs" which clash with the historical reality around them, sometimes leading more immediately to suffering and even death.66 Yet both Pixley and Gonzalez Faus believe that, in Gonzalez Faus's words, in the end God triumphs "and the previous defeat is converted into the grain of wheat which gives fruit when it dies."67

Others consider that it is necessary to reformulate the very conceptual basis of hope for the poor. Guillermo Hansen notes the "limits of utopian dreams" and argues for "a new exercise of realism, represented by shifting the object of our Christian moral responsibility from the idea of the 'reign' or of the `new human being' to a concept of relative justice over against the density of the contradictions and ambiguities that permeate social realities." Such a reorientation means "delicate compromises ....not the historical realization of absolute values."68

Hugo Assman considers that once the concept of a "final victory" is gone, it is possible

to struggle against oppression without having to affirm . . . the triumph of the oppressed (emphasis mine) .... The challenge is to know how to live together with that ambiguity and not to fall into the temptation of apocalyptic deceit. To cope with the absence of definitive solutions."69

Elsa Tamez continues to affirm the importance of the dream of a new order-"utopia as a motivating principle"-at the symbolic level as it is found, for example, in the prophecies of Isaiah. But that image is clearly outside history. And she points out that there are other important biblical motifs that provide a broadened conceptual reference for thinking theologically about the loss of a concrete historical utopia. The wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures, largely ignored by the first generation of liberation theologians, has taken on new importance because of its emphasis on the reality of the everyday. 70

Tamez sees many similarities between the circumstances of Israel under the domination of the hellenistic regime, which produced the book of Ecclesiastes, and the situation of Christians in Latin America today. "We live," she writes, in

absurd times .... The more poor people there are, the less solidarity and sensitivity you see. That is the time it is ours to live in the North and the South, in the East and the West. A present time which imposes itself as unique, which seeks to exclude any liberating reminiscence of the past and any utopian element that could move towards a new reality.... How can Christians live in times of a "messianic drought?71

The author of Ecclesiastes, she believes, lived in just such times.

When society's logic is production in the least possible time because time is gold, Qoheleth invites us to assume eternity's time within the history of short and countable time. And that time is only lived when one enjoys life accompanied by the community with which one shares it.72

In a similar vein, Ana Maria and Sandro Gallazzi observe that for Ecclesiastes.

nothing [is] more eternal than an abundant table and a good life, which, according to the prophets, are signs of the definitive victory of Yahweh (Is. 25:6). That was, that is, that will be!73

Commenting on the importance of everyday life as a primary theme for contemporary liberation theologians, Carlos Dreher observes,

For some time, the questions of everyday life have been discussed, valued and worked on in the midst of popular movements with redoubled interest. It is not that the collective social questions have been abandoned or forgotten. They continue to be relevant. Indeed, they continue to be fundamental. Nevertheless, in the midst of them, the people's day-to-day keeps gaining space. It is perceived more and more that human beings are not only social and political subjects. They also have a relationship with nature. The), are also individuals, fenced in by personal problems and dilemmas. And all at the same time. There is no way to separate these diverse dimensions of the person. However, we must distinguish and value each of them.74

For Dreher, everyday life is "a space of resistance, of hope and of the creation of an alternative logic." Personal and collective dimensions, he asserts, need to be integrated.

In the same way, the everyday and the future project should be understood as intertwined. The foot on the ground and the dream are mixed together. Today's resistance has to do with tomorrow's hope. The new day that is coming needs to be reflected in today.75

But behind the emphasis on attending to the human necessities without expecting grand and revolutionary changes is a poignant reminder of silence and absence. Perhaps Elsa Tamez is most willing to confront this dimension with openness and sensitivity. Alongside the author of Ecclesiastes, she considers the figure of Job as another source of meaning for suffering Christians. Specifically she underlines the silences and the cries which punctuate the story of "Job, the innocent who suffers abandonment in his own flesh."76

To read Job today, from our reality, invites us to discern the silences and the cries-wise and useless-to open ourselves to new possible dimensions for a fruitful action. It also teaches us to live God's silences and cries, which are capable of taking us to open new avenues, other doors, more human. We need to listen attentively to the silence and cries of God. Equally, Job teaches us to enter into relationship with the God of grace. To remember that God loves us just because, not for merits, and to accept that we love God not because God blesses us but just because. It's about a human-divine relationship that doesn't happen in mercantile spheres, but in the margins of dignity and grace.77

The silences of job are echoed in the scene of the crucifixion, and in the experience of contemporary Christians.

Sometimes we experience the absence of God as Jesus did on Golgotha, and as the disciples did when they ran away. We feel as if our prayers go unanswered, that God is faraway and that God must be busy with other things. Hurricanes and floods devastate. Violence permeates the whole world. Children are abandoned in the streets. There is excessive unemployment, and a rapid decrease in the language of solidarity, organizations for the practice of justice, and the sharing of resources.... We pray and pray about these anti-human realities and there is no clear response. Can it be that God listens only to those who pray for a television set?

The experience of a "temporary withdrawal of God" recounted in the Scriptures is, she believes, "a key question for a soulless society." Neither flight nor acquiescence in a market-based theology are real options. "Reality calls us to deep meditation: to rethink our experience of God, to affirm faith in that which is not seen, and to live in the best way we can so that we all have the right to live well and with dignity." If we are to experience the Holy Spirit in such times, it will be by "turn[ing] our gaze to the bodies of this inhuman reality, to those human beings who are the victims of abandonment."78

Reflection in the minor key of absence and even abandonment rather than the exuberant expectation of revolutionary triumph is far more in tune with biblical motifs like exile and wilderness than the exodus and eschatology that so dominated earlier phases of liberation theology. In the face of the apparent victory of neo-liberalism and its attendant misery, a new focus on survival appears at the fore. With it comes a profound revival of attention to the practice of spirituality as a means for surviving the hardships of everyday existence without immediate hope.

One of the frequent criticisms directed at earlier liberation theologians was that they tended to ignore the broad issues of spirituality and reduced theology to politics. This was never true of the best of liberation theology. Gustavo Gutierrez's book, We Drink from Our Own Wells was a careful exposition of the spirituality that undergirds the concepts familiar to liberation theologians. Many of the best biblical scholars working in the area have habitually hammered out their rereading of the Scriptures from the viewpoint of the poor in the setting of base-communities with profound awareness of the spiritual dimension of their work. The Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador demonstrated with their lives the ultimate nature of the commitment that motivated them.

Nevertheless, the collapse of the utopian expectation of God's triumph has called for a different kind of spirituality, a re-visioning of the nature of God's presence in the world, of the nature of Christian community, and of the resources Christians share for surviving in a time of darkness and exile.

In a recent paper, Richard Schaull, whose early work in Brazil helped created the climate in which the first genuinely Latin American liberation theology was articulated, revisited some of the challenges for the present. He considers that earlier liberation theologians were moved by social analysis towards political organizations dedicated to socialism, resulting in the loss of the cultivation of the spiritual life. But what unites the poor is not politics but a "spiritual foundation and communitarian support." What is now required is "to enter into the religious world of the poor."79

That "religious world" has often been criticized, not least by liberation theologians, as inchoate responses to prevailing neo-liberal ideology. Claudio de Oleivera Ribeiro describes a widespread "autonomous Pentecostalism," disconnected from traditional denominations, building its successes on promises of "healing, exorcism and prosperity."80 Much current Latin American Protestantism, he believes, supports a "spirituality of results" based on pietistic moralism (itself a product of a theology of retribution) and a theology of prosperity.81 It co-exists with other movements, some of them imported from around the globe, as well as traditional religions from Africa and the pentecostal movement within Roman Catholicism.

But Schaull now believes that even extreme forms of Pentecostalism must be taken seriously. Such religious expressions provide a vivid experience of God, a basis for surviving in a hostile world and, frequently, a change of life that restores alienated individuals to family and community. And they provide hope, based on the belief that God is "doing great things for them."82

Pablo Richard has written extensively on the spiritual renewal which he sees as the only possible response to the current situation. He approaches the subject from the traditional concern that the poor become subjects of their own history. But whereas earlier theology often depended on Marxist concepts to articulate this hope, Richard now sees the relationship with the true God, the God of life, as the source of our subjectivity.

In the discussion of the subject it is not about the traditional theme of the historical subject (of social classes that struggle for a transformation of the world), but about the radical possibility of every human being able to live as a subject capable of thinking and acting from his or her own subjectivity, without any overdetermination that paralyzes them as an object or divinizes them as messiah. Nor is it simply about substituting or diversifying the subject-social class by a plurality of new subjects, like indigenous people, Blacks, young people, women, the elderly, etc. The reconstruction of persons as subjects is prior to their diversification by race, ethnicity, sex, class, age .... 83

Commenting on the famous statement of St. Iraeneus of Lyon, "The glory of God is the human being alive; the glory of the human being, the vision of God," Richard writes:

Only a living subject can see God face to face. The divine glory is revealed in human life, which concretely means: land, work, health, education, participation, festivity and joy. This God of life, who reveals [God's] glory in the life of the human being, is what permits the living human being to be a living subject in the contemplation of God. There is a direct relation between our conception of God as the God of life, and human beings' capacity to realize themselves as subjects in the dorect contemplation of this God of life.

Indeed, "spirituality, as life according to the Spirit, is the force whereby the person is affirmed as a subject in the world."84

In Richard's view, authentic spirituality-the spirituality required for faithful living here and now-is not an otherworldly project. Neither does it confront or surrender to the values of the prevailing order of things. The challenge is to recognize the idolatrous dimension of the world of globalization, in which "the market, science and technology, useful and necessary in themselves for the construction of the world, can be transformed... into absolute subjects, bearers of messianic hopes," in which "the human being is reduced to an object" and can then be oppressed and killed "without any limit and with a good conscience."85

What is called for, then, is a spirituality which begins with resisting the logic or rationality of the system; resisting the culture, the ethic and the spirituality of the system, within the system itself. It is not about fleeing or marginalizing yourself from globalization, but living within it with a different spirit.86

If globalization augments the scourges of social fragmentation and exclusion, then the concrete form in which resistance takes shape is through the practice of solidarity. Solidarity

is the capacity to construct within the system a cultural, ethical and spiritual resistance to the total market system itself. Solidarity with the life of the excluded and with nature constructs a culture of life, against the system's culture of death.87

Solidarity in turn makes possible hope, which along with resistance and solidarity are identified by Richard as requisites of a faithful Christian spirituality. In addressing the possibility of hope, Richard notes the importance of the traditional spaces in which everyday life is lived, naming them as potential contexts where the alternative logic of respect for life can be lived at the very heart of society. These include ,the family, the human community, the neighborhood, the workshop, centers of labor, the local market."88

Richard is also hopeful that what he calls civil society may also provide a space where solidarity may be practiced. The political dimension of faith passes today more through the traditional spaces and through civil society (construction of a new power) than through political society (taking of political power).

Civil society includes those communities, places and movements that exist on the margins and in the cracks of the global society. They include the efforts of Blacks, native peoples, women, and young people to gain control of their lives; efforts at land-friendly farming that preserves the traditional peasant society; alternative medicine-any efforts undertaken at the local level to create a space where options are permitted and preserved.89 Insofar as these human undertakings celebrate the possibility of solidarity, they stand as alternatives to the universalizing assumptions of neo-liberalism and look towards the possibility of a different kind of society, oriented towards the common good, in which there is room for all.90

It is nearly impossible for the moment to construct an economic and political alternative to the present system of globalization, yet it is already possible to question radically its logic, its rationality, its idolatrous spirit. Indeed, there exist spaces of life where the poor succeed in surviving economically, small local political triumphs happen, social movements grow, even though the hope of a global economic, political and cultural alternative is not arising. There is still no alternative to the system, but there is an alternative to the spirit of the system, which is lived in those already existing spaces of life.91

Richard and many of his colleagues consider that the reawakening of spirituality in the context of globalization calls urgently for a new style of pastoral ministry with emphases considerably different from those of base-communities in the recent past.

Arturo Piedra notes that the exigencies of the immediate misery suffered by the excluded constitute the "primary territory of work" even though pastoral ministry must also include nurturing awareness of the system which produces the misery. Immediate pastoral ministry, he observes, cannot give birth to a new, more humane system. It can, however, create a network of solidarity to respond to immediate needs which might prepare the way for a more hopeful system in the future.92

In Jose Duque's words, what is called for is a pastoral discourse not centered on the Church's internal life, much less what happens inside its buildings, but a discourse that takes with absolute seriousness the context of ministry.93 Richard considers that in the development of such pastoral ministry, nothing is more important than the current work being done to foster Bible reading at the popular level. He is convinced that the Scriptures can give people at the grassroots level the resources for a powerful spirituality that does not depend upon the institutional Church and its hierarchy for its existence.94 Jorge Pixley calls for a Christian education which is at once "a critical reading of our social reality, . . . a critical reading of the Bible as Word of God," and "a school of critical reading of life as God's creation threatened by those who seek to take for themselves the goods they don't need."95

At the heart of this Bible-centered spirituality of resistance is the concept of the Church as people of God, motivated and defined by solidarity, or mutual love. Faith has

in its hands all the historical force of the Word of God: all the power revealed to us in the exodus and the historical and prophetic traditions of Israel, all the liberating tradition of its books of wisdom and the prayerful and mystical power of the psalms. Finally and in a definitive way, the strength of the Word which was revealed to us in Jesus, in the Jesus movement and in all the inspired writings that were born there.

And, Richard believes,

if the church were capable of reconstructing the identity of its origins and recovering the strength of the Word of its first communities, then the Word of God would be today life and hope for the majority of humanity excluded from all life and hope, and also for the cosmos that groans stricken by humans' "progress."96

Richard considers that the renewal of a biblically based spirituality depends on complementary interpretation from three distinct but related sources (or "hermeneutical loci"). The first is the academic, in which scholars and intellectuals use scientific tools of biblical interpretation. The second is the liturgical-institutional, focused in the Church's worship, preaching and teaching (the "magisterium"). The third, the communitarian, is "the privileged space of the poor and excluded in the interpretation of the Bible," a space "of solidarity and spirituality," of "commitment and mission," creative, prophetic, ecumenical.97

Richard's vision, to which he and many others are deeply committed, is to encourage the interaction between these three levels of interpretation in order to foster in each believer the power of God's Word. To this end, he and others have developed the Red de lectura popular de la Biblia (Network of Popular Reading of the Bible), brief intensive workshops offered throughout Latin America to train grassroots leaders who can serve as facilitators of the communal Bible study considered to be essential. By the end of the 1990s, more than 25,000 persons had participated in those workshops. Commenting on the revolutionary potential of such a movement, one of its teachers compared it to the ants that devour whole trees to nourish the fungus from which they feed themselves: "So the house of power can be destroyed!"98

Pastoral ministry based on prayerful and shared reading of the Bible calls, in Richard's view, for the restoration of a number of vital elements. The first is a redirected biblical scholarship so that its riches may be readily accessible to the whole Church. (One of the Network's primary objectives is sharing the tools of biblical studies with local educators.) The second is delivering the Scriptures into the hands of the people of God. The third is the recovery of biblical preaching. The fourth is a scripturally based catechesis. He also urges the development of a biblically based spirituality grounded in the tradition of Lectio divina, and renewed attention to the biblical foundations of Christian theology, Christian ethics and the Church's social ministry.99 A pastoral style incorporating these elements would, he believes, result in a renewed Church, faithful to its calling and reminiscent of the Spirit-filled communities of the New Testament.

With the energetic call of Pablo Richard and his colleagues, the vision of a new reformation, which so energized the earliest theologians of liberation, makes its appearance once again. If its contours are no longer as vivid and broad as they were a generation ago, they remain nevertheless shaped by the reality of a crucified continent and the biblical witness of the God of life. Chastened by events and the passage of time, the undercurrents of hope and the call to action continue to sound, this time with new respect for the voices of the past and for voices previously unheard, for the everyday sorrows and joys, for the uniqueness of individuals, for time to play and dance and sing. Perhaps it is a vision at once more realistic and more humane; more noticing of forgiveness and grace.

You speak to us of Latin America. It is not important. Nothing important can come from the South. It is not the South that makes history. Henry Kissinger100

The scorn and dismissal in the words of the former American Secretary of State echo across the years as a reminder that it is very easy for those who wield power to assume that they live on the axis of history. But multiple voices of Christians from Latin America cannot be so easily dismissed by people of faith.

The value of Latin American liberation theology for Christians beyond the continent, and specifically for Christians of the northern hemisphere, has been widely discussed. Some, including this author, have found the concept of the reign of God to be of great usefulness in articulating the nature of Christian faith in a world like ours. Others, while accepting the validity of the approach for Latin Americans, consider that its contextual nature limits its usefulness in other settings. Still others, of course, consider it to rest on an impossibly distorted reading of the Gospel. The question to be asked now is, what effect have the changes that have occurred in liberation theology in the last decade had on its significance for Christians in other places? Does liberation theology at the beginning of the twenty-first century continue to have a place at the theological table?

Earlier stages of liberation theology were useful in helping North American Christians to recognize not only the contextual nature of faith in Latin America, but in every culture. If we are much more willing to ascribe significance to the ways in which our own context shapes our believing, it is at least in part because Latin American Christians taught us how. That insight has not lost validity, and as they have attempted to respond to changes in their own context, contemporary liberation theologians can help us understand just how dynamic is the nature of faith.

I am grateful too for the persistent reminder from Latin America that Christian faith has consequences in the way we live in the world. It has never been easier, and the temptation has never been greater, to shrug at the possibility of change and to retreat into a purely personal and internal "spiritual" form of religion. At this point in Christian history, it seems to be Christians in the so-called developing world, among them Latin Americans, who are struggling to preserve the communal nature of Christian faith, the dimension of solidarity without which faith deteriorates into something less than Christian.

The witness of Latin American Christians committed to a future worthy of human beings created in God's image should serve as a reminder to Christians in other places that the Gospel's promise has a political dimension, if by that we mean not a particular political system, but an awareness that we are human in community.

The emphasis on Marxist analysis and the commitment to socialism which marked so much earlier Latin American liberation theology was always problematic for many Christians in other places. On the other hand, many American Christians willing to think further than an exaggerated culturally induced fear of the "Red Menace" gained new understanding of the ways in which economic factors shape both the institutions and the forces within which we live and minister. Now that most liberation theologians have rejected or dubbed irrelevant the classical socialist models on which they depended, the enduring truth of their focus on the place of the poor for the Gospel has become even more accessible for North American Christians.

At the same time, the more recent openness to the reality and value of religious experience and everyday life in dialogue with the social and political dimension of human existence create a more balanced perspective. A faith at once personal and political, mindful of both daily pain and global apocalypse, homely celebrations and cosmic promise, would seem to promise a fruitful dialogue with North American Christians who so often struggle to hold together these two facets of faith.

Unlike their counterparts in more comfortable parts of the world, theologians in Latin America have never been able to avoid the risky aspects of conflict over life-and-death issues. The many whose names are joined to the company of martyrs of the last few decades serve as signs of just how significant is the task of articulating a living faith. We who do not share their danger might do well to recall just how urgent are the fundamental issues of belief and practice.

We might also note and heed the willingness of those whose positions have cost them a great deal to rethink and revise their assumptions in the light of a changing world. To my mind, the humility and grace necessary to do so is a valuable reminder to Christians in more protected environments that it is sometimes necessary to give up our most cherished assumptions for the cause of faith.

But most of all, it is Latin American liberation theologians who have called the whole world to see with the eyes of faith the whole truth about the globalization which defines the world at the beginning of its third Christian millennium.

The fall of the Berlin wall has been interpreted by many people in the developed countries, including Christians, as the turning point of the future. Our politicians tell us this is a fact of life that cannot be changed, and that it is good news for us all. Of course on some level, we know better; our casual acceptance of homeless people even in small-town America is a sign that all is not really well. So too is the burgeoning security industry, along with the wholesale construction of prisons capable of housing a significant percentage of this country's minority population. But in the prevailing cultural atmosphere of the industrial world, we have come to believe that these are the inevitable price a minority must pay for the well-being of the majority (including ourselves).

Latin American liberation theologians spell out what we would most like to forget: it is not a minority that pays the price for us; it is a majority. Hearing them means that we will find it harder to ignore the consequences of the current world "order," not only for many of our immediate neighbors but for those to our south and in other parts of the world.

Christians in other places must also be struck by the multiplicity of new theological voices issuing from Latin America. The impact of claiming the right to be a "historical subject"-a shaper of one's own destiny-has theological as well as social and political consequences. (I am reminded of the evocative title of Fredrica Harris Thompsett's book, We Are Theologians.)

Liberation theologians to our south have been touched and changed by the presence of voices they had ignored: the voices of women, Blacks, and native people. They have learned that poverty is not the ultimate fact of life; it is exclusion.

Surely the voices of women, of Blacks and Native Americans also need to be heard as we grapple together with the demands of faith in our own setting. And there are other voices historically excluded from the common perception of the world as from the articulation of a common faith. Among many others, we might mention the rural poor; young people and children; the elderly; people whose lives are shaped by their status as illegal immigrants; gay and lesbian people; people from other parts of the world, including Asians and Africans, who now make their home among us. Perhaps a dialogue with Christians in Latin America on the theme of exclusion might make it possible for them to hear some of those same voices that are still silenced to our south.

Of course our native pragmatism finds it nearly unbearable that no "solution" is readily available; but "solutions" solve only superficial problems, while what is at play among us calls for a different way of seeing and being and behaving. Voices from Latin America help us to dare to do what they are doing: wait for alternatives to emerge, and in the meantime hold on to a vision of what it can mean to be human before God.

Henry Kissinger was wrong. At least for Christians, the axis of the world passes among those who are its victims. For nearly half a century, Christians in Latin America have helped us to recall that fact, and to grasp the promise of the Gospel in new and sometimes thrilling ways. If the nature of the hope is different and the wait turns out to be longer than we or they expected, that neither erases nor minimizes the value of their witness. Nor does it diminish the value of our dialogue with them.

In the words of the Costa Rican theologian Victorio Araya:

The worst that can happen in times of desperation is not to have hope; in times of darkness, not to trust in the light. In the depth of darkness we should always have in our minds, as St. John's prologue says,. . . "The light-life of God came to the world and dwelt among us... . . In the midst of history and its prolonged darkness, the light continues shining. The darkness could not dominate it or put it out.101

1 I am grateful to the Seminary Consultation on Mission for a grant which enabled me to carry out this study at the Seminario Biblico Latinoamericano in San Jose, Costa Rica in June and July of 1999. I am also grateful to the administration, faculty and staff of the seminary, and especially to Professors Arturo Piedra and Victorio Araya, for their help in this study.

2 G. Hansen, "Mas alla de la euforia o el derrotismo: algunas consideraciones eticas y teologicas frente a los nuevos cambios en America Latina," Cuadernos de Teologia, XVII (1998), p. 173.

3 W Altmann, O. Bobsin, R. Zwetsch, "Perspectivas da Teologia da Libertacao: Impasses e Novos Rumbos," Estudos Teologicos 37, 2 (1997), p. 130.

R. Alves, "O Deus do furacao," in Alves, ed., De dentro do furavao, quoted in Leopoldo Cervantes-Ortiz, Series de Buenos: La teologia ludico-erotico-poetica de Ruben Alves, una alternativa del desarrollo de la teologia protestante latinoanericana (Master's thesis, Seminario Biblico Latinoamericano, unpublished, 1998), p. 30. Tr. mine.

5 G. Gutierrez, "Renovar `la opcion por los pobres,' in Revista latinoamericana de teologia, XII, October-December 1995, pp. 269-280.

Ibid., p. 269. Tr. mine.

7 Gutierrez, p. 271. Tr. mine.

s Perhaps the most accessible accounts of the reflection fostered by the basecommunities can be found in the series of books published by Ernesto Cardenal, who lived and worked in an isolated fishing community in Solentiname, Nicaragua.

Hello Gallardo argues that to speak of Latin American theology does not imply that its insights are limited to one geographical or historical context; rather, because it takes as its starting point the poverty of the continent, it is related to whatever theologies have a similar genesis. H. Gallardo, "La Teologia de la Liberation como pensamiento latinoamericano," PASOS, 56, 1994, p. 15.

" "The proletariat and class struggle lose relevance; socialism loses its plausibility." Altmann, Bobsin, Zwetsch, p. 132. Tr. mine.

11 Pablo Richard, Director, Departamento Ecumenico de Investigaciones (Ecumenical Department of Research), San Josh, Costa Rica, Personal Interview, June 24, 1999.

12 Jose Comblin, Called to Freedom (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1998), p. 161.

13 Arturo Piedra, quoted in Alexa Smith, "Latin American Christians Reshape Liberation Theology," Villagelife.org, 1999.

14 Comblin, p. 14.

15 Ibid., pp. 84 ff.

16 Assmann, pp. 71, 186. Assmann points out that pentecostal groups grew in conflicted countries such as Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador precisely when the Church was most involved in the popular political struggle. He also faults liberation-- oriented pastors for politicizing worship by using it to raise political and social awareness. Ibid., . 211.

Jorge Pixley, "Que nos dejo el BOOM de la Teologia de la Liberacion?," Desafios de la Mision, Third Mesoamerican Encounter of Theology, Comunidad Cristiana Mesoamericana, 1997, pp. 101-106. Tr. mine.

is Assmann, pp.22, 28, 48.

19 Elsa Tamez, "When Sons and Daughters of the `Free Woman' Are Born as Slaves," unpublished lecture, Monte Carmelo, Honduras, 1997.

20 E. Tamez, "Neoliberalism and Christian Freedom,," unpublished lecture, Monte Carmelo, Honduras, 1997.

21 H. Assmann, "Apuntes sobre el tema del sujeto," in J. Duque, ed., Perfiles teologicos para un nuevo milenio, DEI, San Jose, Costa Rica, 1997, p. 126. Tr. mine. 22 There are an estimated 40,000,000 people in Brazil alone who fall into this category. Altmann, Bobsin, Zwetsch, p. 135.

23 Hugo Assmann, "Teologia de la liberacion: Mirando hacia el frente," PASOS, 55, 1994, pp. 2-3. Tr. mine.

24 F. Hinkelammert, "Una sociedad en la que todos quepan: De la impotencia de la omnipotencia," PASOS, 60, 1995, p. 5. Tr. mine.

25 Enrique Duissel, Etica de la liberacion. En la edad de la globalizacion y la exclusion (UAM-I, UNAM, Mexico, 1998), p. 55. Tr. mine.

Ibid., p. 311. 27 Ibid., p. 558. 2 Ibid., p. 562.

29 G. Gutierrez, Teologia de liberacion. PErspectivas (Salamanca: Ediciones Sigueme, 1972). pp. 353-356. Tr. mine.

30 Ibid., pp. 357-360.

al Gutierrez, Teologia de liberaci6n. Perspectivas, versi6n revisada (Salamanca: Ediciones Sigueme, 1990), pp. 312-317. Tr. mine.

32 Ibid., p. 318.

as E. Dossel, Etica de la liberation, pp. 567-568.

34 G. Gutierrez, "Renovar la opcion por los pobres," pp. 269-270, 273. Tr. mine. 35 Pixley, pp. 103-104, 106.

as Gutierrez, p. 273. 31 Ibid., p. 279.

38 R Richard, "Teologia de la solidaridad en el contexto actual de economia neoliberal de libre mercado," PASOS, 83, 1999, p. 4. Tr. mine.

I W Altmann, 0. Bobsin, R. Zwetsch, pp. 134-135.

ao Dr. Elsa Tamez, President, Universidad Biblica Latinoamericana, San Jose, Costa Rica, Personal Interview, July 15, 1999.

41 A diminutive form of padre ("Father") used with clergy with whom one has a personal relationship.

42 A. Mendez-Penate, "Una espiritualidad para la mujer?", Revista de Interpretation Biblica Latinoamericana (RIBLA), 13, 1992, pp. 89, 90. Tr. mine.

43 Ibid., pp. 93, 94. 44 Ibid., pp. 101-102.

45 Ibid., p. 96.

46 M. Gonzalez Butron, "Desde el mundo de las excluidas para un mundo donde quepan todos y todas: Por la visibilizaci6n de las invisibles," PASOS, 70, 1997, p. 8. Tr. mine. In this quotation she is citing the work of Janine Anderson, La planificacion con perspectiva de genero, Santiago de Chile: Mimeo, 1994.

47 Ibid., p. 6.

48 "Corporeality, as a source of criteria for an Ethic of Solidarity, has been a fundamental contribution of the feminist struggle .... We want a society where life in its fullness is possible for all." Ibid., p. 6.

49 Ibid., p. 7.

50 Ibid., p. 7.

51 "Entramos otra vez a la historia," mensaje del Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion National, in La jornada (Mexico, February 22, 1994), p. 8. Cited in E. Dussel. Commenting on the manifesto, Dassel observes, "Thus ethics becomes the last resource of a humanity in danger of self-extinction" p. 568. Emphases in text original; tr. mine.

52 G. Gutierrez, Teologia de la liberation. Perspectivas (revised edition, 1990), pp. 19, 24-26. Tr. mine.

53 Roy H. May, "La tierra en tiempos de globalizacion," PASOS, 76, 1998, p. 21. r. mine.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid., pp. 22,24

56. J. Pixley, "dQue nos dej6 el BOOM de la Teologia de la liberation?", p. 105.

57 J. Comblin, Called for Freedom, p. 69.

58 May, p. 21.

59 L. Boff, "Las tendencias de la ecologia," PASOS, 68, 1996, pp. 1-2, 5. Tr. mine.

60 Ibid., p. 6.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid., p. 7.

63 Ibid., pp. 8, 9.

64 Jose Comblin, p. 112.

65 Pixley, pp. 106-107.

66 J. Gonzalez Faus, "Una tarea historica: de la liberacion a la apocaliptica," Revista latinoamericana de trologia 12, 1995, p. 290. Tr. mine.

67 Ibid.

68 Hansen, pp. 183-184.

69 H. Assmann, "Apunters sobre el tema del sujeto," in Duque, ed., p. 129.

70 Elsa Tamez, Personal interview.

71 E. Tamez, "De silencios y gritos. Job y Qohelet en los noventa," PASOS, 82, 1999, p. 5. Tr. mine.

72 Ibid., p. 6.

73 Ana Maria Rizzante Gallazzi and Sandro Gallazi, "La prueba de los ojos, la prueba de la casa, la prueba del sepulcro. Una clave de lectura del libro de Qoheleth," PASOS, 14, 1993, p. 79. Tr. mine.

74 C. Dreher, "Editorial," PASOS, 14, 1993, 5.

75 Ibid

76 Tamez, p. 2.

77 Ibid., p. 4.

78 E. Tamez. "The Absence of God," Latin American Bibical University Newsletter, 6, 1999, p.1.

79 R. Schaull, "El quehacer teologico en el contexto de sobrevivencia en AbyaYala," undated, pp. 4-5, 10. Tr. mine.

I C. de Oleivera Ribeiro, " Mudancas e desafios: a Pastoral e a teologia latinoamericanas em questao," in Revista de Cultura teologica, 3, 1995, pp. 79-80

81 Ibid., p. 94.

82 Schaull, pp. 10-12.

83 P. Richard, "Subjetividad, espiritualidad y esperanza. Algunas perspectivas para definir el sujeto," PASOS, 79, 1998, p. 30. Tr. mine.

84 Ibid., pp. 29,31. 85 Ibid., p. 29.

86 Ibid., p. 30. Resistance is an important theme in many contemporary liberation theologians' reflection on spirituality. In 1992, the Revista de Interpretation Biblica Latinoamericana (Journal of Latin American Biblical Interpretation) devoted a whole issue to "Spirituality of Resistance." (RIBLA, 13, 1992.)

87 P. Richard, "Teologia de la solidaridad en el contexto actual de economia neoliberal de libre mercado," p. 4.

88 Ibid., p. 6.

89 Pable Richard, Personal Interview, June 24, 1999.

90 Richard.

91 ibid., p. 8.

92 Dr. Arturo Piedra, Professor of History, Seminario Biblico Latinoamericano, San Josh, Costa Rica, Personal Interview, July 6, 1999.

93 Jose Duque, Vice-President, Universidad Biblica Latinoamericana, San Jose, Costa Rica, Personal Interview, July 5, 1999.

94 Pablo Richard, Personal Interview. J. Pixley, pp. 108-109.

P. Richard, "Palabra de Dios, fuente de vida y esperanza para el nuevo milenio," PASOS, 78, 1998, p. 4. Tr. mine.

97 Ibid., pp. 4-5.

98 Sister Ana Francisca Lopez, Red de Lectura Popular de la Biblia (Network of Popular Bible Reading), Venezuela, Personal Interview, June 24, 1999.

Richard, "Palabra de Dios," p. 8.

100 Quoted in A. Rouquie, Extremo Occidente e Introduccion a America Latina (Buenos Aires: Emece, 1990), p. 353. Tr. mine.

101 V. Araya, "La utopia de la luz," PASOS, 56, 1994, p. 25. Tr. mine.

JOHN L. KATER, JR.*

* John L. Kater, Jr. is Professor of Ministry Development at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California.

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Fall 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved

A Concise History of Liberation Theology By Leonardo and Clodovis Boff. From the book Introducing Liberation Theology c/o http://www.landreform.org/bo

2008-01-14T09:51:00.000-08:00

A Concise History of Liberation Theology
By Leonardo and Clodovis Boff. From the book Introducing Liberation Theology published by Orbis Books. Reprinted by permission.

Antecedents
he historical roots of liberation theology are to be found in the prophetic tradition of evangelists and missionaries from the earliest colonial days in Latin America -- churchmen who questioned the type of presence adopted by the church and the way indigenous peoples, blacks, mestizos, and the poor rural and urban masses were treated. The names of Bartolomé de Las Casas, Antonio de Montesinos, Antonio Vieira, Brother Caneca and others can stand for a whole host of religious personalities who have graced every century of our short history. They we the source of the type of social and ecclesial understanding that is emerging today.

Social and Political Development
The populist governments of the 1950s and 1960s -- especially those of Perón in Argentina, Vargas in Brazil, and Cárdenas in Mexico -- inspired nationalistic consciousness and significant industrial development in the shape of import substitution. This benefited the middle classes and urban proletariat but threw huge sectors of the peasantry into deeper rural marginalization or sprawling urban shantytowns. Development proceeded along the lines of dependent capitalism, subsidiary to that of the rich nations and excluding the great majorities of national populations. This process led to the creation of strong popular movements seeking profound changes in the socio-economic structure of their countries. These movements in turn provoked the rise of military dictatorships, which sought to safeguard or promote the interests of capital, associated with a high level of "national security" achieved through political repression and police control of all public demonstrations.
In this context the socialist revolution in Cuba stood out as an alternative leading to the dissolution of the chief cause of underdevelopment: dependence. Pockets of armed uprising appeared in many countries, aimed at overthrowing the ruling powers and installing socialist-inspired regimes. There was a great stirring for change among the popular sections of society, a truly prerevolutionary atmosphere.

Ecclesial Development
Starting in the 1960s, a great wind of renewal blew through the churches. They began to take their social mission seriously: lay persons committed themselves to work among the poor, charismatic bishops and priests encouraged the calls for progress and national modernization. Various church organizations promoted understanding of and improvements in the living conditions of the people: movements such as Young Christian Students, Young Christian Workers, Young Christian Agriculturalists, the Movement for Basic Education, groups that set up educational radio programs, and the first base ecclesial communities.
The work of these -- generally middle-class -- Christians was sustained theologically by the European theology of earthly realities, the integral humanism of Jacques Maritain, the social personalism of Mounier, the progressive evolutionism of Teilhard de Chardin, Henri de Lubac's reflections on the social dimension of dogma, Yves Congar's theology of the laity, and the work of M.-D. Chenu. The Second Vatican Council then gave the best possible theoretical justification to activities developed under the signs of a theology of progress, of authentic secularization and human advancement.

The end of the 1960s, with the crisis of populism and the developmentalist model, brought the advent of a vigorous current of sociological thinking, which unmasked the true causes of underdevelopment. Development and underdevelopment are two sides of the same coin. All the nations of the Western world were engaged in a vast process of development; however, it was interdependent and unequal, organized in such a way that the benefits flowed to the already developed countries of the "center" and the disadvantages were meted out to the historically backward and underdeveloped wontries of the "periphery." The poverty of Third World countries was the price to be paid for the First World to be able to enjoy the fruits of overabundance.

In ecclesial circles by now accustomed to following developments in society and studies of its problems, this interpretation acted as a leaven, yielding a new vitality and critical spirit in pastoral circles. The relationship of dependence of the periphery on the center had to be replaced by a process of breaking away and liberation. So the basis of a theology of development was undermined and the theoretical foundations for a theology of liberation were laid. Its material foundations were provided only when popular movements and Christian groups came together in the struggle for social and political liberation, with the ultimate aim of complete and integral liberation. This was when the objective conditions for an authentic liberation theology came about.

Theological Development
The first theological reflections that were to lead to liberation theology had their origins in a context of dialogue between a church and a society in ferment, between Christian faith and the longings for transformation and liberation arising from the people. The Second Vatican Council produced a theological atmosphere characterized by great freedom and creativity. This gave Latin American theologians the courage to think for themselves about pastoral problems affecting their countries. This process could be seen at work among both Catholic and Protestant thinkers with the group Church and Society in Latin America (ISAL) taking a prominent put. There were frequent meetings between Catholic theologians (Gustavo Gutiérrez, Segundo Galilea, Juan Luis Segundo, Lucio Gera, and others) and Protestant Emilio Castro, Julio de Santa Ana, Rubem Alves, José Míguez Bonino), leading to intensified reflection on the relationship between faith and poverty, the gospel and social justice, and the like. In Brazil, between 1959 and 1964, the Catholic left produced a series of basic texts on the need for a Christian ideal of history, linked to popular action, with a methodology that foreshadowed that of liberation theology; they urged personal engagement in the world, backed up by studies of social and liberal sciences, and illustrated by the universal principles of Christianity.
At a meeting of Latin American theologians held in Petrópolis (Rio de Janeiro) in Much 1964, Gustavo Gutiérrez described theology as critical reflection on praxis. This line of thought was further developed at meetings in Havana, Bogotá, and Cuernavaca in June and July 1965. Many other meetings were held as pat of the preparatory work for the Medellin conference of 1968; these acted as laboratories for a theology worked out on the basis of pastoral concerns and committed Christian action. Lectures given by Gustavo Gutiérrez in Montreal in 1967 and at Chimbote in Peru on the poverty of the Third World and the challenge it posed to the development of a pastoral strategy of liberation were a further powerful impetus toward a theology of liberation. Its outlines were first put forward at the theological congress at Cartigny, Switzerland, in 1969: "Toward a Theology of Liberation."

The first Catholic congresses devoted to liberation theology were held in Bogota in March 1970 and July 1971. On the Protestant side, ISAL organized something similar in Buenos Aires the same years.

Finally, in December 1971, Gustavo Gutiérrez published his seminal work, Teología de la liberación. In May Hugo Assmarm had conducted a symposium, "Oppression-Liberation: The Challenge to Christians," in Montevideo, and Leonardo Boff had published a series of articles under the title Jesus Cristo Libertador. The door was opened for the development of a theology from the periphery dealing with the concerns of this periphery, concerns that presented and still present an immense challenge to the evangelizing mission of the church.

Formulation
For the sake of clarity and a better understanding of the advances made, the formulation of liberation theology can be divided into four stages.
The Foundational Stage

The foundations were laid by those who sketched the general outlines of this way of doing theology. Besides the all-important writings of Gustavo Gutiérrez, outstanding works were produced by Juan Luis Segundo: De la sociedad a la teología (1970), Liberación de la teología (1975); by Hugo Assmann: Teología desde la praxis de liberación; Lucio Gera: Apuntes para una interpretactón de le Iglesia argentina (1970), Teologio de la liberación (1973). Others who should be mentioned we Bishop (later Cardinal) Eduardo Pironio, secretary of CELAM, Segundo Galilea, and Raimondo Caramuru, principal theological consultant to the Brazilian Bishops' Conference. There was also a great ferment of activity in the shape of courses and retreats during this period.

On the Protestant side, besides Emilio Castro and Julio de Santa Ana, the outstanding contributions were made by Rubem Alves: Religion: Opium of the People or Instrument of Liberation (1969), and José Míguez Bonino: La fe en busca de eficacia (1967) and Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (1975).

Lay persons such as Héctor Borrat, Methol Ferré, and Luiz Alberto Gómez de Souza did valuable work in linking theology with the social sciences, as did the Belgian priest François Houtart and the Chilean G. Arroyo.

The Building Stage

The first stage was characterized by the presentation of liberation theology as a sort of "fundamental theology" -- that is, as an opening up of new horizons and perspectives that gave a new outlook on the whole of theology. The second stage moved on to the first efforts at giving the liberation approach doctrinal content. Three areas received most attention as corresponding to the most urgent needs in the life of the church: spirituality, christology, and ecclesiology. There was a wide range of publications from many Latin American countries. The main writers: in Argentina, Enrique Dussel, Juan Carlos Scarmone, Severino Croatto, and Aldo Büntig; in Brazil, João Batista Libânio, Frei Betio, Carlos Maintains, José Comblin, Eduardo Hoornaert, José Oscar Beozzo, Gilberto Gorgulho, Carlos Palácio, Leonardo Boff; in Chile, Ronaldo Muñoz, Sergio Torres, and Pablo Richard; in Mexico, Raúl Vidales, Luis del Valle, Arnaldo Zenteno, Camilo Maccise, and Jesús Garcia; in Central America, Ignacio Ellacuría, Jon Sobrino, Juan H. Pico, Uriel Molina; in Venezuela, Pedro Trigo and Otto Maduro (sociologist); in Colombia, Luis Patiño and Cecilio de Llora.

The Settling-in Stage

With the process of theological reflection well advanced, the need was seen for a dual process of "settling in" if the theology of liberation was to become firmly established. On the one hand was the understanding that the theological current needed to be given a firm epistemological basis: how to avoid duplications and confusions of language and levels while giving coherent expression to the themes arising from original spiritual experience, taking in the analytical seeing stage, moving on to the theological judging stage, and so to the pastoral action stage? Good liberation theology presupposes the art of linking its theories with the explicit inclusion of practice; in this arm liberation theology found fruitful collaborators, not only for its own purposes, but for those of the overall theological process. On the other hand, the "settling in" process was effectively achieved through the deliberate mingling of theologians and other intellectuals in popular circles and processes of liberation.

More and more theologians became pastors too, militant agents of inspiration for the life of the church at its grass roots and those of society. It became usual to see theologians taking part in involved epistemological discussions in learned congresses, then leaving to go back to their bases among the people to become involved in matters of catechesis, trade union politics, and community organization.

Names again are many; a selection should include António A. da Silva, Rogério de Almeida Cunha, Clodovis Boff, Hugo d'Ans, Francisco Taborda, Marcelo de Barros, and Eliseu Lopes, all from Brazil; Elsa Tamez and Victorio Araya from Costa Rica; D. Irarrazaval, Carmen Lima, Riolando Ames, R. Antoncich, and the late Hugo Echegaray from Peru; Victor Codina from Bolivia; Virgilio Elizondo from Texas; J. L. Caravia from Ecuador; P. Läennec, from Haiti.

The Formalization Stage

Any original theological vision tends, with the passage of time and through its own internal logic, to seek more formal expression. Liberation theology always set out to reexamine the whole basic content of revelation and tradition so as to bring out the social and liberating dimensions implicit in both sources. Again, this is not a matter of reducing the totality of mystery to this one dimension, but of underlining aspects of a greater truth particularly relevant to our context of oppression and liberation.

Such a formalization also corresponds to pastoral requirements. The last few years have seen a great extension of situations in which the church has become involved with the oppressed, with a very large number of pastoral workers involved. Many movements have come into being under the tutelage, to a large extent, of liberation theology; these in turn have posed new challenges to liberation theology. In Brazil alone, there are movements or centers for black unity and conscientization, human rights, defense of slum-dwellers, marginalized women, mission to Amerindians, rural pastoral strategy, and so forth -- all concerned in one way or another with the poorest of the poor seeking liberation.

To cope with this broad pastoral need and give theological underpinning to the training of pastoral workers, a group of more than one hundred Catholic theologians (with ecumenical contacts and Protestant collaborators) have been planning a series of fifty-five volumes under the heading Theology and Liberation, with Portuguese and Spanish publication starting in late 1985 and translations into other languages planned. Its aim will be to cover all the basic themes of theology and pastoral work from a liberation viewpoint. There are too many persons involved at this stage to list them here: all those from the earlier stages would be included, together with a number of new collaborators.

Support and Opposition
Liberation theology spread by virtue of the inner dynamism with which it codified Christian faith as it applies to the pastoral needs of the poor. Meetings, congresses, theological cal reviews, and the support of prophetic bishops -- Hélder Câmara, Luis Proaño, Samuel Ruiz, Sergio Méndez Arceo, and Cardinals Paulo Evaristo Arns and D. A. Lorscheider, among many others -- have helped to give it weight and credibility.
A series of events has been instrumental in spreading this theology and ensuring its "reception" among theologians the world over:

The congress at El Escorial, Spain, in July 1972 on the subject of "Christian faith and the transformation of society in Latin America."

The first congress of Latin American theologians, held in Mexico City in August 1975.

The first formal contacts between liberation theologians and advocates of U.S. black liberation and other liberation movements-feminist, Amerindian, and the like.

The creation of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) in 1976 and the congresses it has held: Dar es Salaam in 1976, Accra in 1977, Wennappuwa, Sri Lanka, in 1979, Situ Paulo in 1980, Geneva in 1983, Oaxtepec, Mexico, in 1986. All these produced Final Conclusions with their particular characteristics, but all within the framework of liberation theology.

Finally, the international theological review Concilium (published in seven languages) devoted a complete issue (vol. 6, no. 10, June 1974) to the subject of liberation theology, with all the articles coming from Latin American liberation theologians.
A number of important reviews in Latin America have become regular vehicles for the publication of articles and discussions by liberation theologians: in Mexico, Christus, Servir, and Contacto; in Venezuela, SIC; in Chile, Pastoral Popular, in Brazil, Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira (REB), Grande Sinal, Puebla, and Perspectiva Teológica; in El Salvador, Estudios Centroamericanos (ECA) and Revista Latinoamericana de Teología; in Panama, Diólogico Social.

Most countries in Latin America also have centers for theological and pastoral studies: CEAS (Centro de Estudos e Ação, Salvador), CEP (Centro de Estudios y Publicaciones, Lima), ITER (Instituto de Teologia do Recife), DEI (Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones, San José, Costa Rica), CAV (Centre Antonio Valdivieso, Managua), and many more. They have been important for training students imbued with a liberation approach.

While all these developments were taking place, reservations and opposition began to be expressed by some who feared the faith was becoming overpoliticized, and by others who mistrusted any use of Marxist categories in analyzing social structures. Also many were unable to accept the deep changes in the structure of capitalist society postulated by this theology. This negative reaction crystalized around three figures in particular: Alfonso López Trujillo, formerly secretary and later president of CELAM, Roger Vekemans of CEDIAL (Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo e Integración de América Latina, Bogota) and the review Tierra Nueva, and Bonaventura Kloppenburg, formerly director of the Medellin Pastoral Institute, later auxiliary bishop of Salvador, Brazil, and author of Christian Salvation and Human Temporal Progress (1979).

The Magisterium of the Church
As a general rule, the magisterium watches the development of new theologies with close attention but rarely intervenes and then only with great caution and discreet support or opposition.
As far back as 1971, the final document "Justice in the World," the topic of the second ordinary assembly of the Synod of Bishops, already showed traces of liberation theology. Its echoes had become much stronger by 1974, at the third assembly of the Synod, on "Evangelization of the Modern World." The following year, Paul VI devoted fifteen paragraphs of his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi to the relationship between evangelization and liberation (nos. 25-39). This discussion forms the central core of the document, and without attempting to summarize the Pope's position, we can just say that it is one of the most profound, balanced, and theological expositions yet made of the longing of the oppressed for liberation.

The magisterium has also produced the "Instruction on Some Aspects of Liberation Theology, " under the auspices of the Prefect and Secretariat of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dated August 6, 1984, and published September 3. The main points about this document are its legitimation of the expression and purpose of liberation theology, and its warning to Christians of the risk inherent in an uncritical acceptance of Marxism as a dominant principle in theological endeavor. The subject had been studied in Rome since 1974, and had been the concern of innumerable sessions of the International Theological Commission, though it did not publish my results until 1977, when it produced a "Declaration on Human Development and Christian Salvation" (included as an appendix in Kloppenburg's book mentioned above), which shows a grasp of the questions such as was to be expected from such an august theological body.

The magisterium of the church in Latin America has expressed itself primarily through the documents of two conferences. The second general conference of the episcopate of Latin America, held at Medellin, Colombia, in 1968, spoke of the church "listening to the cry of the poor and becoming the interpreter of their anguish"; this was the first flowering of the theme of liberation, which began to be worked out systematically only after Medellin. The third general conference, held at Puebla, Mexico, in 1979, shows the theme of liberation running right through its final document. The liberation dimension is seen a an "integral put" (§§355, 1254, 1283) of the mission of the church, "indispensable" (§§562, 1270), "essential" (§1302). A large put of the document (§§470-506) is devoted to evangelization, liberation, and human promotion, and a whole chapter (§§1134-56) to the "preferential option for the poor," a central axis of liberation theology.

The general tenor of the pronouncements of the magisterium, whether papal or coming from the Synod of Bishops, has been to recognize the positive aspects of liberation theology, especially with reference to the poor and the need for their liberation, as forming put of the universal heritage of Christian commitment to history. Criticisms of certain tendencies within liberation theology, which have to be taken into account, do not negate the vigorous and healthy nucleus of this form of Christian thinking, which has done so much to bring the message of the historical Jesus to the world of today.

GFA Leader Says Political Radicals Responsible for Persecution of Christians in India January 14, 2008 by Doug Parris

2008-01-14T09:40:00.000-08:00

GFA Leader Says Political Radicals Responsible for Persecution of Christians in India
January 14, 2008 by Doug Parris

CARROLLTON, Texas, January 13 /CNW/ — The founder and president of a Christian Ministry that operates over 30,000 worship centers in 10 Asian nations says he is terribly disturbed by the increasing persecution of Christians in his homeland of India. And while it is evident that the rising tide of harassment and crimes against Christians is being carefully orchestrated by nationalist Hindu groups, he says such behavior is not condoned by either Hinduism at large or by the vast majority of the Indian people.

Dr. K.P. Yohannan of “Gospel for Asia” said, “There is a lot of disturbing news coming out of India, a place where Christians and followers of other faiths have lived in peace together for centuries. Today, the Christians of India are being persecuted in ways that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable.”

Dr. Yohannan cited the reports he has received in just the past few weeks:

In the state of Jharkhand, radical Hindus beat up a 14-year-old girl and her mother, dragged them from their home and forced them to bow down before a man-made idol in an effort to force the girl to recant her faith. This was in spite of the fact that the girl considered the claims of the Gospel for three years and had her parents’ permission to become a Christian.
An estimated 2,000 tribal Christians are hiding out in the forests of Orissa state for fear of their lives after being threatened by anti-Christian fanatics.
At least 60 church buildings and hundreds of Christian homes have been destroyed. As a result, many believers are sleeping on piles of hay with only the clothes they were wearing when they escaped– and temperatures are hovering around 50 degrees F (10o C).
A pastor was beaten, his head was shaved, he was paraded through the streets, forced to bow to an idol and had his home destroyed.
All of the Catholic churches in one district have been burned down or left as unusable skeletons of buildings, with all furniture and other items burned.
A 300-year-old Baptist church is said to be scheduled for attack next week, as are two villages that are 80 percent Christian.
“All of this is on top of dozens and dozens of reports over the past several months of increased persecution against Christians from across India, including the beating up of some of our seminary students and even our women missionaries,” Dr. Yohannan said.“

Just the fact that these radicals are attacking women is a tremendously low thing that is totally unthinkable in normal Indian society. So the questions must be raised: ‘Who are these radicals in the streets, who is behind this violence and lawlessness, and why are they doing what they are doing?’ “

He then laid out some answers.

“What the Christians in the West need to understand is that this recent violence is not just the result of random acts by local gangs. It is carefully planned by the leaders of a few extremely radical Hindu nationalist organizations that want to totally destroy the Church in India.

“Many of those who attack churches and Christians are not from the local village, but come from many miles away. Then they try to enlist local youths to join them, and the attack is on. But the problem is not really the local villagers, because they usually welcome our missionaries and appreciate what they are trying to do for them. Rather, it is the extremist political parties who are behind it and their street thugs who do the dirty work.”

He cited a statement by the chairman of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India that lays blame for the attacks at the feet of the radicals.

After visiting Orissa, Cardinal Telesphore Toppo presented a letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in which he said the attacks against Christians were “undoubtedly premeditated” and “carried out by sectarian forces.” Other bishops have been even more outspoken, naming the radical Hindu organizations they say planned the attacks.

One GFA regional leader said the violence in Orissa is part of a deliberate plan to break down the will of the Christians, cut them off from outside assistance and then, when they are left cold, hungry and alone, force them to deny their faith.

Dr. Yohannan went on explain why the radicals are attacking the poorest Christians.

“When we hear of these attacks, it is usually against Dalit or tribal Christians,” he pointed out. “These are the Untouchables and others at the bottom of the caste system, and they have been held in slave-like conditions for more than 3,000 years. It is on the backs of these hopeless people that the upper castes have built their wealth, and their control is based on convincing the Dalits that they are sub-human, worth less than animals, and despised even by their gods.

“So when the Dalits and tribals hear the message that God loves them as much as any other person in the world, it is a radical message. They are responding by the thousands–and many in the upper castes are not happy at the prospect of losing their ’slaves.’

“To keep the Dalits in bondage, the radicals raise the argument that ‘to be Indian is to be Hindu,’ and that Christians are ‘outsiders’ who want to destroy India.

“Of course, the reality is that Christianity has been in India since the Apostle Thomas brought the Gospel to South India in the first century. And our Indian believers are as loyal to their Indian homeland as any Hindu or Muslim.

“The real problem for them, of course, is that millions of Dalits and others are responding to the message of Christianity. And just as it did in New Testament days, that becomes an economic threat to some, and instills fear of change in others. And since they cannot fight it through peaceful persuasion, they resort to violence.

“Our response is to pray for those who persecute us”

I ask that all Christians earnestly pray for the missionaries, pastors and others who are suffering at this time. And pray that the government of India–and the state governments–will act to end this violence and the prejudice against the Christians that fuels it.”

Posted in Acknowledgement of God, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech

Azusa Street Revival by Edith Blumhofer return to religion-online

2008-01-14T08:49:00.000-08:00

return to religion-online

Azusa Street Revival

by Edith Blumhofer

Edith Blumhofer teaches at Wheaton College in Illinois and recently wrote Her Heart Can See: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby (Eerdmans). This article appeared in The Christian Century, (March 7, 2006, pp. 20-22.) Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation: used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.

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On April 9, 1906, at a prayer meeting in a modest home on Bonnie Brae Street in Los Angeles, a few men and women spoke in tongues. They had been meeting to pray for "an outpouring" of the Holy Spirit. The tongues speech convinced them that they had "broken through."

News of the event spread rapidly among blacks, Latinos and whites, the prosperous and the poor, immigrants and natives. Those who yearned for revival, as well as the curious, thronged the house. The need for space prompted a move to an abandoned Methodist church on Azusa Street. For the next two years, waves of religious enthusiasm waxed and waned at Azusa Street, attracting visitors from across the nation and missionaries from around the globe. The faithful announced that this was a reenactment of the New Testament Day of Pentecost: "All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability" (Acts 2:4). God was restoring New Testament experiences of the Holy Spirit -- or, as devotees of the movement put it, restoring the apostolic faith.

At Azusa Street, one could see and hear the "utterance gifts" listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. Seekers spent hours praying to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, an experience they expected would be attested by speaking in tongues. People interpreted tongues and prophesied -- phenomena with which few Christians had any direct experience. The sick came for healing.

Why were such things happening on an out-of-the-way city street? The faithful had a simple answer: the end of the world loomed, and God was sending the Holy Spirit to equip his chosen people for one last burst of evangelism before it was too late. The baptism with the Holy Spirit was an end-times "enduement with power for service" that went hand in hand with personal holiness. The visible gifts of the Holy Spirit testified to the Spirit’s immediate presence in and among believers.

A century later, Pentecostal denominations boast over 10 million members in the U.S. If one adds those in other churches who embrace Pentecostal-like beliefs and practices, the number more than doubles. Estimates in 2005 of the worldwide number of Pentecostals suggest that there are over 580 million adherents, making Pentecostals the second largest group of Christians in the world, trailing only Roman Catholics. Even those who challenge these numbers agree that by any measure Pentecostal Christianity has experienced dramatic growth. Directly and indirectly, the Azusa Street revival influenced this expansion.

Azusa Street stands at the core of the Pentecostal myth of origins. In recent years scholars have stressed that global Pentecostalism has multiple origins, and that the Azusa Street revival was one of several impulses that birthed a distinctly Pentecostal form of Christianity. In some places the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905 played the role that Azusa Street filled in North America. The Korean revival of 1907, the Indian revivals reaching back into the 19th century and some indigenous African movements are watersheds in non-Western Pentecostal narratives. Yet, for a variety of reasons, Azusa Street has gained the most visibility, especially in Western renderings of Pentecostal history. And perhaps justifiably so: its immediate global impact, its widely circulated publications, and its networking role kept people aware of its message. Even if Azusa Street was not the only source of the global Pentecostal impulse. it had a vital role in shaping the contours of worldwide Pentecostalism.

What happened at Azusa Street? At the center of this "new thing" stood an African-American preacher named William Seymour. The son of slaves, Seymour had traveled to Los Angeles from Texas to share what he had learned from a self-made preacher named Charles Fox Parham.

During the 1890s, Parham had heard much talk about the baptism with the Holy Spirit, but he observed a lack of consensus on the evidence for this baptism. In 1901, Parham began to preach that the "Bible evidence" of the baptism with the Holy Spirit was speaking in tongues. He called his message the Apostolic Faith. In 1903, thanks to a healing and local revival in eastern Kansas, Parharm’s Apostolic Faith began attracting followers. By 1905 his work had reached the Houston area, where he met Seymour. Parham encouraged Seymour to accept an invitation to preach in Los Angeles.

The Azusa Street mission, then, had direct antecedents in Parham’s modest midwestern efforts. The core of Parham’s message prospered briefly in Seymour’s hands. For a few years, the Azusa Street mission became the best-known hub of a movement framed by premillennialist views, influenced by a Wesleyan fervor for holiness and committed to the practice of the spiritual gifts enumerated in 1 Corinthians 12. For a time at least, whites, blacks, Latinos and Native Americans mingled at the mission, though interracial acceptance was at best imperfect and soon broken.

In the fall of 1906, Seymour and an associate, a white woman named Clara Lum, began chronicling the revival in a periodical called Apostolic Faith. It quickly became evident that the Azusa Street revival resonated with widely scattered people in part because it seemed hauntingly familiar. Azusa Street gave them context for their own religious experiences and networked them with those who shared their radical evangelical instincts.

In time new denominations influenced by Azusa Street blended the distinctive Apostolic Faith focus on the experience of the Holy Spirit with traditional evangelical tenets. Before World War I, the Church of God in Christ, the Assemblies of God, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), the Pentecostal Holiness Church and a host of smaller associations -- English-speaking and immigrant -- had woven the message associated with Azusa Street into a fabric of belief and practice. In the 1920s, Aimee Semple McPherson’s new International Church of the Foursquare Gospel was poised to reinvigorate Los Angeles Pentecostalisin. By then, internal disunity had prompted the formation of a cluster of Pentecostal denominations (Anglo, African American and Latino) that denied the Trinity -- for example, the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, the forerunner of the United Pentecostal Church, and many Apostolic movements -- while sharing the Apostolic Faith heritage. A host of more recent independent associations, charismatic fellowships and nondenominational megachurches also draw inspiration from versions of the Azusa Street narrative.

The Azusa Street revival had global reach through Apostolic Faith, the popular religious press, missionary correspondence and personal ambassadors who, emboldened by their religious experiences, traveled the globe to announce firsthand the revival’s urgent message of spiritual empowerment in the last days. In time, career missionaries supported by Pentecostal denominations planted the revival’s message in remote places around the globe.

The centrality of Azusa Street in the story of Pentecostalism is due in large part to the work of the revivals tireless promoter Frank Bartleman. A restless maverick driven from place to place by his determination to be part of whatever God was doing in the world, Bartleman singlehandedly turned the Azusa Street revival into a literary event of global magnitude by chronicling his impressions and assigning them meaning in a widely circulated book, How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles. In this 1925 publication, Bartleman made a case for the centrality of "old Azusa" for Pentecostal identity: "Wales was but intended as the cradle for this worldwide restoration of the power of God. India but the Nazareth where he was ‘brought up."’ What really mattered was Azusa Street. American Pentecostals and many scholars have since often been content to take his word for it, glimpsing Azusa Street through Bartleman’s eyes instead of rigorously examining the revival’s extent and limits.

Azusa Street has had a profound place in collective Pentecostal memory. Its imaginative power shapes not only narrative but also practice and makes the historiography of Pentecostalism surprisingly contentious because adherents generally embrace a particular version of the revival’s story and often engage parts of its legacy rather the whole. The Apostolic Faith Mission no longer stands on Azusa Street, but a century after the mission opened its doors (and in some ways now more than ever) the Azusa Street revival in one way or another frames the identities of millions of Pentecostal Christians.

Pentecostalism c/o http://www.mb-soft.com/believe/txc/pentecos.htm

2008-01-14T08:45:00.000-08:00

Pentecostalism
{pen - tuh - kaws' - tul - izm}
General Information

Pentecostalism, a worldwide Protestant movement that originated in the 19th century United States, takes its name from the Christian feast of Pentecost, which celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples.

Pentecostalism emphasizes a postconversion experience of spiritual purification and empowering for Christian witness, entry into which is signaled by utterance in unknown tongues (Glossolalia / Speaking In Tongues).

Although Pentecostalism generally aligns itself with Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, its distinguishing tenet reflects roots in the American Holiness movement, which believed in the postconversion experience as entire sanctification.

Pentecostalism grew from occurrences of glossolalia in the southern Appalachians (1896), Topeka, Kans. (1901), and Los Angeles (1906). Working independently, Holiness movement preachers W R Spurling and A J Tomlinson in the South, Charles Fox Parham in Topeka, and William Seymour in Los Angeles, each convinced of general apostasy in American Christianity, preached and prayed for religious revival. Generally rejected by the older denominations, Pentecostals long remained isolated and were reluctant to organize. Now, however, several groups belong to the National Association of Evangelicals in the United States and to the World Council of Churches. The largest multicongregational Pentecostal body in the United States is the Assemblies of God, with an inclusive membership of about 2.1 million (1988). Today the Pentecostal movement is spread over the world; it is particularly strong in South America and has an estimated 500,000 adherents in the U S S R.
Bibliography
S M Burcess and G B McGee, Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (1988); V Synan, The Twentieth Century Pentecostal Explosion in the United States (1987).

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Pentecostalism
Advanced Information
Pentecostalism is an evangelical charismatic reformation movement which usually traces its roots to an outbreak of tongue - speaking in Topeka, Kansas, in 1901 under the leadership of Charles Fox Parham, a former Methodist preacher. It was Parham who formulated the basic Pentecostal doctrine of "initial evidence" after a student in his Bethel Bible School, Agnes Ozman, experienced glossolalia in January, 1901.

Basically Pentecostals believe that the experience of the 120 on the day of Pentecost, known as the "baptism in the Holy Spirit," should be normative for all Christians. Most Pentecostals believe, furthermore, that the first sign of "initial evidence" of this second baptism is speaking in a language unknown to the speaker.

Although speaking in tongues had appeared in the nineteenth century in both England and America, it had never assumed the importance attributed to it by the later Pentecostals. For instance, glossolalia occurred in the 1830s under the ministry of Presbyterian Edward Irving in London, in the services of Mother Ann Lee's Shaker movement, and among Joseph Smith's Mormon followers in New York, Missouri, and Utah. The Pentecostals, however, were the first to give doctrinal primacy to the practice.

Though Pentecostals recognize such sporadic instances of tongue - speaking and other charismatic phenomena throughout the Christian era, they stress the special importance of the Azusa Street revival, which occurred in an abandoned African Methodist Episcopal church in downtown Los Angeles from 1906 to 1909 and which launched Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement. The Azusa Street services were led by William J Seymour, a black Holiness preacher from Houston, Texas, and a student of Parham.

The Topeka and Los Angeles events took place in a turn - of - the - century religious environment that encouraged the appearance of such a Pentecostal movement. The major milieu out of which Pentecostalism sprang was the worldwide Holiness movement, which had developed out of nineteenth century American Methodism. Leaders in this movement were Phoebe Palmer and John Inskip, who emphasized a "second blessing" crisis of sanctification through the "baptism in the Holy Spirit." English evangelicals also stressed a separate Holy Spirit experience in the Keswick Conventions beginning in 1874.

From America and England "higher life" Holiness movements spread to many nations of the world, usually under the auspices of Methodist missionaries and traveling evangelists. Although these revivalist did not stress charismatic phenomena, they emphasized a conscious experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit and an expectancy of a restoration of the NT church as a sign of the end of the church age. Other teachings that became prominent in this period were the possibility of miraculous divine healing in answer to prayer and the expectation of the imminent premillennial second coming of Christ. A great interest in the person and work of the Holy Spirit elicited the publication of many books and periodicals devoted to teaching seekers how to receive an "enduement of power" through an experience in the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion.

In the quest to be filled with the Holy Spirit, many testimonies were given concerning emotional experiences which accompanied the "second blessing," as it was called. In the tradition of the American frontier some received the experience with eruptions of joy or shouting, while others wept or spoke of surpassing peace and quietness.

By 1895 a further movement was begun in Iowa which stressed a third blessing called "the fire," which followed the conversion and sanctification experiences already taught by the Holiness movement. The leader of this movement was Benjamin Hardin Irwin from Lincoln, Nebraska, who named his new group the Fire - Baptized Holiness Church. Other "fire - baptized" groups formed during this period included the Pillar of Fire Church of Denver, Colorado, and the Burning Bush of Minneapolis, Minn.

Not only did such Holiness teachers emphasize conscious religious experiences; they tended to encourage persons to seek for them as "crisis" experiences that could be received in an instant of time through prayer and faith. By 1900 the Holiness movement had begun to think of religious experiences more in terms of crises than in gradual categories. Thus the Fire - Baptized Holiness Church taught instant conversion through the new birth, instant sanctification as a second blessing, instant baptism in the Holy Ghost and fire, instant divine healing through prayer, and the instant premillennial second coming of Christ.

Those teachers of the Keswick persuasion tended to speak of the four cardinal doctrines of the movement. This way of thinking was formalized in A B Simpson's four basic doctrines of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which stressed instant salvation, baptism in the Holy Spirit, divine healing, and the second coming of Christ.

Thus, when tongue - speaking occurred in Topeka in 1901, the only significant addition to the foregoing was to insist that tongue - speaking was the biblical evidence of receiving the Holy Spirit baptism. All the other teachings and practices of Pentecostalism were adopted whole cloth from the Holiness milieu in which it was born, including its style of worship, its hymnody, and its basic theology.

After 1906 Pentecostalism spread rapidly in the United States and around the world. Despite its origins in the Holiness movement, the majority of Holiness leaders rejected Pentecostalism, and there were occasional charges of demon possession and mental instability. Leaders of the older Holiness denominations rejected Pentecostal teachings outright. These included the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), and the Salvation Army.

Other Holiness groups, however, were Pentecostalized rapidly as leaders went to Azusa Street to investigate the phenomena in evidence there. Among the Azusa Street "pilgrims" were G B Cashwell (North Carolina), C H Mason (Tennessee), Glen Cook (California), A G Argue (Canada), and W H Durham (Chicago). Within a year from the opening of the Azusa Street meeting (April, 1906), these and many others spread the Pentecostal message around the nation. Sharp controversies and divisions ensured in several Holiness denominations. The first Pentecostal denominations emerged from these struggles from 1906 to 1908.

This first wave of Holiness - Pentecostal groups included the Pentecostal Holiness Church, the Church of God in Christ, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), the Apostolic Faith (Portland, Oregon), the United Holy Church. Most of Pentecostal Free - Will Baptist Church. Most of these churches were located in the southern states and experienced rapid growth after their Pentecostal renewal began. Two of these, the Church of God in Christ and the United Holy Church, were predominantly black.

Pentecostalism also spread rapidly around the world after 1906. The leading European pioneer was Thomas Ball Barratt, a Norwegian Methodist pastor who founded flourishing Pentecostal movements in Norway, Sweden, and England. The German pioneer was the Holiness leader Jonathan Paul. Lewi Pethrus, a convert of Barratt's, began a significant Pentecostal movement in Sweden which originated among Baptists. A strong Pentecostal movement reached Italy through relatives of American immigrants of Italian extraction.

Pentecostalism was introduced to Russia and other Slavic nations through the efforts of Ivan Voronaev, a Russian - born American immigrant from New York City who established the first Russian - language Pentecostal church in Manhattan in 1919. In 1920 he began a ministry in Odessa, Russia, which was the origin of the movement in the Slavic nations. Voronaev founded over 350 congregations in Russia, Poland, and Bulgaria before being arrested by the Soviet police in 1929. He died in prison.

Pentecostalism reached Chile in 1909 under the leadership of an American Methodist missionary, Willis C Hoover. When the Methodist Church rejected Pentecostal manifestations, a schism occurred which resulted in the organization of the Methodist Pentecostal Church. Extremely rapid growth after 1909 made Pentecostalism the predominant form of Protestantism in Chile.

The Pentecostal movement in Brazil began in 1910 under the leadership of two American Swedish immigrant, Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren, who began Pentecostal services in a Baptist church in Belem, Para. A schism soon followed, resulting in the first Pentecostal congregation in the nation which took the name Assemblies of God. Phenomenal growth also caused Pentecostalism to be the major Protestant force in Brazil.

Successful Pentecostal missions were also begun by 1910 in China, Africa, and many other nations of the world. The missionary enterprise accelerated rapidly after the formation of major missions - oriented Pentecostal denominations in the United States after 1910.

It was inevitable that such a vigorous movement would suffer controversy and division in its formative stages. Though the movement has been noted for its many submovements, only two divisions have been considered major. These involved teachings concerning sanctification and the Trinity.

The sanctification controversy grew out of the Holiness theology held by most of the first Pentecostals, including Parham and Seymour. Having taught that sanctification was a "second work of grace" prior to their Pentecostal experiences, they simply added the baptism of the Holy Spirit with glossolalia as a "third blessing." In 1910 William H Durham of Chicago began teaching his "finished work" theory, which emphasized sanctification as a progressive work following conversion with baptism in the Holy Spirit following as the second blessing.

The Assemblies of God, which was formed in 1914, based its theology on Durham's teachings and soon became the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world. Most of the Pentecostal groups that began after 1914 were based on the model of the Assemblies of God. They include the Pentecostal Church of God, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (founded in 1927 by Aimee Semple McPherson), and the Open Bible Standard Church.

A more serious schism grew out of the "oneness" or "Jesus only" controversy, which began in 1911 in Los Angeles. Led by Glen Cook and Frank Ewart, this movement rejected the teaching of the Trinity and taught that Jesus Christ was at the same time Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that the only biblical mode of water baptism was administered in Jesus' name and then was valid only if accompanied with glossolalia. This movement spread rapidly in the infant Assemblies of God after 1914 and resulted in a schism in 1916, which later produced the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World and the United Pentecostal Church.

Through the years other schisms occurred over lesser doctrinal disputes and personality clashes, producing such movements as the Church of God of Prophecy and the Congregational Holiness Church. The large number of Pentecostal sects in America and the world, however, did not result from controversy or schism. In most cases Pentecostal denominations developed out of separate indigenous churches originating in different areas of the world with little or no contact with other organized bodies.

The greatest growth for Pentecostal churches came after World War II. With more mobility and greater prosperity, Pentecostals began to move into the middle class and to lose their image of being disinherited members of the lower classes. The emergence of healing evangelists such as Oral Roberts and Jack Coe in the 1950s brought greater interest and acceptance to the movement. The TV ministry of Roberts also brought Pentecostalism into the homes of the average American. The founding of the Full Gospel Business Men in 1948 brought the Pentecostal message to a whole new class of middleclass professional and business men, helping further to change the image of the movement.

In the post - World War II period the Pentecostals also began to emerge from their isolation, not only from each other but from other Christian groups as well. In 1943 the Assemblies of God, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, and the Pentecostal Holiness Church became charter members of the National Association of Evangelicals, thus clearly disassociating themselves from the organized fundamentalist groups which had disfellowshiped the Pentecostals in 1928. They thus became part of the moderate evangelical camp that grew to prominence by the 1970s.

Intrapentecostal ecumenism began to flourish also during the late 1940s both in the United States and elsewhere. In 1947 the first World Pentecostal Conference met in Zurich, Switzerland, and has since met triennially. The next year the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America was formed in Des Moines, Iowa, and has met annually since then.

Pentecostalism entered a new phase in 1960 with the appearance of "neo - Pentecostalism" in the traditional churches in the United States. The first well - known person to openly experience glossolalia and remain within his church was Dennis Bennett, an Episcopal priest in Van Nuys, California. Although forced to leave his parish in Van Nuys because of controversy over his experience, Bennett was invited to pastor an innercity Episcopal parish in Seattle, Wash. The church in Seattle experienced rapid growth after the introduction of Pentecostal worship, becoming a center of neo - Pentecostalism in the northwestern United States.

This new wave of Pentecostalism soon spread to other denominations in the United States and also to many other nations. Other well - known neo - Pentecostal leaders were Brick Bradford and James Brown (Presbyterian); John Osteen and Howard Irvin (Baptist); Gerald Derstine and Bishop Nelson Litwiler (Mennonite); Larry Christenson (Lutheran); and Ross Whetstone (United Methodist).

In 1966 Pentecostalism entered the Roman Catholic Church as the result of a weekend retreat at Duquesne University led by theology professors Ralph Keiffer and Bill Story. As glossolalia and other charismatic gifts were experienced, other Catholic prayer groups were formed at Notre Dame University and the University of Michigan. By 1973 the movement had spread so rapidly that thirty thousand Catholic Pentecostals gathered at Notre Dame for a national conference. The movement had spread to Catholic churches in over a hundred nations by 1980. Other prominent Catholic Pentecostal leaders were Kevin Ranaghan, Steve Clark, and Ralph Martin. The most prominent leader among Catholics, however, was Joseph Leon Cardinal Suenens, who was named by popes Paul VI and John Paul II as episcopal adviser to the renewal.

In order to distinguish these newer Pentecostals from the older Pentecostal denominations, the word "charismatic" began to be used widely around 1973 to designate the movement in the mainline churches. The older Pentecostals were called "classical Pentecostals." By 1980 the term "neo - Pentecostal" had been universally abandoned in favor of "charismatic renewal."

Unlike the rejection of the earlier Pentecostals, the charismatic renewal was generally allowed to remain within the mainline churches. Favorable study reports by the Episcopalians (1963), Roman Catholics (1969, 1974), and the Presbyterians (1970), while pointing out possible excesses, generally were tolerant and open to the existence of a Pentecostal spirituality as a renewal movement within the traditional churches.

By 1980 the classical Pentecostals had grown to be the largest family of Protestants in the world, according to The World Christian Encyclopedia. The 51 million figure attributed to the traditional Pentecostals did not include the 11 million charismatic Pentecostals in the traditional mainline churches. Thus, seventy - five years after the opening of the Azusa Street meeting there were 62 million Pentecostals in over a hundred nations of the world.

V Synan
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography
M Poloma, The Charismatic Movement; K McDonnell, ed., Presence, Power, Praise; J R Williams, The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today; K / D Ranaghan, Catholic Pentecostals; V Synan, ed., Aspects of Pentecostal - Charismatic Origins; J T Nichol, Pentecostalism; M P Hamilton, ed., The Charismatic Movement; S D Glazier, Perspective on Pentecostalism.

Jesus wants you today!

2008-01-12T06:10:00.000-08:00

Are you burdened today. Do you feel worried. Do you feel sad and tired. You might be thinking too much about some issues. God does not want you to worry. He wants you to be happy and be at peace in him. Take some time to pray. Ask God to send his healing presence to you thru asking repentence for all your sins. Try and read the Bible, especially the first four books of the New Testament, the Second part of the Bible. There we read how God sent his Son Jesus to die on the cross for each one of us and as a substitute for our sins. Try and accept this Jesus today as your personal saviour who also died for your sins and who is waiting to take the burden of your troubles and ills. God will give you peace in Jesus Christ and will fill you with the healing presence of his Holy Spirit this day. May God bless you today and for ever!

EBENEZER PENTECOSTAL CHURCH OF GOD, CHICAGO RIDGE, ILLINOIS.

2008-01-11T05:54:00.000-08:00

WHAT WE BELIEVE:

In the divine inspiration of the Scripture

The Holy Bible, having sixty-six books, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and is the complete revelation of God’s will for the salvation for men, and the divine and final authority for all Christian faith and life (2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Peter 1:21).

In the one true and living God

Father is eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. God is holy, righteous and just. His love and mercy was manifested in the atoning death of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, who was born of a virgin was crucified and died on the cross for our sins, buried in a tomb but rose again on the third day, as the Scriptures foretold, and is now sitting on the right hand of the Father. Angels, and principalities, and powers have been made subject unto Him. Having been made both Lord and Christ, He sent the Holy Ghost that we, in the name of Jesus, might bow our knees and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The Holy Spirit the Comforter was sent by the Lord Jesus Christ to dwell, to guide, to teach believers, and to convince the world of sin of righteousness and of judgment (John 1:18; Luke 1:35; John 15:26; Hebrew 1:1-13; 1 Corinthians 15:24-28; Romans 14:11).

The Salvation of Man

Man’s only hope of redemption is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Salvation is received through repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. By confession of the mouth and belief in the heart, being justified by grace through faith, man becomes an heir of God according to the hope of eternal life (Mark 1:15; Luke 13:3; Acts 3:19; Luke 24:47; John 3:3; Romans 10:13-15).

Baptism in water after repentance

The ordinance of baptism by immersion is in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. All who repent and believe in Christ as their Savior and Lord are to be baptized after have they removed all their ornaments (Matthew 28:19; mark 16:16; Acts 10:47, 48; Romans 6:4: Job 22:23-28; James 5:3; Ezekiel 23:39-41).

Holy Communion

The holy communion, consisting of the elements- bread and the fruit of the wine- is the symbol expressing our sharing the divine nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, a memorial of His suffering and death, a prophecy of His second coming, and is enjoined on all believers until He comes (1 Corinthians 11:23-32; 2 Peter 1:4).

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

All believers are entitled to and should ardently expect and seek to fill in the Holy Spirit. The baptism of believers in the Holy spirit is evidenced by speaking in other tongues (other languages) as the Spirit of God gives utterance (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4,8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; Acts 10:44-46; Acts 15:7-9).

Sanctification is an act of separation

Sanctification is an act of separation from that which is evil and of dedication unto God. The Scriptures teach a life of holiness and without it no man shall see the Lord (Romans 12:1, 2; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 12:14; Romans 6: 1-13; Galatians 2:20).

The Blessed Hope

The resurrection of those who have fallen asleep in Christ and their translation together with those who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord is the imminent and blessed hope of the Church (1 Thessalonians 4:16,17; Romans 8:23; 1 Corinthians 15:51,52; Titus 2:13).

The Millennial Reign of Christ

The second coming of Christ includes the rapture of the saints, which is our blessed hope, followed by the visible return of Christ with His saints to reign on the earth for a thousand years (Zechariah 14:5; Matthew 24:27,30; Revelation 1:7; Revelation 19:11-14; Revelation 20:1-6).

The Final Judgment

There will be a final judgment in which the wicked dead will be raised and judged according to their works. Whosoever is not found written in the Book of Life will be consigned to everlasting punishment (Matthew 25:46; Revelation 20:11-15).

Copyright © 2004, EBENEZER PENTECOSTAL CHURCH OF GOD All Rights Reserved

Pentecostalism in Latin America, an outsider's perspective c/o (idea) by the face 1 C! Fri Aug 02 2002 at 14:01:40

2008-01-11T03:53:00.001-08:00

Pentecostalism in Latin America, an outsider's perspective
(idea) by the face 1 C! Fri Aug 02 2002 at 14:01:40

Pentecostal movements are located in a multitude of societies throughout the world, but have made the biggest impression in the USA, Brazil, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Studies of Pentecostalism, and other forms of Evangelical Christianity, in the West have argued that it is part of a Christian-liberalisation trend that is part of the wider process of modernisation, and have claimed that this will be replicated in the areas of the developing world where these movements gain ground.

This fails to account for the possibility that this 'liberalisation' may be a local trend, contingent on other societal factors. It also rests upon the belief that as Pentecostalism spread to developing countries from the West, its form and nature will remain the same. A comparative study by Paul Freston (2001) indicates that forms of Pentecostalism differ widely just within the developing world, let alone in relation to the West.

D. Martin argues that Pentecostalism acts, in developing countries, as a vehicle for the `mobilization of the "damned of the earth"' (D. Martin, 2001, p.3), through which the members of the lowest classes can liberate themselves, not through a socio-economic revolution, but by their integration into a religious movement. The social ideals embedded in Pentecostalism encourage followers to make themselves respectable by rejecting a life of vice and excess for one of thrift and responsibility, especially in relation to family life. A multitude of personal, spiritual biographies collected by D. and B. Martin during their fieldwork recount the stories of men who, having entered the movement, stop their womanising and excessive spending on alcohol and gambling and take up a responsible position both in their family and the Pentecostal community. While many relapse to their former style of life, those that continue to adhere to the Pentecostal principles not only gain social status by becoming respectable, taking a larger role in family life and the community; but also gain economic rewards by cutting down their expenditure on luxury goods.

This social mobility offers the oppressed a new sphere of life (civil/religious) in which they are not entirely bound by their economic status, and allows them to take more control of their lives in the other spheres. Not only are the desired modes of life congruous between a Pentecostal and an aspiring member of modern society, but the goal of conspicuous consumerism is also shared. New cars and large churches are seen as evidence that `a big God "has done great things for us"' (D. Martin, 2001, p.14), bringing success in the economic sphere to be a reward for and sign of devotion and not distinct from it.

For Latin American Pentecostals, specifically those of the lowest classes, their most important authority figure shifts from a distant and different political leader or factory owner to their pastor, who is both like them and speaks the same language as them. I read this as a mode of glocalisation whereby individuals can reconstitute the factors that direct their lives to a more local level. The Pentecostal also has the ability to transcend this authority figure, as Pentecostalism rests upon personal readings of the Bible and does not impede those who wish to diverge from existing sects.

In this way Pentecostalism provides a sphere in which individuals can have greater control over their identities and can critically engage with the religious sphere, thereby giving them greater control over how they are positioned within it.

The three most important aspects of Pentecostal Churches in Brazil, in relation to modernity, are its relation to national politics, its use of the media and the professionalisation of its hierarchy. As with all other aspects of Pentecostalism, different churches take different stances on their position in the political sphere. Out `of the six main churches, only three' (Freston, 2001, p.20) are engaged with national politics, operating a `brother votes for brother' (Sylvestre in Freston, 2001, p.22) policy, whereby congregations vote for Pentecostal candidates as directed by their pastors. However, Pentecostal leaders in politics have tended to distance themselves from actually directing political power themselves. Their aim and justification is to encourage the `moralisation of public life' (Freston, 2001, p.36), and to control the spending of taxes on Catholic `idolatry' (Freston, 2001, p.22). The introduction of some of the Pentecostal vote into Brazilian politics opened up a powerful electoral force, which brought a new voice to the political sphere, especially in relation to social issues. This move was not an attempt to politicise Pentecostalism, instead it was a recognition that the political sphere was a powerful force in the lives of the population, and so it was felt necessary, by some churches, to get a foothold in the process. Closely associated to the political manoeuvrings of some churches is their use of the media. In fact `nearly half of the Protestant Congressmen since 1986 have had links with the media' (Freston, 2001, p.17). While only a small proportion of those in the media have any electoral activity, those that do bring the relationship between the conversionist community and public life into sharp relief. The huge reach provided by television networks not only gives Pentecostal leaders greater access to their congregation, but also opens up a new avenue for conversion.

When the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God purchased the fifth largest television network in 1989, they were able to beam their messages directly into the homes of believers and non-believers throughout the nation, and cable and satellite has allowed the project to stretch beyond state boundaries. Despite the constant work of local pastors on the ground, the use of new technology provided a huge tool in their drive for mass conversion. The professionalisation of the hierarchy of this form of Pentecostalism is inherent to their ability to enter politics and use of national media, as both require a more standardised message than is offered by Pentecostal churches that overly encourage personal interpretations.

D. Lehmann sees, in the case of The Universal Church, the organisational structure as closer to a `Leninist model of a political party built on democratic-centralist lines' (Lehmann, 1996, p.123) than to a traditional ecclesiastical structure, where there is a mixing of a large number of unpaid, dedicated followers who provide the man-power to support the organization, who are directed by a increasingly bureaucratised hierarchy. The higher cadre often take itinerant roles where they leave the bureaucratic system and engage with the smaller churches personally, which, perhaps, indicates a more organic structure than is prevalent in classical views of modern organisations. D. Martin's work on the micro-sociology of Pentecostalism suggests that its religious ethos and lack of strict doctrine allows individuals to make and locate identities for themselves, where previously they were just members of an amorphous, oppressed class. Three techniques seem to be in operation here: first, by making themselves `respectable' they can raise themselves up in the economic sphere, by curbing spending on a lifestyle beyond their means; second, they gain access to a new sphere of life (civil/religious) where their status is governed more by their devotion than by their economic position; and third, the authority figure in this new sphere is not a `generalised other' but someone they can both relate to, and hope to transcend. `In converting to Pentecostalism individuals empower themselves in ways which have concrete consequences for themselves and for society' (B. Martin, 1998, p.128).

B. Martin argues that Latin America operates a largely post-modern economy that demands workers to have `micro-entrepreneurial initiative, an individualized and more feminized psyche, a high level of self-motivation, and the flexibility with which to face insecure employment and self employment' (B. Martin, 1998, p.129). The autonomy, individualism, mobility and self-determination encouraged by Pentecostalism has a much closer relationship to the demands of a post-industrial society, than one dedicated to the Fordist production line of modern society, and the argument that Pentecostalism is closer to post-modernism than modernism is also supported by the growth of modern communications in Latin America `where middle-class Pentecostalism is currently fast expanding'. This relationship is also borne out on the organisational level, as we see the rapid adoption of new communication technologies as central to their survival, and a rejection of the notion that politicians are expected to wield direct authority, as opposed to exert influence on national social life, while remaining in traditional political structures. The Pentecostal movement seems to encourage the growth of social, political and economic life that is specifically different to that normally seen in modern society.

Whether this is best seen as a post-modern movement, or as part of reflexive/second stage modernity is hard to say, however, Bernice Martin's argument that the notion of self and identity encouraged by Pentecostalism is part of a wider post-modern movement in Latin America is perhaps the most convincing, as it not only takes a more subtle view of the Pentecostal individual, but also takes into account shifts in the wider society.

Bibliography

D. Martin, Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish, 2002, Blackwell: Oxford

P. Freston, Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America, 2001, CUP: Cambridge

D. Lehmann, Struggle for the Spirit, 1996, Polity Press: Cambridge

B. Martin, From pre- to postmodernity in Latin America: the case of Pentecostalism, in: eds. P. Heelas et al, Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity, 1998, Blackwell: Oxford

STATEMENT OF FAITH of The Native American Bible College, (USAG) Native American Bible College, PO Box 248, Shannon, NC 28386 USA Phone: (910) 843-5304

2008-01-11T03:46:00.000-08:00

Location

Native American Bible College is located in Shannon, North Carolina, 25 miles south of Fayetteville. It is situated between the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains and the Atlantic Coast. This area is the traditional homeland of the Lumbee tribe, and the Indian Campground and Tabernacle are adjacent to campus.

Native American Bible College offers a four-year Bachelor of Religious Education, a two-year Associate degree, and a three-year diploma. Three concentrations are offered: Bible, Ministry, and Christian Education.

These future ministers and church workers will be well prepared for service as pastors, missionaries, evangelists, youth leaders, and in many other church-related fields.

You will sit under the teaching of Spirit-filled instructors, dedicated to preparing you for the call God has placed on your life.

With a student faculty ratio of seven students per faculty member, students are the special beneficiaries of the school's size and emphasis on ministry.

Purpose Statement

It is the purpose of Native American Bible College of the Assemblies of God, Inc. (NABC) to equip Christians, particularly Native American Christians, through collegiate education in a Pentecostal environment to be effective in ministry to God, the Church, and the world. NABC shall remain loyal to the teachings of the Assemblies of God as set forth in The Sixteen Fundamental Truths.

Although NABC exists to train Native Americans, the school welcomes students from all races and ethnic backgrounds.

Objectives

Upon graduation from Native American Bible College the student will:

1. Demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of and deep appreciation for the Bible as the infallible and inspired Word of God, affirming the Bible as the only infallible guide for Christian faith and practice, possessing habits of devotional Bible reading and private prayer, and be able to share God's Word to both the saved and unsaved.

2. Embrace a Christian worldview predicated on a working knowledge of contrasting philosophical and religious views and become a mature, informed, and effective Christian leader in a complex and diverse society, which will provide for an effective ministry.

3. Identify and understand personal spiritual gifts and use his or her gifts effectively in the ministry, developing ministry skills and determining personal ministry strengths and gifts, and giving evidence of skills for effective spiritual leadership.

4. Exhibit a commitment to Holy living under-girded by an understanding of Pentecostal theology, producing one who is a committed Christian; growing in Godly character, personal discipline, and spiritual discernment, obedient to the Word of God, and driven by a passionate heart to serve God in life and ministry.

5. Possess career goals in accord with one's life calling with special attention given to credentialed and lay ministers, demonstrating a commitment to ministering to the spiritual, physical, and social needs of others, in a way that leads to the betterment of humanity.

6. Exhibit skills and knowledge necessary for lifelong learning in all fields of thought, both secular and religious, having a foundation in general education, Bible, and theology in order to serve in a diverse religious and ethnic culture.

Philosophy of Education

Native American Bible College holds the concept of education as cultivating growth spiritually, intellectually, socially, and physically. Every effort and objective of NABC focuses on the Christian philosophy of learning. We believe that all wisdom and knowledge comes from God and that His Spirit is ever present to reveal this wisdom and knowledge to man. The Word of God is the final authority in all courses and programs at NABC.

nativeamericanbiblecollege.com © 2004 | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use

Native American Bible College, PO Box 248, Shannon, NC 28386 USA Phone: (910) 843-5304 Fax: (910) 843-9265 E-mail: office@nativeamericanbiblecollege.org

STATEMENT OF FAITH

Native American Bible College is affiliated with the Assemblies of God. We teach and believe

the Bible is the inspired and only infallible and authoritative written Word of God.

there is one God, Creator of heaven and earth and all that is therein, eternally existent in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, in His personal future return to this earth in power and glory to rule a thousand years.

in the blessed hope – the rapture of the church at Christ’s coming.

the only means of being cleansed from sin is through repentance and faith in the precious blood of Christ.

regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential for personal salvation.

in water baptism by immersion.

the redemptive work of Christ on the cross provides healing of the human body in answer to believing prayer.

the baptism of the Holy Spirit according to Acts 2:4 is given to believers who ask for it.

in the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a holy life.

in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost, the one to everlasting life and the other to everlasting damnation.

Millions of black Pentecostals c/o Charisma, May 2003 (Vol 28, No 10). Pages 37-44. Issue #45 July 2003

2008-01-11T03:28:00.000-08:00

Millions of black Pentecostals
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"Revive us, precious Lord" by Adrienne Gaines. Charisma, May 2003 (Vol 28, No 10). Pages 37-44. Issue #45 July 2003

Black mainline churches in the United States are seeing a neoPentecostal revival. The works and power of the Holy Spirit are being emphasized in ways that would have seemed foreign a few decades ago.
For example, African Methodist Episcopal churches historically are more reserved in their worship. Yet Bethel AME Church of Baltimore, a congregation of 15,000 members, is reflecting a trend that affects up to a third of black mainline Christians--about 5 million people. Charismatic behaviors including miracles, healing, and speaking in tongues are part of the Bethel experience.
There are about 400 million Pentecostals around the world, most of them concentrated in the global South. By 2040, there could be a billion. By 2050, experts predict that half of all African-American Christians will embrace Pentecostalism in some form.
NeoPentecostalism took root among black churches in the late 1960s when John Bryant, a young Harvard Divinity School student and pastor of St. Paul AME Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, began exercising a spirituality he had discovered on visits to Africa. He began to preach that the Holy Spirit was the vital force of Christianity for personal empowerment and for social transformation.
But the historic stance, or lack thereof, of Pentecostals on social and civil rights issues was disconcerting to some African Americans who watched this new movement emerge. Black Baptists, who led civil rights marches and attempted to influence elections, were dismayed that neoPentecostals politically had done so little to aid the black community.
Some neoPentecostal leaders don't feel that the church's primary business is to get mired in politics, but they remain committed to aiding their communities. First Baptist Church of Glenarden, Maryland, pastored by neoPentecostal John Jenkins, provides health services, a senior citizens center, and a credit union. Several neoPentecostal churches offer programs to help community members become homeowners and start businesses.

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Copyright © 2006. The Navigators. All rights reserved.

Victory Worship Centre, Palace Gate Christian Centre @ South Street Baptist Church, Exeter

2008-01-11T03:26:00.001-08:00

Welcome to Victory Church, Exeter that meets in the Palace Gate Centre c/o Exeter South Street Baptist Congregation. Worship Style Evangelical-Pentecostal @ British Assemblies of God (AOG).

We have two language services: English & Malayalam.

We strive to reach all with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

All English speaking and knowing people, as well as those who are not linguistically proficient are welcome!

Meetings every sunday 4-8.30 PM @ Palace Gate Baptist Church Christian centre.

English Service (starts February 1st, 2008, all are welcome).

This church strives to serve the whole community of Exeter, irrespective of race and cultural afffiliation!

Please come and be blessed!

Saturday Bible Study (Gospel of Mathew currently being studied): @ 5 PM, Flat 1, 79 Pinhoe Road, Exeter.

Contact Sam @ godsavexeter@googlemail.com

Women's Lydia Prayer Meeting & Bible Study:

Every Tuesday 5.15 PM @ contact Saira @ godbless.exeter@googlemail.com

Our Pastor: Pr. Binoy Abraham, Bristol.

Pentecostal Saints Tabernacle St. Louis, Missouri

2008-01-11T03:06:00.000-08:00

Philosophy of Ministry

1. We believe that Jesus is "The Son of God"

Luke 1:31-32; Luke 9-:34-35; John 1:29-34; John 3:16-17

2. We believe in Being Holy Ghost filled with the Evidence of Speaking in Tongues

Mark 16:17; Acts 2:1-4; Acts 10:44-46

3. We believe in "Equality of All Men and Women".

Galatians 3:26-28; Judges 4:3-5; Psalms 98:9; Mark 14:3-9; Luke 2:36-38

4. We believe in "Water and Unleavened Bread for the Lords Supper" (Communion)

Luke 22:20; John 19:34; 1 Corinthians 10:4; Exodus 17:6; Leviticus 10:8-10

5. We Believe in "The Holy Kiss"

Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14

6.We believe in "Foot Washing"

John 13:1-15; 1 Samuel 25:41; 1 Timothy 5:10

7. We believe in "Water Baptism in the Name of Jesus"

Colossians 3:17; Acts 2:37-38; Acts 8:14-16; Acts 10:47-48; Acts 19:3-5; Matthew 28:18-20; 1 John 5:5-8

Copyright © 2008 Pentecostal Saints Tabernacle. All Rights Reserved.

Pentecostal Church 'sees growth' c/o BBC

2008-01-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

Pentecostal Church 'sees growth'
Pentecostal Christians outnumber Methodist churchgoers at services in England and Wales, research suggests.
Sunday attendance at Pentecostal churches totaled 288,500 this year, compared with 278,700 at Methodist churches, it was estimated.

Manchester University's Dr David Voas, who studied English Church Census data, said Pentecostals were "the fastest growing group within Christianity".

He predicted they were third largest, behind Catholics and Anglicans.

Dr Voas said: "Methodism, a branch of Christianity that originated in England and spread around the world, is dying in Britain.

"By contrast, immigration from Africa and elsewhere has led to growth in Pentecostal churches, where the worship style is more flamboyant."

The Methodist Church now struggles to respond to new movements of God's spirit
Jonathan Kerry
Methodist Church in Great Britain

The forecasts were based on figures from the English Church Census, conducted by the independent charity Christian Research and sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Jonathan Kerry, co-ordinating secretary for worship and learning for the Methodist Church in Great Britain, said: "Methodism was born out of revival movements in the 18th Century and further renewal in the 19th.

"However, like many historic denominations, the Methodist Church now struggles to respond to new movements of God's spirit without feeling that it is betraying the past.

"Newer church movements, such as Pentecostalism - itself a century old - carry less of the weight of tradition, but typically also find themselves prone to similar challenges of stagnation or decline as the years go by."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/6192785.stm

Published: 2006/12/19 11:24:52 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Fundamental Truths of the Elim Pentecostal Church UK c/o elim.org.uk

2008-01-09T11:58:00.001-08:00

Fundamental Truths

THE BIBLE: We believe the Bible, as originally given, to be without error, the fully inspired and infallible Word of God and the supreme and final authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

THE TRINITY: We believe that the Godhead exists co-equally and co-eternally in three persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit and that these three are one God, sovereign in creation, providence and redemption.

THE SAVIOUR: We believe in the true and proper deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His real and complete humanity, in His sinless life, in His authoritative teaching, in His substitutionary and atoning sacrifice through His blood shed, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, in His heavenly intercession and His second advent to receive His Church.

THE HOLY SPIRIT: We believe in the deity of the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son and the necessity of His work in conviction of sin, repentance, regeneration and sanctification, and that the believer is also promised an enduement of power as the gift of Christ through the baptism in the Holy Spirit with signs following. Through this enduement the believer is empowered for fuller participation in the ministry of the Church, its worship, evangelism and service.

MANKIND: We believe in the universal sinfulness of all men since the Fall, rendering man subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.

SALVATION: We believe in the necessity for salvation of repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by which the sinner is pardoned and accepted as righteous in God’s sight. This justification is imputed by the grace of God because of the atoning work of Christ, is received by faith alone and is evidenced by the Fruit of the Spirit and a holy life.

THE CHURCH: We believe in the spiritual unity and the priesthood of all believers in Christ and that these comprise the universal Church, the Body of Christ.

THE MINISTRY: We believe in the ministries that Christ has set in His Church, namely, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers and in the present operation of the manifold Gifts of the Holy Spirit according to the New Testament.

THE ORDINANCES: We believe in the baptism of believers in water in obedience to the command of Christ and the commemoration of Christ’s death by the observance of the Lord’s Supper until His return.

THE COMMISSION: We believe that the Gospel embraces the needs of the whole man and that the Church is therefore commissioned to preach the gospel to the world and to fulfil a ministry of healing and deliverance to the spiritual and physical needs of mankind.

THE COMING KING: We believe in the personal, physical and visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ to reign in power and glory.

THE FUTURE STATE: We believe in the resurrection of the dead and in the final judgement of the world, the eternal conscious bliss of the righteous and the eternal conscious punishment of the wicked.

Dona Castanhal, 70 Years old AG member, Belem, Brazil.

2008-01-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

Old Brazilian pentecostal woman in Belem, Brazil:

"When I am in need, I ask for help from my God, who can do it all. My God never lets me go a day without lunch, because I kneel every day in prayer. I ask Jesus to multiply my provisions. Jesus blesses me; He blesses my salary and our food. I tell you that since I've been a crente, I've always had what I need. Thank God that I have two pairs of shoes that my children gave me.It is the Holy Spirit who operates in our lives to free us from want, thank God."

Dona Castanhal, 70 Years old AG member, Belem, Brazil.
@ R Andrew Chesnut, 'Born Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom and the Pathogens of Poverty,' London, Rutgers U P, 1997, p. 174.

Unite or divide further? c/o gmnews.com

2008-01-08T06:58:00.000-08:00

Unite or divide further?
Recently I read in the GM news about the desire of IPC leaders to help UK based Indian churches. I am responding to that news.
I am a member of the Indian Pentecostal Church in India. By the grace of God, and as directed by the Lord, for the past five years, I have been leading a financially self supporting Indian Christian Congregation in England, which is for administrative purpose affiliated to an English congregation. This English church does not interfere in our freedom of worship; they only help us with their prayer support, buildings, resources etc totally free of charge. I found the English churches in this country to be very supportive to our work in England. They welcome us wholeheartedly to their church and are willing to give us every spiritual support. Though the English church is willing to help us financially, we have not claimed any money till date, as we, by the Grace of God are able to support ourselves.
When English missionaries came to India, they had to learn our regional languages, translate the Bible and overcome so many other hurdles to start their work. But the strengths of most Malayalees in this country are that we are able to speak English and we are not bad with our scriptural knowledge. When the English missionaries came to India, their vision was not to start English speakers' churches in India, but was to preach to the Indians, win the Indian souls and plant churches for the Indians. Otherwise we are better resourced to be missionaries in England than the English missionaries who came to India several years ago. But one thing we lack is the vision to merge with the English believers and tender our help to their spiritual needs.
Although many of us remain 'holy' by keeping some distance from the English churches, at least some of us are successful in presenting our needs to them and accepting financial aid. When we claim to be spiritually superior and remain 'separated' from them, we are becoming 'spiritual racists'. We conveniently forget the fact that we have been called to proclaim the gospel in and to this land. Our spiritual standard can be easily measured by our success in implementing Kerala church politics in England and the rate at which we get ourselves divided.
I only see with fear and trembling, the desire of the IPC leaders to get the Malayalam churches in England affiliated to IPC. I hope that the IPC leaders and IPC supporters will understand that many believers of other Pentecostals denominations will not be very comfortable to come under the banner of IPC. Such believers will be tempted to make their own little groups. I will rather encourage the Malayalam churches to remain affiliated to their nearest local English Pentecostal churches and support them and receive support (not financial) whenever and wherever necessary. The English missionaries contributed a lot to the Indians in the past and it is time for us to do something in return.
It is not true if we think that Church of God in India and Assembly of God are not keen on or interested in bringing churches under their leadership. I personally know that just like IPC, both these churches are interested in adding more churches to them. It is true that the English churches are not giving administrative support to Indian churches. The simple reason is that we don't ask them or allow them to do it. It is not true that the financial and spiritual problems in Indian churches are not resolved because the English churches are not taking interest in us. Many of us think that we are 'spiritually superior' to them. Also I do not understand why our churches have financial problems. Most of our pastors are part time employed and they do not take money from the church fund. Do you think that if the churches come under IPC, the financial and spiritual problems will be solved?
Division, unforgiveness, misunderstanding, gossips, destructive criticisms, lack of humility or pride, unwillingness to accept one another, lust for leadership, lust for church money etc. etc. are the problems many Indian churches in England are currently facing. Don't we have enough trouble already? We are already divided into AICC, MPA etc. etc. etc. Can IPC, Church of God, Assembly of God or any other established Pentecostal Indian church organisations solve these problems? Will IPC unite these groups or divide further?
A. Thomas