wfn.org | New Generation of Latin American Theologians

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

12-March-1997 
97107 
 
           New Generation of Latin American Theologians 
            Addresses the Pastoral Needs of its People 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras-- Though Latin American theologians here are groping 
to describe and confront a global economy that continues to devastate 
Central America, they agree that a political shift from capitalism to 
socialism -- the solution offered by liberation theology's first generation 
of  thinkers -- isn't the answer. 
 
     But that doesn't mean liberation theology itself is dead.  It is 
quietly being reborn and reshaped by a second generation of Latin American 
theologians who admit that they owe early liberationists a great debt for 
their grassroots organizing methodology.  
 
     The revolutionary fervor of the 1980s has not abolished the grueling 
poverty that some now call an economic holocaust for the poor in Nicaragua, 
Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and, more recently, Costa Rica.  So this 
new generation of Latin American theologians is "rereading the Bible," 
searching for words to describe what Christians have traditionally called 
the "new creation" -- a transformation that ultimately alters the political 
and economic spheres, though it does not begin there. 
 
     Realizing that political and economic power is too easily corrupted 
and that it too readily ignores the needs of the poor, these new 
liberationists look first for a pastoral response to the suffering all 
around them.                              
 
     "We're between Egypt and the Promised Land, contemplating how to 
interpret this desert we're in," said the Rev. George Cruz, a Presbyterian 
Church (U.S.A.) mission worker here.  The pastors with whom he works, Cruz 
said, are struggling with an economic system their Honduran parishioners 
describe as having gone "from poverty to misery."   Cruz said he feels "the 
church here is standing between the future and the past ... trying to 
evaluate." 
 
     Meanwhile,  political questions grow more complex, poverty becomes 
more dire, international debt escalates and options narrow for Central 
America's future. 
 
     "We still don't understand how, theologically speaking, we can define 
or explain this big monster,  neoliberalism,'" said the Rev. Arturo Piedra 
Solano, a Presbyterian-trained church historian in San Jose, Costa Rica, 
defining the term as many Central Americans do as an unbridled free market. 
"In the past we used to say,  Organize a guerilla movement.  Organize the 
unionists.  Organize a popular movement.'"  
 
     But, he continued, "we've had guerrilla movements, we've organized 
unions, we've had popular movements, and we still couldn't defeat 
capitalism," Piedra said.  "In the 1980s, we had an elaborate and 
sophisticated theory [liberation theology].  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?" 
 
     Most dire, some Central American theologians observe, is the insidious 
consumerism they've observed among North Americans and Europeans that keeps 
coming closer and closer to home, affecting both those who have too little 
and those who have too much.  This consumerism, said Elsa Tamez, president 
of the Latin American Biblical Seminary in San Jose, Costa Rica, is most 
characterized by the proliferation of shopping malls, the availability of 
credit cards and the marketing of expensive products like Nike athletic 
shoes that are increasingly sought as status symbols.  
 
     Pointing out that a Latin biblical methodology always begins with the 
perspective of the poor, Tamez said, "I feel that all of the world -- 
Africa, the United States, Central America -- is involved in this logic 
that says that to be someone you have to have a lot of  power or money, you 
have to seek status." 
 
     In contrast, she said, the new Latin American theologians are "... 
talking about a new society, where the life of people is first," where 
profits and possessions take second place to the needs of people. "It 
doesn't matter if it is capitalism or socialism.  If capitalism brings life 
and justice, then go [with it]. What's important is the new creation. ... 
[But]," she said, pausing, "how can you say everything is very good in the 
economy when the quality of life is growing worse and worse and worse?" 
 
     Cruz said Honduran pastors seldom call themselves liberationists, any 
more than Calvin referred to himself as a Calvinist.  But liberationism is 
their theology, whether they call it that or not.  And the focus of that 
theology is increasingly local -- ministry in misery so deep that the 
people's diet consists largely of tortillas and coffee, minus even the egg 
that might have been part of the meal when Hondurans were relatively better 
off. 
 
     Cruz said the first generation of liberation theologians lost sight of 
the fact that "you need to start small -- micro not macro."  He told the 
Presbyterian News Service that the emphasis now is on how God changes the 
individual life, then moves that life toward the neighbor and the 
community.  "Instead of changing the whole structure," he explained, 
"they're starting by changing small parts of that structure." 
 
     Piedra agrees and, moreover, sees the church as the locus of life in 
Latin communities and  a powerful agent for transformation. 
 
     "We as churches could do a lot to alleviate the suffering of people," 
he insisted. "We don't need to be a socialist state. ... We need local 
organization.  And since religion in Central America is part and parcel of 
the life of the community ... we need to take advantage of that aspect, in 
day-to-day life at the community level."  
 
      By integrating indigenous religious leaders, known as "the wise," and 
women into the theological conversation, churches can be more inclusive, 
said Tamez -- a factor the founders of liberation theology neglected in the 
1980s.  But working at the local level goes more slowly, she added, 
stressing that Latin feminists do not want to move ahead so quickly that 
they leave church women behind. 
 
     "We have to work slow with these people," Tamez told the Presbyterian 
News Service. "Theology and spirituality ... they must be together." 
 
     But analysis of the economic tensions between rich and poor are 
crucial to the theological task. "The fundamental option for the poor 
remains," said Tamez, citing the oft-quoted liberationist maxim from the 
1980s.  "But people think liberation theology is dead because the socialism 
is not there ... but [liberationism] is a methodology ... it's a point of 
starting." 
 
      U.S. biblical scholar Ched Myers of Los Angeles, a longtime analyst 
of liberation movements, describes the current shift in Latin American 
theology as a "deepened and broadened" attempt to get at the pastoral needs 
of war-ravaged Central Americans while still finding effective ways to 
critique an economy that exploits Central America's people and resources. 
"The theologians are becoming more analytical, more critical of the 
Marxist/Leninist [thought]" that characterized earlier liberation theology, 
he said.   "But they've gone through a war.  They've seen the successes and 
failures.  
 
     "Now they're [opening up] pastoral theology ... and that is the most 
authentic kind of Christian response." 
 
     Despite the current economic desperation, Piedra remains hopeful. 
"What we know is that the future is going to be better," he insists.  "It 
is not clear yet how to face the enemies of our people.  But we know God is 
with us because God is a God of the poor. ... That," he said, "is a vision, 
not an illusion. It is Christian hope for the future." 

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