Toward a Liberation Theology for the "Oppressor"

• Published in: Journal of the American Academy of Religion
• Main Author: BUCHER, GLENN R.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 1976
• Subjects: Articles; Gutiérrez; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/XLIV/3/517; https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/XLIV.3.517

Amidst the absence of methodological consensus and the divergent theologies which presently characterize traditional theological circles, liberation theologies from the black, feminist, and Third World perspectives stand out as the most discernible development in Christian thought. Because implicit in these theologies is a distinctiveness concerning the nature and scope of theology, and because they include a social critique which links the destinies of the “oppressed” and the “oppressor”, those who stand outside communities of oppression but inside the community of faith are challenged to take seriously liberation theologies and their far-ranging implications. The inter-relationship of “oppressed” and “oppressor” is explicated in the theologies of Freire, Cone, Gutiérrez, Ruether, and others. All address the dialectical themes of particularity and universality in the Christian tradition. “Can a theology for the oppressed also become a theology for the oppressor” is the question raised by Robert McAfee Brown, though Frederick Herzog and others also have queried the North Atlantic theological community and its corresponding churches. That is, can those outside the movements for liberation develop a liberation theology of their own; one which will affect their theological and human renewal and complement the obvious quests for liberation and the theological explication of them? And if so, how is that to happen? The major thesis of this essay is that the theological methods employed in black, feminist, and Third World liberation theologies are the clues for understanding this new development and also the key to theological renewal elsewhere. Beginning with corporate reflection on the struggle for justice, identity, and meaning, liberation theologies then move to an interpretation of concrete experience, the application of Judaic and Christian themes which illuminate the human situation of oppression, and finally to praxis—to a practical implementation of theology in social struggle, though this attribute pervades ...