Understanding liberation theology in America

On Sunday, April 27, I listened to the entire speech that was given by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in Detroit before a gathering of 12,000 members of the NAACP. The speech was brilliantly conceived, masterfully delivered and wildly cheered by the all-black audience to which he was speaking.

Most people who watched and listened had little understanding of what was happening. Jeremiah Wright’s sermon was a classic expression of liberation theology in the black preaching art form.

America was given an introduction to Black Theology 101.

Black theology is a particular application of liberation theology. And what is liberation theology?

The roots of modern liberation theology are found in Central and South America. In its inception, liberation theology was firmly rooted in the Roman Catholic Church. Catholic priests and bishops took note that the post-World War II prosperity in Europe and in the United States did not translate into prosperity for the poor of Central and South America. The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer.

They took note that Jesus was poor and identified with the poor of his day. Jesus had found himself in an intense struggle with the wealthy and the powerful. Those with wealth and power killed him. A considerable body of Central and South American Catholic writers began identifying themselves with the Jesus who spoke out for the poor.

Peruvian Catholic Priest Gustavo Gutterrez gave the movement intellectual integrity when he published “A Theology of Liberation” in 1972. It was the definitive volume on liberation theology.

At first the Vatican was supportive of the movement. Pope John XXIII and Vatican II were seedbeds of encouragement. However, since the mid-1970s the Catholic hierarchy has become increasingly negative about the movement. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has been especially condemning of liberation theology. The Vatican silenced Gutterrez.

By the time Pope Benedict XVI visited Brazil in 2007, The New York Times estimated that there were at least one million Bible study groups in Brazil with an orientation to liberation theology.

Educator/sociologist Paul Freire was born into a middle class family in Brazil. His family lost everything in the great depression of the 1930s. Freire identified with the poor and never forsook them when he became a successful academic. His book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” published in 1973, is a classic in the liberation movement. According to Freire the biggest problem with the poor is their “culture of silence.” After suffering poverty and oppression over a long period of time, poor people accept their fate in silence.

The greatest challenge of any oppressed people is to break that silence.

Liberation theology in Central and South America, led by people like Freire and Gutterrez, broke down the control gates. They broke people out of their chains of silence. Things will never be the same in the South American hemisphere.

Just as liberation theology comes out of the experience of the poor and oppressed in Central and South America, black theology flows out of black experience in America. It is an ugly history. First slavery, then segregation, then educational and economic discrimination.

The amazing part of the black story is the “culture of silence” that developed over the centuries. This is exactly the same “culture of silence” that Paulo Freire found among the poor in Brazil.

People like Freire and Gutterrez broke the silence of the oppressed in our south hemisphere. Who will break the culture of silence for our oppressed black neighbors? Black movie stars, black writers, black musicians, black academics,and black athletes are making a contribution. However, the key is the black preacher. Martin Luther King Jr. was the prototype. Americans are almost totally ignorant about what is going on in American black churches and the leadership being given by very capable black preachers.

Jeremiah Wright is not a lonely voice. He is a part of a huge chorus of intelligent, educated, talented black preachers who understand how badly African Americans have been treated by their European American neighbors.

What is going on is much bigger than the 2008 presidential election. Wright is correct when he says that the attacks on him are really attacks on the black religious community.

All Americans need to be listening.

And then there is feminist theology, gay theology and Hispanic theology. Straight, European American male dominated leadership is looking at rough times.

The Rev. Howard Bess is pastor of Church of the Covenant, an American Baptist church in Palmer. His e-mail address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.