Liberation theology in a post-Marxist world

Christian Century, June 29, 1994

In the shaded quadrangle of a prominent American seminary, visiting liberation theologian Pablo Richard cannot shake the desperation of the Third World, where individual lives and entire communities are being torn asunder by economic chaos and violence. According to Richard, the collapse of communism has not improved the lives of people who live in the shantytowns and, crowded streets of Latin America, Asia and Africa. "The Third World has become useless and people are seen as expendable," said Richard, a 54-year-old Chilean-born Catholic priest.

"Before, people were exploited. But now they don't even count for that. To be exploited [meant that] you were in some sense, |included' in society," he said. "Now people are seen as worthless. This has resulted in a new kind of violence and desperation: poor against poor." Richard remains a leading proponent of a theology that originated 30 years ago in Latin America and seeks to combine Christian scripture and socialist-Marxist analysis to improve the lot of the poor. In a new, postcommunist world order, where the free market reigns supreme in all but a few nations, Richard contends that liberation theology is not dead but faces new challenges.

There is still great need, in Richard's View, for the church to be an agent of political and social change. But the church's more urgent task is to work on a smaller scale: to build communities of hope among the poor. "Now is not a time of oppression, but of chaos. We need people who can dream, who can come up with alternatives, to reorganize consciousness."

Such a shift represents a change of attitude about the basic notion of power, said Richard. "If it's not possible to take political power, we need to create a new power at the grass roots. We need to develop a new theology, a new ethic of life that discerns between the God of life and the idols of the market. We need to construct an alternative to the logic of the market." Richard, who teaches at the National University of Costa Rica, has just concluded a teaching stint at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

Richard has repeatedly argued that those eager to deliver the eulogies for liberation theology have spoken too hastily. But just as forcefully he acknowledges that the large-scale political dreams that fueled a Cuban or Nicaraguan revolution can no longer be sustained. "To construct a macro alternative to the free-market economy may be impossible," he said. "The system doesn't allow for the taking of power for transformative change. Now it is absolutely impossible to take power through armed struggle." At every turn, he maintained, leftist revolutions--in Latin America, at least--have met determined and implacable foes: international capitalism and U.S. imperialism.

They have also experienced inner exhaustion. Armed rebellion in El Salvador, for example, failed not only because of the determination of a U.S.-backed government, but because people simply grew weary of violence. "What is the other alternative?" Richard said. "It's terrorism and bombs. That's very easy, but is it a solution?" The solution for those within the church who still harbor hopes for a better world, he said, is to work toward a new "ethics of life" at the boundaries of civil society, where alternative grass-roots organizations in the Third World have been mobilized among the poor, women, people of color and those concerned with environmental issues.

Models for such organizations include the thousands of small Christian communities that arose in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s and fostered a mixture of theological reflection and social, action. The Catholic Church often regarded these base communities as too political. But despite a creeping conservatism in the Catholic Church during the past ten years, Richard said, it is actually easier than ever to practice liberation theology at the boundaries.

According to Richard, the fall of communism has eased ideological confrontation around the world, and that is leading to a new openness. He sees a quiet accumulation of cultural power among those at the margins of society--power which allows people to live with a sense of solidarity and hope even when economic burdens overwhelm them. When faced with such burdens, Richard said, people must continue to believe in dreams--and even utopias; not large-scale political and economic utopias, but visions of transcendence and hope that can change the consciousness of small communities. "Utopias are symbols of resistance. They give action and direction and are necessary to make possible the alternatives in our midst."

Such dreaming, Richard said, will always be grounded in present-day realities. "We must learn to survive in a free-market economy But in order to survive, we must reconstruct ethics and culture in different ways."