Into the house of bondage: liberation theology, invented by Catholic Marxists, adopted by liberal Protestants, is moving into the synagogue

National Review, March 5, 1990 by Don Feder

Liberation theology, invented by Catholic Marxists,

adopted by liberal protestants, is moving into the synagogue.

But its god is history-and its Israel is Palestine.

IN AN ARTICLE published during the Nicaraguan election campaign, the Sandinista newspaper Barricada tried to rationalize the government's failure to transmit to the opposition funds appropriated by the United States Congress. It was not the government's fault, the reporter observed, but the "traditional Jew-style with which the U.S. Congress manages the taxes of the taxpayers." The following day, the publication formally dissociated itself from the sentiments expressed therein. (Ortega and company have become quite pr-conscious of late.) Still, the piece was an uncensored reflection of the anti-semitism inherent in Third World Marxism.

Thus it may come as a surprise that liberation theology-the movement's sales pitch to the spiritually inclined-has its Jewish as well as its Christian adherents. Then again, why should Christians be the only ones to get in on a good heresy, or embrace an ideology which ultimately seeks the extinction of their faith?

Formulated by Latin American theologians seeking a spiritual rationale for their politics, liberation theology has taken avant-garde Christianity by storm, making significant inroads in the main-line Protestant denominations (the National Council of Churches has become a virtual cheering section for the creed), as well as the more politicized Catholic orders (the Jesuits and Maryknollers in particular). Now it is being marketed to American Jewry under a kosher label. It is, in fact, as kosher as a roast pig, stuffed with shell fish, served on Yom Kippur.

In the past two years, the B'nai B'rith Jewish Book Club, perhaps the largest book distributor of its kind, has offered no fewer than three works touting Hebraic liberationism: Judaism and Global Survival, by Richard H. Schwartz, On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Jews and Liberation Theology, by Dan Cohn-Sherbock, and Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation, by Marc Ellis. Significantly, the latter were published by Orbis Books, a subsidiary of the Maryknoll order.

Jewish liberation theology has its own journal, Tikkun, a slick bimonthly, and its revolutionary vanguard, the New Jewish Agenda. The NJA, while relatively small (with a following of perhaps five thousand), has secured membership in the Jewish Community Relations Councils of Los Angeles, Detroit, and half a dozen other cities.

Liberationism is an attempt to merge Scriptures with Marxist dogma. The Exodus story is viewed as a paradigm for revolutionary socialist movements in the Third World. Just as God ordained the manumission of the Children of Israel from Egyptian bondage and led them to the Promised Land, liberation theology posits the struggle against capitalism as Divinely ordained. Guerrrilla fighters become the neo-Moses and the future socialist state the New Israel, to be secured after the wilderness of class conflict has been traversed.

IN Communism in the Bible (Orbis Books, 1982), Jose Miranda urges, "It is time to drop all these side issues and concentrate on the fundamental fact: the Bible teaches Communism." Also, "No one can take the Bible seriously without concluding that according to it, the rich, for being rich, should be punished." Therefore: "Communism is obligatory for Christians."

And for Jews as well, say Jewish liberationists. "The religious Jew needs the secular and socialist critique," Ellis proclaims. "And the secular Jew benefits from ideals and symbols spoken in a language that has languished."

According to its proponents, liberation theology strives for the realization of Jewish ideals: peace, brotherhood, and justice. It gives new meaning to the Exodus story, making it a metaphor for Third World liberation struggles, and attempts to actualize the prophetic vision of an era of harmony and equality. Since liberationism seeks the attainment of Jewish goals, and invokes Jewish symbols toward these ends, Jews should feel a particular affinity for the doctrine, according to Tikkun, the Agenda, and their fellow-travelers.

To one whose Torah education extends not much beyond Bible stories in English, and whose knowledge of politics and economics was absorbed at the knee of Jesse Jackson, all this might sound quite plausible. Liberation theology is, in fact, a betrayal of Jewish heritage a rejection of Halakah (Jewish law), a deadly assault on Israel, and a stimulus for left-wing anti-semitism.

As Rabbi Leon Igenicki Director of the Interfaith Affairs Department of the Anti-defamation League, explains, liberationists have distorted the meaning of the Exodus, by focusing its brilliant spiritual light through an ideological prism. Kluenicki concedes: Judaism certainly recognizes the Exodus as liberation, but maintains that the liberation from Egyptian bondage became meaningful only when Israel received the law at Mount Sinai."

"These points," he continues, "are overlooked by ... the theologians of liberation. They consider liberation an end in itself, not realizing that physical or economic oppression can only be overcome by a freedom that has transcendental meaning. Otherwise, the liberation process ends in another form of tyranny or authoritarian dictatorship."