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Liberation theology in Canada has had a significant history in the later 20th and early 21st centuries.
| The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline .(April 2012) |
Liberation theology in Canada has had a significant history in the later 20th and early 21st centuries.
The Fellowship for a Christian Social Order was founded in 1934 in depression-era Kingston, Ontario, [1] [2] and advocated that "the teaching of Jesus Christ, applied in an age of machine production and financial control, mean Christian Socialism". [1] During the 1970s many communities emerged in Quebec modelled on the base ecclesial communities of Latin America. [3]
Canadian reflections on the liberation theme in theology tend to be contributions, usually on specific issues or sub-disciplines such as relating theology and social ethics to economic issues and cultural or racial struggles (rarely on class analysis and struggles despite the rise of a Canadian Social Gospel and its strong influences on the formation of political parties). Representative are Roger Hutchinson, Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus at the Univ of Toronto who co-edited with Cranford Pratt, Christian Faith & Economic Justice: Toward A Canadian Perspective. See also Hutchinson's "Towards `A Pedagogy for Allies of the Oppressed,'" via Catholics for Social Justice at the Scarboro Foreign Mission Society and published in Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 13,2 (Spring 1984): 145–150. (as cited in "Social Ethics in a Post-liberal Age" in Graham Brown, ed., Theological Education in Canada ). There is further Harold Wells' A Long and Faithful March: Towards the Christian Revolution; 1930s/1980s. There are, as well, recently retired Member of Parliament and the United Church of Canada minister, Bill Blaikie and his The Blaikie Report: An Insiders' Look at Faith and Politics (2011) and John Badertcher's recent Ten Steps On Freedom Road: Why the Commandments are Good News (2019). A major 1970s report on many Canadian cities, sparked by the late Stuart Coles and assisted by former Jesuit and Anglican priest Jim Houston, expressed the cries of the oppressed and the challenge to the church is A Dream Not for the Drowsy (albeit out of print).
Exemplary of a personal contribution is Brewster Kneen's 2014 memoir Journey of an Unrepentant Socialist, chronicling his own forays and deepening/widening radicalization into Canadian issues and concluding that socialism can be the only commendable framework of analysis and resolution.
A significant resource for discerning the liberation theme in Canadian works are the writings of those in inner-city or urban ministry. While the "liberation" term may not be readily present intimations abound. Representative are Tim Dickau's Plunging into the Kingdom: Practicing the Shared Strokes of Community, Hospitality, Justice, and Confession (2010) and Barry K. Morris' (co-editor) The Word on the Street:: Invitation to Community Ministry in Canada; Hopeful Realism in Urban Ministry; and a forthcoming A Faithful Public-Prophetic Witness: Pursuits and Pitfalls of "Success" in Canadian City Ministries. Then, there are personal memoirs from street ministries such as Greg Paul's God in the Alley; Jesse Zink's Grace at the Garbage Dump; Tim Huff's Bent Hope: A Street Journal; Al Tysick' preface to Out in the Open: Life on the Street; and not all, the 1970s Norm Ellis' My Parish is Revolting.
Another valued body of writings arises from recent reflections on First Nations' history, especially the challenges to contextualize the consequences of colonization and major inquiries or commissions on the ill effects of residential schools and murdered and missing women. Suggestive of the liberation theme therein are Art Manuel's Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-up Call and Mennonite historian and theologian Steve Heinrichs' Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry: Conversations on Creation, Land Justice, and Life Together and, not all, Unsettling the Word: Biblical Experiments in Decolonization.
Some Canadian theologians have felt animated but then chastened by the earlier—and perhaps enduring—thrusts of liberation theology especially when it embraced Marxist analysis and even its philosophical and political prescriptions (where a virtual monopoly of the economy by a centralized if not authoritarian political structure was evident if not commended). The emergence of Christian or theological realism was instrumental in this outcome, which seems dominant today - despite occasional Canadian efforts to distinguish "realism" from its USA sources and spokespersons. To an extent, Canadian adoption of community organizing models and actual staff input via the Industrial Areas Foundation illustrate the incorporation of realism combined with liberation themes. Does one wonder if this is the best that can be achieved? However, if the social historian and investigative journalist, par excellent, Naomi Klein, is correct and prophetically apt, then the fierce conflict—and kairos moment—between the climate and capitalism may well provoke revisiting and posing a constructive critique of any constrained political posture that could be deemed normative. The liberation thrust remains active. See thus Klein's This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus The Climate and On Fire: The Burning Case fora Green New Deal (dedicated to the above Arthur Manuel).
Further research could unearth: National denominational staff persons of Canada's once mainstream Christian denominations who have contributed aspects of the liberation theme in their occasional reports and committee work to produce resolutions to their national assemblies (and beyond). They would include the late Robert Lindsey of the United Church of Canada; Don. Brown of the Anglican Church in Canada as well as their late primate Ted Scott; the late RC Bishop of Victoria, BC, Remi De Roo; and doubtlessly, others in the Presbyterian Church; the Mennonite churches; the Baptists; and Religious Society of Friends or Quakers. More research may well uncover book or article titles on these figures and their earnest contributions. Publications have also exhibited liberation themes, many of them sadly defunct - such as the Catholic New Times, Practice of Ministry in Canada, and The Grail—but thankfully Geez: Contemplative Cultural Resistance lives on (with its Manitoba roots).
Liberation theology is a theological approach emphasizing the "liberation of the oppressed". It engages in socio-economic analyses, with social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples and addresses other forms of perceived inequality.
The Christian left is a range of Christian political and social movements that largely embrace social justice principles and uphold a social doctrine or social gospel based on their interpretation of the teachings of Christianity. Given the inherent diversity in international political thought, the term Christian left can have different meanings and applications in different countries. While there is much overlap, the Christian left is distinct from liberal Christianity, meaning not all Christian leftists are liberal Christians and vice versa.
Christian socialism is a religious and political philosophy that blends Christianity and socialism, endorsing socialist economics on the basis of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Many Christian socialists believe capitalism to be idolatrous and rooted in the sin of greed. Christian socialists identify the cause of social inequality to be the greed that they associate with capitalism. Christian socialism became a major movement in the United Kingdom beginning in the 19th century. The Christian Socialist Movement, known as Christians on the Left since 2013, is one formal group, as well as a faction of the Labour Party.
Rerum novarum, or Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor, is an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on 15 May 1891. It is an open letter, passed to all Catholic patriarchs, primates, archbishops and bishops, that addressed the condition of the working classes.
Christian communism is a theological view that the teachings of Jesus compel Christians to support religious communism. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact dates when communistic ideas and practices in Christianity began, many Christian communists argue that evidence from the Bible suggests that the first Christians, including the Apostles in the New Testament, established their own small communist society in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection. Many advocates of Christian communism and other communists, including Karl Kautsky, argue that it was taught by Jesus and practised by the apostles themselves. This is generally confirmed by historians.
Progressive Christianity represents a postmodern theological approach, which developed out of the liberal Christianity of the modern era, itself rooted in the Enlightenment's thinking. Progressive Christianity is a postliberal theological movement within Christianity that, in the words of Reverend Roger Wolsey, "seeks to reform the faith via the insights of post-modernism and a reclaiming of the truth beyond the verifiable historicity and factuality of the passages in the Bible by affirming the truths within the stories that may not have actually happened."
Liberation psychology or liberation social psychology is an approach to psychology that aims to actively understand the psychology of oppressed and impoverished communities by conceptually and practically addressing the oppressive sociopolitical structure in which they exist. The central concepts of liberation psychology include: awareness; critical realism; de-ideologized reality; a coherently social orientation; the preferential option for the oppressed majorities, and methodological eclecticism.Through transgressive and reconciliatory approaches, liberation psychology strives to mend the fractures in relationships, experience, and society caused by oppression. Liberation psychology aims to include what or who has become marginalized, both psychologically and socially. Philosophy of liberation psychology stresses the interconnectedness and co-creation of culture, psyche, self, and community. They should be viewed as interconnected and evolving multiplicities of perspectives, performances, and voices in various degrees of dialogue. Liberation psychology was first conceived by the Spanish/Salvadoran Psychologist Ignacio Martín-Baró and developed extensively in Latin America. Liberation psychology is an interdisciplinary approach that draws on liberation philosophy, Marxist, feminist, and decolonial thought, liberation theology, critical theory, critical and popular pedagogy, as well as critical psychology subareas, particularly critical social psychology.
Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino is a Peruvian philosopher, Catholic theologian, and Dominican priest, regarded as one of the founders of Latin American liberation theology. He currently holds the John Cardinal O'Hara Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, and has previously been a visiting professor at many major universities in North America and Europe.
The Student Christian Movement of Canada is a youth-led ecumenical network of student collectives based in spirituality, issues of social, economic, and environmental justice, and building autonomous local communities on campuses across the country. It is part of the World Student Christian Federation. The SCM Canada works with other Christian groups, for example, in 2017 supporting the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Black theology, or black liberation theology, refers to a theological perspective which originated among African-American seminarians and scholars, and in some black churches in the United States and later in other parts of the world. It contextualizes Christianity in an attempt to help those of African descent overcome oppression. It especially focuses on the injustices committed against African Americans and black South Africans during American segregation and apartheid, respectively.
The Kairos Document (KD) is a theological statement issued in 1985 by a group of mainly black South African theologians based predominantly in the townships of Soweto, South Africa. The document challenged the churches' response to what the authors saw as the vicious policies of the apartheid regime under the state of emergency declared on 21 July 1985. The KD evoked strong reactions and furious debates not only in South Africa, but world-wide.
The Second Episcopal Conference of Latin America was a bishops' conference held in 1968 in Medellín, Colombia, as a follow-up to the Second Vatican Council which it adapted in a creative way to the Latin American context. It took as the theme for its 16 documents “The Church in the Present Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council", with a focus on the poor and oppressed in society. It recognized that “the social situation demands an efficacious presence of the Church that goes beyond the promotion of personal holiness by preaching and the sacraments.” The bishops agreed that the church should take "a preferential option for the poor" and gave their approval to Christian "base communities" in which the poor might learn to read by reading the Bible. The goal of the bishops was to liberate the people from the "institutionalized violence" of poverty. They maintained that poverty and hunger were preventable.
Gerhard Albert Baum, better known as Gregory Baum, was a German-born Canadian priest and theologian in the Catholic Church. He became known in North America and Europe in the 1960s for his work on ecumenism, interfaith dialogue, and the relationship between the Catholic Church and Jews. In the later 1960s, he went to the New School for Social Theory in New York and became a sociologist, which led to his work on creating a dialogue between classical sociology and Christian theology.
19th-century German philosopher Karl Marx, the founder and primary theorist of Marxism, viewed religion as "the soul of soulless conditions" or the "opium of the people". According to Marx, religion in this world of exploitation is an expression of distress and at the same time it is also a protest against the real distress. In other words, religion continues to survive because of oppressive social conditions. When this oppressive and exploitative condition is destroyed, religion will become unnecessary. At the same time, Marx saw religion as a form of protest by the working classes against their poor economic conditions and their alienation. Denys Turner, a scholar of Marx and historical theology, classified Marx's views as adhering to Post-Theism, a philosophical position that regards worshipping deities as an eventually obsolete, but temporarily necessary, stage in humanity's historical spiritual development.
Religious views on capitalism have been philosophically diverse, with numerous religious philosophers defending the natural right to property while simultaneously expressing criticism at the negative social effects of materialism and greed.
The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism is a 1982 book by philosopher Michael Novak, in which Novak aims to understand and analyze the theological assumptions of democratic capitalism, its spirit, its values, and its intentions. Novak defines democratic capitalism as a pluralistic social system that contrasts with the unitary state of the traditional society and the modern socialist state. He analyzes it as a differentiation of society into three distinct yet interdependent power centers: a political sector, an economic sector, and a moral-cultural sector. Democracy needs the market economy and both need a pluralistic liberal culture. Against the continuing growth of democratic capitalism, modern socialism has contracted from a robust utopian program into vague "idealism about equality" and overwrought criticism of capitalism, most notably in the "liberation theology" of Latin America. Novak ends with the "beginnings of a theological perspective on democratic capitalism" illuminated by the journey from Marxism to Christian realism of Reinhold Niebuhr.
There have been a variety of Christian views on poverty and wealth. At one end of the spectrum is a view which casts wealth and materialism as an evil to be avoided and even combated. At the other end is a view which casts prosperity and well-being as a blessing from God.
Ronald H. Nash was a philosophy professor at Reformed Theological Seminary. Nash served as a professor for over 40 years, teaching and writing in the areas of worldview, apologetics, ethics, theology, and history. He is known for his advocacy of Austrian economics, and his criticism of the evangelical left.
Latin American liberation theology is a synthesis of Christian theology and Marxian socio-economic analyses, that emphasizes "social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples". Beginning in the 1960s after the Second Vatican Council, liberation theology became the political praxis of Latin American theologians such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, and Jesuits Juan Luis Segundo and Jon Sobrino, who popularized the phrase "preferential option for the poor". It arose principally as a moral reaction to the poverty and social injustice in the region, which Cepal deemed the most unequal in the world.
