by Zack Beauchamp
Peter Berger tracks the global spread of a doctrine and critiques it:
The same themes appear throughout [the world]:The epistemological assumption that the oppressed have a privileged access to reality. The practice of “consciousness raising”, both for the oppressed themselves and for converts from the oppressing classes. The Christian Gospel legitimates and requires action against the oppressors (though the precise nature of this action is differently described). The designated victims of course vary—inhabitants of Brazilian favelas (or jungles), the minjung in Korea, African-Americans and (rather less plausibly) middle-class white women, and so on. But the oppressors tend to be the same—the agents and institutions of global capitalism, supported by American imperialism and its local allies.
Christian liberationism can be criticized both theologically and empirically. Theologically, it politicizes the Gospel in a way that deviates sharply from the New Testament—the Kingdom of God announced by Jesus and the early church was not a political program. (One does not have to be a Christian believer to say this—a Jewish, a Buddhist, or an atheist historian can come to the same conclusion.) Empirically, there are problems with the diagnosis, the recommended therapy, and the consequences for churches that espouse the liberationist agenda. The diagnosis of contemporary society in quasi-Marxist terms is essentially false.
I'm both Jewish and an atheist, making me doubly non-Christian, but his point about empirical conclusions not following from theological (or philosophical) beliefs is well taken. Believing that the weak are oppressed doesn't imply anything about who's doing the oppressing or how to fix it. The blindness bred by thinking it does can produces theological certainty about empirical beliefs, which is not only wrong but also quite dangerous.
The Dish 