Liberation Theology Application Essay

Jesus Christ sought to improve the individual, the component of society, and as result, his teaching ideally aims to advance the well-being of society as a whole. The four Gospels and the book of Acts thoroughly demonstrate the extensive sociological knowledge that was present in Jesus’ teaching. His message facilitates personal reform, rather than change in the social structure alone. Although Jesus establishes the church as a social institution, he does so, only after a number of individuals become his followers.

Galindo analyzes that the fundamental “mission” of a congregation is the same as any other congregation that exists in any part of the world. He argues that though every congregation has a mission and a vision, at the same time, it shares a basic common mission. (43) This reminds me of my home church The First Church of Evanston and my Field Site, The Evanston Vineyard Church. Both churches have a common mission of welcoming people to the church, irrespective of their ethnic, cultural, racial, and economic and, gender backgrounds. The mission is to help people be received in the house of God with due and deserved Christian love so that they feel loved and welcomed. Both these churches encourage church attendees to attend the service and receive the Eucharist.

“The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church” by Dr. Ron Rosenbladt is a presentation that focuses on those who have left the church behind and no longer associate themselves with it. He categorizes those who have left into two sections: “sad” alumni and “mad” alumni. Sad alumni are those people who really wanted to believe but never could really get it right, while mad alumni are those who were “conned” by the church into giving themselves over to Christ and trying to believe and then when things didn’t quite work out, they were tossed away. This presentation focuses on how to bring people like this back to the faith, both the sad and mad alumni.

Upon “crashing” each of these waves paved the way for the next. As one reviewer notes: The still abstract recovery of the humanity of Jesus opened the way to a consideration of the concrete history and story of Jesus of Nazareth. Attentiveness to the specific ministry of Jesus led to a new appreciation of the contemporary context and challenge of discipleship. Sensitivity to the actual experience of following Jesus today raised new questions about the meaning of salvation in Christ for the poor, for women, for people of color. The everexpanding encounter of world religions posed anew the issue of Christ as universal savior.10 The third wave, with the view of Jesus as liberator, would give rise to liberation theology. Johnson outlines six basic characteristics of liberation theology: recognition of an oppressed group; action on behalf of justice; our relatedness to one another; use of social analysis; changing the unjust situation and the vision that the reign of God is already arriving.11 Johnson then highlights the three-part method of liberation theology: the oppressive situation is recognized; then the Christian tradition is analyzed for what may have contributed to the tradition and finally the Christian tradition is searched for elements that would yield a new understanding and a new practice that would be liberating.12

I first read Heidi Neumark’s memoir, Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx, the summer before entering seminary. I was in my early twenties, having just served for two years as a campus ministry at the University of Pittsburgh. Attending seminary so that I could eventually work for a religious non-profit. That summer I had no intention of becoming a pastor.

The book Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church, by Phillip Yancey, tremendously shaped my view of my calling. Soul Survivor helped me learn about my passion for speaking out about the true message of the Bible and finding ways to serve the Church within the context of this generation. The author of this book was raised in a church with a racist pastor and attended a Bible college that enforced sixty-six pages of rules that were traced to biblical principles. Later in his life, Yancey remained a spiritual person but struggled to mine the truth from his religious past. In this book, Yancey writes about 13 people who helped him reclaim his faith and transform his life.

Within Christian communities, enthusiasm to respond to injustice around the world with compassion continues to increase. Regrettably, well-meaning people who have good intentions but neglect to consider best practice principles are ultimately doing a disservice to the individuals and communities they intended to help. Moreover, a lack of understanding of holistic social action results in dependency and disregards the dignity of the poor. In From the Roots Up, Dr. JoAnn Butrin challenges Christians, both individually and as the larger body of Christ- the church, to respond to injustice thoughtfully and holistically. Butrin (2010) asserts:

As members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Tyronne Gross and Otis Amey were closely associated with Center High's Transformed Bible Club. The former NFL athletes were invited by the leadership committee I head. As the leader, I considered their visit to be an opportunity for our club to broadcast a message of hope to the students on our campus. Many high school students were struggling with depression, were not self-confident and felt as if they lacked the academic vitality their peers might have had. Therefore, by organizing a seminar, held within the school day, I hoped to impart that hope to students. We scheduled the time, place and day. Then we advertised across campus, letting the students know of this wonderful event. Six weeks

In “Puppy” by George Saunder is indispensable story about two mothers. Marie, mother to Abbie and Josh, is a freakish, suburban house wife. While, the other one is a laywoman and hillbilly mother named Callie. In which, there’s a encounter between them that corrupts the reader’s expectations from these stereotypes. During this story, you notice that there’s a moment when Marie describes her son’s behavior in, “Josh was less withdrawn lately, and when she came up behind him now while he was playing …he would reach with his non-controlling hand and swat at her affectionately, and yesterday they’d shared a good laugh when he’d accidentally knocked off his glasses” (14).

To Stoddard, the idea of “fostering conversions was more important than discovering a perfect church order, and in that attitude he blazed the way for the most influential practice in American religious history: he was the first American to make periodic revivals a centerpiece of his ministry” . Every decade his congregation would experience an “awakening” in which many people were moved spiritually and often lead to conversion. Some of these revivals even made it past Northampton and into the neighboring communities, directly impacting young Edwards and his family, for Edwards’s father rejected the half-way covenant but endorsed revival. These disagreements divided his family and remained unresolved for decades .

I never doubted the power of the gospel to change the life of an individual, but sometime during college, a doubt formed about the gospel’s power to change society. That doubt grew in power once I started to peer out over the walls of my own Christian cultural kingdom and work “in the world,” outside of my culture, economic group, and country. I discovered that there were authentic Christians who seemed at the mercy of larger forces, be it political, economic, or even religious. These followers of Jesus seemed content that their faith in Jesus, while having significance for them individually, had little effect presently in the world and greater effect eternally after death. That idea really perturbed me, and I remember reading or hearing something from author Rob Bell that resonated with me: the gospel has to be good news now or else it is not good news at all.

Many people believe that that the motivation of the Christian church is to radically “change the world”. However, through his book To Change The World, James Davison Hunter explains how this common believe is a misconception. Rather, he shows readers that, from a sociological perspective, while Christians thrive in many areas of life by reaching others individually, they fundamentally components of creating cultural change.

The Social Gospel is the idea of social problems being looked and fixed with a Christian point of view. The Gospel will always stay the same and we should refer the Social Gospel as living out the Gospel. The goal of the Social Gospel Movement was to tie salvation and good work together. They thought people should live the life of a Jesus Christ. Classes, counseling, job training and libraries were provided by churches to act according to the Social Gospel. The origins and issues of the Social Gospel Movement, how the Social Gospel related to a Progressive Era, the work of Walter Rauschenbusch, and how Social Gospel relates to the Gospel will be covered in this essay.

Arising out recent class discussion topics touching on the ideas of James Cone’s ideas on Liberation Theology and the relationship between the Cross and the Lynching Tree, our group decided to focus the topic of our presentation around Liberation Theology. However, in order to create a counter argument to stimulate further discourse, we introduced the Theology of Prosperity, as an opposing theological concept, to our presentation. Hence, we came up with the topic of Liberation Theology vs. Theology of Prosperity.

During their time period, many theologians were criticized or harassed. For example, there were fifteen attempts to assassinate Dom Helder Camera, who was a significant figure in liberation theology. Many were threatened. Some were arrested, tortured, or killed. While there were others who just disappeared. However they still practiced their beliefs and spread their ideas. (V.B.2)