The Ethics of Radical Social Change

“Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.” – John F. Kennedy[1]

Introduction

Within the Occidental Christian community there is a long history of discursive examination and explication apropos the ethical issues raised by the quandary of revolutionary social change.  Generally the disagreement centers on the question relating to the use violence.  Arguably the first instance of such a discussion occurred when Christ reprimanded Peter for severing the ear of one of the individuals arresting Jesus in the place of Gethsemane.[2]  The theo-ethical dispute continued from there through the development of the “just war” theory by St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas,[3] to what biblical scholar Roland Boer has described as the “revolutionary theology of John Calvin,”[4] the extant theological difference between Thomas Müntzer and Martin Luther[5], the civil disobedience advocated by Gerrard Winstanley and the English Diggers[6], and into the contemporary era, the historical epoch of the theologians under consideration in this project: José Miguez Bonino and Martin Luther King Jr.  In this paper I will discuss the threats that people seek to mitigate by appealing to stratagems of revolutionary social reconstitution, or social change, and the way that one understands the nature of God, the nature of sin, and the nature of justice impacts our view regarding the potential for positive social transformation.  I will use the work of the theologians José Miguez Bonino, who allows for the use of self-defensive violence, and Martin Luther King Jr., an advocate for nonviolent resistance, as well as the work of Dr. Glen Stassen and Dr. David P. Gushee in order to clarify the spectrum of ethico-epistemological viewpoints found within the sphere of Christian theology relating to this topic.

Before commencing this investigation one prefatory note must be allowed.  The topic at hand must not be regarded as merely theoretical, or abstract.  The relevancy of this topic should be readily apparent.  While there is some disagreement as to the actual level of injustice experienced by citizens in the United States and the world (for we must remember that in this age of globalization and integration, what affects the United States affects the rest of the world and vice versa), there must certainly be agreement as to the level of discontent felt by people worldwide.  This reality is readily apparent with all of the civil unrest that has escalated surrounding issues related to world trade[7], the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan[8], and the United States government’s handling of the current financial crisis.[9]  In recognition of these facts, and in recognition of the value that Christ placed on peacemaking[10], locating a discernable Christian voice, or position in relation to this matter now appears to be more important than ever.

The Threat: The Differing Perceptions of Bonino and King

                The philosophical and discursive meditations of the theologians and activists José Miguez Bonino and Martin Luther King Jr., as mentioned in the above introduction, represent two opposing viewpoints regarding the potential for the positive use of violence in the pursuit of radical social reconstitution.  Though a great deal of understanding for each of the positions can be gleaned through an in-depth reading, analysis, and deconstruction of the texts produced by these two men, this technique does not provide the scholar with total resolution regarding the difference opinion encountered.  Ultimately, one of the best ways to determine the reasons for the extant theoretical and strategic differences espoused by these two theologians and activists must resort to an analysis of perception.  This means examining the social elements and loyalties, as well as the passions, fears and other emotive compenants present in the cognizant framework of both Bonino and King.  Dr. Glen Stassen and Dr. David P. Gushee explicate the import of this point and make it explicit in their book Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context:

Perception of the context of actions powerfully shapes what people do.  Ethicists need to study how people select data and synthesize and interpret it.  It is not enough to say “pay attention to the facts,” or, “Vision is important to character as they usually do.  Treating the facts as givens, or not developing a critical theory for assessing how people interpret facts, locks us into biases about what is happening and what is possible, and blocks critical assessment of the theories that guide the selection , sysnthesis and interpretation of those facts.[11]

   

While it is true that both José Miguez Bonino and Martin Luther King Jr. view social injustice as the penultimate threat or problem which they seek to remedy via their strategies for social change, King perceives the opprobrious situations of injustice, violence and oppression in manner that Stassen and Gushee have described as “holistic.”[12]  While both Bonino and King recognize the latent potential and power of social and legal structures apropos injustice, exploitation and the illicit use/abuse of coercisve forms of deterrence with respect to civic action, King also emphasizes the reality of individual responsibility.  Unjust/sinful social structures are made up of individual persons that are either actively participating in, or tacitly supporting (either through complacency or fear) the aforementioned structures.  This is why King argues that any strategy for social change should focus on the transformation of the consciousness of the individual members who reside in, or comprise the elite or privileged group that is the source and genesis of the injustice experienced.  King clarified this point while defending his strategy of nonviolent resistance to end racial inequality and oppression in the American south:

…[N]onviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.  The nonviolent resister must often express his protest through noncooperation or boycotts, but he realizes that noncooperation and boycotts are not ends in themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent.  The end is redemption and reconciliation.  The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.[13] (Emphasis added)

It is clear here that while the end goal is to transform society as a whole, the principle methodology for achieving fundamental constitutional metamorphosis is to appeal to “hearts and minds” of the individuals who collectively comprise the inequitable and superincumbent governing bodies and social structures in question.  Obviously one cannot befriend the institutions which make up what Marxist theorists refer to as a culture’s superstructure.  Also, one cannot reconcile oneself with a broken system.  So ultimately, while King does not deny the juridical and legal aspect of social oppression he ultimately recognizes the human managerial agency within the political and economic milieu.  The main objective is to restore even the tyrant to a proper relationship in community.

By contrast Bonino, while not totally myopic concerning the importance of individual action, accentuates the corporate nature of social injustice or sin.  Though Bonino does not deny the Christian doctrine of sin apropos the condition of individual human beings, he implicitly deemphasizes this aspect of systematic theology while underscoring the amalgamated character of injustice.  This is exceedingly evident when one examines his book Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation, particularly the chapter entitled “Understanding Our World.”[14]  For instance, Bonino begins this chapter with a series of ominous descriptions of the economic, social and political impoverishment of various Latin American nation states, and then moves to the ailing and afflicted condition of Latin America as a whole.[15]  He does not use examples from individual existential experience, but rather focuses on the collective suffering of the people of Latin America.  This is not, in itself, problematic; however, it does illustrate certain dynamic elements relating to Bonino’s perception of the problem of injustice and oppression in the Latin American context.  According to Bonino, the source of the aforementioned injustice and exploitation is rooted not in individual activity, but in the socio-economic and municipal structure of the international political nexus.  It is the result of a concerted effort on the part of powerful Amero-European nation states, corrupt media and amoral multinational conglomerates.[16]  Ultimately, however, a collective system of economic production and exchange is the consummate cause of all of the injustice in Latin America and throughout the globe - capitalism.  For Bonino, capitalism is the root of individual acts of exploitation, violence, and oppression:

In the final analysis, the capitalist form of production as it functions in today’s world creates in the dependent [underdeveloped countries in Latin America and elsewhere] countries (perhaps not only in them) a form of human existence characterized by artificiality, selfishness, the inhuman and dehumanizing pursuit of success measured in terms of prestige and money, and the resignation of responsibility for the world and for one’s neighbor.  This last point is perhaps the most serious.  Insofar as this sham culture kills in the people even the awareness of their own condition of dependence and exploitation, it destroys the very core of their humanity: the decision to stand up and become agents of their own history, the will to conceive and realize an authentic historical project.[17]

 One can perceive here, at least in latent form, the aspect of Bonino’s ratiocination that will enable him to justify and advocate the use of revolutionary violence at point in the book.  The reasoning is almost the obverse of King’s rational described above.  The main obstacles to justice are a dehumanizing system of economic exchange and the institutions that intervene to protect the system from discordance and cacophony.  Individuals functioning within these institutions are often secondary participants that have been negatively shaped by ideological media systems.[18]

The Nature of God and Divine Justice:

                Though the above explication of King’s and Bonino’s perceptions of social injustice and sin is a necessary preliminary to understanding their stratagems for societal transformation, it is not adequate, in and of itself.  It cannot function as a complete account for King’s advocacy of nonviolence resistance and Bonino’s allowance of self-defensive violence when one is engaged in revolutionary struggle.  If one is to seriously undertake the challenge asserted by Dr. Stassen and Dr. Gushee in relation to ethical analysis, one must also examine the loyalties and convictions of both men.  To develop a more clarified awareness in relation to two differing programs one has to examine each of these theologians’ conception of the divine nature, as well as their evaluation of what constitutes justice.

                Even though both Bonino and King are protestant theologians, their theology was formed in very different circumstances and, consequently, they have markedly distinct concepts of God’s nature.  The church historian James M. Washington has pointed out the fact that King’s faith and activism is rooted in the culture, history and, most importantly, the Christology of the American black church movment.[19]  This helps to explain the New Testament’s primacy in the writings of Martin Luther King, as well as his heavy reliance on the authority of scripture for his line of argumentation.  It provides one with a greater depth of understanding regarding his conclusion that nonviolent resistance is the only effective strategy to follow when one is attempting to challenge and transform the illegitimate and oppressive apparatus of government.  For King, the greatest theophany, or revelation of God’s nature was and is present in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.  He would frequently declare that “Christ gave us the goals,” relating to social change.[20]  This Christological tableau of God, subsequently formed King’s conception of justice and appropriate social engagement.  He would embrace a conception of Christian activism similar to that advocated by the theologians John Howard Yoder[21] and Vernard Eller[22], and presented by Stassen and Gushee in the section of Kingdom Ethics entitled “The Transforming Initiatives of the Sermon on the Mount.”[23]  One feature that each of these theological positions shares is the view that through Jesus’ teachings, God called humankind to a vision of justice beyond mere judicatory litigation and retaliation.  This new justice would only be possible through radical reconciliation.  Within the book Strength to Love, King incontrovertibly embraces this ethic of transformative reconciliation, and expressed it in an anthropology of mutuality and solidarity:

All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.  I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love.  The nonviolent resister would contend that in the struggle for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or indulging in hate campaigns.  To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe.  Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. [24]

In other words, in order to create real social change one has to move beyond humankinds usual conception relating to the dichotomy of justice and injustice and into a new understanding of justice characterized by what Stassen and Gushee refer to as the “transforming initiatives” of Jesus Christ.[25]

                In the case of José Miguez Bonino examining the socio-political and economic milieu in which his ethics, theology and activist positions were formed is also instructive.  Bonino “is an Argentinian and one of the leading Protestant exponents of Latin American liberation theology.”[26] This quote from the biblical scholar R. S. Sugirtharajah actually reveals a great deal about the context which was to prove formative for the theology found in Bonino’s classic text, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation.  First Bonino wrote the text during a state of civil conflagration and turmoil in his home country of Argentina.  The two decades which preceded Bonino’s publication of Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation were marked by the oppressive presidency of Juan Peron and a series of military juntas and coups that lead to the suppression of political dissent and human rights.[27]  While this does not entirely explain Bonino’s advocacy of his particular strategy for revolutionary change, it does help explain his distrust of the traditional democratic forums and mechanisms for social reformation. 

Secondly, Bonino is a Latin American theologian influenced heavily by liberation theology, which was especially prevalent during the period (the late 1960s through the early 1980s) in which Bonino wrote the aforementioned tome.  Latin American liberation theology was greatly influenced by Marxist sociology, anthropology and economic analysis.  While there is some truth to Christopher Rowland’s contention that liberation theology is not entirely endebted to Marxism as a philosophy[28], a cursory glance at the contents of the most prominent titles[29] published by liberation theologians indicates the prevalent presence of the Marxist critique.  The same can be said of Bonino’s own work.  The title of his book Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation is itself a reference to Leninist analysis.[30] Bonino’s indebtedness to Marxist infused liberation theology is also evident in the content of the book and in a number of other essays written by Bonino during the same period, especially the essay “Marxist Critical Tools: Are they Helpful in Breaking the Stranglehold of Idealist Hermeneutics?”[31]  Ultimately, the Marxist inculcated subsidiary/arm of Latin American liberation theology would leave its imprint upon the hermeneutics, Christology, eschatology, ethics and imago dei espoused by Bonino.  As a result, Bonino interprets political engagement, social struggle, historicity and ethical quandaries through the interpretive lens of Yahweh-as-God and the Old Testament vs. King’s Christ-as-God/New Testament framework.[32]     

It must be contended that this influence is the source and origin of Bonino’s acceptance of and proclivity to advocate self-defensive violence in the struggle for revolutionary change.  Even though Bonino does not initiate his proposal for social change with a call to violent revolution, he does not exclude this possibility.  Like other liberation theologians, Bonino views self-defensive violence as one of the options open to the poor while they are attempting “to stand up and become agents of their own history.”[33]  For Bonino “class struggle…often with a measure of violence – is inextricably woven into the revolutionary process…”[34]

A Personal Reflection on the Ethics of Violence in the Pursuit of Social Change

                It is my contention that the position of Martin Luther King Jr. is closer to the ethic espoused by Jesus Christ than that of José Miguez Bonino.  It should be readily apparent that Christ did not intend his followers to participate in violent actions, whether the activities in question are categorized as composite elements of an insurrection against an unjust and illegitimate government, or they are defensive responses to injustice and coercive violence.  I have to agree with King when he said that “[h]istory is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.”[35]  This provides us, in a negative way, with an affirmation of the necessity of following the “transformative initiatives”[36] advocated by Jesus Christ in his Sermon on the Mount; id est not repaying violence with retaliatory acts of violence and showing the radically irrational nature of greed by giving the rest of your clothes to those who are suing you for your coat.  As Martin Luther King said in the same sermon quoted above

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional.  Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies…This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all embracing and unconditional love for all men.[37]

This beloved community of persons and nations is what I have been lead to believe is what Christ called us to enact in the interim period between his initiation of the heavenly Kingdom on earth and its completion upon his return.     

                 

        

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[1] John F. Kennedy, White House speech, 1962.

[2] Mathew 26:51-54 The People’s Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009) – All Biblical references will be taken from this Bible.

[3] Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Eds.), History of Political Philosophy: Third Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963) 176-205 and 248-275.

[4] Roland Boer, Political Grace: The Revolutionary Theology of John Calvin (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).

[5] Roland Boer, Rescuing the Bible (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 106-112

[6] Ibid. 112-119

[7] David Solnit and Rebecca Solnit, The Battle of the Storyof the Battle of Seattle (Oakland: AK Press, 2009), 1-55.

[8] Müge Gürsöy Sökmen (Ed.) with Arundhati Roy and Richard Falk, World Tribunal on Iraq (Northampton, Massachusetts: Olive Branch Press, 2008).  See also Aaron Glantz and the Iraq Veterans Against the War, Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan – Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations (Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2008).

[9] Slavoj Žižek, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (London: Verso, 2009)

[10] Matthew 5:9

[11] Glen Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2003), 65.

[12] Ibid., 55-78.

[13] Martin Luther King Jr., “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., James M. Washington (Ed.) (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1986), 7-8.

[14] José Miguez Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 21-37.

[15] Ibid., 21-23.

[16] Ibid., 24-31.

[17] Ibid., 31.

[18] Ibid., 30-31.

[19] James M. Washington (Ed.), A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1986), x-xiv.

[20] Martin Luther King, The Strength to Love (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), 7.

[21] John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994).

[22] Vernard Eller, War and Peace: From Genesis to Revelation (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1981).

[23] Glen Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2003), 125-145.

[24] Martin Luther King, The Strength to Love (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), 7-8.

[25] Glen Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2003), 132-145.

[26] R. S. Sugirtharajah, See the introduction for José Miguez Bonino’s essay “Marxist Critical Tools: Are They Helpful in Breaking the Stranglehold of Idealist Hermeneutics?” in Voices From the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, R. S. Sugirtharajah (Ed.) (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2006), 40.

[27] Timeline: Argentina provided by BBC news systems and publications: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1196005.stm 

[28] Christopher Rowland, “Foreword to the Second Edition,” in The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology, Christopher Rowland (Ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), xiii.

[29] Though there is not enough space in this footnote to provide a definitive list of titles a few may be suggested for those with interest:  José Porfirio Miranda, Communism in the Bible (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1982), Marx and the Bible (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1974), and Marx Against the Marxists (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1980); George V. Pixley, On Exodus: A Liberation Perspective (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1987); Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1993) and No Salvation Outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2008); Pierre Bigo, S. J., The Church and Third World Revolution (Meryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1977); Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1973) and The Power of the Poor in History (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1983); Pablo Richard, et. al., The Idols of Death and the God of Life: A Theology (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1983)    

[30] Though the use of the dialogical phrase “revolutionary situation” is relatively common among contemporary Marxist/Leninist theorists, the most significant usage must be attributed to Lenin himself.  I am referring here to the initial section of Lenin’s Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.: A Letter to the Workers of St. Petersburg, which is titled Appraisal of the Revolutionary Situation and of the Class Tasks of the Proletariat.

[31] José Miguez Bonino, “Marxist Critical Tools: Are They Helpful in Breaking the Stranglehold of Idealist Hermeneutics?,” in Voices from the Margins: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, R.S. Sugirtharajah (Ed.) (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2006), 40-48.

[32] José Miguez Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 134-153.

[33] Ibid., 31.

[34] Ibid., 107.

[35] Martin Luther King Jr., “A Time to Break Silence,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1986), 242-243.

[36] Glen Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2003), 132-145. 

[37] Martin Luther King Jr., “A Time to Break Silence,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1986), 242.

A Church Without Borders(?)!

I.  Introduction

But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  For he is our Peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us.  He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.  So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and Peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.  So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the house of God, built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. (Ephesians 2:13-20) (Emphasis added)

The issues relating to immigration, borders and border security are highly contentious.  This is especially true within the modern socio-political context of the United States.  Debates, laws, vigilante groups and even political parties have emerged with the border-immigration concern as their central focus.  A large number of conservative politicians and citizens, who claim that their policies and political positions are based upon the principles of the Christian religion, have become engaged in the political and rhetorical politicization and solidification of America’s borders (whether through active involvement, or tacitly through silent acquiescence). (Chacón 2006:91-97)  This position, however, is a great opprobrium to the “body of Christ.”  Bill Cane, the activist and author, reminds us in his book Circles of Hope: Breathing Life and Spirit into a Wounded World that “[t]o dehumanize the other is, of course to dehumanize ourselves.  Oppressors lose their own humanity when they dehumanize others.” (Cane, 1992: 99) 

More appropriately, as the above quoted passage from the book of Ephesians should make readily apparent, the Christian position apropos immigration (whether illicit or officially authorized) should be one of compassion, solidarity and accompaniment.  Instead of creating a political stigma around migrants from the global South, the Christian should challenge the economic, social and political realities of globalization that are the driving force or impetus for the current global South-to-North migration pattern.  Rather than erecting walls that isolate citizens of the United States from the communities of the impoverished  and developing world, Christians should encourage their public officials to create and properly fund appropriate aid and development policies, designed to eliminate the impetus for South-to-North migration.  Instead of demonizing or ignoring migrant individuals and communities, Christians should embrace immigrants as members of the human family.  In them is an opportunity to learn from and serve Christ embodied in the poor, the afflicted and the marginalized.  In other words, Christians should interact with migrant individuals and communities, recognizing within them opportunities for the strengthening of othropraxy and orthodoxy regarding the theology of missiological reconciliation and solidarity.  Christians should not recognize political and social boundaries as legitimate constraints on their fellowship with those in need and must learn from and assist the immigrant communities they come into contact with.  To put it more succinctly, Christians need to find ways to radically live out the libratory message of Ephesians 2:13-20.  Bill Cane emphasizes the importance of active solidarity and compassion:

Every time we reach over a gap that separates us…we are creating the world anew…Every time we move across a boundary that separates us – older people with younger people, rich with poor, black with brown – we are engaged in acts of solidarity.  (Cane, 1992: 102)

Latin American liberation theology provides a concrete example of this kind of interaction.   The negative effects of the complex social and economic interactions referred to generally as globalization are largely the causes for recent increases in migration from Latin American countries to the United States.  Latin American liberation theology has positively impacted the spiritual landscape of North America regarding the issue of immigration by encouraging Christian communities to comfort and reach out to the marginalized and oppressed. This reality shows that the North American missiological project has much to learn from Latin American liberation theology.

II.  The “Dark Side” of Globalization    

In order to better understand the complexities and nuances surrounding the issue of immigration, particularly in the modern era, one must develop a working knowledge of globalization.  The current debate regarding the socio-economic reality more broadly referred to as “globalization” is actually concerned more with the economic and environmental disparities created by Western neoliberal economic policies that have been introduced into the global market by governments and corporate entities.  Although there is a latent potential to create a more democratic global economic system, the overarching influence of the economic and legal power of American and European multinational business and nation states tends to act in a hegemonic fashion that shapes and controls the economic realities that accompany global culture.  Dr. Jehu J. Hanciles describes this reality best in his book, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West.  He states that “globalization is often used as a ‘blame word’ by many, especially among the world’s poor and powerless…because important dimensions negatively impact ‘livelihoods and modes of existence.’ (Hanciles 2008: 26)  Hanciles continues by explaining that although there is a positive potential within the economic sphere of globalization, “few would deny either that globalization, most patently economic globalization, has a ‘dark side’ or that what can be a powerful force for good is daily deformed by corporate greed, unrestrained self-interest, exploitation, and crime.” (Hanciles 2008: 27-28)            

This becomes apparent when one examines the state of income and wealth distribution on a global scale.  The realities of actual wealth distribution and growth are a sharp rebuke to those who affirm the benevolent nature of economic globalization without reservation or qualification.  According to the United Nations Human Development Report released in 1999 the “income gap between the fifth of the world’s people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 74 to 1 in 1997, up from 60 to 1 in 1990 and 30 to 1 in 1960.” (United Nations Publications 1999: 3)  This appears to contradict the claims of the apologist for neoliberal, economic globalization; namely that the application of their principles and policies will result in a decrease in wealth inequalities. The economic and social trends noted in the United Nations Human Development Report of 1999 continued and, though some improvements were made, similar gaps in global wealth still existed in 2005.  The United Nations Human Development Report of 2005 states that “the space between countries is marked by deep and, in some cases, widening inequalities and life chances” in terms of human development and economic equity. (United Nations Publications 2005: 17)  The same report highlights the problematic, existential situation above by providing a simple comparison:

One-fifth of humanity live in countries where many people think nothing of spending $2 a day on a cappuccino.  Another fifth of humanity survive on less than a $1 a day and live in countries where children die for want of a simple anti-mosquito bednet. (United Nations Publications 2005: 17) 

           

Certainly the financial crisis of 2008 has made it difficult to determine the fiscal patterns relating to human development globally, as well as in countries with emerging, developing and, in some instances failing economies.  Unfortunately, however, the pattern of inequality and economic difference appears to be fixed and is in some cases deteriorating.

According to the Christian standpoint this situation is disquieting.  A vast majority of the earth’s population lives in a state of abject poverty, compounded by the lack of adequate shelter and nourishment.  Consequently an overwhelming portion of the world’s population is unable to actualize its God-given purpose.  Upon examining the research of Philip Jenkins, one realizes that a large portion of the afflicted populous is made up of brothers and sisters in faith:

Over the past century…the center of gravity in the Christian world has shifted inexorably southward, to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  Already today, the largest Christian communities on the planet are to be found in Africa and Latin America.  If we want to visualize a “typical” contemporary Christian, we should think of a woman living in a village in Nigeria or in a Brazilian favela…Whatever Europeans or North Americans may believe, Christianity is doing very well indeed in the global South – not just surviving but expanding. (Jenkins, 2002: 1)

This being the case, the people most affected by the “dark side” of globalization are also members of the broad Christian community; a truth which places a greater level of responsibility on the more affluent, Christian communities of the global Northwest.  In other words, for churches to ignore some of the more problematic and opprobrious aspects of globalization is tantamount to neglecting the basic necessities of one’s fellow believers. Christ’s teaching upon this subject is quite clear when one examines the parables of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) and of the Great Feast (Luke 14: 15-24). These passages show that the consequences of ignoring, neglecting, or contributing to the misery of the poor are, from the perspective of eternity, disastrous.  This is a point often emphasized by liberation theologians.  Peter Paris, a professor of Christian Social Ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary, once remarked “the most fundamental claim made by all liberation theologies is their radically different understanding of the nature and activity of God, that is for example, their bold proclamation that God’s activity in history is solely that of being in solidarity for liberation with the specific struggles of oppressed peoples.” (Paris 1992: 133-134)  Liberation theologian Jon Sobrino echoes this sentiment in his book The Eye of the Needle: No Salvation outside the Poor, a Utopian Prophetic Essay.  In this book he describes the response of liberation theology to the poverty and human degradation described above:

As the problem is so enormous, our response can only be modest; at least let’s try to begin.  We start by linking salvation to the poor, and by seeing the poor as the setting where salvation becomes possible.  And although it sounds paradoxical, we begin with our modest formula extra pauperes nulla salus (‘no salvation outside the poor’).  Strictly speaking, we are not saying that with the poor salvation exists automatically, but that without them it cannot exist at all.  We are saying that there is always ‘something’ of salvation with the poor.  What we want to do is offer hope, despite everything: salvation for a very sick world can come from the world of the poor and the victims. (Sobrino 2008: 41)

Sobrino’s conceptual framework is readily applicable to individual immigrants and migrant communities within the United States.  This is a position that will be returned to and developed more fully later.        

            It is arguable that the problems of poverty, malnutrition, environmental degradation, and global economic malfeasance are not merely unforeseen aberrations within the context of the global, neoliberal economic order.  In many cases they are the direct results of the fundamental elements of neoliberal policies.  The liberalization of trade markets and capital, the removal of fundamental regulatory policies, and the global privatization of public goods and services have shown tendencies towards a general degradation of the environment and human development.  As with most instances of injustice, the burden rests on the shoulders of the countries with developing economies.  This point is made by Branko Milanovic in his article, The Two Faces of Globalization: Against Globalization as We Know It, written for the World Development journal in 2003:

Let me mention a few of these effects: very high and/or increasing spatial and interpersonal inequality, blatant theft of public resources masquerading under the name of privatization and cheered on by most economists and international organizations, growth of slums, deteriorating labor conditions, return of the long-forgotten diseases such as tuberculosis, declines in education enrollment rates, dramatically increased mortality in most of the former Soviet republics and Africa, deforestation, growth of worldwide networks of mafias and drug cartels, even modern-day slavery through development of piracy and abduction of women and children for prostitution. (Milanovic 2003: 667-683)

North-South migration could be added to this list of problematic international situations with great ease.  This is due to the fact that the negative consequences of economic globalization are also the main forces driving global migration.  Austere socio-economic and political realities remain the norm for the vast majority of the world’s population.  Those who find themselves enduring these conditions understandably seek any feasible means of escape.  The migratory flow of the western hemisphere is more readily comprehensible once one is cognizant of this fact.  It is helpful to examine the example of Mexico.  Following the ratification of the North American Free Trade Act, agricultural trade, among other things, was liberalized.  Subsequently, the Mexican agricultural market was flooded with American produce at prices that decimated the local agricultural market in Mexico.  Subsistence farm communities in rural Mexico were affected by these economic changes to the greatest degree.  Members of these communities began to explore other work options and locations to sustain themselves, their families and their communities.  “Despite pet projects to try to sustain peasant agriculture, the gradual deterioration of conditions for the rural poor push them into cities, where they fill the ranks of an expanding industrial workforce and state bureaucracy, or force them to look for work in El Norte [the United States], a hemorrhaging that continues to this day.” (Chacón 2006: 109)  Economic policies and treaties similar to NAFTA (most notably the General Agreement in Trade and Services, or GATS) have had analogous consequences in other regions and have also led to conflicts and rebellions.  The most notable examples to date are the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas (Ross 2000: 4-10) and the so called “water war” of Bolivia (Olivera 2004: 7-33), which was essentially an indigenous response to the privatization of public water utilities by the multinational corporation Bechtel.  Conflicts and rebellions such as these also lead to an increased level in migration north to the United States.

The negative impacts of globalization are manifested by institutions that manage the global capital system in a manner that favors the economies of the global Northwest. In conducting their management of the “free market,” these institutions do not allow for democratic decision making with regard to international economic policies. Policy ratification tends to be dominated by more developed nations at each level of decision-making.  The United States is an especially powerful economic force in this process.  The International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (more commonly referred to as the World Bank), and the World Trade Organization persistently promote the liberalization of market forces irrespective of dramatic fiscal and existential inequalities that result from such policies.  These organizations and the United Nations “dominate international policy making and exercise increasing control over national and local governments around the world,” according to Kristin Dawkins, a senior fellow at the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy. (Dawkins 2003: 23) This creates problems because investor satisfaction is the main guide for the decision-making process of these institutions, which are not run in an entirely democratic fashion (aside from the UN).  Although a democratic decision-making body is set up by the WTO’s charter, it is still a de facto hegemonic institution, with the most powerful and wealthy nations often able to construct economic policies favorable to their own interests irrespective of the consequences to the less developed member nations. (Wallach 1999:13-26) Essentially, the proliferation of profit is given precedence over the welfare of the human community on a global scale and only the most politically and fiscally affluent are consulted apropos the developments relating to transnational socio-economic policy.

III.  Unwelcome Missionaries: Latin American Migrants and Liberation Theology

Upon examining the paradoxical reality commonly referred to as globalization, it should be readily apparent that economic shifts and disparities are the main forces driving the current global South-to-North migration patterns.  The example of Mexico and Bolivia were provided for the sake of clarity and comprehension.  It is now necessary to establish the missiological possibilities presented to us by the realities of global migration.  The following section presents both the problematic nature of United States policies relating to immigration and a couple of case studies of migrant influence and interaction within North American congregations.  These cases highlight the primacy of themes and emphases shared by Latin American liberation theology and Latin American migrant communities.    

Religion is an aspect of social capital that accompanies migratory populations.  A number of important articles, studies and books focus on the correlation between immigration and religious cultural exchange.  Historian Timothy L. Smith has described migration as a “theologizing experience.” (Smith 1978: 1174)  Jehu J. Hanciles, the missiological historian, has developed this point further by examining the current trend of South-to-North migration which characterizes the historical epoch of modern globalization.  In his text Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West Hanciles argues that human migration is not simply a theologizing event or experience, but is often the site of “missionary engagement.” (Hanciles 2008: 4)  Here Hanciles encapsulates the multilateral flow which is a central aspect of the cultural and religious exchanges accompanying the introduction of migrant cultures into a new social or political context.  This religious, cultural and political phenomenon is evident in the experience of Latino immigrants in the American Southwest.  These migrants are not passively shaped by the religion and culture of their North American context.  Rather, new theological, religious and social realities are being formed by Latino migrants in North America.  The confluence of Latin American migration, Latin American liberation theology and the advent of new immigrant-focused civic-religious entities in the United States are examples of this kind of cultural change.

            Understanding the historical context of Latino migration into North America allows for a better understanding of the nature and impact of Latin American liberation theology on Latino communities and “civil religion” in the United States.  There is anxious contention regarding the character and manner of Latino migration into the United States.  Latino migrants, particularly those coming from Mexico, were largely excluded from possible migration to the United States for much of the twentieth century.  This is readily apparent when looking at American immigration policy between 1924 and 1965.  A comprehensive immigration act was passed in 1924 which excluded all except western Europeans from the possibility of immigration. “The Act established a Quota grid based on the 1890 census, which registered the highest percentage of ‘preferred racial stock.’  These quotas preserved an imbalance that favored northern and Western Europeans, who received 85 percent of the quota allowances until 1965.” (Chacón 2006: 189)  Social historian David A. Badillo writes that the “passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 repealed the immigration quota system,” and “allowed for wider categories of entrants from the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere…” (Badillo 2006: 182) While this act technically allowed legitimate migration from Latin America and other areas of the global south, access for these migrants remained limited.  Cultural assimilation for Latino immigrants was made difficult by the presence racial, econo-political, social and, most importantly, religious conceptual constructs which were built into the American psyche. The current discussion and debate surrounding the issue of Latino migration carries a negative tone with its focus on illicit or “illegal” immigration.  This situational tension is described well by the esteemed sociologist Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo:

…immigrants and refugees have met with a deeply ambivalent and often mean-spirited public reception in the United States.  We see this in institutions across society, in the media, in workplaces, in the legislature, and in the campaign platforms of politicians at election time.  It is an era marked by xenophobia, radicalized nativism, the perception that immigrants are draining social welfare coffers, and by a new nationalism that conflates immigrants with terrorists and national security threats. (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2007: 3)

            The influence of liberation theology among the Latin American migrant community can be seen against this backdrop of racial and socio-political tension. The great majority of Latin American immigrants come to the United States in effort to escape civil conflagration, endemic poverty and political oppression.  Historian Greg Grandin writes about “the countryside” of many Central American nations where a vast majority of the poor live and “hunger, infectious disease, and malnutrition are endemic and starvation has become common.” (Grandin 2006: 205)  This is the context for the origins of Liberation Theology.  Its main libratory tenets arose out of the deep need to confront the social, economic and structural inequality that left a vast majority of the people in a state of unendurable poverty, and privileged elites that “live in garrison communities, with private heavily armed security guards protecting them from the constant threat of kidnapping for ransom.” (Grandin 2006: 205)   

Ivan Petralla, a renowned Argentinean liberation theologian, describes the central task of his work:

…Latin American liberation theology was born at a time when phantoms shouting in hunger shook a continent out of its lethargy…Its documents analyzed Latin America’s social situation and argued that the continent suffered from structures of institutionalized violence caused by foreign exploitation that created a situation of internal and external colonialism. (Petralla 2005: xii-xiii.)

The flux of migrants from South to North has grown as impoverished sectors of the Central and South American population have become increasingly displaced and uprooted by economic globalization.   This results from neoliberal economic policies that are imposed on their countries by American and European financial institutions and governments.  Increased politicization and militarization of America’s southwest border with Mexico has forced growing numbers of migrants to enter the United States illegally. (Chacón 2006: 201-213)  Rather than entering America as “blank slates,” these migrants bring a multitude of contextual and cultural “reverberations/memories” with them.  Latin American migrant communities, a majority of whom are practicing Catholics, have carried the tenets of liberation theology with them, along with its particular focus on the poor “as the primary and at times exclusive agents of social change.” (Petralla 2005: xiii)  Hanicles concept of “Christian migrants as missionaries” (Hanciles 2008: 296-302) can be applied to the majority of Central and South American migrants who represent a wave of “unwelcome missionaries” who bring potent ideologies relating to social justice to the United States.  These migrants create new religious and social communities to influence their situation.  

There are numerous examples of the influence liberation theology has on the work of Latino social activists, clergy and lay leaders in Catholic Latino congregations in the United States.  The Valley Missionary Program and the Sanctuary movement are two of the most prominent examples.  Both of these movements have attempted to mimic or transport the organizational church structure proposed by Latin American liberation theologians known as the “base ecclesial community” to the North American context.  While the traditional parish structure of the Catholic Church emphasized the existence of a central cathedral around which the community revolved, the base ecclesial community model maintains “a vision of the parish structure as comprising a collection of community promoting, smaller ‘cells’ or ‘organic communities.’” (Dawson 2007: 144)

Links to the praxis of Latin American liberation theology are most visible in the social action network of the Valley Missionary Program.  As mentioned, the Valley Missionary Program was essentially an attempt to transplant the base ecclesial community model of Latin American liberation theology and graft it into the context of the migrant civil rights struggle in North America.  This connection is clarified by Badillo:

Though liberation theology has been primarily a south-of-the-border phenomenon, its offshoots have worked their way into the United States.  The Valley Missionary Program begun in 1973 by the Congregation of the Holy Cross in California’s Coachella Valley, about sixty miles north of the Mexican border, adopted the Latin American model of creating hundreds of base communities among immigrants to pave the way for religious and social activities. (Badillo 2006: 190)

As its clergy and lay members of the church were concerned with and influenced by the migrant communities from Latin America, the American Catholic Church gave birth to the Sanctuary movement.  The Sanctuary movement “attempted to extend liberation theology principles to immigration issues,” and to provide “congregations of several faiths with a way to protect newcomers, both religiously and politically.” (Badillo, 2006: 198) As leading members of the Sanctuary movement, Renny Golden and Michael McConnell explicitly describe the influence of the liberation theology that migrants from Central and South America have brought with them:

What the refugees have brought to North America is a liberation gift – they have brought us a revolutionary hope.  What the popular church of Central America has bequeathed to the world, but most of all to its own people, is an irreversible hope in history.  History, Gustavo Gutiérrez says, the poor know is theirs. (Golden 1986: 195)

            Golden and McConnell’s words illustrate the missiological impact of Central and South American migrants in the religious communities they interact with.  While bringing new depth and dimension to the religious and social debates that they are both engaged in and at the center of, these migrants clearly exemplify how the Christian migrant is always a potential missionary. 

           

IV.  Conclusion

One must recognize the theological and missiological implications of the above described migratory flux and consequent religious exchange.  The migrant communities represent a number of challenges and opportunities from the perspective of the Christian mission.  On this particular point the Old Testament professor and author, M. Daniel Carroll R., is emphatic.  In the book Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible he reminds his readers that immigrants, as humans are God-cherished members of the created order:

The creation of all persons in the image of God must be the most basic conviction for Christians as they approach the challenges of immigration today.  Immigration should not be argued in the abstract because it is fundamentally about immigrants.  Immigrants are humans, and as such they are made in God’s image.  Each and every one of those who have come to the United States is God’s creation and is worthy of respect.  Because immigrants are made in the divine image, they have an essential value and possess the potential to contribute to society through their presence, work, and ideas. (Rodas 2008: 67)

     

Migrant communities, by their very presence, have transformed the questions and foci of modern theological and missiological discussion and study.  The immigrants that have journeyed to and been incorporated into the society of the United States are not simply assimilated into American cultural life without a trace.  They leave an indelible mark upon their socio-cultural, political and economic milieu.  Theology and missiology are in no way excluded from this reality.  For instance the theologian Nancy E Bedford has developed a theology of migration within the context of transnational Latin American Migration.  (Petrella et al. 2005: 95-118)  The theological scholar Justo L. Gonźalez also devotes great attention to migration and the issues facing immigrant culture in his book Maňana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective. (Gonźalez 1990: 31-41)  Both of these texts represent a significant shift within North American Christian theology in relation to the existential concerns of the immigrant experience; however, theologian Roberto S. Goizueta has produced an important text which relates specifically to the focus of this particular essay.  Within his scholastic tome Caminemos Con Jesus: Toward a Hispanic/Latino Theology of Accompaniment, Goizueta develops a theology that is specifically representative of the Latin American immigrant experience in the context of North American culture.  According to Goizueta, the presence of immigrant communities and the continuity of their religious practices (i.e. the fact that their religious practices resist assimilation into the more normative religious culture of the United States) together challenge the fundamental conceptual framework that has produced the borders they transcend:

Our mestizaje and exile are symbols of our identification with a Jesus who also transgressed boundaries.  The public character of so much of our popular religion, especially pilgrimages and processions such as that of Good Friday, reflects our refusal to have our lives, identities, and, above all, our God circumscribed and limited by the spatial boundaries which U.S. society has erected.  This transgression of boundaries – even if only temporary – is already an act of subversion and, thus, of liberation… (Goizueta 1995: 204)

That the theological implications of Latin American migration can be so explicitly linked with a theology of liberation is crucial to developing an understanding of the missiological shifts that are occurring in response to the presence of migrant communities within the boundaries of the Continental United States.

In recognition of the interrelation of economic globalization and transnational migration, as well as the aforementioned missiological opportunities that accompany the migrants from the global south, Christian communities in north-western societies should develop theological positions of radical solidarity, compassion, and accompaniment.  These new migrants may be, as Richard Shaull has argued, “heralds of a new Reformation,” calling the affluent Christians communities of the global north back to the original mission of the Christian church, and back to the theological and missiological perspective of Ephesians 2:13-20 :

For those of us concerned about the state of the church today, this “church that is born among the poor” may have much to say to us.  What we have here is the resurrection of the church.  The old church had to die, and men and women had to die to it.  Out of that death, new life and new communities have appeared, the shape of which could not have been imagined by those still in bondage to the old institution.  The new church has emerged among the poor, as it did in the beginning…What would it mean for us here to follow a similar process in North America?...If we come to realize that community, in the Christian sense, means a rich sharing of life with each other and the oppressed as we struggle together for a new and more just society, then the most important thing we can do at the present time to contribute to that struggle is to give shape to and participate in this type of community.  (Shaull, 1984: 128-132)

Consequently, the most important action that the American and European Christian communities can take is to learn and emulate the radical solidarity, compassion and praxis of accompaniment of the Latin American liberation theological model.  To do so would bring a better biblical understanding to the activities of the more affluent Christian congregations.  Rather than looking to the precepts of nationalist ideological platforms, Christians informed by a Liberation Missiology of Radical Reconciliation and Solidarity seek first to address the needs of the migrant community through compassion, solidarity and accompaniment.  This appears to be the model presented by Christ in Matthew 25, when he reminds his followers that “…whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

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