(Ir)religiosity

I’d like to preface this — some stuff I reworked from a paper I wrote earlier this semester — by saying that while it ends on a more critical note, Segundo is without a doubt my favorite Latin American liberation theologian.  I think that especially now, with the so-called triumph of capitalism, Segundo’s work offers the best liberative alternative precisely because it is methodological and provides an ideological analysis of the foundations of theology.  My critical analysis revolves around the question of whether theology itself can provide a impetus for liberation or, as Segundo maintains, if a prior ideological or political commitment must be made.  If the latter is true, then I don’t see the need for theology as a liberative, praxis-oriented discourse.  In short, the question is this:  why be a theologian at all?

It seems that Latin American liberation theology suffers from an unintended epistemological problem.  If, in the final instance, praxis is the ultimate criterion of theoretical theology as many first-generation theologians have compelling argued, then what is the norm by which theological hermeneutics are employed?  To put it more bluntly, if praxis is the criterion for theory, then what is the criterion for praxis?  Such are the questions Juan Luis Segundo raises vis-à-vis Latin American liberation theology.  Whereas important founding thinkers like Gustavo Gutiérrez aimed to construct a theology of liberation by reifying classical Christian theological tropes against the backdrop of the socio-political situation in Latin America with the aid of Marxist analysis, Segundo opts for a different approach altogether.  One with the intention of the liberating theology from the cold grip of the ideological status quo, a move he believes is mandatory before theology itself can even begin its own program of liberation. This fundamental difference in approach is revealed in the title of both Gutiérrez’s and Segundo’s books: A Theology of Liberation and The Liberation of Theology, respectively.  Indeed, the latter suggests that what is needed is not so much a task of critical reconstruction, but rather a wholesale reevaluation of the form and foundation of theology as a potentially revolutionary enterprise, that is the conscious separation of theology from the dominant power discourse brokered — and I use the economically charged verb intentionally — by Euro-America.

For Segundo, the liberation of theology begins with the admission that any intellectual discourse — perhaps especially theology — is “intimately bound up with the existing social situation in at least an unconscious way” (8).  It is therefore imperative that the liberation theologian make the crucial connection between the past and the present situation in her critical interpretation of the biblical text.  Indeed, without such a connection Segundo is fearful that liberation theology will end up being a theology which only deals with liberation, lacking any real potency due to its “methodological naïveté” and eventually “reabsorbed by the deeper mechanisms of oppression” and the “prevailing language of the status quo” (8).  Thus, Segundo answers the question of epistemology with recourse to methodology.  In fact, it would not be wrong, in this case, to assert that a true theology of liberation is one that is concerned not only with concrete historical praxis but with the methodological processes that give rise to such action vis-à-vis the current situation.  For as Segundo provocatively claims, “the one and only thing that can maintain the liberative character of any theology is not its content but its methodology” as it is “the latter that guarantees the continuing bite of theology…however much the existing system tries to reabsorb it into itself” (39-40).

Such a theology requires, in Segundo’s view, “its own special methodology,” that is a hermeneutic circle (8).  Of course Segundo is not the first to lay claim to this mechanism.  Bultmann, utilizing the work of Heidegger and other existentialists, codified a hermeneutic circle in his work on the New Testament involving the negotiation of the ongoing meaning of texts and the modern question of human existence.  Segundo, however, maintains that his version is perhaps more deserving of the name as it involves the movement of social analysis and does not fall prey to the individualism characteristic of Bultmann’s project (8, 98).  This hermeneutic circle requires two important preconditions: 1) profound, penetrating questions and a suspicion about the current situation and 2) a new interpretation of the biblical text or a willingness to have a new interpretation of the text in light of the present problems of the current situation (8-9).  Unless these two preconditions are met, there can be no hermeneutic circle.  Indeed, Segundo claims that any theology which does not affirm these conditions “becomes a pretext for approving the existing situation” as it has no real criteria by which to judge or analyze the current situation.  In short, it fails to make the critical connection between the past and present.  It only looks to the past.  Following these crucial preconditions are “four decisive factors” which constitute Segundo’s hermeneutic circle (9).  Movement begins with the social question.  The theologian experiences reality in such a way that she becomes ideologically suspicious of the current situation.  Second, the theologian applies this suspicion to the entire ideological superstructure, including prevailing theological discourse, through phenomenological analysis.  Third, because the superstructure and the power discourse are now unmasked the theologian has at her disposal a new way of experiencing theological reality which consequently leads to exegetical suspicion.  In the final movement the circle is made complete when the theologian arrives at a new hermeneutic from which to theologize and participate in revolutionary praxis.  Of course in reality the circle is always in perpetual motion as one is continually led back to the first movement in light of new social questions and historical situations.  The crucial point here is that one must move through all four movements lest the hermeneutic circle be interrupted and theology remain tied to the dominant social structure and the ideological status quo.

The mention of ideology here is intentional and quite important for Segundo.   While the hermeneutic circle serves to divorce theology from the systemic status quo, the final movement aims to identify theology with a better, more liberative ideology which, in turn, will need to be deconstructed at some point in the future as new historical circumstances arise.  Theology, then, is not a depository of timeless, eternal, objective truths, it is always already conditioned by the prevailing ideology and the task of the liberation theologian is to unmask that ideology by way of the hermeneutic circle and revolutionary praxis.  Segundo follows Gutiérrez in maintaining that theology is always a second step following personal ideological commitment to liberation (75ff.).   The illusion that theology is impartial is, for Segundo, one of the greatest sins of academic theology, which assumes that its lack of action is emblematic of a type of cold apolitical objectivity when in fact it is tantamount to tacit deference to the political and ideological status quo (107, 74-75). Thus, the relationship between faith and ideology is an important one for Segundo (102).  While faith itself is not an ideology, Segundo maintains that its potency and efficacy is only ever realized as it is translated into a liberative ideology specific to the historical circumstances of the current situation.  In his words, faith “has sense and meaning only insofar as it serves as the foundation for ideologies” (109).  Whereas the former is constant for the revolutionary Christian and the liberation theologian, it is always subject to the perpetual evolution of the latter in history.

This process of negotiating between conflicting ideologies is not unlike Paulo Freire’s notion of conscientization (210), or what Segundo calls deutero-learning, that is the unending process of “learning how to learn,” of “acquiring new pieces of information that multiply the previous store of information” and better equipping the theologian to opt for a new, more liberative ideology in which to translate the Christian faith (121).  While Segundo admits that such a position is open to the charge of relativism, he maintains it does not imply chaos or complete nihilism; rather, it involves an act of faith in light of historically conditioned experience (177-78).  Put another way, the liberation theologian always acts ad hoc in response to the specific historical circumstances of the current situation with faith that, under the guidance and inspiration of the Spirit, she will be led into the truth.  This process of deutero-learning also resists what Segundo calls the inertia or consciousness of the masses which is always at least unconsciously tied to the ideological status quo and the prevailing power discourse (221).

Insofar as Segundo’s project involves a deep reevaluation of the foundation and legitimacy of theology rather than a simple reification of familiar tropes with revolutionary and liberative language, it is perhaps the most potent and useful contribution to Latin American liberation theology among the first generation thinkers.  To return to my opening question, because liberation theology arose from the specific historical circumstances of the unjust reality on the ground in Latin America, it was natural and necessary that the first explorations of a theology of liberation involved emphasis on concrete social praxis followed by critical theological reflection and, at times, reconstruction.  But of course the epistemological questions were bound to surface at some point.  Is it really enough to say that praxis is the ultimate criterion of theory when a robust and seemingly impenetrable ideological superstructure effectively keeps any push for revolution and liberation at bay?  Furthermore, if praxis is always the first movement, at what point does one develop a hermeneutical norm from which theologizing will take place?  Though he never states them in this way, these are the questions with which Segundo compellingly and persuasively wrestles.  His assertion that “the revolutionary character of a given [theological] option does not lie in its content but…its capacity to break up the existing structure rather than to be reabsorbed by [it],” is itself liberating (100).  For if theology is to have any real power and veracity in the world today its purveyors must move beyond issues of sheer content and begin to take note of the ways in which their discourse, regardless of its content, is tied to the ideology of the current situation and paralyzed by the prevailing power discourse.  As Segundo argues throughout, such a realization can only be reached by recourse to theological methodology and the humble admission that all theology — liberative, oppressive or otherwise — is always partial and always already enculturated.  True liberation lies not in denying the partiality of theological discourse but in continually asking to whose benefit our partial theology is invested.

Beyond his investigation of theological methodology, Segundo’s insistence that “the rise of revolutionary consciousness is not belonging to this or that social class but the potential for being immune to mass tendencies” is particularly instructive (218).  Of course Segundo does not mean to dismiss the reality of social stratification or the evils of classism in society.  His point is that the ability to cultivate revolutionary consciousness and to push for liberation exists across this taxonomy and has more to do with one’s own critical consciousness — in other words, one’s ability to incessantly participate in the process of deutero-learning — and one’s ability to resist the powerful pull of the inertia of the masses, that is the gravity of the current system.  Again, this involves a deeper more intentional type of critical thinking and conscientization by identifying, unmasking, and rejecting the often sub-level ideologies at work in the collective social milieu.  This point about “mass tendencies” may be more poignant today than when Segundo penned his work.  If after the fall of the Eastern Bloc in the early 1990s we are now witnessing the results of transnational, neo-liberal capitalism writ large — what Hardt and Negri call the new Empire beyond the nation-state¹ — then it will become all the more important to be mindful of these mass tendencies.  Indeed, the great weight and gravity of this now widely accepted, or at least tacitly tolerated, ideology is more powerful and at the same time more invisible, than ever.  The response of many to the recent economic crisis in the United States is but one example of the deep-seated assumption that the prevailing ideological superstructure is not only acceptable and welcome but must be saved and defended.  If such ideologies are to be effectively combated one must posses the ability to recognize, unmask, and consequently reject as false and destructive such defenses of the prevailing ideology and be willing and ready to offer a healthy and more mutually liberative alternative.  If Segundo is correct this can only happen through the process of deutero-learning, of learning how to learn.

Despite its useful contributions, Segundo’s work also raises some interesting questions and poses some pressing problems, namely the relationship of theology to what Segundo calls “the political option.”  While his systematic ideological analysis is exceedingly helpful given our current situation, Segundo’s insistence, along with other liberation theologians such as Gutiérrez, that theology must be a second step following personal ideological commitment to liberation is a bit dubious if not problematic (71ff.).  To be sure, it is understandable that Segundo and others would react against the stagnant and often impeding academic theologies of their day.  Indeed, such theologies should be rejected outright as not only failing to offer concrete solutions to the present situation, but as defenders of the current situation, as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.  Still, Segundo’s larger point is that one cannot start with theology, or at least the true liberation theologian cannot.  Rather, one must begin, so to speak, with the second movement of the hermeneutical circle, with a personal commitment to liberation and the individual desire to change social reality.  Only from this position can one effectively construct a true theology of liberation, not merely a theology which deals with liberation.

“There is no such thing as Christian theology…in the absence of a prior political commitment,” writes Segundo (94-5).  And he argues convincingly for such a position.  However, if it is true that once must begin with a prior political commitment, then why be a theologian at all?  If one’s feeling of solidarity with the poor and the oppressed and one’s desire for liberation is derived from one’s own political conviction and not one’s theological understanding, then why resort to theological recourse?  Would not it be more expedient to become a garden-variety Marxists revolutionary once one has determined that her political commitments demand such actions?  It would seem, then, that Segundo’s book could have ended with the third chapter.  If there is no specifically Christian contribution, if there is no kernel in Christianity which pushes one to commit to liberation and revolutionary praxis, then it would seem that Christianity is not needed, indeed is nothing more than waste of one’s time.  That is unless one argues that one’s personal commitment to combat the oppressive ideologies of the present arises from one’s theological convictions concerning the life and action of Jesus of Nazareth.  Perhaps it is the case that Segundo and Gutiérrez, by rightly reacting against the inadequacies of academic theology, have missed the truly revolutionary nucleus of theology proper by denying that such a discourse can offer a legitimate personal commitment to concrete liberative praxis in history.  It is bad theology which defends the existing social situation, however explicit or subtle, which should be rejected, not theology proper.  Theology proper can be the revolutionary impetus for liberation in the present situation, giving rise to a personal political commitment to the oppressed.  It need not be sidelined due to its misuse.  For as Segundo’s title suggests, theology itself must be liberated.

1. Cf. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000), passim [↩]