(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). Read the rest of this entry »

After two weeks of interweb percolation, Kevin Watson has posted the results of the UM Social Media experiment.

There were 759 views of the YouTube video promoting Reclaiming the Wesleyan Tradition: John Wesley’s Sermons for Today There were 44 hits to the video when I discovered it and posted it on the Methodist blogosphere. At the end of the first week there were 619 views. This means that the momentum slowed down significantly after the first week as there were 140 views in the second week. (On the other hand, that is still more than three times as many views as the video had in its first six months of existence.)

About a week ago I posted a comment on Kevin’s update of the traffic.  Maybe it’s because I had really low expectations going in, but I was surprised at the results.  I still am to some extent, especially with the increase of views in the first week.  A mere twenty-five blogs generated almost 600 unique hits.  I think that is pretty good.

Others have expressed some disappointment with the results.  That’s understandable.  The video itself  has been criticized; both the production and what it was plugging were lifted up as possible reasons behind why more persons didn’t participate and why the traffic dropped off after about a week.  The production/content problem looks to be true and the traffic issue may have more to do with the dynamics of viral marketing than anything else (though, this was not at all a true viral phenomenon) I think. A small number of initial participants necessarily limits the spread, especially after the initial peak in traffic.

Which lead me to my main disappointment of the whole thing.  Only 25 bloggers participated.  Just glancing over the MethoBlog I can see more than 25 links.  So why such a small number?  Is the actual number of active Methobloggers much lower than what has been compiled at the MethoBlog?  Or did most Methobloggers think the vido simply wasn’t good enough to be promoted on their blog? Or, are Methobloggers simply not effectively networked with one another?

I’m not sure.  Of all those questions, I think the third is really worth reflecting upon.  Especially since connectionalism one of our tradition’s most heralded hallmarks.  How does that translate into the online, social media-oriented world?  Are we really capitalizing on those resources?

What are you thoughts?  How can Methobloggers be more effectively connected and networked with one another?

Social media is changing things.  You could even say social media is changing everything and it would probably be true.  I’m about halfway through Tom Friedman’s book The World is Flat right now.  Though it was originally published only three years ago, it’s already becoming a little dated as far as the half-life of web 2.0 related things these days goes — which demonstrates perfectly exactly how things are changing.

Friedman’s overall thesis is that the world is becoming increasingly “flat” as we continue to explore what appears to be the endless limits of the information age.  Anyone who has access to a computer can search for and locate just about anything they want which undermines our traditional, hierarchical systems of transmitting information.  Things are becoming more and more open and less restricted.

I ran across this site yesterday (via Andrew Sullivan)  that illustrates this point perfectly.  It is basically a simple mash-up of Google Maps and the all the Prop 8 donors.  So you can actually see where in California, or the United States, individuals or groups that contributed to the pro-Prop 8 effort.  But that’s not all.  You can actually see their names and the exact amount they gave.

This presents all sorts of new possibilities (or problems depending on how you see it).  Now, to be fair, all this information can be accessed elsewhere and has been made public by the state of California; donors were presumably aware of this when then gave.  EightMaps simply makes it all more visual and accessible.

This is fascinating.  We normally think of “donating” to something as primarily a private action.  That isn’t really true, but that’s how we think about it.

This portrayal undermines that assumption.  It makes things very public.  I’m sure many people don’t like that.  But I don’t think it’s such a bad idea.

I wonder how, if at all,  our private actions might change if we assumed that everything was public. That’s not a false assumption by the way.  Our so-called private decision to “donate” to a certain cause may have very public consequences for someone else.

Just ask the gay population in California.

What would happen if we were actually walking advertisements for the causes/ballot measures/you-fill-in-the-blank that we fervently supported in private?

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