556 - Jesus and Liberation: A Critical Analysis of the Christology of Latin American Liberation Theology

The Principle of Mercy: Taking the Crucified People from the Cross
By Jon Sobrino

Maryknoll, Orbis, 1994. 199 pp. $16.95.

Jesus and Liberation: A Critical Analysis of the
Christology of Latin American Liberation Theology
By Carlos R. Piar

New York, Peter Lang, 1994. 178 pp. $32.95.

Fortuitously, the editors of this journal chose to have these two volumes reviewed together. Being familiar with and having reviewed other works by Sobrino, I chose to read Carlos Piar's book first. In retrospect, it was a wise decision.

Jon Sobrino, Spanish-born theologian, went to El Salvador in 1957 as a nineteen-year-old Jesuit novice. Except for two periods of study, first in Germany and later in the United States, he has spent his entire adult life in that Central American republic. He is one of the many Roman Catholic clergy who have risked their lives by identifying with and defending the Salvadoran poor and oppressed. Sobrino escaped the fate of six of his closest companions who were murdered by the security forces in November 1989, only because he was lecturing in Asia at the time.

This book is a collection of Sobrino's essays, most of which were written following that tragedy, on the theme of God's mercy and how it shapes and

558 - Jesus and Liberation: A Critical Analysis of the Christology of Latin American Liberation Theology

transforms the lives of those who opt truly to follow Jesus Christ. "I believe in the God made manifest in Jesus," declares Sobrino, "a God on whom one can rely," a divine parent "who continues to be God and therefore will not let us be."

Though the primary focus of the book is God's mercy, the influence of his assassinated colleagues on Sobrino, especially that of Ignacio Ellacuría, is evident throughout the volume. It is a stark reminder that these closest to Sobrino represent only six of the more than 75,000 killed in El Salvador in two decades of civil violence. In this milieu of repression, savagery, injustice, and death, Sobrino sees the church as being true to its calling when-like the Samaritan in Jesus' parable-it personifies Christ's mercy for the victims.
Unlike some liberation theologians, Sobrino's conclusions are not predictable Readers will be confronted as well as surprised by his discussion of theology in a world of injustice; the identity of Yahweh's suffering servant; sin, forgiveness, and liberation; and what it means to bear one another is burdens; as well as by his penetrating analysis of the nature and the challenge of the priesthood today.

These are not essays for casual reading. Though ardently .written, they are profound theological reflections on what it means to be a part of the body of Christ in a time when many members of that body are-like their Lord-being crucified. Compassion for and solidarity with these "crucified people" of the world are the most decisive marks of the church today.

Reading and pondering these essays give new meaning to Jesus' words "Blessed are the merciful," for they are a clear, revealing window on the character of God and the mission of the church.

Carlos Piar's Jesus and Liberation, in contrast, is a complicated and disdainful critique of the christologies of three leading liberation theologians, Leonardo Boff, Juan Luis Segundo (recently deceased), and Jon Sobrino. Piar, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Long Beach, professes to be in solidarity with Latin Americans, apparently :because he was born in Puerto Rico, but his analysis betrays a disquieting academic aloofness to their reality. Either he does not understand the historical ethos in which liberation theology has emerged, or he deliberately misrepresents it. His analysis, consequently, is neither insightful, nor interpretive, nor relevant.

Few, even the liberation theologians themselves, regard liberation theology as', finalized or flawless, and its weaknesses have been thoroughly discussed by friends and foes alike. It, therefore, behooves those who propose to analyze it further, especially academicians, to understand and accurately represent it. Piar gives little evidence of doing either. He chooses instead to set up his own criteria for evaluation, criteria that are extraneous for the most part, and he concludes by dismissing the work of Boff, Segundo, and Sobrino as being little more than ideological, political reconstructions. Piar's own ideological biases, though unacknowledged, are scarcely hidden. Clearly, he feels more comfortable with the opinions

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advanced d by Michael Novak, Peter Berger, and Jacques Ellul-longtime opponents and critics of liberation theology.

One would think, after more than 150 pages of fault finding, that Piar's final chapter, entitled "Notes Toward a Postmodern Liberation Theology," would be at least a somewhat developed alternative. Readers, however, will be disappointed to find that he devotes less than a page to what he calls a "deontological ethic," which, he claims, is "more coherent and faithful to the sources." Why or how he does not say.

Those familiar with the work of the three principal subjects of Piar's book-Boff, Segundo, and Sobrino-will likely continue to be informed and influenced by them, for not only have they sought to comprehend and interpret the implications of the life of Christ for Latin Americans, they have at great risk cast their lot with the suffering and crucified peoples there.

ALAN NEELY
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, NJ