332 - Liberation Theology: An Introductory Guide

Liberation Theology: An Introductory Guide
By Robert McAfee Brown
Louisville, Westminster/John Knox, 1993. 144 pp. $9.99.

Can liberation theology take hold in North America? Robert McAfee Brown uses his notable skills at making things plain to argue the case with laity in this rewrite of his 1991 Chautauqua lectures. Poignant stories of Latin American hunger and hope do give the reader a grasp of why "liberation" is a cry from the heart in the southern hemisphere and why a hundred thousand base communities read Scripture and do theology in the midst of challenging the powers-that-be.

The author calls theology a "love letter to God" rising from people's struggle to be subjects of their own history in company with the Jesus who preached good news to the poor. Such a biblical theology with appropriate social analysis must challenge comfortable North Americans to be liberated from slavery to the gods of commerce and war that have kept South and Central America in thrall. North American Christians are called to gather in communities of risk-taking commitment, similar to the base communities, not divorced from our morally bankrupt culture or a captive established church, but as the loyal opposition of "servants in Pharaoh's court."

Laity who confess their sins every Sunday morning cannot help but have their consciousness raised by this book. However, McAfee Brown weakens his case by his portrayal of the world as a contest between the legions of light and the armies of night, a juxtaposition further refuted by the collapse of Marxist societies, which were grounded in a social analysis similar to that employed by Latin American liberation theologies. Without some sustained word about the sin that persists in the champions of justice as well as in its foes, the self-critical principle needed by the best of efforts in social change is missing, and the good news to the sinner as well as to the sufferer is muted.

Gabriel Fackre
Andover Newton Theological School
Newton, MA