It's no secret that I went to Duke Divinity School for the sole purpose of studying with Fred Herzog. Lesser known, however, is that in the spring prior to my arrival on campus (1995), Fred and I had begun a correspondence. In that exchange, I had asked Fred for a recommendation of books that he thought I should read in preparation for studying at Duke. In that list of around 20 books, Fred had put Jon Segundo's The Liberation of Theology.Liberation theology is perhaps one of the most important prophetic movements in the Church these days. They represent the ways of life and struggle of Christians around the world who have convinced remnants of the Church to open its eyes to human misery and oppose socioeconomic systems and political structures that perpetuate such misery. Like all serious modes of inquiry, liberation theologies are predicated on crisis -- on human situations of tremendous danger and incipient possibility. Such concrete crises invariably generate forms of critical consciousness.
Liberation theologies are the predominant forms of critical consciousness within the Church that respond to the dangers of class, racial, and sexual privilege, and project the possibility of
class, racial, and sexual equality.
Sadly, though, Herzog warned me: Liberation theology was on the way out. It had lost so much of its power to change the world in the preaching and practice of the Gospel. That's because so much of liberation theology was falling back into the temptations of modern Western philosophical anthropology (inherited from Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach and early Marx) and in that way actually subvert the Gospel. The example he wanted me to see in this observation? Jon Segundo's The Liberation of Theology.
So why recommend it as part of this list? For much the same reason Fred wanted me to read it. In my opinion, liberation theology's spiritual work is to continue to reexamine and reshape the traditional doctrines of the church, engage in more serious efforts of social theory, cultural criticism, and historical reconstruction, and write palpable and intelligible essays and texts for the nonacademic literate laity and clergy. If Fred taught me anything it's that liberation theology is only faithful to the extent that it's connected organically with prophetic churches. An uncommitted and detached theology -- like Segundo -- isn't very persuasive, but does pose a careful warning for those who are involved in the struggle against "the powers and principalities of this present age": Sever that connection and you sever your ability to be faithful to the Gospel.
That's a lesson, sadly, that so many of the contemporary critics have forgotten. So I mention The Liberation of Theology as a warning for those who travel this road: Be careful you don't saw off the branch on which you sit.
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