Every Christian is under a biblical mandate to share the gospel with all men and all nations. Along with this mandate, “old” believers may find themselves helping new believers in diverse nations and cultures learn what it means to obey Christ, to grow in grace, and to prepare themselves for their own part in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Christianity crosses cultural and subcultural boundaries. Naturally, where, when, and how individuals grow up affect their faith. While Christ was fully God and fully man, for example, Christ the man lived among Jews, who had a distinct culture. During His preaching ministry, He used parables and analogies that people in that specific culture could relate to, but He also shared culture-transcending truths, such as the reality of sin, a just God’s requirement to punish sin, and the Son’s substitutionary atonement for our sins.

Culture affects how we practice our faith. The practice of faith in China or Saudi Arabia, for example, looks different from practice anywhere in the United States. When believers face government restrictions, imprisonment, or even death–rather than mere mockery-for practicing the faith, their commitment takes on a more substantial quality.

Believers are not forbidden to recognize and celebrate their distinct experiences. They affect every area of our lives, including our faith. But our faith should inform every area of our lives, not the other way around. Christ is the supreme authority of our faith and practice, not our race, ethnicity, sex, or experiences.

The Foundation. So-called black theology in the Unites States is a direct result of subcultural influences that fomented during slavery. As theology is the study of the nature of God and religious truth, black theology reflects on these subjects in the context of the general black American experience. One of the reasons black theology developed in some form or another was racial discrimination and black Americans’ reaction to it. It is a tradition, and like any other, it must be examined against Scripture.

Anthony J. Carter, author of On Being Black and Reformed, wrote that some white Christians, particularly slave owners, were hesitant to evangelize their slaves. They thought if slaves became saved, owners would have to set them free. Others didn’t want to spend the time it would take to instruct slaves in the faith, which they believed was necessary for baptism. And others thought Africans were too bestial and, therefore, incapable of instruction.

Whites who did evangelize slaves taught a brand of slavery that justified the condition based on Scripture, explaining that slavery was part of the Roman Empire in which Christ taught. While the Bible neither condemns slavery nor encourages it, Scripture does speak against slavery’s abuses.

Slavery-era Christians in the North tended to be orthodox in their beliefs, influenced by the Puritans. Blacks in the South developed a distinct theological tradition. In the doctrines of general and special revelation, for example, slaves emphasized “subjective and immediate experience,”¹ and believed God reveals Himself through visions, voices, and signs, as opposed to the orthodox view that God reveals Himself in nature, the conscience, and Scripture.

Christianity among blacks began to grow, thanks to the “unfettered zeal” of white Baptists and Methodists.² Revival movements in the years after the Civil War resulted in the growth of Christianity among blacks. Biblical justifications for slavery, segregated seating and second-class treatment in white churches, and the desire for self-determination are several reasons blacks began to form their own churches.

Black Christians, enslaved or free, were in a unique position that in some senses paralleled that of Israelites enslaved in Egypt. Just as God freed His chosen people from Pharaoh, He would free blacks in America from slavery and oppression. Christ was viewed not only as Savior, but also as Deliverer and Liberator.

The Development. As black Christians tried to understand the incongruity between what they were taught about Christ and being subjected to sometimes cruel treatment from Christ-professing whites, they practiced a faith that spoke to their condition. “Liberation theology” takes many forms. In the black American context, it developed through the preaching and writings of men such as Nat Turner, a slave rebellion leader, Marcus Garvey, Howard Thurman, and Martin Luther King, Jr. It wasn’t until the civil rights movement’s “black power” (freedom and self-determination) phase that a more or less formal black theology emerged.

Black theology has its roots in liberal theology, which began to spread in the progressivism era of the late nineteenth century, with a focus on so-called social justice. Unlike conservative theology, liberal theology views Scripture as fallible. Like liberal theology, black theology attempts to apply Christian principles to social problems that impact blacks.

James Cone is probably the most well-known expositor of black theology. Born in 1938, Cone grew up when racial segregation was legal, and his experiences shaped how he viewed God and the Bible. He said the experience of oppression “alone must be the ultimate authority in religious matters,” and so he interpreted Scripture through a racial lens. For the gospel to be relevant to blacks, Cone contended it must emphasize liberation of the poor and oppressed, as Christ was liberator of the oppressed.³

Reading Scripture through a racial lens meant the doctrines of God, sin, salvation, the church, and the like, were affected. For example, Cone asserted Christ was black and that blacks should see Him as such. “That’s important to the psyche and to the spiritual consciousness of black people who live in a ghetto and in a white society in which their lord and savior looks just like the people who victimize them.”⁴ Cone called sin “a condition of human existence in which man denies the essence of God’s liberating activity as revealed in Jesus Christ.”⁵

While black theology may not be quite as radical as it once was, its message reverberates even among blacks born after legal segregation was dismantled. Jeremiah Wright, President Barack Obama’s former pastor, is an example of someone who preached race and politics from the pulpit and was admired by Obama, who grew up in a racially mixed environment.

The Truth. The black Jesus/black liberation theology of the 1960s sounds dated in 2010. Blacks in America have made enormous social progress. Arguably, the church’s growing secularism is a more pressing problem today than unbiblical race-based theology. As the black church in particular sought to view the Bible through a racial and political lens, it has undermined the central role Scripture should play in our lives.

Filtering Scripture through race or sex should instinctively strike Christians as problematic; labeling theology “black” or “white” or “Latino” or “feminist,” even more so. The most wonderful enduring truth about Christ is that He’s no respecter of persons. It is not unbiblical to recognize differences or to incorporate them into worship, as long as Christ and Scripture remain the supreme authority of our faith and practice.

The kind of black theology Reformed Christian Anthony J. Carter supports is different from Cone’s brand of race-filtered theology. Carter said theology has always had an ethnic or cultural context, and lists German Lutheran and Scottish Reformed traditions as examples. In that regard, he says a biblical black theology is necessary, because the alternative is an unbiblical black theology. “The unfortunate errors of nascent black theology were rooted in the assumption that experiences should be the primary source of truth,”⁶ Carter writes. He notes that men like Cone didn’t maintain the integrity of doctrine “pivotal and indispensable to the historic Christian faith.”⁷

Everyone is shaped by his experiences. Sex, race, and where and how we spent our formative years influence us. Black Christians in America were shaped by their experiences as slaves and subjects of legal segregation. The hypocrisy they perceived among white Christians, along with slow justice and feelings of powerlessness, took a physical and mental toll. Imagining a just God who looked like them and cared about their plight helped them make sense of the world.

Today’s segregated Sunday mornings are nothing to mourn over. Generally, predominantly black and predominantly white churches have different worship styles, and these preferences are one reason why people in the same ethnic group tend to worship together. Worship styles that take into account subcultural influences aren’t wrong per se. Regardless of the manner of worship a church allows, the gospel itself must be clear and unadulterated. Our faith shapes who we are, not the other way around.

There is no black or white or feminist gospel. Christians should be familiar with Galatians 3:26-29: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (NKJV).

While these words don’t deny that God created us with differences, those in Christ are equal spiritually. We are one in Him as part of a dynamic body, and a theology that elevates race above faith is unbiblical.

Christ’s words and promises transcend the past, penetrate the present, and traverse the future. No matter what has happened in the past, Christ desires that believers strive to be more like Him now. Struggling every day to live the Christian life, it’s difficult to keep spiritual things above the temporal and to forgive others the way Christ forgave us. But that’s part of the Fall. It will continue to be a struggle until Christ returns. In the meantime, He wants us to understand that in His eyes, not necessarily in the person’s across the church aisle or in the church across town, we are spiritual equals.

With that assurance, we may exercise our liberty in shaping worship styles that resonate with us within a cultural or subcultural context shaped by experiences, while maintaining a high view of Scripture and imperative of the gospel. As we embark on the Great Commission, we will meet people who don’t share our experiences, but we know the message we deliver surpasses those differences.

-La Shawn Barber

La Shawn Barber is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in such publications as Christianity Today, Today’s Christian Woman, the Washington Post, and the Washington Examiner. Visit her blog at La Shawnbarber.com.

NOTES

1. Thabiti Anyabwile, The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 33.

2. Anthony J. Carter, On Being Black and Reformed: A New Perspective on the African-American Experience (Phillipsburg, NJ: P and R Publishing, 2003), 54.

3. Ron Rhodes, “Black Theology, Black Power, and the Black Experience,” Christian Research Journal 13, 4 (1991): 27-32 (http://journal.equip.org/articles/black-theology-black-power-andthe- black-experience).

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Carter, 14.

7. Ibid., 15.

In 1934, the Rev. Michael King, Sr., changed his name to Martin Luther King in honor of Martin Luther, the German Protestant reformer. Luther took on the powerful Roman Catholic Church. He criticized the papacy and such practices as indulgences and the “good works” salvation plan, and translated the Bible to the common language so the masses could read and study God’s Word for themselves, rather than have it filtered through the church. Only by faith alone, through God’s grace alone, was the sinner saved. This message spread throughout western Europe and eventually the world.

Luther was a revolutionary who took on a powerful system, and his spiritual passion ushered in the Protestant Reformation, changing the course of western civilization.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was a reformer and revolutionary of a different sort. King stood at the forefront of the civil rights movement, a secular reformation with Christian underpinnings, and changed the course of American history.

Every January 15th, America pays homage to the man whose bold oratory and use of civil disobedience (nonviolent resistance) roused the country from its racial slumber and hastened the dismantling of government racial segregation. One of the most turbulent periods in our history, the Civil Rights era is most associated with King.

Four decades after his death, his legacy reverberates. The legacy isn’t without controversy, however. Given recent revelations about his personal life, plagiarism,¹ and his beliefs about Christianity, some may conclude he’s no longer worthy of such reverence. Others believe that despite his moral failings and questionable theology, King has earned a place of respect for challenging a system that codified racial separation and branded black Americans as inferior. We should ask, therefore, “Are King’s ideas relevant to contemporary Christian apologetics?”

KING’S LIFE AND WORK

King was born into a middle-class family in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929. This son, grandson, and great-grandson of ministers grew up in the church but began doubting his faith once he realized the cold reality of racial discrimination.² King writes of his resentment toward the injustice of racial segregation and the harsh treatment that sprang from it. One can feel his bitterness as he recounts scenes from his formative years in which he, his family, and his friends were subjected to condescending and disrespectful treatment. He tried to reconcile his faith with this treatment, particularly after a white friend’s father told him not to play with King anymore. “My parents would always tell me that I should not hate the white man, but that it was my duty as a Christian to love him. The question arose in my mind: How could I love a race of people who hated me and who had been responsible for breaking me up with one of my best childhood friends? This was a great question in my mind for a number of years.”³

At fifteen, King entered Morehouse College. He first learned about nonviolent resistance after reading Henry David Thoreau’s “On Civil Disobedience,” in which the author wrote about his refusal to pay taxes to protest “a war that would spread slavery’s territory into Mexico.”⁴ King ruminated on the notion of rebelling against segregation rather than accepting it.

After graduating from Morehouse with a bachelor of arts in sociology, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary. He went on to receive a B.A. in divinity from Crozer and a Ph.D. from Boston University. At age twenty-five and newly married, King and his wife, the former Coretta Scott, headed south, and he became a minister at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) selected King to oversee the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the unofficial start of the civil rights movement. The city’s black citizens protested Montgomery’s racial segregation policy on buses by avoiding the buses, sharing rides, taking taxis, and walking. Vigilantes bombed King’s and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy’s houses almost two months into the boycott.⁵ The MIA filed suit in federal court. Pressure mounted, and on June 4, 1956, the court ruled the city’s segregated bus policy unconstitutional. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the court’s ruling.

The boycott, which lasted 381 days, thrust King into the national spotlight. Emboldened by this victory, King helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 and served as its president until his death in 1968. Through the SCLC King and Abernathy began to harness the power of the black church as the political center for social action. On May 15, 1957, King gave the first of his famous Washington speeches titled, “Give Us the Ballot.”

Later that year, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first legislation of its kind since Reconstruction. In 1958, King’s first book, Stride toward Freedom, was published. Ironically, King was stabbed by a black woman at a book signing. After almost dying, King viewed this experience as a sort of case study. “I became convinced that if the movement held to the spirit of nonviolence, our struggle and example would challenge and help redeem not only America but the world.”⁶

Influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaign that ended British rule in India, King applied the techniques to his protest campaign. He encouraged participants to assemble peacefully and demand their constitutional rights through appeals to justice and brotherhood, even in the face of violence.

King traveled to India in 1959 to study Gandhi’s philosophy. He recalled that he and his traveling companions were treated as brothers, and he felt bonded to the Indians “by the common cause of minority and colonial peoples… struggling to throw off racism and imperialism.”⁷ As his own words attest, King was influenced by his faith and Gandhi’s techniques, writing that “Christ furnished the spirit and motivation while Gandhi furnished the method.”⁸

The civil rights movement continued in earnest as “sit-in” demonstrations began in 1960. In 1961, whites and blacks from the North traveled south in “freedom rides”; in 1962, King met with President John F. Kennedy; in 1963, King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech; and in 1964, King became the youngest person to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize. Over the course of the campaign, King was arrested thirty times.⁹

In late March of 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, to lead a march of sanitation workers protesting low wages and poor working conditions. He was fatally shot April 4 on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.

Shortly after King’s death, supporters began a campaign to commemorate his birth with a federal holiday. Congress man John Conyers introduced a bill in 1968; opposing lawmakers stalled it. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law. Twenty-seven states and Washington, D.C., observed the holiday, and in 2000, all fifty states observed it.¹⁰

INFLUENCES AND APPLICATION

King graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary, a school that had an “unorthodox reputation and liberal theological leanings.”¹¹ His philosophical and theological beliefs were a combination of the black church tradition (in which “black theology” reigned) and white Protestant liberalism. His sermons and speeches reflect these influences.

Liberal theology is linked to the cultural shift toward Progressivism in politics and religion in the late nineteenth century,¹² a movement focused on so-called social justice. Generally, liberal theology holds that the Bible’s truth claims aren’t absolute. They must be based on reason and experience rather than an appeal to an external authority. In other words, Scripture is authoritative concerning religious matters, but it’s not authoritative concerning claims about facts. Conservative theology, on the other hand, holds that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God, and its authority extends to all areas of life.

Black theology, which emerged from liberal theology, takes into account the black subcultural experience and attempts to apply Christian principles to social problems that affect blacks. Some Christians object to the idea of a black theology and believe it shouldn’t exist, though Reformed black authors such as Anthony J. Carter and Thabiti M. Anyabwile would take exception. Carter says the majority culture believes its theological approach is culture-free, but it isn’t. “Theology in a cultural context…has become normative.” Carter gives examples of theology distinguished by culture (German Lutheran, Scottish Reformed, etc.).¹³

Western Christianity, dominated by white males, “has had scant if any direct answers to the evils of racism and the detrimental effects of institutionalized discrimination.”¹⁴ Consequently, liberal theology, which tended to address black oppression in a way conservative churches didn’t, heavily influenced the black church. For better or for worse, “we need a sound, biblical black theological perspective because an unsound, unbiblical black theological perspective is the alternative.”¹⁵

The black church wasn’t always associated with liberal theology. Anyabwile, who traced the development of black theology through slave narratives, slave songs, and popular writings past and present, concluded that before emancipation, black Christians tended to be more orthodox in their beliefs than they are today.¹⁶ Early black Christians were concerned about justice and freedom, but their mission was to spread the gospel as well as practice social justice activism. The black church veered from the path: “Over time, especially following emancipation from slavery through the Civil Rights era, the theological basis for the church’s activist character was gradually lost and replaced with a secular foundation.”¹⁷

Advocating for social justice isn’t unbiblical; it becomes so when the advocacy is man-centered instead of Christ-centered. King acknowledged this danger in his writings. While at Crozer, he read social philosopher Walter Rauschenbusch’s book, Christianity and the Social Crisis, which gave his own social justice ideas a “theological basis,” but he diverged from Rauschenbusch’s “superficial optimism concerning man’s nature.”¹⁸ King believed Rauschenbusch had become “perilously close to identifying the Kingdom of God with a particular social and economic system—a tendency which should never befall the Church.”¹⁹

King was raised in a “strict fundamentalist tradition” and found that studying liberal theology roused him from his “dogmatic slumber.”²⁰ A liberal view of the Bible gave him more “intellectual satisfaction”²¹ than the conservative view, but as he further examined these liberal ideas, he saw faults in them as well. He wrote, “Liberalism’s superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin…Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man’s defensive ways of thinking.”²²

King maintained his liberal theological beliefs while at Boston University, but he “became much more sympathetic towards the neo-orthodox position,” which he saw as “a necessary corrective for a liberalism that had become all too shallow and that too easily capitulated to modern culture.”²³ He adopted the philosophy of personalism, “the clue to the meaning of ultimate reality is found in personality.”²⁴ From a Christian perspective, it’s the idea that God, and not society or even ourselves, establishes our worth.²⁵ At the time of the writing of his autobiography, King held to this philosophical position.²⁶

With a confluence of ideas from thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, John Locke, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Gandhi, Reinhold Niebuhr, and theologically liberal professors, King emerged from Boston University with what he called a “positive social philosophy.”²⁷

King had no qualms about preaching politics from the pulpit. After the Montgomery Bus Boycott, he preached on an “imaginary” letter from the apostle Paul to American Christians.²⁸ While Paul’s letters to the churches reflected spiritual matters, King’s sermon-letter was a mixture of the spiritual and the political, noting that capitalism is a system in which America has “been able to do wonders,” but we faced the danger of misusing capitalism, which can lead to “tragic exploitation.”²⁹ King criticized the class system and implored Christians to work “within the framework of democracy to bring about a better distribution of wealth.”³⁰

King criticized communism and Roman Catholicism, praised the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ruled the doctrine “separate but equal” unconstitutional, and urged congregants not to allow the struggle for justice to turn them bitter or seek payback for injustices. “Let him know that the festering sore of segregation debilitates the white man as well as the Negro. With this attitude you will be able to keep your struggle on high Christian standards.”³¹

King continued to incorporate biblical themes into his public speeches. In one of his early speeches, he hoped to prompt the federal government to begin integrating schools in the aftermath of Brown. In the 1957 speech “Give Us the Ballot,” delivered at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., King said: “I realize that it will cause restless nights sometimes. It might cause losing a job; it will cause suffering and sacrifice. It might even cause physical death for some. But if physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children from a permanent life of psychological death, then nothing can be more Christian.”³²

King was arrested on April 12, 1963, in Birmingham for defying a court order against mass demonstrations. King’s long and eloquent “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” a reply to a brief rebuke, was perhaps his most memorable piece of writing. Responding to white clergy decrying “outsiders” protesting in the streets of their city and contending that social injustices should be fought in courts, King compared himself to biblical prophets. He said he carried the “gospel of freedom” to all men, and it required “direct action” as opposed to waiting. “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”³³

As the civil rights movement progressed, King realized total victory would not come quickly. In his famous speech, “I Have a Dream,” delivered on August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, King invoked the Founders’ promise. A century after emancipation, “the Negro is still not free…still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.”³⁴ Without overtly appealing to white Christians, King said it was time to extend justice to all God’s children and warned there would be no peace until justice

Until the end of his life, he continued to connect social justice and biblical themes in speeches and sermons, and to challenge the church to live up to biblical ideals.

WERE KING’S BELIEFS BIBLICAL?

The black church’s influence on King’s message is evident from his writings and in the substance and delivery of his speeches. He also was influenced by liberal theologians at Crozer and Boston. King’s orthopraxy—correct behavior in religious matters—at least in public, left a legacy all Christians may emulate. What about his orthodoxy, his actual beliefs? Are they compatible with biblical Christianity?

Black pastor Jerry L. Buckner wrote that orthodoxy in the black church in general isn’t strong for several reasons. The most relevant reason in this context is that pastors in black churches “lack a formal orthodox theological education,” and many who are formally educated attended schools that espouse liberal theology.³⁵ Buckner does note that theologically conservative seminaries didn’t admit black applicants whereas liberal seminaries “aggressively recruited” blacks.

Biblical Christianity, in its simplest terms, is belief in doctrines of the faith as revealed in the Bible. For instance, the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God, and it teaches, among other things, that sin is an offense against God, man is fallen, having inherited sin from Adam, sin is rebellion against God, and victory over sin is found in Jesus Christ. I will focus on the central tenet—the bodily resurrection of Christ.

King was a precocious child to the point of verbalizing his doubts about the bodily resurrection of Christ at age thirteen.³⁶ Recently discovered papers King wrote while at Crozer reveal that he still questioned the authenticity of such doctrines as the resurrection.³⁷

In 1985, Coretta Scott King asked Stanford professor Clayborne Carson to become the head of The King Papers Project, tasked to publish fourteen volumes of King’s papers to preserve his work.³⁸ The papers’ dates range from 1948 to 1963. Around 1996, Mrs. King gave Carson a box with papers that affirmed King’s doubts about whether the Bible was literally true: “King didn’t believe the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale was true, for example, or that John the Baptist actually met Jesus, according to texts detailed in the King papers book. King once referred to the Bible as ‘mythological’ and also doubted whether Jesus was born to a virgin, Carson said.”³⁹

While at Crozer, King argued that the Apostles’ Creed probably was influenced by Greek thought, and “in the minds of many sincere Christians this creed has planted a seed of confusion which has grown to an oak of doubt. They see this creed as incompatible with all scientific knowledge, and so they have proceeded to reject its content.”⁴⁰

In “What Experiences of Christians Living in the Early Christian Century Led to the Christian Doctrines of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Bodily Resurrection,” written in 1949 when King was twenty, he wrote that external evidence for the authenticity of the Resurrection is “found wanting.” He implied that the bodily resurrection was a mythological story early Christians spread to explain “the faith that he could never die” and to symbolize their experiences with Christ.⁴¹

Without the bodily resurrection of Christ there is no hope of salvation, and we’re still in our sins (1 Cor. 15:17). Based on these early papers, one could make the case King did not believe in basic tenets of the faith. One might also argue that his papers merely were theoretical exercises in which he stated and supported a thesis. Should we take into account King’s relative youth at the time? If these were his beliefs, did he ever repudiate them? Perhaps examining the entirety of his work will lead Christians to a definitive answer.

KING’S LEGACY AND OUR APOLOGETICS

Is King’s legacy still relevant to Christians today? Absolutely. Whether or not King’s beliefs later in life adhered to biblical Christianity, he infused the civil rights movement with Christian principles. The era brought about great and much-needed change.

When interacting with King’s legacy, the apologist must separate the wheat from the chaff. For example, King argued in favor of civil disobedience under the just/unjust law theory in “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” a topic that Christians on both sides of the issue have debated for centuries and will continue to debate. King wrote that “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws,”⁴² and contended that a just law is a man-made law in harmony with the moral law, or God’s law. An unjust law is not. One of King’s examples of an unjust law is one in which the majority compels the minority to obey, but the majority doesn’t bind itself to obey.

Apologists attempting to make the case for or against disobeying unjust laws and/or arguing whether a law is unjust may look to King as an example of a man who did both.

That King was influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy and other non-Christian ideas should give us pause. It is important that Christians avoid becoming entangled in interfaith dialogue to the point where we fail to address theological distinctives on which we cannot compromise. In the same matter, it should give us pause that King doubted the resurrection of Christ, the very foundation of the Christian faith, and other tenets of the faith.

As the church grapples with racial issues today, King’s life may serve as an example of someone who challenged the church to live up to biblical ideals and invoked Christ in the name of racial justice. We must keep in mind the context in which King developed his views.

At times King doubted his faith, which many Christians do, and his personal shortcomings confirmed he indeed was a fallen man in need of a Savior, as we all are. King’s legacy continues to influence secular and religious arenas, and his method of protesting racial segregation garnered both praise and condemnation. His legacy endures, and the apologist should be prepared to interact with it.

La Shawn Barber is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in such publications as Christianity Today, Today’s Christian Woman, the Washington Post, and the Washington Examiner. Visit her blog at lashawnbarber.com.

notes

1 Clayborne Carson, “Editing Martin Luther King, Jr.: Political and Scholarly Issues,” in Palimpsest: Editorial Theory in the Humanities, ed. George Bornstein and Ralph G. Williams (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 305–16; available at http:// mlk kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/home/pages?page=http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/ kingweb/additional_resources/articles/palimp.htm.

2 Martin Luther King, Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. Clayborne Carson (New York: Warner Books, 1998), 7.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid., 14.

5 Ken Hare, “The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott”; available at http://www.montgomeryboycott.com/article_overview.htm.

6 King, 119.

7 Ibid., 128.

8 Ibid., 67.

9 The King Center, “Biography”; available at http://www.thekingcenter.org/DrMLKingJr/.

10 Francis Romero, “A Brief History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day,” Time, January 19, 2009; available at http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1872501,00.html.

11 The Martin Luther King, Jr., Encyclopedia; available at http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/ index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_crozer_theological_seminary/.

12 Gary J. Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 1.

13 Anthony J. Carter, On Being Black and Reformed: A New Perspective on the African-

American Experience (Phillipsburg, NJ: P and R Publishing, 2003), 5–6.

14 Ibid., 6.

15 Ibid., 3.

16 Thabiti Anyabwile, The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007).

17 Ibid., 17–18.

18 King, 18.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid., 24.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., 25.

23 Ibid., 31.

24 Ibid.

25 Carl Anderson, A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World (New York: Harper One, 2008), 39.

26 King, 31–32.

27 Ibid., 32.

28 Clayborne Carson and Peter Holloran, eds., A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Warner Books, 1998); citing from http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/ doc_pauls_letter_to_american_christians.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Carson and Holloran; citing from http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/papers/vol4/570517.004-Give_Us_the_Ballot.htm.

33 King, 188–204.

34 Ibid; available at http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/kingweb/publications/speeches/ address_at_march_on_washington.pdf (July 17, 2001).

35 Jerry L. Buckner, “Is Orthodoxy Strong in the Black Church?” Christian Research Journal 27, 4 (2004); available at http://www.equip.org/articles/is-orthodoxy-strong-in-the-black-church-.

36 King, 6.

37 The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.; available at http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/ kingpapers/article/volume_i_13_september_to_23_november_19491/.

38 The King Papers Project; available at http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/ article/what_is_the_king_papers_project/.

39 Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, “Writings Show King as Liberal Christian, Rejecting Literalism,” San Francisco Chronicle; available at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/ 01/15/MNGHJNIR631.DTL.

40 The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 1; available at http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/ index.php/kingpapers/article/volume_i_13_september_to_23_november_19491/.

41 Ibid.

42 King, 188–204.

The 56-page report, “Free­masonry and Christianity: Are They Compatible?” was issued in June of 1987 by a seven mem­ber church committee — includ­ing two Masons — after a 16-month inquiry. The synod re­vealed that its five non-Mason committee members found a “number of very fundamental reasons to question the com­patibility of Freemasons with Christianity.” The report stated, “From the evidence we have received, it is clear that some

Christians have found the im­pact of Masonic rituals disturb­ing and a few perceive them as positively evil.” The chairman of the committee, sociologist Margaret Hewitt, said that Free­masonry has been a matter of concern to Christians both in this country and elsewhere for many years.”

The religious aspects of Freemasonry, such as the use of rit­ual prayers, chaplains, and an unorthodox doctrine of works righteousness apart from God’s grace, were cited by the Anglican Synod as matters of concern. The Synod’s primary theological objection centered upon Ma­sonry’s use of the word “Jahbulon,” which is the name used for deity in Masonic rituals, and is an amalgamation of Semitic, Hebrew, and Egyptian titles for God. The committee’s report concluded that the Masonic rituals were “blasphemous” be­cause God’s name “must not be taken in vain, nor can it be replaced by an amalgam of the names of pagan deities.” The report went on to say that many Christians have withdrawn from Masonic lodges “precisely be­cause they perceive their membership of it as being in conflict with their Christian witness and belief.”

Though the report accused Freemasonry of being blas­phemous and heretical, it did not recommend that the church require members to jettison their association with Masonic lodges, but rather reiterated the fact that Christians who remain involved in Masonry face “clear difficulties.” Several speakers were quick to point out that Masons should not be objects of persecution. Bishop Stanley Booth-Clibborn explained, “The important point ought to be that there should be no undue pressure on Christians who are Freemasons, and no witch hunt.” Archbishop of York John Habgood, the sec­ond highest Anglican official, described Freemasonry as being a “fairly harmless eccentricity.” Thus the Anglican position against Freemasonry was not as strong as that recently taken by the Methodist Church in En­gland, which recommended that their members avoid Ma­sonic lodges.

It is uncertain as to what effect this church decision will have on Freemasonry, but Michael Higham, the grand secretary of the United Grand Lodge of England, stated that they do plan further discussions with the church. But if changes in Masonic rituals are made, Higham said “we will do it at our own pace.”

Freemasonry, which began as a secret society in the 17th century, claims an estimated worldwide membership of six million. The United Grand Lodge of England is the ruling body for the 8,260 Masonic lodges throughout the world. Freemasonry also claims that its rituals are rooted in medieval custom, and that Masonry “is not a religion or a substitute for religion.”

— Ken Samples

“Because of your support, the vote of the Southern Baptist Convention is a historic and positive turning point for Freemasonry. Basically, it is a vitalization of our Fraternity by America’s largest Protestant denomination after nearly a year of thorough, scholarly study. At the same time, it is a call to renewed effort on the part of all Freemasons today to re-energize our Fraternity and move forward to fulfilling its mission as the world’s foremost proponent of Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God.” The Scottish Rite Journal, Aug. 1993. Millions of men throughout the world, including four million Americans, look to the Masonic Lodge for brotherhood and fellowship. They are proud to be part of an organization that engages itself in worthwhile causes, such as children’s hospitals. Many of them feel strongly about the Masonic tenets of the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the immortality of the soul. Masonry (or Freemasonry) claims to be the friend of Christianity, and yet it contains doctrines that are contrary to biblical teaching. As unpleasant as it may be, it is the obligation of the discerning Christian to point this out, both for the sake of the hundreds of thousands of Christian Masons and for those who might yet become Masons. The relationship of Masonry to Christian faith has been controversial for at least 200 years, and over that period the different sides have attempted to defend their positions to the best of their abilities. Therefore, confusion often befalls the layperson who must carefully wade through the arguments on both sides before he or she can hope to resolve the issue responsibly. While this article cannot relieve such laypeople of the task of discerning the matter, its purpose is to provide them with a strong yet concise presentation of the case against Christian involvement with Masonry. (Further documentation and analysis of the claims and arguments of Masonry can be found in Bowing at Strange Altars [an evaluation of the Southern Baptist Study on Masonry] and The Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge: A Christian Appraisal, both of which I coauthored with Dr. John Ankerberg. I urge interested readers to secure these volumes for further study in dealing with this issue. This article is primarily excerpted, with some changes, from Bowing at Strange Altars.) This article was planned for the JOURNAL long before controversial publications on Masonry were released by the Southern Baptists. However, because the Southern Baptist publications bring all of the concerns I intended to address into sharp focus, and because they are of significant contemporary concern, they will play an important role in my evaluation of Masonry.

MASONRY AND THE SOUTHERN BAPTISTS

A committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, concluded in its two 1993 publications, A Study of Freemasonry (hereafter Study) and A Report on Freemasonry (hereafter Report) — and at its annual convention the same year — that it cannot frankly state it is wrong for a Christian to join the Masonic Lodge.¹ In so doing the Southern Baptists are perhaps the only conservative Christian denomination in America not to warn their constituents that membership in the Masonic Lodge is not compatible with biblical teaching. In the coming years many other churches and denominations will face the question of whether their members should participate in the Masonic Lodge. What happened in the Southern Baptist Convention’s examination of Masonry points to the necessity for churches and denominations examining this subject to carefully select their investigative committees. Such committees should be composed of individuals who not only accept the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, but who will also not uncritically accept Masonic claims of compatibility with Christianity or be influenced by political pressures — as was true for the Southern Baptists.² In its six-page Report, the Baptist Home Mission Board listed numerous reasons why it is wrong for a Christian to be a member of the Masonic Lodge. For example, it cited several illustrations from the first three degrees of Masonry (the Blue Lodge degrees) concerning the taking of bloody oaths by the Masonic initiate. It warned, “Even though these oaths, obligations and rituals may or may not be taken seriously by the initiate, it is inappropriate for a Christian to ‘sincerely promise and swear,’ with the hand on the Holy Bible, any such promises or oaths, or to participate in any such pagan rituals” (emphases added).³ The Report also stated, “Many tenets and teachings of Freemasonry are not compatible with Christianity and Southern Baptist doctrine…,” and again cited examples such as the teachings of salvation by personal character/good works and the doctrine of universalism.⁴ In fact, both the Study and the Report offered solid reasons why Masonry and Christianity are incompatible and why Christians shouldn’t participate in the Lodge. But then, illogically, they gave the contradictory advice that membership in a Masonic Order should be a matter of personal conscience. In what follows I demonstrate the problems with this conclusion.

MASONRY AND SALVATION

It is my contention that the Masonic ritual (i.e., Masonry’s ceremonial rites of initiation that all Masons must pass through) of the First, Second, and Third Degrees teach all Masons exactly what God condemns as a false gospel, namely that a person is saved and goes to heaven as a result of his or her personal character and good works. As all Christians know, the Bible places such a teaching under God’s curse. Paul said in Galatians 1:8-9: “But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” The Bible clearly teaches how a man is saved: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9. Cf. John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47; Rom. 3:28-4:6; 11:6). Proof of Masonry’s false gospel can be found in standard “Monitors” — the official textbooks containing authoritative Masonic ritual which are more or less uniform for each state. In the ritual, the Masonic symbol of the lambskin or white leather apron is explained, in part, to each candidate as follows: “The lamb has in all ages been deemed an emblem of innocence; he, therefore, who wears the lambskin as a badge of Masonry, is thereby continually reminded of that purity of life and conduct, which is essentially necessary to his gaining admission into the Celestial Lodge Above, where the Supreme Architect of the Universe [God] presides (emphasis added).⁵” Please keep in mind that the instruction concerning the lambskin can be found in the Ritual book of all the Lodges in all 50 states. None exclude it, although it may be placed in different rituals in the manuals of different states. When a Mason is told that his purity of life and conduct is necessary to his gaining admission into the Celestial Lodge Above (i.e., heaven), how can anyone deny that Masonry is teaching another way of salvation than what the Bible teaches? How can anyone deny that this is a works gospel? In the Second Degree (the Fellow Craft Degree) and elsewhere the candidate is instructed further in the importance of the lambskin as follows: “You are to wear it as an emblem of that purity of heart and conscience that is necessary to obtain for you the approval of the Grand Architect of the Universe” (emphasis added).⁶ Moreover, as even some Masonic authorities have admitted, Masonry has, in all, some 40 degrees implying or teaching its candidates salvation by personal merit.⁷ What did the Southern Baptist Report conclude on this issue? The Committee that engaged in the study agreed that such teachings were “not compatible with Christianity or Southern Baptist doctrine.”⁸ The Report likewise concluded that Masonic writings and rituals imply that “salvation may be attained by one’s good works,” and therefore that some “Masons…may be led to believe they can earn salvation by living a pure life with good conduct.”⁹ In addition, the Study confessed that Masons “insist the lambskin [i.e., lambskin apron, used in Masonic ritual] does not bring salvation, but rather, ‘the purity of life’ it symbolizes brings salvation” (emphasis added).¹⁰The Committee stated that there was “the prevalent use of the term [Masonic] ‘light,’ which some may understand as a reference to salvation rather than knowledge or truth.”¹¹ The Report further conceded that “the heresy of universalism (the belief that all people will eventually be saved), which permeates the writings of many Masonic authors…is a doctrine inconsistent with New Testament teaching.”¹² In its mention of former Mason Jack Harris, the Study noted that “Harris was typical of other Masons who hope Freemasonry will take them to heaven” (emphasis added).¹³ Here it is acknowledged that Masons can indeed believe that Masonry alone is sufficient for salvation. But Masonry also teaches that individuals may be saved by being good members of their respective religions — whether Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, or other. For example, Dr. Jim Tresner, director of the Masonic Leadership Institute, affirmed that Masonry “leaves the member to devote himself to his own religious faith to receive…salvation.”¹⁴ In light of the above confessions I am perplexed. In 1992 the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution entitled, “On Christian Witness and Voluntary Associations,” encouraging Christians everywhere to (1) “maintain Christian witness openly before the world”; (2) avoid “any association which conflicts with clear biblical teaching“; and (3) “affirm that biblical doctrine is to be open and public knowledge and that the Christian faith is to be a clear and public expression of the truth that Jesus Christ is the only means of salvation, that the Bible is our infallible guide…” (emphases added).¹⁵ By stating such confessions and conclusions in its resolution in 1992, the SBC had effectively prohibited Christians from joining the Masonic Lodge. In light of these admonitions to Christians everywhere, how can the Home Mission Board and the Southern Baptist Convention a year later conclude that Freemasonry does not ultimately oppose Christian doctrine and that individual Christians are free to join the Masonic Lodge?¹⁶

THE MASONIC GOD

During the ritual, Masonry has its candidates swear that they believe in God, typically called the “Great Architect of the Universe.” It also informs them that all Masons are to bow before the sacred name of Deity, and explains that all Masons of every country, religion, and opinion are united in the belief that they have been created by one Almighty Parent. The question is, Is this Almighty Parent or Great Architect — the God of the Masonic Lodge — also the God of the Bible? The answer is clearly no. In the “Masonic Bible,” published by the A. J. Holman Press, we are told this “Almighty Parent” is the one true God that all men worship. This is so regardless of the name by which He is identified: Jehovah, Krishna, Buddha, Allah, or some other. The Masonic Bible is actually the King James Version bound with a special cover stamped with the Masonic insignia. In the front of this Bible there is a lengthy preface made up of articles concerning Masonry and the Bible. One of these articles is entitled, “The Great Light in Masonry,” written by Masonic authority Joseph Fort Newton, who states: “For Masonry knows, what so many forget, that religions are many, but religion is one…therefore, it [Masonry] invites to its altar men of all faiths, knowing that, if they use different names for ‘the nameless one of a hundred names,’ they are yet praying to the one God and Father of all” (emphasis added).¹⁷ But when a Hindu prays to Vishnu or Shiva, is he really praying to Jesus? When a Muslim prays to Allah, is she really praying to Jehovah? When Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormons pray, are they really praying to the same God the Christian prays to? The answer is no, because all these concepts of God are opposed to the concept of God as revealed in the Bible.¹⁸ Another Masonic authority, Carl H. Claudy, writes:

[The Mason] must declare his faith in a Supreme Being before he may be initiated. But note that he is not required to say, then or ever, what God. He may name him as he will, think of him as he pleases; make him impersonal law or personal and anthropomorphic; Freemasonry cares not…God, Great Architect of the Universe, Grand Artificer, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge Above, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, Shiva, or Great Geometer (emphases added).¹⁹

And,

Masonry does not specify any God of any creed; she requires merely that you believe in some Deity, give him what name you will….A belief in God is essential to a Mason, but…any God will do, so [long as] he is your God (emphasis added).²⁰

Masonry thus argues that all people of varying faiths are really praying to the one true God, the universal Father of humankind, regardless of the name they give him. Nevertheless, this “Almighty Parent” of Masonry is a different God than Christianity teaches — a fact conceded by both Masonic sympathizers as well as Masons themselves. The Baptist Study agreed that the Great Architect of Masonry is not the Jehovah of the Bible: “The Masonic Great Architect of the Universe appears more like the Aristotelian ‘First Cause’ than the personal God who has revealed Himself in the Bible.”²¹ In his encyclopedia on Masonry, Masonic authority Henry Wilson Coil refers to the biblical God as “a partisan, tribal God” and implies that such a God-concept is far inferior to the God of Masonry, which is

a boundless, eternal, universal, undenominational, and international, Divine Spirit, so vastly removed from the speck called man, that He cannot be known, named, or approached. So soon as man begins to laud his God and endow him with the most perfect human attributes, such as justice, mercy, beneficence, etc., the Divine essence is depreciated and despoiled….The Masonic test [for membership] is a Supreme Being, and any qualification added is an innovation and distortion (emphasis added).²²

Coil even admits that “monotheism… violates Masonic principles, for it requires belief in a specific kind of Supreme Deity” (emphasis added).²³ Of course, at this point Coil has just excluded the God of biblical teaching and Christian faith for being too specific despite the fact that he has ascribed a specific doctrine of God (eternal, unknowable, etc.) to Masonry. Masonic authority²⁴ Albert Pike also denies the biblical God. He argues that “if our conceptions of God are those of the ignorant, narrow-minded, and vindictive Israelite…we feel that it is an affront and an indignity to [God]….”²⁵ Anyone who has ever read what Albert Pike and other Masons have taught about God in the higher degrees of Masonry knows that the God of Masonry has nothing whatever to do with the God of the Bible.²⁶ For example, Pike categorized the God of Scripture as a false god and an idol when he wrote that “every religion and every conception of God is idolatrous, insofar as it is imperfect, and as it substitutes a feeble and temporary idea in the shrine of that Undiscoverable Being [of Masonry]…” (emphasis added).²⁷ If Masonry rejects the God of Christianity, however, how can it logically claim to be the true friend of Christian faith? Further, if it offers an unknowable, unapproachable, and undiscoverable God beyond the different concepts of God found in other religions, how can it appropriately or logically ask the men of those religions to join its local lodges? Masonry does this because it seeks to develop a worldwide religious brotherhood beyond the sectarian religious beliefs of humankind. To further this goal it must, at one level, accept all religions, while simultaneously pointing and leading to a “higher” truth beyond separatist religion — a truth that is capable of uniting all men in a common universal brotherhood, that is, the fraternity of Masonry. Masonry therefore encourages all members of different religions to pray to and worship their own respective gods: Brahma, Krishna, Allah, Buddha, Jehovah, Vishnu, Jesus, and so forth. This is the means by which Masonry can appeal to the members of all the different religions in the world and attempt to unite them in a universal “common brotherhood.” But then Masons cannot possibly all be praying to the same God because all these gods are different in nature and in what they expect of humans (if they expect anything). In other words, the Masonic doctrine of the spiritual “Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of man” is only valid if there is some larger God beyond the contradictory lesser gods that people worship. On the one hand Masonry claims it is an organization of tolerance that accepts the different religions of all people; on the other hand, it offers a supreme God that is supposedly the one true God that all people are really praying to, who is beyond the inferior, primitive concepts of individual religion — whether Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, or any other.²⁸ At whatever level Masonry approaches God, however, its theology presents irresolvable conflicts for the Christian. If the Christian God is merely an inferior and false concept, then Masonry denies that the God of the Bible is the one true God. Further, if Masonry points Christians to an unknowable “Almighty Parent” beyond all religion, then it encourages Masons to worship a false god, and this is idolatry. This violates the first commandment in which God warned His people, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (see Exod. 20:4-6; Deut. 13:1-5). Even at a surface level Masonry actively encourages idolatry. The Baptist Study, for example, cites The Freemasons’ Diary as setting “this priority for a Mason concerning his faith and religious practice: a Freemason is encouraged to do his duty first to his God (by whatever name he is known) through his faith and religious practice…” (emphasis added).²⁹ To encourage Masons to do their religious duty to their various gods is to encourage the Muslim Mason to worship and serve Allah; the Hindu Mason to worship and serve Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; the Buddhist Mason to worship Buddha and various Buddhist deities; the Mormon Mason to worship Mormonism’s own gods; and the pagan Mason to worship any variety of additional gods. This is unacceptable for the Christian in that it promotes spiritual deception under the guise of alleged spiritual brotherhood. Jesus emphasized, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). God Himself declares, “I, even I, am the Lord; and there is no savior besides Me….I am the Lord and there is no other; besides Me there is no God” (Isa. 43:11; 45:5). Jesus also emphasized that “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). How, then, can Christian Masons logically join and swear allegiance to actively support Masonry when it encourages people to believe in false gods and to deny the truth that God has revealed in the Bible?

MASONRY AND PAGAN RELIGION

The previously mentioned 1992 SBC resolution that encompassed Freemasonry stated: “Be it finally RESOLVED, That we urge all Southern Baptists to refrain from participation or membership in organizations with teachings, oaths, or mystical knowledge which are contrary to the Bible and to the public expression of our faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, which must be above all reproach.”³⁰ Further, the Study of Freemasonry submitted to the Baptist Home Mission Board conceded that “a Christian Mason who takes the higher degrees of the Scottish Rite will be exposed to beliefs and practices quite different from his own. For example, the candidate is introduced to Egyptian deities Osiris, Isis, Horus, and Amun; to Scandinavian deities Odin, Frea, and Thor; to Hindu, Greek, and Persian deities; and to Jewish Kabbalism [i.e., occultism]….It cannot be denied that some of the religions studied in these degrees are pagan and that their teachings are totally incompatible with Christianity” (emphasis added).³¹ The Report on Freemasonry concluded that paganism is not only found in Masonic rituals, but it also discovered paganism in many readings that Masonry encourages its initiates to pursue: “[Many of] the recommended readings, in pursuance of advanced degrees, of religions and philosophies…are undeniably pagan and/or occult…” (emphasis added).³² Among those mentioned are the writings of Masonic authorities or authors Albert Pike, Albert Mackey, Manley Hall, Rex Hutchins, and W. L. Wilmshurst. Even some official Masonic Monitors encourage paganism. The Texas Monitor, for example, tells us:

These [aspects and teachings of Masonry] were practiced from remote ages, in ancient temples of many nations….The most learned among Masonic scholars…conclude that Masonry is of very ancient origin, and is, in some aspects, the modern successor of, and heir to, the sublime Mysteries of the Temple of Solomon, and of the Temples of India, Chaldea, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as the basic doctrine of the Essenes, Gnostics and other mystic Orders.³³

Because the Texas Monitor argues that Masonry is related to ancient paganism, it advises that

every candidate for the Mysteries of Masonry, at the proper time and in an appropriate manner, should be taught the truth that the rite of Initiation means much more than a formal ceremonial progress through the Degrees….Initiation is to be attained only after real labor, deep study, profound meditation, extensive research and a constant practice of those virtues which will open a true path to moral, intellectual, and spiritual illumination.³⁴

In other words, the Texas Monitor itself maintains that the initiate is to be informed as to and/or practiced in the deeper pagan meanings of the Masonic Ritual.

JESUS CHRIST

The Baptist Study comments, “it is not true that Freemasonry ignores or denies Jesus Christ” (emphasis added).³⁵ The Study nevertheless admits that “Freemasonry today does not see Jesus as the unique Son of God and Savior of the world.”³⁶ The Masonic Ritual of the First, Second, and Third Degrees never instructs its members that Jesus is the only mediator between God and men. It never tells them they can’t truthfully call God their Father until they have a relationship with His Son. It doesn’t tell initiates that they can’t build their spiritual house until they ask Jesus Christ to forgive them of their sins and build it for them. No Mason is ever told officially that a man can never do enough good deeds or live a pure enough life to gain admission into the Celestial Lodge Above, or that entrance into heaven comes only by faith in Jesus Christ. The truth is that by its ritual, teachings, and prayers, Masonry does ignore and deny Jesus Christ.³⁷

IS MASONRY A RELIGION?

One of the key issues in this discussion is whether or not Masonry is a religion.³⁸ The Baptist Study concluded: “Strong feelings have been expressed on both sides of this difficult issue….the overwhelming majority of Masons reject the idea that Freemasonry is a religion. The various monitors of the Grand Lodges and statements from the overwhelming majority of Masonic leaders in the past and today deny that Freemasonry is a religion”(emphases added).³⁹ No one denies that the vast majority of Masons say Masonry is not a religion, but one must go beyond mere claims. For example, virtually all Mormons claim their religion is Christian, which is demonstrably false.⁴⁰ Masonry claims it has the qualities of a religion but is still not a religion; or that it is religious but still not a religion. However, the latter point makes as much sense (as even Coil pointed out) as to say that a man has no intellect but is intellectual, or that he has no honor but is honorable. Religious is defined as “imbued with or adhering to religion or a religion.”⁴¹ While it is possible for an organization to have a religious quality and yet not be a religion — such as Christian groups that specialize in missions or research and have daily periods of prayer, Masonry is more than this. The religious quality of Christian organizations is based on Christianity while the religious quality of Masonry is based on Masonry itself, which qualifies it as a religion. The Study wrongly concluded that Masonry is not a religion. Nevertheless it was forced to confess that “many men make the Lodge their religion.”⁴² The major issue in determining whether Masonry is a religion is to look at its demands on the candidate. Masonry requires the candidate to believe in God, obey Him, worship Him, seek His guidance, and so forth, which qualifies it as a religion. And, as I have already documented, Masonry claims its members will earn admittance to heaven based on personal character and good works. This also classifies the Lodge as a religion. In fact, any standard dictionary or encyclopedia definition of religion proves beyond doubt that Masonry is a religion.⁴³ Dr. Shildes Johnson is only one of many scholars of comparative religion who have concluded: “A comparison of the moral, allegorical, and symbolic teachings of Freemasonry with these definitions of a religion reveals that the lodge is a theistic, non-Christian, man-centered, and universal religion.”⁴⁴ All this is why numerous leading Masonic authorities have publicly confessed that Masonry is, in fact, a religion. For example: Albert G. Mackey: “The religion of Masonry is cosmopolitan, universal….”⁴⁵ Henry Wilson Coil: “Religion is espoused by the Masonic Ritual and required of the candidate”; and, “Freemasonry is undoubtedly religion”; and, “Many Freemasons make this flight [to heaven] with no other guarantee of a safe landing than their belief in the religion of Freemasonry” (emphasis added).⁴⁶ Albert Pike: “Masonry…is the universal, eternal, immutable religion….”⁴⁷ Joseph Fort Newton: “Everything in Masonry has reference to God, implies God, speaks of God, points and leads to God. Not a degree, not a symbol, not an obligation, not a lecture, not a charge but finds its meaning and derives its beauty from God the Great Architect, in whose temple all Masons are workmen.”⁴⁸ Doesn’t all this constitute evidence that Masonry is a religion? Yet the Study of the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board concluded it is not a religion.⁴⁹ The Baptist Study offered a number of reasons to allegedly substantiate its claim that Masonry is not a religion. For example, it points out that in a 1921 decision the Supreme Court of Nebraska ruled that Freemasonry is not a religion. But all this means is that the Supreme Court of Nebraska was wrong. State Supreme Courts and even the Supreme Court of the United States have frequently been wrong, as can be proven by the number of opinion reversals enacted by those bodies. The United States Supreme Court has reversed itself no less than 200 times in its history. These are admissions of error. The Study next cites the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America. It points out that not all Scouts are Christians. Yet Christians may become members of the Scouts without worshipping the gods of those in the Scouts who follow other religions, such as Mormons and Hindus. “Baptist youth certainly do not worship the physical god of Mormonism or the impersonal god of Hinduism, yet they join with youth and leaders from these religions to earn religious emblems. They have certain rituals that identify them as Scouts anywhere in the world….”⁵⁰ What if the Boy Scouts of America claimed it was not a religion when it was? What if the Scouts had an agenda that they kept hidden? What if the Scouts had their own plan of salvation? What if the Scouts actively taught members that they could be saved and go to heaven by good works? What if the Scouts had bloody oaths requiring secrecy on pain of death?⁵¹ Who would argue that Christian youth should join such an organization? Next, the Study claims that those individuals who allow Masonry to become their religion do so only because of their own misinterpretation or misunderstanding of Masonry and (quoting a Southern Baptist Mason) “not due to Masonic teaching.”⁵² In The Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge, however, John Ankerberg and I devoted some 200 pages showing that the reason individuals do make Masonry their religion is “due to Masonic teaching.” Perhaps it is worth noting that of all the conservative Christian bodies who have studied Masonry, I discovered almost unanimous agreement among them that Masonry is a religion and that Masonry and Christianity are not compatible.⁵³ The conclusion of a Presbyterian report is only one of almost two dozen denominational inquiries that concluded Masonry is a religion: “In our study of Freemasonry’s promotional literature, through personal interviews with Masons, and by letters received from Masons, we were told that Freemasonry is not a religion. However, a close scrutiny of the ritual of the lodge and books written by authoritative Masons points to the contrary…(emphasis added).⁵⁴ In its section on the position of other Christian denominations relative to Masonry, even the Baptist Study documents that Masonry has been rejected by the Roman Catholic church, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Presbyterian Church in America, the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Church of the Brethren, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Assemblies of God, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, “and other Christian denominations have also taken positions against Freemasonry, or against secret societies without mentioning Freemasonry.”⁵⁵ One must wonder, “Didn’t this near-unanimous condemnation tell Baptist committee members something?!” If Masonry and Christianity are really compatible (as the Baptist Study implies), and if individual Christians can actually become Masons “in good conscience,” then why all the negative conclusions condemning Masonry and urging Christians not to join the Masonic Lodge from all these widely varying Christian bodies? The Study acknowledges that “this issue has divided Baptists for two centuries.”⁵⁶ But why has it divided Baptists for two centuries? We think the reason is evident — because the Baptist tradition has never officially taken a position on Masonry, thereby allowing individual Christians in every generation to be deceived by its false claims. This would seem to explain why, as the Study itself concedes, half a million Southern Baptists (at least) are now Masons — including many Southern Baptist pastors, ministers of education, deacons, and directors of missions.⁵⁷ But even if there were ten million Christians in the Lodge, this fact alone would not justify Masonry. I can only agree with the conclusion of the Presbyterian report and many others that say: a) Joining Masonry requires “actions and vows out of accord with Scripture.” b) “Participation in Masonry seriously compromises the Christian faith and testimony.” c) “Membership in Masonry and activity in its Ritual lead to a diluting of commitment to Christ and His kingdom.”⁵⁸ Certainly the Baptist stress on individual freedom of conscience cannot be carried so far as to accept the right of Christians to join the Mormon church or the Baha’i Faith. On what basis, then, can the Southern Baptist Convention say it is permissible for a Christian to join the Masonic Lodge? The issue is not individual conscience. The issue is, Can Christianity and Masonry be logically joined together without violation of scriptural teaching and Christ’s glory? If not, then the verdict of each Christian’s conscience must be to abstain from the Masonic Lodge, and the obligation of each church body must be to proclaim this basic incompatibility of Masonry and Christianity.

NOTES

¹ In the text and endnotes, the term Study refers to the 75-page analysis, A Study of Freemasonry (Atlanta, GA: Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1993), available from the Home Mission Board, SBC, 1350 Spring Street, N.W., Atlanta, GA 30367-5601 (1-800-634-2462). The term Report refers to the six-page A Report on Freemasonry, published by the Home Mission Board, SBC, 17 March 1993. ² See John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Bowing at Strange Altars (Chattanooga, TN: Ankerberg Theological Research Institute, 1993), 10-12. ³ Report, 5. ⁴ Ibid., 5-6. ⁵ Code Revision Committee, Masonic Manual of the Grand Lodge of Georgia, Free and Accepted Masons, 10th ed. (n.p.: Grand Lodge of the State of Georgia, 1983), 17. ⁶ Most Worshipful Grand Lodge Free & Accepted Masons of Arkansas, Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and MasterMason (n.p.: Grand Lodge of Arkansas, 7th ed., 1993), 17. ⁷ See John Ankerberg and John Weldon, The Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge: A Christian Appraisal (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), 86, cf. 78-92. ⁸ Report, 4. ⁹ Ibid., 5-6. ¹⁰ Study, 34. ¹¹ Report, 5. ¹² Ibid., 6. ¹³ Ibid., 54. ¹⁴ Jim Tresner, “Conscience and the Craft,” The Scottish Rite Journal, February 1993, 23. ¹⁵ Study, 2-3. ¹⁶ Ibid., 70. ¹⁷ Joseph Fort Newton, “The Great Light in Masonry” (title of the section containing: “The Words of a Great Masonic Divine: The Bible and Freemasonry,” in The Holy Bible: The Great Light in Masonry (Nashville: A. J. Holman, 1940), 3-4. ¹⁸ See Ankerberg and Weldon, Secret Teachings, 194-95. ¹⁹ Carl H. Claudy, Introduction to Freemasonry, vol. 2 (Washington: The Temple, 1984), 110. ²⁰ Carl H. Claudy, “Belief in God,” in “A Master’s Wages,” in Little Masonic Library, vol. 4 (Richmond: Macoy Publishing, 1977), 32. ²¹ Study, 43. ²² Henry Wilson Coil, Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia (New York: Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply, 1961), 516-17. ²³ Ibid., 517. ²⁴ Ankerberg and Weldon, Bowing, chs. 7, 9. ²⁵ Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (Charleston, SC: Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, 1927), 223. ²⁶ Ankerberg and Weldon, Secret Teachings, chs. 8-9. ²⁷ Pike, 516; cf. 226, 295-96. ²⁸ Tresner, 18. See also J. N. D. Anderson, Christianity and Comparative Religion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1977), 11-12. ²⁹ Study, 26. ³⁰ Ibid., 3. ³¹ Ibid., 32. ³² Report, 5. ³³ Grand Lodge of Texas, Monitor of the Lodge: Monitorial Instructions in the Three Degrees of Symbolic Masonry (Waco, TX: Grand Lodge of Texas, A.F.&A.M., 1982), xiii, xiv. ³⁴ Ibid., xv, xvi. ³⁵ Study, 48. See also Ankerberg and Weldon, Secret Teachings, 126-29; Jim Shaw and Tom McKenney, The Deadly Deception: Freemasonry Exposed by One of Its Top Leaders (Lafayette, LA: Huntington House, 1988), 72. ³⁶ Study, 48-49. ³⁷ For further information on Masonic views of Jesus Christ, see Ankerberg and Weldon, Bowing, ch. 4, and Secret Teachings, ch. 10. ³⁸ Study, 23. ³⁹ Ibid., 70. ⁴⁰ See, e.g., John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Mormonism (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1991) for detailed documentation. ⁴¹ Macmillan Dictionary for Students (1984), 842. ⁴² Study, 26. ⁴³ Ankerberg and Weldon, Secret Teachings, 37-38. ⁴⁴ Shildes Johnson, Is Masonry a Religion? (Oakland, NJ: Institute of Contemporary Christianity, 1978), 21. ⁴⁵ Albert G. Mackey, An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences, vol. 1 (Chicago: Masonic History Company, 1921), 301. ⁴⁶ Coil, 512, 158; Henry Wilson Coil, A Comprehensive View of Freemasonry (Richmond: Macoy, 1973),186.⁴⁷ Pike, 219. ⁴⁸ Joseph Fort Newton, The Religion of Masonry (Richmond: Macoy, 1969), 58-59. ⁴⁹ Study, 70. ⁵⁰ Ibid., 26. ⁵¹ Ankerberg and Weldon, Secret Teachings, chs. 2, 13-16. ⁵² Study, 26. ⁵³ Ankerberg and Weldon, Secret Teachings, 269-71; cf. ch. 16, Epilogue; and James Holly, The Southern Baptist Convention and Freemasonry (Beaumont, TX: Mission and Ministry to Men, 1993), ch. 3. ⁵⁴ Minutes of the General Assembly, appendix R, The Report of the Ad-Interim Committee to Study Freemasonry, 16th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, 6 June 1988, 466. ⁵⁵ Study, 63. ⁵⁶ Ibid., 64. ⁵⁷ Ibid., 64-65. ⁵⁸ Presbyterian Report, 473.

Jewish Rabbis in the first century were encouraged not to teach or even to speak with women. Jewish wisdom literature tells us that “he that talks much with womankind brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the Law and at the last will inherit Gehenna [hell].”³ One reason for the avoidance of women was the belief that they could lead men astray: “From garments cometh a moth and from a woman the iniquities of a man” (Ecclus. 42:13). Indeed, men were often viewed as intrinsically better than women, for “better is the iniquity of a man than a woman doing a good turn” (Ecclus. 42:14).⁴

In view of this low status of women, it is not surprising that they enjoyed few legal rights in Jewish society. Women were not even allowed to give evidence in a court of law. Moreover, according to the rabbinic school that followed Rabbi Hillel, a man could legally divorce his wife if she burned his dinner.

It was in this oppressive context that Christianity was born. Many people — both men and women — have hailed Jesus as a feminist because of His elevation of women in a male-chauvinist society. Moreover, Paul’s statement in Galatians 3:28 — “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (NIV) — has been called “the Magna Carta of humanity.”⁵ Because of the Christian’s standing in Christ, it is argued, the subordination of women that was (allegedly) caused by the Fall (Gen. 3) has been replaced with total equality of the sexes in Christ. Any apparent biblical teaching of the need for female submission today is based on misinterpretations by male scholars.

Feminism. To some the word represents liberation and long-awaited justice; to others, divisiveness. Emotions have run feverishly high in the debate over women’s rights, and the past few decades have seen the debate move into the theological mainstream. Today, women are increasingly being ordained as ministers in many Christian denominations; Bibles are being published using “inclusive language”; and those who stand against either of these often find themselves branded as chauvinists.

Certainly no one can deny that women have suffered abuse at the hands of males throughout history. This has caused theologian Duane Litfin to ask some penetrating questions:

What follower of Jesus could ignore the fundamental injustice of laws that work to the disadvantage of women as women? Who could fail to be outraged at the prospect of a woman being paid a fraction of what a man earns for doing the same work? What fair-minded person is not dismayed when reminded that it has only been within the life spans of many living Americans that women have been thought worthy of the vote? And what believer has not discovered blind spots within his own perspective that, on closer inspection, caused embarrassment and repentance? Any who are willing to see can find much in the feminist movement to be praised and supported.⁶

I think Litfin is right. But alas, as Litfin also notes, “the worthy goals of the movement do not stand alone.”⁷

In this article, my focus will be limited to examining how evangelical feminists are arguing their case from the Bible. I will then show why traditionalists reject this variety of liberation theology. First, however, it is necessary to distinguish evangelical feminism from three other varieties of feminism.

VARIETIES OF FEMINISM

The different subgroups among feminists have been categorized variously. For my purposes, I have chosen to classify them as secular feminists, New Age feminists, liberal Christian feminists, and evangelical feminists. These subgroups should not be viewed as having clearly defined lines of demarcation; rather, they are more like clusters along the theological-philosophical continuum. Along this continuum, it is possible that a feminist may fall between the clusters, thereby sharing some of the characteristics of two different groups.⁸

Secular feminists are humanists who disallow God, revelation, and religion in the discussion of feminism. They view the Bible as a major source of chauvinist ideas and a relic of antiquity that has no relevance to the ongoing debate over the roles of men and women in modern society.

New Age feminists are pagans who are typically involved in the worship of a feminine deity or goddess. (The upcoming Fall issue of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL will feature an article by Norman L. Geisler on neopaganism and feminism.)

Liberal Christian feminists operate within a Christian framework but approach feminism (and theology in general) from a very liberal perspective. They believe the Bible writers were simply men of their times and were limited in their perspectives. Liberal Christian feminists employ a “hermeneutic of suspicion” — that is, they “systematically assume that the Bible’s male authors and interpreters deliberately covered up the role of women in early Christianity.”⁹ Using such a hermeneutic, it is easy to sift out from the Bible anything one finds offensive to one’s feminist tastes.

Evangelical feminists are those who generally (not always) hold to conservative views on the Bible and theology but who nevertheless embrace the feminist ideal of abolishing gender-based roles in society, church, and home. They believe the Bible is authoritative and, rightly understood, supports their feminist views.

Historically, the first widely publicized book on the role of women in the church that hinted at the formulation of a specific feminist theology was published in 1968: The Church and the Second Sex, by Mary Daly.¹⁰ Following the publication of this book, the market was virtually flooded with books and articles on feminist theology, all of which challenged the idea that female subordination was ordained by God.

In 1975, a conference of evangelical feminists was held in Washington, D.C., that attracted 360 participants from across the United States. The conference formally endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment and established the Evangelical Women’s Caucus (EWC), a grassroots “consciousness-raising” organization with chapters in many major cities.¹¹

Some traditionalists believe that the emergence of evangelical feminism may be an example of the negative influence of trends in the wider culture on contemporary Christianity. However, Christian feminist Virginia Mollenkott rejects this assessment: “We did not become feminists and then try to fit our Christianity into feminist ideology….We heralded the feminist movement because we were convinced that the church had strayed from a correct understanding of God’s will for women.”¹²

Has the church strayed from a correct understanding of God’s will for women? We shall now examine how evangelical feminists argue their case from Scripture. To simplify the task, I shall focus primary attention on the writings of only a few of the major evangelical feminists. Moreover, because of space limitations, I shall examine only the major arguments and the major Scripture passages they cite in support of their position.

EVANGELICAL FEMINISM: AN OVERVIEW

We begin with the observation that evangelical feminists react against the idea that the male of the human species is most truly representative of God. E. Margaret Howe, one of the more prominent feminist theologians today, notes that this idea is largely based on Old Testament imagery that represents God as “Father,” and ignores the Scriptures which typify God as “Mother.” The Lord, for example, is portrayed as a nursing mother (Isa. 49:15), midwife (Ps. 22:9-10), and a female homemaker (Ps. 123:2).

In view of the tendency to view God as a male, Howe says the sexuality of God has often been stressed rather than His personhood. But “we are in the realm of mythology,” she retorts, “when we conceptualize God as male, rather than female, just as we would be if we considered him to be female rather than male. The being of God transcends the limitations of sexuality.”¹³

Jesus Was a Feminist. As noted earlier, many people have hailed Jesus as being a feminist in a first-century, male-chauvinist society. That Jesus considered women on an equal plane with men is clear, we are told, from the manner in which He taught women. Consider His visit to the home of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42):

Martha took the typical woman’s role: “Martha was distracted with much serving.” Mary, however, took the supposedly “male” role: she “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.” Martha apparently thought Mary was out of place in choosing the role of the “intellectual,” for she complained to Jesus. But Jesus’ response was a refusal to force all women into the stereotype: he treated Mary first of all as a person…who was allowed to set her own priorities, and in this instance had “chosen the better part.” And Jesus applauded her: “it is not to be taken from her.”¹⁴

Feminist Gretchen Hull calls Luke 10:38-42 “the most significant encounter…because it taught that women should prefer studying theology over a preoccupation with domestic chores.”¹⁵

Aida Spencer, another feminist writer, discounts the fact that Jesus chose twelve men to be disciples. “If Jesus’ choice of twelve male [Jewish] disciples signifies that females should not be leaders in the church, then, consistently, his choice also signifies that Gentiles should not be leaders in the church.”¹⁶ But, Spencer argues, since Gentiles are allowed to be leaders in the church, the same should be true for women.

Feminists also cast Jesus in the role of a feminist in His first resurrection appearance. Mollenkott notes that “women were considered too frivolous and untrustworthy to be witnesses in a court of law, or to teach children — let alone men; yet Jesus commissioned women to be the first witnesses of His resurrection and sent them to teach the male disciples that He was risen.”¹⁷

And because of what Jesus accomplished in His death and resurrection, it is argued, women have been delivered from the male domination that was caused by the Fall (Gen. 3).

Female Subordination: A Result of the Curse. Evangelical feminists argue that male headship and female subordination in the marital relationship is a part of the curse. Indeed, in Genesis 3:16 God pronounced judgment against the woman: “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Mollenkott argues that “sin enters the human condition in Genesis 3. Only after Adam and Eve have substituted their will for God’s will does the specter of male supremacy and female subordination enter the picture.”¹⁸ Feminist Gilbert Bilezikian thus argues that “it is proper to regard both male dominance and death as being antithetical to God’s original intent in creation. Both are the result of sin, itself instigated by Satan. Their origin is satanic.”¹⁹

The good news, feminists say, is that in Christ “the life-giving law of the Spirit has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). “Theologically speaking,” Howe argues, “the death of Christ released humanity from the curse brought about by sin. Woman is no longer to be subjugated under male headship. The mutual and complementary relationship that Adam and Eve enjoyed before the Fall may now be restored.”²⁰

Equal in Christ (Galatians 3:28). One might say that the theme verse for evangelical feminism is Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Evangelical feminists argue that Paul is not speaking in this verse about the equality of men and women in their spiritual standing before God, but of the practical outworking of that standing in society. Richard and Joyce Boldrey assert that “Galatians 3:28 does not say ‘God loves each of you, but stay in your places’; it says that there are no longer places, no longer categories, no longer differences in rights and privileges, codes and values.”²¹ Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty suggest that in view of Galatians 3:28, “all social distinctions between men and women should [be] erased in the church.”²²

Mutual Submission. Ephesians 5:21-24 instructs men and women: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

How can this passage be interpreted to fit the feminist ideal? Feminists generally make verse 21 — which calls for husbands and wives to “submit to one another” — the governing verse of the entire passage. Because of what Christ accomplished at the Cross, the male domination brought about by the Fall has been done away with, and now there is to be mutual submission between husbands and wives in Christ.

(Traditionalists, however, often argue that the Greek pronoun allelous ["one another"] may carry the meaning “some to others” [Rev. 6:4; Gal. 6:2]. Understood this way, Ephesians 5:21 — as an introduction to verses 22-24 — may be paraphrased: “Those who are under authority should be subject to others among you who have authority over them.”²³)

Ephesians 5:22-24 — which calls for wives to submit to their husbands — is problematic for feminists. They explain these verses in any one of several ways. Some argue that a hierarchical model of male/female roles may have been appropriate for New Testament times, but such a model is no longer binding on twentieth-century Christians. Indeed, “an interpretation that ‘absolutizes a given historical social order’ is unacceptable.”²⁴ Scanzoni and Hardesty suggest that “passages which are theological and doctrinal in content [should be] used to interpret those where the writer is dealing with practical local cultural problems. Except Galatians 3:28 [which is theological in nature], all of the references to women in the New Testament are contained in passages dealing with practical concerns about personal relationships or behavior in worship services.”²⁵ Thus, passages such as Ephesians 5:22-24 must give way to Galatians 3:28.

Other feminists say that while Paul taught a hierarchical model of male/female relations in Ephesians, this was based on his rabbinic training and he was wrong. Mollenkott is an example of this line of thought and says that passages that teach a hierarchical model should be seen as “distorted by the human instrument.”²⁶

Still other feminists deal with these verses by appealing to another possible meaning of the word “head.” It is argued that Ephesians 5:23 — “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church” — has nothing to do with the exercise of authority. Rather, the Greek word for “head” in this verse must mean source, a meaning supported by two pieces of ancient literature: Herodotus 4.91 and Orphic Fragments 21a.²⁷

The meaning of source for “head” is certainly compatible with the Genesis account, it is argued, for indeed the woman does have her source in man.²⁸ Hence, as Herbert and Fern Miles argue, “there is nothing in the fifth chapter of Ephesians that would even remotely indicate” that wives are responsible to submit to their husbands.²⁹

(However, New Testament scholar Wayne Grudem researched 2,336 instances of the word “head” [Greek: kephale] in all the major writings of the classical and Hellenistic Greek periods, and found no clear instances of such a usage. He says the two pieces of ancient literature cited by feminists — which predate the New Testament by 400 years — are not convincing. Moreover, “all the major lexicons that specialize in the New Testament period give [the] meaning ['authority over'], whereas none give the meaning ‘source.’”³⁰)

Speaking in the Church. Evangelical feminists eagerly point out that Paul allowed women to prophesy in the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 11:2-16). However, the apostle Paul added a qualification: “Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head….the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head” (1 Cor. 11:5, 10). Howe takes this to mean that Paul’s only concern in 1 Corinthians 11 was that women maintain their sexual identity as women, and that this should be reflected in their manner of dress. “A woman appointed to a leadership position in the church is not adopting a male role; nor, on the other hand, does she stand before the congregation as a sex object….Her hair and shoulders are to be covered because in the redemptive order she stands before God as man’s equal, not as the object of man’s desire. Thus the veil is a symbol of her ‘authority,’ authority invested in her by God as a result of the redemptive work of Christ in whom ‘there is neither male nor female’ (Gal. 3:28).”³¹

In light of these careful instructions, Howe argues, “it would be presumptuous to argue that Paul’s later comments in this letter (14:34-35) preclude a woman from ordination on the basis that she is not permitted to speak in the church.”³²

Silence in the Church. In 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, the apostle Paul said that “women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”

Most Christian feminists say the word “speak” in 1 Corinthians 14:34 refers only to general talking or idle chatter and does not include formal lectures, exhortation, or teaching. Hence, women were prohibited by Paul from chattering or disturbing the meeting, but not from formal public teaching or leading.

A more difficult passage for feminists is 1 Timothy 2:11-12, where the apostle Paul said: “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” One popular feminist theory for explaining this passage is that Paul was prohibiting women from speaking or teaching because they had not been properly educated.³³ Hence, “because twentieth-century women are better trained and qualified to teach, Paul’s directive doesn’t apply. His prohibition was meant to gradually fade away along with the disappearance of social distinctions between men and women.”³⁴

Other feminists interpret Paul’s prohibition as pertaining to women who were teaching error or false doctrine in the church. Seen in this light, the prohibition was not intended to be universally applied. Paul was simply dealing with a specific local problem in Corinth in which some misled women were leading others astray.

The Feminist Approach. From our brief survey above, we may conclude that evangelical feminists sometimes argue their case from the biblical text (e.g., Gen. 3:16; Gal. 3:28). Other biblical texts, they say, deal with local cultural situations of the first century and thus must not be seen as normative for modern society (e.g., Eph. 5:21-24; 1 Cor. 14:33b-36; 1 Tim. 2:11-15).

Evangelical feminists marshal many other arguments besides those we have cited to support their case. But the above is sufficient to illustrate their basic approach. We shall now turn our attention to how traditionalists respond to this brand of liberation theology.

A CRITIQUE

Feminist liberation theology has without doubt made some important, positive contributions. I can only mention a few of the more notable here. First, feminist theology has called attention to the invaluable role women have played in the church throughout Christian history. Second, feminist theology has rightly pointed to the failure of many men in fulfilling their God-appointed roles of loving their wives as Christ loved the church. If Christian husbands through the centuries had been consistently faithful in following this one injunction, the controversy over gender-based roles in the church could have been avoided (or at least substantially diminished). And third, feminist theology serves as an indictment against the abuse and oppression that women have all too often suffered at the hands of chauvinist men. I consider these contributions important and extremely relevant.

Despite these contributions, however, there are some serious problems that must be addressed. Space limitations regrettably do not allow for a response to each of the passages cited above. I shall therefore limit my critique to a pivotal premise of feminist theology — that is, that female subordination is a result of the Fall, and that in Christ all social hierarchy has been obliterated. If this premise is shown to be in error, then the feminist position on many New Testament passages — including 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 and 14:33b-36, Galatians 3:28, and 1 Timothy 2:11-15 — is in serious jeopardy.

Feminists appeal to God’s judgment against the woman in Genesis 3:16 — “[man] will rule over you” — in their attempt to prove that female subordination was caused by the Fall. A more thorough look at the biblical evidence reveals, however, that this is not the case. Male headship is clearly established in the creation account in Genesis 2 — before the Fall even took place. Man was created first. And the woman was created from Adam’s rib to be his helper (Gen. 2:18). Certainly, both male and female were created in God’s image and were accorded personal dignity, but God in the creation narrative set them in a nonreversible relation to one another — male in loving headship over the female.

Adam’s headship is illustrated in many ways in the creation account. For example, as soon as the woman was created, Adam named the woman: “She shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man” (Gen. 2:23). This is significant, because to name someone or something in ancient times implied having authority over the one named (e.g., Gen. 17:5; 2 Kings 23:34; Dan. 1:7).

It is also highly revealing that when God gave instructions about moral responsibility, He gave these instructions to Adam (Gen. 2:16-17). And after the Fall, God first summoned Adam, not Eve, even though she was the one who had led him into sin. “Adam, where are you?” God said immediately following the Fall (Gen. 3:9). In Romans 5:12, Adam was held solely responsible for the Fall, even though Eve played a significant role.

Certainly one of Adam’s failures in the Fall was his abdication of responsibility for leadership. Instead of obeying God and leading his wife, he disobeyed God and followed his wife’s lead (by eating the fruit). For this reason, God begins His sentence against Adam, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife” (Gen. 3:17). In the Fall, therefore, God’s intended order of authority was reversed. As Gordon Wenham puts it, “Eve listened to the serpent instead of Adam; Adam listened to Eve instead of God.”³⁵

In view of all this, God’s judgment against the woman in Genesis 3:16 cannot be viewed as the source of hierarchical social order. Rather it points to the reality that with the entrance of sin the hierarchical order remains (having been established in Genesis 2), but sin’s effect will now be experienced within that order. Hence, God’s statement in Genesis 3:16 was simply a divine description of what would occur (male domination and oppression as opposed to loving headship), not a mandate which obedient servants of God should attempt to carry out.

Equal in Christ (Gal. 3:28). When Paul says “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female” in Christ (Gal. 3:28), he seems to be alluding to the morning prayer of Jewish men in which they thanked God that they were not born a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.³⁶ These three classes had severely limited privileges in society.

Contextually, the verses that precede Galatians 3:28 pertain to justification by faith and how a person comes to be included in the blessings promised in the Abrahamic covenant (vv. 15-25). Then, in verse 26, Paul says “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” For Paul, the term son implies heir (cf. 4:7, 31). “In society these three pairs — none of which were ontologically unequal by creation [that is, they were not unequal in their essence or being as created by God] — are unequally privileged, but in Christ’s offer of salvation, Paul argued, there is no distinction. So then, in Galatians 3:26-28, Paul was saying that no kind of person is excluded from the position of being a child of Abraham who has faith in Jesus Christ.”³⁷ That Paul was referring solely to one’s position in Christ is evident in the words “sons of God,” “Abraham’s seed,” and “heirs according to the promise.” It takes a great leap in logic to say that positional equality must necessitate functional equivalence.

Elimination of gender-based roles is therefore not a legitimate inference from Galatians 3:28. Ontological equality and social hierarchy are not mutually exclusive. The doctrine of the Trinity illustrates this: Jesus is equal to the Father in terms of His being, but He voluntarily submits to the Father’s leadership. There is no contradiction in affirming both an equality of being and a functional subordination among the persons in the Godhead. Likewise, there is no contradiction in Paul saying that “there is neither male nor female in Christ” and “wives, submit to your husbands.”

The question we must now address (though very briefly) is, How does the hierarchical order established at creation relate to the “female subordination” passages: 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, 14:33b-36, and 1 Timothy 2:11-15?

Speaking in the Church. 1 Corinthians 4:8-10 tells us that the Corinthians had made much of their newfound freedom in Christ. It is possible that the Christian women in Corinth felt that their new position in Christ was incompatible with wearing a “sign of authority” on their heads in church services when praying or prophesying.

Paul emphasized in chapter 11, however, that the woman’s spiritual equality with the man does not in any way do away with the male headship and female subordination established at the Creation. In arguing his case, Paul stated that man “is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man” (1 Cor. 11:7-9). Paul based his argument for female subordination on the order of creation and the purpose of the woman’s creation — not on God’s declaration to Eve at the Fall. He indicated that the woman brings honor to the man by fulfilling her role of functional subordination, while man brings glory to God by fulfilling the functional role of leader.

In view of this, Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 11:2-11 may be summarized as follows: (1) Man is the head of the woman, just as Christ is the head of the church, and as God is the head of Christ. (2) Thus, every woman who prays or prophesies in church must do so in a way that preserves the hierarchical social order given by the Creator, and this is to be accomplished by wearing a “sign of authority” on her head.

Silence in the Church (1 Cor. 14:33b-36). How do we relate 1 Corinthians 11, in which Paul allows for women praying and prophesying in the church, with chapter 14, in which Paul commands women to be silent in church? We noted earlier that many feminists say Paul in chapter 14 was merely forbidding disorderly chatter. Seen in this light, Paul was not prohibiting orderly preaching by women.

This interpretation, however, does not fit the context. Paul instructed women to remain silent because they were women, not because they were engaged in idle chatter or were disorderly. In order to be subordinate, Paul said, women must be silent — just as the law says. Scholars differ as to what passage(s) Paul may have been referring to with the word “law,”³⁸ but that is beside the point. The important factor is that Paul was clearly using this word in reference to Scripture — whether he was speaking of the Mosaic law (Rom. 7:22, 25; 1 Cor. 9:9) or to the Old Testament as a whole (Rom. 3:10-19; 1 Cor. 14:21).

Paul’s appeal to the law therefore shows that he was not simply repeating something he had learned from rabbinic literature, but was teaching something backed by God’s Word. That Paul cites the law shows that his argument for the silence of women in church was theological and universal, not sociological or cultural.

1 Timothy 2:11-14. Another passage in which Paul calls for the silence of women in church is 1 Timothy 2:11-14: “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”

Paul here builds his argument for female subordination on the order of creation and the order of the Fall. Paul’s reasoning is something like this: “Adam was created first as the head; Eve was created second and she fell first; therefore, women are under some restriction.” More is involved here than mere chronological priority. Paul saw the priority in time as indicative of the headship of the male, to which the woman, the “helper suitable for him” (Gen. 2:18), should respond.

We gain insight about Paul’s prohibition by noting that teachers in New Testament times exercised substantial authority over learners.³⁹ Teaching doctrine in church was therefore reserved for those men whom God placed in authority to represent Him in spiritual matters. Women are not allowed to teach a church congregation, Paul indicated, for this — by the very nature of teaching — would place them in spiritual authority over men.

How, then, does Paul’s command to silence relate to his allowance of women prophesying in 1 Corinthians 11? In 1 Corinthians 11 the women were speaking divine utterances, whereas in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2 they were not. Women who spoke under divine control and who were appropriately attired were not exercising their own authority over men and so were not in violation of Paul’s injunctions in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2.

I recognize that the question of how to harmonize 1 Timothy 2:11-15, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, and 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36 has been answered variously by scholars. In my understanding of Paul’s theology, it would seem that though women are completely equal with men in their standing before God, they are forbidden to be in a functional position of ecclesiastical authority over men, teaching them in a congregational setting. This implies neither the superiority of the male nor the inferiority of the female. Paul’s theology simply reflects the creation order established by God in which man was appointed to function as spiritual head.

Women are not prohibited, however, from teaching men on an individual basis — as apparently Priscilla, with her husband Aquila, taught Apollos (Acts 18:26). (Priscilla was evidently teaching under the headship of Aquila, to whom the authority belonged.) Nor are women forbidden to prophesy in a respectful and submissive manner (1 Cor. 11:5-6). Nor are women forbidden to personally address fellow believers, male and female, to their “edification, exhortation, and comfort” (1 Cor. 14:3). Nor are women forbidden to teach women (Titus 2:3-4) or children (2 Tim. 1:5; 3:14), or take part in other fruitful ministries (e.g., Rom. 16:3, 6, 12). In short, women are privileged to serve God in many different ways within the authority structure He designed.

We gain perspective on this issue by recognizing that the biblical world view is based on the assumption that a personal God sovereignly designed an ordered universe to function in a particular way. Crucial to this world view is the concept of authority. Romans 13:1 tells us that God is the source not simply of all authority but of the very concept of authority. “That the universe should be ordered around a series of over/under hierarchical relationships is His idea, a part of His original design. He delegates His authority according to His own pleasure to those whom He places in appropriate positions and it is to Him that His creatures submit when they acknowledge that authority.”⁴⁰

Within that authority structure, both men and women are given the privilege of serving Him — but in different ways. Simply because Scripture says women can’t teach men in a position of authority does not mean that their ministries are unimportant. To Paul, all ministries were significant: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you.’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you.’ On the contrary, parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor” (1 Cor. 12:21-23a).

So, should women be involved in ministry in the church? Absolutely! “That women are gifted for and called to service in the church is plain,” said J. I. Packer, “and gifted persons are gifts that the churches must properly value and fully use.”⁴¹ However, as Packer also notes, this call to service (according to Scripture) is not to involve ecclesiastical authority over men.

BIBLICAL MANHOOD AND WOMANHOOD

It is deplorable that so many men throughout history have misused and abused God’s ordained authority structure by oppressing and dominating women — sometimes justifying their actions by misapplications of the passages discussed in this article. Such misapplications must be condemned as a gross (and sinful) distortion of God’s original design for man and woman.

In an enlightening essay, John Piper said that manhood and womanhood are the beautiful handiwork of a good and loving God. Indeed, God “designed our differences and they are profound. They are not mere physiological prerequisites for sexual union. They go to the root of our personhood.”⁴²

Addressing the need for a return to biblical masculinity and femininity, Piper suggests that “at the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man’s different relationships…At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman’s different relationships.”⁴³

This call for a return to biblical masculinity and femininity led Elisabeth Elliot to comment that “true liberation…comes with humble submission to God’s original design.”⁴⁴ Indeed, the noblest achievement of any human being — male or female — is to discover God’s design and fulfill it. Let this be our goal.

NOTES

¹ Flavius Josephus, Against Apion (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1974), 622. ² H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munchen, 1893), 2:495; cited by Werner Neuer, Man and Woman in Christian Perspective (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 93. ³ M. Aboth 1.5; cited by Neuer, 93. ⁴ R. Nicole, “Women, Biblical Concept of,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984), 1177. ⁵ Paul King Jewett, Man as Male and Female (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975), 142. ⁶ A. Duane Litfin, “Theological Issues in Contemporary Feminism,” in Walvoord: A Tribute, ed. Donald K. Campbell (Chicago: Moody Press, 1982), 334. ⁷ Ibid. ⁸ I am indebted to Litfin for this observation: 349-50. ⁹ Kenneth L. Woodward, “Feminism and the Churches,” Newsweek, 13 Feb. 1989, 61. ¹⁰ Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex (New York: Harper & Row, 1968). ¹¹ Richard Quebedeaux, The Worldly Evangelicals (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), 122. ¹² Quoted in Phyllis E. Alsdurf, “Evangelical Feminists: Ministry Is the Issue,” Christianity Today, 21 July 1978, 47. ¹³ E. Margaret Howe, “The Positive Case for the Ordination of Women,” in Perspectives on Evangelical Theology, eds. Kenneth S. Kantzer and Stanley N. Gundry (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), 268. ¹⁴ The Post American (1972); in Richard Quebedeaux, The Young Evangelicals (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1974), 114. ¹⁵ Gretchen Hull, Equal to Serve: Women and Men in the Church and Home (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1987), 115. ¹⁶ Aida Besanion Spencer, Beyond the Curse: Women Called to Ministry (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985), 45. ¹⁷ Virginia Mollenkott, “What is True Biblical Feminism?” Christian Life, Sept. 1977, 73. ¹⁸ Ibid., 72. ¹⁹ Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles: A Guide for the Study of Female Roles in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985), 56. ²⁰ E. Margaret Howe, Women and Church Leadership (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1982), 139.²¹ Richard and Joyce Boldrey, Chauvinist or Feminist? Paul’s View of Women (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976), 33. ²² Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty, All We’re Meant to Be (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1974), 72. ²³ John Piper and Wayne Grudem, eds., Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 494. ²⁴ Elizabeth Clark and Herbert Richardson, eds., Women and Religion: A Feminist Source Book of Christian Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 20. ²⁵ Scanzoni and Hardesty, 18-19. ²⁶ Virginia R. Mollenkott, Women, Men, and the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1977), 104. ²⁷ Wayne Grudem, Appendix 1: “The Meaning of Kephale (‘Head’),” in Piper and Grudem, 425. ²⁸ Manfred T. Brauch, Hard Sayings of Paul (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 139. ²⁹ Herbert and Fern Miles, Husband-Wife Equality (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1978), 31. ³⁰ Grudem, 425-68. ³¹ Howe, “The Positive Case for the Ordination of Women,” 273. ³² Ibid. ³³ Scanzoni and Hardesty, 71. ³⁴ Mary A. Kassian, Women, Creation, and the Fall (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 116. ³⁵ G. J. Wenham, “The Ordination of Women: Why Is It So Divisive?” The Churchman 92 (1978), 316. ³⁶ S. Lewis Johnson, “Role Distinctions in the Church,” in Piper and Grudem, 158. ³⁷ H. Wayne House, “Neither…Male nor Female…in Christ Jesus,” Bibliotheca Sacra, January-March 1988, 54. ³⁸ See H. Wayne House, “The Speaking of Women and the Prohibition of the Law,” Bibliotheca Sacra, July-September 1988, 301-318. ³⁹ Ibid., 314. ⁴⁰ A. Duane Litfin, “Evangelical Feminism: Why Traditionalists Reject It,” Bibliotheca Sacra, July-September 1979, 267. ⁴¹ J. I. Packer, “Let’s Stop Making Women Presbyters,” Christianity Today, 11 Feb. 1991, 21. ⁴² John Piper, What’s the Difference (Wheaton, IL: The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 1989), 8-9. ⁴³ Ibid., 12. ⁴⁴ Ibid., 3.

During slave trading days, blacks were crammed into ships like sardines into a can and brought across the Atlantic. Many died at sea from dysentery, smallpox, and other diseases. “Some starved themselves to death refusing to eat. To prevent this form of suicide, hot coals were applied to the lips to force the slaves to open their mouths to eat.”¹

Upon arriving on American shores, the slaves — men, women, and children — were forced to work from sunrise to sunset. Even old and ailing slaves were forced to work.

The brutality shown to the slaves is among the saddest chapters in American history. Black theologian Anthony Evans tells us that “black women were raped at will by their masters at the threat of death while their husbands could only look on. Families were separated as they were bought and sold like cattle.”²

For tax purposes, slaves were counted as property — like domestic animals. Eventually, however, a question arose as to how to count slaves in the nation’s population. The Congress solved the problem by passing a bill that authorized the U.S. Census Bureau to count each slave as three-fifths of a person. This Congressional compromise resulted in what one Negro writer of the 1890s called “the ‘Inferior Race Theory,’ the placing of the Negro somewhere between the barnyard animals and human beings.”³

THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF SLAVERY

Initially, there was heated resistance to evangelizing among slaves. Black scholar C. Eric Lincoln tells us there were three principal reasons for this: “(1) the hearing of the gospel required time that could be economically productive; (2) slaves gathered together in a religious assembly might become conscious of their own strength and plot insurrections under cover of religious instruction; (3) there was an English tradition of long standing that once a slave became a Christian he could no longer be held a slave.”⁴

In addition, many whites were repulsed at the suggestion that blacks could go to heaven. Morgan Godwyn, a graduate of Oxford University who served in churches in Virginia around 1665, wrote that slavemasters would commonly exclaim, “What, such as they? What, those black dogs be made Christians? What, shall they be like us?”⁵

Some whites tried to argue that blacks were less than human. Buckener H. Payne, in his book The Negro: What Is His Ethnological blacks are present with us today, they must have been in the ark. There were only eight souls saved in the ark, however, and they are fully accounted for by Noah’s family. As one of the beasts in the ark, the black has no soul to be saved.”⁶ So why try to evangelize them?

Regardless of such preposterous arguments, missionary work eventually began among the slaves in the early 1700s and many of them became Christians. The brand of Christianity that was preached to them, however, was one that justified slavery. It was argued that Paul and other New Testament writers issued specific instructions for master-slave relations, thus apparently sanctioning the practice. Moreover, a curse of slavery was placed on the “sons of Ham” (Gen. 9:20-27) — who were interpreted to be blacks. Furthermore, slavery was considered a “religious good,” for it amounted to importing unsaved heathens to a Christian land where they could hear the gospel and be saved.

(However, though Paul gave instructions on master-slave relations, his underlying belief was that slaves should be freed [1 Cor. 7:21]. Moreover, a curse of slavery was placed only on Ham’s son, Canaan — whose descendants later occupied Phoenicia and Palestine. They were Caucasians. As for slavery being a “religious good,” this seems an absurd claim in view of the cruel, inhuman treatment shown to the slaves.)

Most blacks accepted the slave brand of Christianity at face value. Moreover, white missionaries persuaded the blacks that life on earth was insignificant because “obedient servants of God could expect a reward in heaven after death.”⁷ The white interpretation of Christianity effectively divested the slaves of any concern they might have had about their freedom in the present.

As more blacks began attending white Christian churches, restrictions in seating, communion services, and property ownership caused many blacks to seek autonomy in their own congregations and ultimately, separate denominations. So, by the mid-1700s, black slaves had begun meeting in private to worship since authentic worship with whites was impossible. There is sufficient historical evidence to conclude that themes later developed by black liberation theologians were present in these early slave meetings in at least a nascent form.

For example, God was interpreted by the slaves as a loving Father who would eventually deliver them from slavery just as He had delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage. Jesus was considered both a Savior and an elder brother who was a fellow sufferer.

Heaven had a dual implication for black slaves. Yes, it referred to the future life, but it also came to refer to a state of liberation in the present. Because of the risk involved in preaching liberation, the slave learned how to sing liberation in the very presence of his master:

“Swing low, sweet chariot (underground railroad — conestoga wagon) Coming for to carry me home (up North to freedom) Swing low (come close to where I am), Sweet chariot Coming for to carry me home. I looked over Jordan (Ohio River — border between North and South)And what did I see, Coming for to carry me home A band of angels (northern emancipators with the underground) coming after me. Coming for to carry me home.”⁸

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BLACK LIBERATIONIST THOUGHT

It was not long before slave theology gave rise to black activism. There are many important figures who contributed to the cause of black liberation throughout black history. We can only mention a few here.

Nat Turner (1800-1831) was the most notorious slave preacher who ever lived on American soil. Turner’s hatred of slavery propelled him to seek freedom by violence. Indeed, Turner killed nearly sixty white people before being captured and hanged in September, 1831. This violent revolt marked the beginning of the black struggle for liberation.

Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) is regarded by many as “the apostle of black theology in the United States of America.”⁹ Martin Luther King, Jr., said Garvey “was the first man on a mass scale and level to give millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny, and make the Negro feel he is somebody.”¹⁰ Garvey was one of the first to speak of seeing God through black “spectacles.”

Howard Thurman, in his book Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), saw black life paralleling Jesus’ life because His poverty identified Him with the poor masses. Thurman also noted that Jesus was a member of a minority group (the Jews) in the midst of a larger and controlling dominant group (the Romans). Thurman thus drew many applications for the black experience from the life of Jesus.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was America’s most visible civil rights leader from 1955 until his assassination in April, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Though he cannot be called a formal participant in the black theology movement, he nevertheless roused the conscience of black America to passionate commitment to liberation.

King was an advocate of Ghandian nonviolent social change. Through nonviolent suffering, King believed that “blacks would not only liberate themselves from the necessity of bitterness and the feeling of inferiority toward whites, but would also prick the conscience of whites and liberate them from a feeling of superiority.”¹¹ To some, King’s assassination indicated that nonviolence as a means of liberation had failed and that perhaps a more revolutionary theology was needed.

Albert Cleage was one of the more militant black writers of the 1960s. His claim to fame was The Black Messiah, a 1968 collection of sermons in which he set forth his brand of black nationalism.

Cleage rejected the Pauline books in the New Testament. He said that — in contrast to the black Messiah — there was a spiritualized Jesus constructed by the apostle Paul who “never knew Jesus and who modified his teaching to conform to the pagan philosophers of the white gentiles….We, as black Christians suffering oppression in a white man’s land, do not need the individualistic and other-worldly doctrines of Paul and the white man.”¹²

THE EMERGENCE OF A FORMAL “BLACK THEOLOGY”

Over one hundred and thirty years after Nat Turner was hanged, black theology emerged as a formal discipline. Beginning with the “black power” movement in 1966, black clergy in many major denominations began to reassess the relationship of the Christian church to the black community. Black caucuses developed in the Catholic, Presbyterian, and Episcopal churches. “The central thrust of these new groups was to redefine the meaning and role of the church and religion in the lives of black people. Out of this reexamination has come what some have called a ‘Black Theology.’”¹³

For the first time in the history of black religious thought, black clergy (primarily educated, middle-class black clergy) and black theologians began to recognize the need for a completely new “starting point” in theology. They insisted that this starting point must be defined by people at the bottom and not the top of the socioeconomic ladder. So, black theologians began to re-read the Bible through the eyes of their slave grandparents and started to speak of God’s solidarity with the oppressed of the earth.

The most prolific and sophisticated writer of this new theological movement has been James Cone. No one has matched him either in terms of sheer volume of writing, or in terms of the challenge posed by his books. For this reason, we shall examine his theology in depth.

James Cone: Theologian of Black Liberation

In assessing the theology of James Cone, it is critical to recognize that he sees black experience as the fundamental starting point for ascertaining theological truth. And his own writings are a reflection of his own “black experience” — that is, the discrimination he suffered while growing up as a child in Bearden, Arkansas.

What was it like in Bearden? “It meant attending ‘separate but equal’ schools, going to the balcony when attending a movie, and drinking water from a ‘colored’ fountain. It meant refusing to retaliate when called a nigger unless you were prepared to leave town at the precise moment of your rebellion. You had no name except for your first name of ‘boy.’”¹⁴ Cone concedes that “my theological reflections are inseparable from the Bearden experience….What I write is urged out of my blood.”¹⁵

Cone says that “it is this common experience among black people in America that Black Theology elevates as the supreme test of truth. To put it simply, Black Theology knows no authority more binding than the experience of oppression itself. This alone must be the ultimate authority in religious matters.”¹⁶

From the above, one may immediately suspect that Cone has a deficient view of the authority of Scripture. Indeed, his view seems very close to the neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth, as when Cone writes: “It is true that the Bible is not the revelation of God, only Christ is. But it is an indispensable witness to God’s revelation.”¹⁷ Moreover, “we should not conclude that the Bible is an infallible witness.”¹⁸ Cone believes the meaning of Scripture is not to be found in the words of Scripture as such, but only in its power to point beyond itself to the reality of God’s “revelation,” which — in America — takes place experientially in God’s liberating work among blacks.

Black Theology and Black Power. Based on the preeminence of “black experience,” Cone defines theology as “a rational study of the being of God in the world in light of the existential situation of an oppressed community, relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ.”¹⁹ Cone’s theology asks (and seeks to answer) the question, “What does the Christian gospel have to say to powerless black men whose existence is threatened daily by the insidious tentacles of white power?”²⁰

In answering this pivotal question, Cone emphasizes that there is a very close relationship between black theology and what has been termed “black power.” Cone says that black power is a phrase that represents both black freedom and black self-determination “wherein black people no longer view themselves as without human dignity but as men, human beings with the ability to carve out their own destiny.”²¹

Cone says black theology is the religious counterpart of black power. “Black Theology is the theological arm of Black Power, and Black Power is the political arm of Black Theology.”²² And, “while Black Power focuses on the political, social, and economic condition of black people, Black Theology puts black identity in a theological context.”²³

We gain insights about what Cone means by “black theology” and “black power” by understanding what blackness means in his theology. Cone notes two aspects of blackness: the physiological and ontological. In the first sense, “black” indicates a physiological trait. It refers to “a particular black-skinned people in America.”²⁴

In the second sense, “black” and “white” relate not to skin pigmentation but to “one’s attitude and action toward the liberation of the oppressed black people from white racism.”²⁵ Blackness is thus “an ontological symbol for all people who participate in the liberation of man from oppression.”²⁶ Seen in this light, “blackness” can be attributed to people who do not have black skin but who do work for liberation.

By contrast, “whiteness” in Cone’s thought symbolizes the ethnocentric activity of “madmen sick with their own self-concept” and thus blind to that which ails them and oppresses others. Whiteness symbolizes sickness and oppression. White theology is therefore viewed as a theological extension of that sickness and oppression.²⁷

Having established that the black experience is the governing principle in Cone’s interpretation of Scripture, it is important to understand how this governing principle has affected his views of specific doctrines.

God. Cone bases much of his liberationist theology on God’s deliverance of Israel from oppression under the Egyptians. He says that the consistent theme in Israelite prophecy is Yahweh’s concern for “the lack of social, economic, and political justice for those who are poor and unwanted in the society.”²⁸

This same God, Cone argues, is working for the deliverance of oppressed blacks in twentieth-century America. Because God is helping oppressed blacks and has identified with them, God Himself is spoken of as “black.”

Black theology’s dominant perspective on God is “God in action, delivering the oppressed because of His righteousness. He is to be seen, not in the transcendent way of Greek philosophy, but immanent, among His people.”²⁹ God is “immanent” in the sense that He is met in concrete historical situations of liberation.

This is very similar to the idea of the immanence of God in process theology. Indeed, process theologian David Ray Griffin, while recognizing important differences between process and black theology, has suggested that “process philosophy supports liberation theologians in locating the reality of God’s presence and creative activity in this world.”³⁰

Jesus Christ. Cone’s intention is to stand in the Chalcedonian tradition in his understanding of Jesus Christ. The Chalcedonian creed (A.D. 451) affirmed that Christ is “truly God and truly man.” Cone agrees with this, but adds that the role of Jesus as God-Incarnate was to liberate the oppressed: Jesus Christ “is God himself coming into the very depths of human existence for the sole purpose of striking off the chains of slavery, thereby freeing man from ungodly principalities and powers that hinder his relationship with God.”³¹

One of the more controversial aspects of Cone’s Christology is his view that Jesus was (is) black: “The ‘raceless’ American Christ has a light skin, wavy brown hair, and sometimes — wonder of wonders — blue eyes. For whites to find him with big lips and kinky hair is as offensive as it was for the Pharisees to find him partying with tax-collectors. But whether whites want to hear it or not, Christ is black, baby, with all of the features which are so detestable to white society” (emphasis in original).³²

Cone believes it is very important for black people to view Jesus as black: “It’s very important because you’ve got a lot of white images of Christ. In reality, Christ was not white, not European. That’s important to the psychic and to the spiritual consciousness of black people who live in a ghetto and in a white society in which their lord and savior looks just like people who victimize them. God is whatever color God needs to be in order to let people know they’re not nobodies, they’re somebodies.”³³

For Cone, the Resurrection of the black Jesus — a real event — symbolizes universal freedom for all who are bound. It is not just a future-oriented hope in a heavenly compensation for earthly woes. Rather, it is a hope that focuses on the future in such a way that it prevents blacks from tolerating present inequities.³⁴ This is closely related to Cone’s understanding of eschatology (more on this shortly).

Sin and Salvation. In Cone’s view, sin is “a condition of human existence in which man denies the essence of God’s liberating activity as revealed in Jesus Christ.”³⁵ In this view, sin is anything that is contrary to the oppressed community or its liberation.

Salvation for Cone primarily has to do with earthly reality, not heavenly hopes. “To see the salvation of God is to see this people [i.e., the blacks] rise up against their oppressors, demanding that justice become a reality now and not tomorrow.”³⁶ Hence, though Cone often speaks of Jesus as the Liberator, in practical terms he emphasizes the human work of self-liberation among blacks and downplays divine help.

The Church. Cone believes the black church has played an instrumental role in the religious and social life of black America. He says the black church was the creation of a black people “whose daily existence was an encounter with the overwhelming and brutalizing reality of white power. For the slaves it was the sole source of identity and the sense of community….The black church became the only sphere of black experience that was free of white power.”³⁷

Still, Cone believes that — since the days of slavery — the black church has largely capitulated to the demands of a white racist society. He argues that in order to survive, the black churches have given up their freedom and dignity. After the Civil War, black churches became passive in the struggle for civil rights and freedom while currying favors from the white establishment. This condition, Cone says, has persisted up to the present day, rendering the black church “the lifeless pawn of the status quo.”³⁸

Only faithfulness to the “pre-Civil War black church tradition” will issue in “an exclusive identification with black power,” Cone believes. He says that a continued emphasis on black power is “the only hope of the black church in America.”³⁹ (Though “black power” as a movement faded after the 1960s, the primary emphasis of the movement — the dignity, freedom, and self-determination of black people — has continued in Cone’s theological writings. It is this emphasis that Cone says has been missing in many black churches.)

Eschatology. Cone rejects what he terms the “white lie” that Christianity is primarily concerned with life in the next world: “If eschatology means that one believes that God is totally uninvolved in the suffering of man because he is preparing them for another world, then black theology is not eschatological. Black theology has hope for this life.”⁴⁰

Cone asks what good there is in golden crowns, slippers, and white robes “if it means that we have to turn our backs on the pain and suffering of our own children? Unless the future can become present, thereby forcing us to make changes in this world, what significance could eschatology have for black people who believe that their self-determination must become a reality now?”⁴¹

Revolution and Violence. I would be remiss to close this discussion of James Cone without noting his views on revolution and violence. Cone defines liberation as the “emancipation of black people from white oppression by whatever means black people deem necessary.”⁴² This definition would seem to allow for the use of violence.

Cone does not advocate armed revolution against white society. But some violence, he says, seems unavoidable. He points out that “the Christian does not decide between violence and non-violence, evil and good. He decides between the lesser and the greater evil. He must ponder whether revolutionary violence is less or more deplorable than the violence perpetuated by the system.”⁴³ Injustice, slave labor, hunger, and exploitation are all violent forms that must be considered against the cost of revolutionary violence.

LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND THE BLACK CHURCH

We have seen that James Cone has developed a full theology based on a reading of Scripture through the eyeglasses of “blackness.” The question is, How influential has black liberation theology been in the life of the black church in America?

C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya have recently completed a ten-year statistical study of the black church in America. They’ve published their findings in a hefty volume entitled, The Black Church in the African American Experience (1990). Part of the Lincoln/Mamiya study dealt with black liberation theology: “In our urban questionnaire we asked the pastors of 1,531 urban churches, ‘Have you been influenced by any of the authors and thinkers of black liberation theology?’”⁴⁴

Responses to the urban questionnaire were quite revealing. Only 34.9 percent of urban black clergy said they had been influenced by black liberation theologians as opposed to 65.1 percent who said they had not. Little more than one-third of the black pastors interviewed claimed any influence from this movement!

Lincoln and Mamiya discerned that age and education were among the most significant variables in determining clergy responses:

Clergy who are forty and under claimed to be more strongly influenced by black liberation theology than those who are older. Education was also very strongly associated with knowledge of black liberation theology. Pastors with a high school and less educational background said that they were minimally influenced by liberation theology, while those with a college education have the most positive views of the movement. The majority of the less educated pastors have neither heard of the movement nor of the names of theologians associated with it. Among educated clergy familiar with the movement, James Cone has the highest name recognition.⁴⁵

These differences are not that surprising, Lincoln and Mamiya say, since black liberation theology is a relatively recent intellectual movement “occurring largely among the educated elite of the black clergy.”⁴⁶

Another significant variable was found to be denominational affiliation. According to Lincoln and Mamiya, the black denominations with higher educational levels among their clergy — such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church — are the major proponents of liberation theology. “The fact that the Pentecostal ministers of the Church of God in Christ, which has the largest sector of lower-class members among the seven [major black] denominations, have been scarcely influenced by this theological perspective suggests some of the class limitations of this movement.”⁴⁷ This would seem to indicate that the formulators of black liberation theology have not been able to move beyond their middle-class origins, even though black liberationists have sought to do theology from the “bottom up” — that is, from the perspective of the oppressed in American society.⁴⁸

Based on their nationwide field experience, Lincoln and Mamiya have observed that the majority of black clergy are educated as apprentices — learning “on the job” under the direction of senior clergy. What little academic education they receive is usually at the local Bible school level. Moreover, most of their reading is denominationally oriented. “It is this local level of clergy education,” Lincoln and Mamiya suggest, “that the new black liberation theology has thus far failed to penetrate.”⁴⁹

Lincoln and Mamiya close with this warning: “Unless the movement of black liberation theology reaches beyond its present location in an intellectual elite and gives more attention…to a mass education of clergy and laity in the churches, the movement will continue to have minimal influence among its key constituencies.”⁵⁰

Lincoln and Mamiya are probably correct. However, the problems of black liberation theology go much deeper than a simple failure to reach the masses. This I shall make clear in what follows.

A CRITIQUE

It is difficult for a white person such as myself to critique black theology. As I write, I am mindful of James Cone’s conviction that any criticism of black theology by a white theologian will be influenced by white racism and is thus invalid.⁵¹ To help disarm this objection, I will draw support for each of my points from one or more black theologians.

I want to begin by affirming that black theology has made some important contributions. I will mention only four here. First, black theology has reminded us that theology — if it is going to meet the needs of twentieth century (and beyond) Christians — must find practical expression in society. Second, black theology has reminded us that God is involved with His people in real-life situations. Third, black theology has focused our attention on the need to reach out to others in the body of Christ who are suffering. And fourth, black theology serves as an indictment against the racist views that have been all-too-often (but not always) present among white people. These contributions are important and extremely relevant.

Despite these contributions, however, there are some serious problems that must be addressed. As a preface to my criticisms, I want to draw attention to Part One of this series in which I criticized the hermeneutic of Latin American liberation theology. In that article, I pointed out that Latin American theologians have approached Scripture with a preunderstanding that has led them to interpret Scripture with a bias toward the poor. I emphasized that if we are to understand the biblical author’s intended meaning, it is imperative that preunderstandings be in harmony with Scripture and subject to correction by it. This same point must be made with reference to black theology. However, since I will not repeat any material from Part One, I urge the reader to review my comments on preunderstandings in that article.

“Blackness” and Scripture

In my critique of black liberation theology, I will focus my attention on the particular preunderstanding which interprets Scripture through the eyeglasses of “blackness.” More specifically, I shall address the question: Is it legitimate to make the black experience the fundamental criterion for interpreting Scripture?

Certainly I do not wish to minimize the importance of the black experience. Nor do I want to come across as unsympathetic to the plight of African Americans in a white-dominated society. There can be little doubt that black liberation theologians have a legitimate gripe regarding the treatment of their people throughout American history. But imposing the black experience (or any other experience — including feminist, gay, anti-supernaturalist, New Age, mystic, etc.) onto Scripture robs Scripture of its intrinsic authority and distorts its intended meaning.

Theologians who make black experience all-determinative have, in a way, made the same mistake some white racists did during the days of slavery — only in reverse. Just as some whites imposed their “experience” as slavemasters onto Scripture in order to justify slavery, so some blacks have imposed the “black experience” onto Scripture to justify their radical views on liberation. Both positions have erred. For blacks to use such an experience-oriented methodology is to condone the very kind of method used by those who enslaved them. In my thinking, this is self-defeating at best.

Black theologian Anthony Evans directly challenges Cone’s methodology by arguing that the black experience must be seen as “real but not revelatory, important but not inspired.”⁵² Black writer Tom Skinner agrees and argues that “like any theology, black theology must have a frame of reference…. There are some black theologians who seek to make their frame of reference purely the black experience, but this assumes the black experience is absolutely moral and absolutely just, and that is not the case. There must be a moral frame of reference through which the black experience can be judged.”⁵³ That frame of reference must be Scripture.

To produce a biblical liberation theology, Scripture — not the “black experience”— must be the supreme authority in matters of faith and practice. By following this approach, a strong biblical case can be constructed against racism — something I would think should be at the very heart of a biblical black theology.

The unity of the human race, for example, is a consistent emphasis in Scripture — in terms of creation (Gen. 1:28), the sin problem (Rom. 3:23), God’s love for all men (John 3:16), and the scope of salvation (Matt. 28:19). The apostle Paul emphasized mankind’s unity in his sermon to the Athenians: “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live” (Acts 17:26). Moreover, Revelation 5:9 tells us that God’s redeemed will be from “every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” Because of the unity of humanity, there is no place for racial discrimination — white, black, or otherwise — for all men are equal in God’s sight.

Transcending Culture

In Part One, I criticized the hermeneutic of Latin American liberation theology for its inability to develop a culture-transcending theology. Black theology’s hermeneutic — with its emphasis on the “black experience” — is open to the same criticism.

A passage relevant to this is John 4 where we find Jesus confronting a Samaritan woman. Here Jesus deals with the relationship between truth and culture.

The Jews considered the Samaritans an “unclean” mixed breed — with Israelite and Assyrian ancestry. Because of this, the Jews were harshly prejudiced against the Samaritans and discriminated against them. This cultural hostility led the Samaritan woman to ask Jesus: “‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans)” (John 4:9).

During the ensuing discussion, the woman asked Jesus about which cultural place of worship was valid: Mt. Gerizim where the Samaritans built their temple, or Jerusalem where the Jews built theirs. Anthony Evans alerts us to the significance of Jesus’ response: “Jesus does not hesitate to let her know that once you bring God into the picture, the issue is no longer culture, but truth. He informs her that the question is not Mt. Gerizim or Jerusalem, that it is not according to Samaritan tradition or Jewish tradition (v. 21). In fact, He denounces her cultural heritage in relation to worship, for he told her, ‘Ye worship ye know not what’ (v. 22). When she began to impose her culture on sacred things, Christ invaded her cultural world to tell her she was spiritually ignorant.”⁵⁴

Jesus transcended the whole issue of culture in discussing spiritual issues with the woman. When it came to her relationship with God, the issue moved from her cultural heritage to her heart and the criteria for that relationship was truth. Jesus acknowledged cultural distinctions, but disallowed them when they interfered in any way with truth about God. A principle we can derive from this is: Culture must always take back seat to the truth of God as revealed in Scripture.

What does this passage say to the relationship of Scripture to the black experience? Evans answers: “It says that we as black people cannot base our relationship with God, or our understanding of God, on our cultural heritage….Jesus is not asking blacks to become white or whites to become Jews, but he insists that all reflect God’s truth as given in Scripture. Where culture does not infringe upon the Word of God, we are free to be what God created us to be, with all the uniqueness that accompanies our cultural heritage. However, the truth from Scripture places limits on our cultural experience.”⁵⁵

Reconciliation: The Better Way

A biblical theology of liberation must include an emphasis on reconciliation among men, without which the theology ceases to be Christian (Eph. 2:14ff.). Black liberation theologian DeOtis Roberts (b. 1927), though committed to liberation, agrees with this and insists that black theology must speak of “reconciliation that brings black men together and of reconciliation that brings black and white men together.”⁵⁶ Roberts says “it is my belief that true freedom overcomes estrangement and heals the brokenness between peoples.”⁵⁷ However, Roberts argues, “reconciliation can take place only between equals. It cannot co-exist with a situation of Whites over Blacks.”⁵⁸

Roberts’s point is well taken. Reconciliation and racism are birds of a different feather; they never fly together. Genuine reconciliation can come only if people — both black and white — commit to a scriptural view of their brothers of a different color, seeing all people as created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26) and of infinite value to God (1 Cor. 6:20; 1 Pet. 1:18).

There is much more that needs to be said on this important issue, but space forbids. As the theological dialogue continues in coming years, I would like to suggest the following goal: Let us all — both black and white — seek to build a body of unified believers who are so committed to the Scriptures and to Christ that the name Christian becomes truly descriptive of who they are, and not the color of their skin.

NOTES

¹ William L. Banks, The Black Church in the U.S. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), 12. ² Anthony T. Evans, Biblical Theology and the Black Experience (Dallas: Black Evangelistic Enterprise, 1977), 19.³ James W. English, “Could Racism Be Hereditary?”, Eternity, September 1970, 22. ⁴ C. Eric Lincoln, “The Development of Black Religion in America,” Review and Expositor 70 (Summer 1973):302. ⁵ Ibid., 303. ⁶ Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), 543. ⁷ James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (hereafter Theology) (New York: Seabury Press, 1969), 121. ⁸ Emmanuel McCall, “Black Liberation Theology: A Politics of Freedom,” Review and Expositor 73 (Summer 1976):330; cf. C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), 352. ⁹ Lindsay A. Arscott, “Black Theology,” Evangelical Review of Theology 10 (April-June 1986):137. ¹⁰ Quoted by Clair Drake, Foreword to Garveyism as a Religious Movement, Randall Burkett (Metucher, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1978), 15. ¹¹ James H. Cone, “Black Theology in American Religion,” Theology Today 43 (April 1986):13. ¹² Albert B. Cleage, The Black Messiah (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1969), 4. ¹³ Charles V. Hamilton, The Black Preacher in America (New York: William Morrow, 1972), 140. ¹⁴ James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), 3. ¹⁵ Ibid. ¹⁶ Cone, Theology, 120. ¹⁷ James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (hereafter Liberation) (Philadelphia: J. P. Lippencott, 1970), 66. ¹⁸ Ibid., 67. ¹⁹ Ibid., 17-18. ²⁰ Ibid., 32. ²¹ Cone, Theology, 6. ²² James H. Cone, “Black Power, Black Theology,” Theological Education 6 (Spring 1970):209. ²³ James H. Cone, quoted in K. Bediako, “Black Theology,” in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 103. ²⁴ Cone, Liberation, 32. ²⁵ Nyameko Pityana, “What Is Black Consciousness?” Black Theology: The South African Voice, ed. Basil Moore (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1973), 63. ²⁶ Cone, Liberation, 32. ²⁷ Ibid., 29. ²⁸ Ibid., 19. ²⁹ H. Wayne House, “An Investigation of Black Liberation Theology,” Bibliotheca Sacra 139 (April-June 1982):163. ³⁰ David Ray Griffin, “Values, Evil, and Liberation Theology,” in Process Philosophy and Social Thought, ed. John B. Cobb (Chicago: Center for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1981), 185. Process theology espouses a finite God that evolves, is subject to change, and is intrinsically related to the world. ³¹ Cone, Theology, 35. ³² J. H. Cone, “The White Church and Black Power,” in G. S. Wilmore and J. H. Cone, Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966-1979 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979), 116-17. ³³ James H. Cone, interviewed by Barbara Reynolds, USA Today, 8 November 1989, 11A. ³⁴ Cone, Liberation, 21. ³⁵ Ibid., 190. ³⁶ Ibid., 227. ³⁷ James H. Cone, “Black Theology and Black Liberation,” in Black Theology: The South African Voice, ed. Basil Moore (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1973), 92, 96. ³⁸ Cone, Liberation, 236-37. ³⁹ Cone, Theology, 109. ⁴⁰ Ibid., 123. ⁴¹ Cone, Liberation, 241-42. ⁴² Cone, Theology, 6. ⁴³ Ibid., 143. ⁴⁴ Lincoln and Mamiya, 178-79. ⁴⁵ Ibid., 179. ⁴⁶ Ibid. ⁴⁷ Ibid., 180. ⁴⁸ Ibid. ⁴⁹ Ibid. ⁵⁰ Ibid., 181. ⁵¹ Cone, “Black Power, Black Theology,” 214. ⁵² Evans, 8. ⁵³ Tom Skinner, If Christ is the Answer, What are the Questions? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975), 112-13. ⁵⁴ Evans, 13. ⁵⁵ Ibid., 13-14. ⁵⁶ DeOtis Roberts, Liberation and Reconciliation: A Black Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 152.⁵⁷ DeOtis Roberts, “Black Theology in the Making,” Review and Expositor, 70 (Summer 1973):328. ⁵⁸ Ibid., 327.

Theological controversies are often confined to seminary classrooms or theological journals. But the controversy provoked by Latin American liberation theology has been public and it has been worldwide — involving the Vatican, orthodox and not-so-orthodox priests, lay people, sociologists, socialists, capitalists, economists, government leaders and their military, and much more. Liberation theology has certainly not been the passing fad some analysts thought it would be when it first emerged in the late 1960s.

Strictly speaking, liberation theology should be understood as a family of theologies — including the Latin American, Black, and feminist varieties. All three respond to some form of oppression: Latin American liberation theologians say their poverty-stricken people have been oppressed and exploited by rich, capitalist nations. Black liberation theologians argue that their people have suffered oppression at the hands of racist whites. Feminist liberation theologians lay heavy emphasis upon the status and liberation of women in a male-dominated society.

This article, the first of a three-part series on liberation theology, will focus on the Latin American variety — examining its historical roots, growth, doctrine, and present status in the world. Primary emphasis will be on how the movement has changed since its emergence in the late 1960s. In Parts Two and Three respectively, I will examine the Black and feminist varieties.

With a few notable exceptions, Latin American liberation theology has been a movement identified with the Roman Catholic church. For this reason, I shall direct most of my attention to the views of Roman Catholic liberation theologians. First, however, we must become acquainted with the roots of this controversial theology.

EUROPEAN ROOTS

Some of the theological roots of Latin American liberation theology can be traced directly to the writings of certain European theologians. Three of the more notable of these are Jurgen Moltmann, Johannes Baptist Metz, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Without going into detail, Moltmann has suggested that the coming kingdom gives the church a society-transforming vision of reality as opposed to a merely private vision of personal salvation. Metz has emphasized that there is a political dimension to faith, and that the church must be an institution of social criticism. Bonhoeffer has issued a call to redefine religion in a secular context. His theology emphasizes human responsibility toward others, and stresses the value of seeing the world with “the view from below” — the perspective of the poor and oppressed.

Though liberationists have borrowed from these theologians, they nevertheless charge the European theologies with being “theoretical abstractions, ideologically neutral, [and] neglecting the miserable, unjust present for some ‘Christianity of the future.’”² The theological methodology developed by liberation theologians specifically addresses these perceived deficiencies.

MARXIST INFLUENCES

Marxism has also exerted a profound influence on liberation theologians. This should not be taken to mean that they have espoused Marxism as a holistic plan of political action, for they have not. Their interest has been limited to using Marxist categories for social analysis.

According to Marx, man once existed in a simple, primitive state. At that time, there was happiness and tranquility. This primitive state of happiness was disrupted, however, by the rise of economic classes where one class sought to oppress and exploit another for its own economic advantage. Marx believed all of man’s problems are the direct result of this class exploitation. He portrayed capitalism as the chief culprit that gave rise to this undesirable state of affairs.

Marx was adamant that man can never be truly happy or free in a capitalistic society. Man, he said, has become an alienated being and does not feel “at home” in a capitalistic environment. However, this alienation will not last forever. Marx believed that history is inexorably moving toward a climactic day when the oppressed workers of the world, the proletariat, will rise up and overthrow their capitalistic oppressors, the bourgeoisie. In the place of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms, there will be a harmonious society in which there is equity for all.

THE THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION

Drawing from European theologies and Marxism, Latin American theologians developed their own theology by radically reinterpreting Scripture with “a bias toward the poor.” Let us now briefly survey key aspects of the theology of liberation.

Liberation theology begins with the premise that all theology is biased — that is, particular theologies reflect the economic and social classes of those who developed them. Accordingly, the traditional theology predominant in North America and Europe is said to “perpetuate the interests of white, North American/European, capitalist males.” This theology allegedly “supports and legitimates a political and economic system — democratic capitalism — which is responsible for exploiting and impoverishing the Third World.”³

Like Bonhoeffer, liberation theologians say theology must start with a “view from below” — that is, with the sufferings of the oppressed. Within this broad framework, different liberation theologians have developed distinctive methodologies for “doing” theology.

Gustavo Gutierrez, author of A Theology of Liberation, provides us with a representative methodology. Like other liberationists, Gutierrez rejects the idea that theology is a systematic collection of timeless and culture-transcending truths that remains static for all generations. Rather, theology is in flux; it is a dynamic and ongoing exercise involving contemporary insights into knowledge, humanity, and history.

Gutierrez emphasizes that theology is not just to be learned, it is to be done. In his thinking, “praxis” is the starting point for theology. Praxis (from the Greek prasso: “to work”) involves revolutionary action on behalf of the poor and oppressed — and out of this, theological perceptions will continually emerge. The theologian must therefore be immersed in the struggle for transforming society and proclaim his message from that point.

In the theological process, then, praxis must always be the first stage; theology is the second stage. Theologians are not to be mere theoreticians, but practitioners who participate in the ongoing struggle to liberate the oppressed.

Sin. Using methodologies such as Gutierrez’s, liberationists interpret sin not primarily from an individual, private perspective, but from a social and economic perspective. Gutierrez explains that “sin is not considered as an individual, private, or merely interior reality…Sin is regarded as a social, historical fact, the absence of brotherhood and love in relationships among men.”⁴

Liberationists view capitalist nations as sinful specifically because they have oppressed and exploited poorer nations. Capitalist nations have become prosperous, they say, at the expense of impoverished nations. This is often spoken of in terms of “dependency theory” — that is, the development of rich countries depends on the underdevelopment of poor countries.

There is another side to sin in liberation theology. Those who are oppressed can and do sin by acquiescing to their bondage. To go along passively with oppression rather than resisting and attempting to overthrow it — by violent means if necessary — is sin.⁵

The use of violence has been one of the most controversial aspects of liberation theology. Such violence is not considered sinful if it is used for resisting oppression. Indeed, certain liberation theologians “will in some cases regard a particular action (e.g., killing) as sin if it is committed by an oppressor, but not if it is committed by the oppressed in the struggle to remove inequities. The removal of inequities is believed to result in the removal of the occasion of sin [i.e., the oppressor] as well.”⁶

Salvation. Salvation is viewed not primarily in terms of life after death for the individual, but in terms of bringing about the kingdom of God: a new social order where there will be equality for all. This is not to deny eternal life per se, but it is to emphasize that the eternal and the temporal “intersect” in liberation theology. “If, as the traditional formulation has it, history and eternity are two parallel (i.e., nonintersecting) realms, our goal within history is to gain access to eternity.”⁷ But if history and eternity intersect, “if salvation is moving into a new order…then we must strive against everything which at present denies that order.”⁸

God. Liberationists argue that the traditional Christian doctrine of God manipulates the divine being such that He appears to favor the capitalistic social structure. They claim the orthodox view of God is rooted in the ancient Greeks who saw God as a static being — distant and remote from human history. This distorted view of a transcendent deity has, they say, yielded a theology that understands God as “out there,” far removed from the affairs of humankind. As a result, many Latin Americans have adopted a passive stance in the face of their oppression and exploitation.

Liberation theologians have thus tried to communicate to their compatriots that God is not impassive. Rather, He is dynamically involved in behalf of the poor and downtrodden. And because God stands against oppression and exploitation, those who follow Him must do likewise. Indeed, Gutierrez says that “to know God is to do justice.”⁹

Jesus Christ. While liberation theologians do not outright deny Christ’s deity, there is no clear-cut, unambiguous confession that Jesus is God. The significance of Jesus Christ lies in His example of struggling for the poor and the outcast. The Incarnation is reinterpreted to represent God’s total immersion into man’s history of conflict and oppression. By His words and actions, Jesus showed us how to become true sons of God — that is, by bringing in the kingdom of God through actively pursuing the liberation of the oppressed.

Most liberationists see Jesus’ death on the cross as having no vicarious value; rather, Jesus died because He upset the religious/political situation of His time. Leonardo Boff says Jesus’ followers fabricated the idea that Jesus’ death had a transcendent, salvific significance: “The historically true events are the crucifixion, the condemnation by Pilate, and the inscription on the cross in three languages known by the Jews. The rest of the events are theologized or are pure theology developed in light of the resurrection and of the reflection upon the Old Testament.”¹⁰ Jesus’ death is unique because “he historicizes in exemplary fashion the suffering experienced by God in all the crosses of the oppressed.”¹¹ Liberationists acknowledge Jesus’ resurrection, but they are not clear on its significance.

The Church. Liberation theology does not ask what the church is, but rather what it means “to be the church in a context of extreme poverty, social injustice and revolution….In the context of liberation theology the mission of the church seems to be more important than its nature.”¹²

Gutierrez and other liberation theologians say the church’s mission is no longer one of a “quantitative” notion of saving numbers of souls.¹³ Rather, the church’s mission “is at all times to protest against injustice, to challenge what is inhuman…to side with the poor and the oppressed.”¹⁴

Related to the doctrine of the church has been the formation and growth of “ecclesial base communities,” since the 1970s. These are “small, grass-roots, lay groups of the poor or the ordinary people, meeting to pray, conduct Bible studies, and wrestle concretely with social and political obligations in their settings.”¹⁵

These communities have been effective in showing workers and peasants how to organize for their own social welfare. Gutierrez says that “in most Latin American countries, the church’s base communities are the only form of social action available to the poor.”¹⁶ Indeed, they have become “the major vehicle for the spread of liberation themes beyond academic circles. By 1980 there were as many as 100,000 base communities meeting in Latin America.”¹⁷

ROMAN CATHOLIC OPENNESS

Since the emergence of liberation theology and its rapid growth via ecclesial base communities, divisive rifts have taken place between Vatican leadership and Roman Catholic theologians in Latin America. Over the past few decades, however, the Vatican has become progressively open to the concept of liberation.

For example, Vatican Council II — held in Rome from 1962 to 1965 — decried the wide disparity between the rich and poor nations of the world. Church leaders therefore proclaimed a “preferential option for the poor.” Three years later, the Medellin Conference of Latin American Bishops (1968) denounced the extreme inequality among social classes as well as the unjust use of power and exploitation.¹⁸

Pope John Paul II has for years devoted himself to establishing a balanced policy on political activism for Roman Catholic clergy. He has staunchly advocated social justice, but has also consistently warned the clergy about becoming too involved in secular affairs and about the dangers of Marxism.

The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the Vatican’s watchdog for doctrinal orthodoxy — issued two important statements on liberation theology. The Instruction on Certain Aspects of the “Theology of Liberation” (1984) warned that it is impossible to invoke Marxist principles and terminology without ultimately embracing Marxist methods and goals. Marxism should therefore be avoided altogether.

Two years later (1986), the Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation affirmed the legitimacy of the oppressed taking action “through morally licit means, in order to secure structures and institutions in which their rights will be truly respected.”¹⁹ However, “while the church seeks the political, social and economic liberation of the downtrodden, its primary goal is the spiritual one of liberation from evil.”²⁰ The statement accepted armed struggle “as a last resort to put an end to an obvious and prolonged tyranny which is gravely damaging the common good.”²¹

This relative openness of the Roman Catholic church was largely responsible for liberation theology’s rapid expansion. As we shall see shortly, however, the church’s concerns over Marxism have proven justified in view of recent world events. Vatican leadership has breathed a collective sigh of relief that Marxist elements in liberation theology now seem to be waning.

SHIFTING SANDS: 1990

Since the emergence of liberation theology in the 1960s, some aspects of the movement have remained constant. In his recent book, Liberation Theology at the Crossroads (1990), Paul E. Sigmund observes that liberation theology stills sees the world as more characterized “by conflict than compromise, inequality than equality, oppression rather than liberation….It also still retains its…belief in the special religious character of the poor both as the object of God’s particular love and the source of religious insights.”²² Despite these constants, however, liberation theology has also seen significant changes in recent years.

We begin with the observation that 1989 saw almost the whole of Eastern Europe rise up in revolt against Marxist ideology. The major reforms occurring in the Soviet Union and East Bloc nations represent an admission that Marxism has failed.

Michael Novak, who holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., raised a penetrating question in view of recent European events: “What will become of the liberation theologians of Latin America and elsewhere who have so long praised the ideals of Marxist-Leninism, but now must see how hollow they are?”²³

Novak argues that a close reading of the Latin American theologians suggests that they “have begun to worry that they earlier invested too much credence in the social science they picked up from the universities.”²⁴ For this reason, he says, “liberation theologians in the last few years have become much less hopeful about social structures, and increasingly concerned with issues of spirituality. They seem to be turning less to politics, and more to faith.”²⁵ Sigmund agrees, noting that now “the greater emphasis [is] on the spiritual sources and implications of the concept of liberation.”²⁶ (We shall address this “new spirituality” shortly.)

The shift in perspectives on socialism is one of the most important developments in liberation theology. In the recent writings of many liberation theologians, we find the concession that “the once-favored approach of substituting socialism for dependency or capitalism simply doesn’t work, as has been seen in Eastern Europe.”²⁷ Without necessarily deserting socialism, liberationists have shown an increasing ambiguity about what socialism really means, as well as an increasing tolerance of competing systems and an acceptance of Western-style democracy as a legitimate weapon against oppression.²⁸ Arthur F. McGovern, a Jesuit, comments that “the new political context in many parts of Latin America has led liberation theologians to talk about building a ‘participatory democracy’ from within civil society. Socialism no longer remains an unqualified paradigm for liberation aspirations.”²⁹

Another significant development in liberation theology is that its theologians are speaking much less of dependency theory — the idea that the development of rich countries depends on the underdevelopment of poor countries. To be sure, liberation theologians are still predominantly anticapitalist, but many have recognized that dependency theory has rightfully been criticized for some of its fundamental assertions.

The fallacy of dependency theory has been demonstrated by sociologist Peter Berger of Boston University. Berger has pointed out that “the development experience of Japan and the ‘four little dragons’ of East Asia — Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore — represent ‘empirical falsification’ of the socioeconomic assumptions of dependency theory and liberation theology.” On the other hand, Berger stressed, “there is simply no evidence of successful development by socialist third world nations anywhere or at anytime.”³⁰

Moreover, the liberationist’s solution to the dependency problem — a socialist break with the capitalist world — has looked less attractive to liberation theologians because “the models of socialism either seemed to be bankrupt, or were resorting to market incentives and private enterprise, even inviting multinational investment.”³¹

Besides shifts in thinking on socialism and dependency theory, many have had second thoughts about liberation theology because of the bloodshed it has provoked. A Los Angeles Times article focusing on liberation theology in El Salvador notes that “the deaths of some of those who have challenged the establishment have brought sober second thoughts about both the basis and the practice of liberation theology.”³² The article also observes that “such a violent counterrevolution here and in other Latin American nations — along with the failure of Eastern European Marxism and the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua to bring social, political and economic justice — have led to calls for a new look at liberation theology.”³³ Indeed, “some of the basic analytical assumptions and practical applications of liberation theology are being questioned, not just by the conservative elements of the [Catholic] church but also by some of those thinkers who first conceived the philosophy.”³⁴

Sigmund has observed that in view of the bloodshed associated with the movement in recent years, liberation theologians are no longer offering the easy justifications of the necessity of “counterviolence” against the “institutionalized violence” of the political establishment.³⁵ He also notes that the most obvious change in liberation theology “is from an infatuation with socialist revolution to a recognition that the poor are not going to be liberated by cataclysmic political transformations, but by organizational and personal activities in Base Communities.”³⁶

We have already noted that liberation theologians are focusing more on issues of spirituality. First and foremost, this means that liberation theologians are deriving more of their liberationist concepts from the Bible as opposed to social theory. Early books by liberation theologians focused primarily on social analysis and had very few biblical references. Now the situation is practically reversed: recent books by liberation theologians contain many biblical references and very little social analysis. There is much more “theology” in liberation theology these days. But their methodological approach is still one of a preferential treatment to the poor.

Besides greater rootedness in the Bible, there also seems to be more interest in spiritual disciplines — such as prayer, devotions, exercising faith, and fellowshiping with other believers. Much of this takes place at a grassroots level in ecclesial base communities. Bible studies on “liberation passages” (such as Mary’s Magnificat, Luke 1:46-55) are common. The goal is to discover how Scripture applies to specific problems in the lives of the oppressed.

We have noted that liberation theology is predominantly a Roman Catholic movement. An important factor now impacting the movement in Latin America is the explosion of evangelical Protestantism there. “Latin America is no longer the Roman Catholic monolith it once was. Since the late 1960s, the number of Protestants…has surged from 15 million to an estimated 40 million, about 10 percent of the population of Latin America.”³⁷ Brazilian bishop Monsignor Boaventura Kloppenburg says that “Latin America is turning Protestant even faster than Central Europe did in the sixteenth century.”³⁸ The overwhelming majority of these Protestants are Pentecostal.

As to why so many are presently turning to evangelicalism, one analyst suggests that “there now is a widespread recognition that liberation theology overlooked the emotional, personal message most people seek from religion…At the simplest level, liberation theologians preached salvation through social change — meaning, in effect, socialism in one form or another. The evangelicals preach individual salvation through individual change.”³⁹

David Martin, author of Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (1990), suggests that economic advancement is another underlying cause of the Protestant explosion. He argues that “evangelical religion and economic advancement…often go together…[they] support and reinforce one another.”⁴⁰ Carmen Galilea, a sociologist in Santiago, said that the typical Pentecostal “is well-regarded. He is responsible. He doesn’t drink and is better motivated and better paid. As a result, he rises economically.”⁴¹ Pentecostal preaching “puts great emphasis on the demand to develop yourself,” thus contributing to the economic rise.⁴²

In a recent article in Insight magazine, Daniel Wattenberg suggests that another factor linking Pentecostalism and upward mobility is “the mutual material support available within the Pentecostal faith community (the churches provide a network that often functions as a job or housing referral agency).”⁴³ Moreover, volunteer work in the church “utilizes peoples’ talents and creates opportunities to develop new skills that may give them a sense of usefulness and fulfillment for the first time in their lives.”⁴⁴ The skills learned in a church context also give an edge to church members in seeking work outside the church.

Big changes are occurring in Latin America, and it remains to be seen where it will all lead. The likelihood is that (1) Marxism will continue to wane; (2) liberation theologians will continue to focus more on issues of spirituality; (3) the Protestant explosion will continue, with an emphasis on personal transformation; and (4) all this will probably have some positive effect on social and economic conditions in the region.

THE BIBLE AND POVERTY

Critics of liberation theology at times come across as though they are detached and unsympathetic to Latin American poverty. No doubt some of these critics actually do lack concern. Before offering criticisms of this controversial theology, therefore, it is important that we first affirm that there is a strong scriptural basis for helping the poor.

In the Old Testament, God gave the theocracy of Israel specific guidelines for taking care of the poor. He commanded that the corners of fields were not to be reaped so that something would be left for the needy to eat (Lev. 19:9-10).

God also promised a special blessing to all who gave to the poor (Prov. 19:17), and judgment to those who oppressed the poor (Ps. 140:12). Robbing and cheating the poor were condemned (Hosea 12:7). Widows and orphans — who were especially vulnerable to oppression — came under special protection from the law (Exod. 22:22-23).

God in the law also made provisions for poor sojourners who were not a part of Israel’s theocracy. Gleanings from the harvest were to be left for them (Deut. 24:19-21), and they were ranked in the same category as widows and orphans as being defenseless (Ps. 94:6).

Jesus is very clear about our responsibility to the poor and oppressed. Christ’s strong warning that eternal condemnation awaits those who do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners (Matt. 25:31-46) shows that the disadvantaged are not merely a peripheral concern of His. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus taught that anybody in need is our neighbor (Luke 10:29f.).

The biblical view of the poor and oppressed is such that God’s people everywhere should be appalled at the poverty of the people in Latin America. Liberation theologians and the people of Latin America have a legitimate gripe. Indeed, how can the church in Latin America not act to help relieve the suffering of its people?

Nevertheless, a legitimate and commendable concern for the poor and oppressed must never be used to justify a theological methodology that leads to a gross distortion of Christianity — the only true means of liberation. Evangelicals maintain that this is precisely what Latin American liberationists have done.

A FAULTY FOUNDATION

Inasmuch as the liberationist’s views on God, Jesus Christ, the church, sin, and salvation are an outgrowth of his or her theological methodology, it follows that the starting point for a critique of liberation theology would be its hermeneutic. We shall therefore narrow our focus to this one issue.

Method is everything when interpreting Scripture. With an improper methodology, one is bound to distort the author’s intended meaning — the only true meaning (see 2 Pet. 3:16).

The word method comes from the Greek methodos, which literally means “a way or path of transit.” Methodology in Bible study is therefore concerned with the proper path to be taken in order to arrive at scriptural truth. Latin American theologians have chosen a “path” intended to produce liberation. But have they distorted the author’s intended meaning in the process?

The Problem With Praxis

Foundationally, the liberation hermeneutic (which makes praxis the first step, and theology the second) is completely without any controlling exegetical criteria. Vernon C. Grounds is right when he says that “there is no exegetical magic by which new meanings can without limit be conjured out of the Bible under the illuminating creativity of new situations.”⁴⁵

In liberation theology, the basic authority in interpretation ceases to be Scripture; it is rather the mind of the interpreter as he “reads” the current historical situation. It is one of the canons of literary (not just scriptural) hermeneutics, however, that what a passage means is fixed by the author and is not subject to alteration by readers. “Meaning is determined by the author; it is discovered by readers.”⁴⁶

Only after the meaning has been discovered by the reader can it be applied to the current situation. Certainly we all agree that Christians must practice their faith in daily life. But from a Scriptural perspective, the way a Christian conducts his or her life is based on the objective, propositional revelation found in Scripture. Christians must know God’s will as revealed in Scripture before they can act on it. Without a preeminence of Scripture over praxis, the Christian cannot know what to believe or what to do. Evangelicals therefore reject any suggestion that “we must do in order to know, and hope that orthodoxy will arise from orthopraxis [right action].”

An examination of Jesus’ use of the Old Testament shows that He interpreted it as objective, propositional revelation (see Matt. 22:23-33). His hermeneutic knew nothing of making praxis the first step for discovering theological truth.

Truth that Transcends Culture and Time

Evangelicals have criticized the inability of liberation theology’s hermeneutic to develop a culture-transcending theology with normative authority. Liberation theologians have shown little or no recognition of the fact that there are teachings and commands in Scripture that — owing to their divine inspiration (2 Tim. 3:16) — transcend all cultural barriers and are binding on all people everywhere. Key teachings of Scripture — such as man’s sin, his alienation from God, his need for a personal Redeemer — speak universally to the human condition and can never be bound to particular cultures or situations.⁴⁷

Moreover, evangelicals criticize the liberationist idea that theological truth is in a constant state of flux, changing along with the temporal conditions of society. Nunez has noted that “there are chapters of liberation theology that cannot be written at the present time, because they have to be the result of a given practice.”⁴⁸ Applications of Scripture can change as the temporal conditions of society change — but the Scripture-author’s intended meaning from which those applications are drawn are fixed and cannot be relativized.

Alien Preunderstandings

A “preunderstanding” of a preferential option for the poor is the very heart of liberation hermeneutics. Liberationists argue that “the reader of the Bible must deliberately choose his eyeglasses before he begins reading, and that the ‘preferential option for the poor’ means just that — a deliberate bias or perspective. Without this, the true meaning cannot be known. We must discard our North Atlantic lenses, we are told, and put on Third World ones — we must lay aside the eyeglasses of the rich to use those of the poor.”⁴⁹

Relevant to this issue is a small book published in 1983 by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. Entitled Explaining Hermeneutics, Article XIX declares: “We affirm that any preunderstandings which the interpreter brings to Scripture should be in harmony with scriptural teaching and subject to correction by it. We deny that Scripture should be required to fit alien preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself.”⁵⁰ The point of this article is to avoid interpreting Scripture through an alien grid or filter (liberationism, for example) which obscures or negates its true message. This article acknowledges that “one’s preunderstanding will affect his understanding of a text. Hence, to avoid misinterpreting Scripture one must be careful to examine his own presuppositions in the light of Scripture.”⁵¹

Now, we must frankly admit that all interpreters are influenced to some degree by personal, theological, ecclesiastical, and political prejudices. Evangelical scholar Emilio Nunez has rightly conceded that none of us approaches Scripture in a “chemically pure” state. This is why Article XIX above is so important: preunderstandings must be in harmony with Scripture and subject to correction by it. Only those preunderstandings that are compatible with Scripture are legitimate.

Graham N. Stanton, Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of London King’s College, elaborates on the corrective nature of Scripture: “The interpreter must allow his own presuppositions and his own pre-understanding to be modified or even completely reshaped by the text itself. Unless this is allowed to happen, the interpreter will be unable to avoid projecting his own ideas on to the text. Exegesis guided rigidly by pre-understanding will be able to establish only what the interpreter already knows. There must be a constant dialogue between the interpreter and the text.”⁵² If this methodology is followed, “the text may well shatter the interpreter’s existing pre-understanding and lead him to an unexpectedly new vantage point from which he continues his scrutiny of the text.”⁵³

Had liberation theologians followed this one procedure, the theology of liberation would have turned out to be a horse of a different color. Indeed, a theologian who approached Scripture with a “preferential option for the poor” would have found — upon submitting this preunderstanding to the correction of Scripture — that his preunderstanding was unbiblical. For, from a scriptural perspective, both the poor and the rich, both the oppressed and oppressors, are afflicted by sin and are in need of salvation. Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Our Lord preached the gospel of salvation to the poor (Luke 7:22) but He preached the same message to the rich (Luke 5:32; 10:1-10). God is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

Now, evangelicals concede that God has a special concern for the poor, and salvation is — by His own design — more readily accepted by the less fortunate (Matt. 19:23). Nevertheless, from Genesis to Revelation Scripture has a clear “preferential option” for the fallen.

By submitting his preunderstanding to Scripture, the liberationist would have also discovered that the gap between the rich and the poor is not the cause of man’s predicament; it is merely one symptom of it (see Jer. 5:26-29). It was not primarily the bourgeoisie that needed to be overthrown; it was man’s sin — his selfishness and greed — that needed conquering (1 Pet. 2:24). It was not fundamentally a political revolution that was needed, but a revolution in the human heart — something found only in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), who came not to be a model political revolutionary but to die on the cross for man’s sins as the Lamb of God (Matt. 26:26-28).

We repeat, then, that if we are to understand the author’s intended meaning in Scripture (the only true meaning), it is imperative that preunderstandings be in harmony with Scripture and subject to correction by it. Only then will it be possible to develop a truly biblical theology of liberation — a theology that at once emphasizes the fundamental need for liberation from sin, but at the same time stresses the biblical injunction to reach out in compassion to the poor.

A CHALLENGE TO EVANGELICALS

Are evangelicals as concerned as they should be about the plight of the poor and oppressed in our world? And if they are not, is this because there is a defect in their theology that ignores the biblical emphasis on caring for the poor and the needy? If liberationists have approached Scripture with a preunderstanding that “opts” for the poor, is it possible that some evangelicals have unwittingly approached Scripture with a preunderstanding that filters out sufficient concern for the poor and oppressed?

These are difficult questions, and it is incumbent upon every Christian to examine his or her heart on this issue. Certainly, evangelicals have little right to criticize the theology of liberation if they are not prepared to criticize possible deficiencies in their own theology in regard to caring for the poor and oppressed of our world.

Scripture is clear that we have a God-appointed responsibility to take whatever steps we can to help the poor. Yet, at the same time, we as evangelicals must insist that ultimately the transformation of any society depends on the prior transformation of the individuals that make up that society. This is the Christian counterpart to “dependency theory.” The revolution so earnestly sought in society will best be accomplished as greater numbers of people in that society experience the revolution of new birth and the ongoing renewal of life in Christ.

NOTES

¹“An Attack on Liberation Theology,” Orange County Register, 1 Dec. 1985, A10. ² Harvie M. Conn, “Liberation Theology,” in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 388. ³ Dean C. Curry, A World Without Tyranny (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 68. ⁴ Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1971), 175. ⁵ Justo L. Gonzalez and Catherine G. Gonzalez, Liberation Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1980), 23. ⁶ Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), 592. ⁷ Ibid., 895. ⁸ Gonzalez and Gonzalez, 24. ⁹ Jason Berry, “El Salvador’s Response to Liberation Theology,” The Washington Post, 4-10 Dec. 1989, 25. ¹⁰ Leonardo Boff, Jesucristo y la liberacion del hombre, 292; cited by Emilio Nunez, Liberation Theology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985), 232-33. ¹¹ Douglas D. Webster, “Liberation Theology,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984), 637. ¹² Emilio Nunez, “The Church in the Liberation Theology of Gutierrez,” in Biblical Interpretation and the Church, ed. D. A. Carson (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), 174. ¹³ Gutierrez, 150. ¹⁴ Monika Hellwig, “Liberation Theology: An Emerging School,” Scottish Journal of Theology 30 (1977):141. ¹⁵ Conn, 389. ¹⁶ Kenneth L. Woodward, “A Church for the Poor,” Newsweek, 26 Feb. 1979, 20. ¹⁷ B. T. Adeney, “Liberation Theology,” in Dictionary of Christianity in America, ed. Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1990), 649. ¹⁸ Harvie M. Conn, “Theologies of Liberation: An Overview,” in Tensions in Contemporary Theology, ed. Stanley N. Gundry and Alan F. Johnson (Chicago: Moody Press, 1979), 344. ¹⁹ Paul E. Sigmund, Liberation Theology at the Crossroads (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 11. ²⁰ Don A. Schanche, “Vatican Document Accepts Some ‘Liberation Theology,’” Los Angeles Times, 6 April 1986, 5. ²¹ Richard N. Ostling, “A Lesson on Liberation,” Time, 14 April 1986, 84. ²² Sigmund, 181-82. ²³ Michael Novak, “The Revolution That Wasn’t,” Christianity Today, 23 April 1990, 18. ²⁴ Ibid., 20. ²⁵ Ibid. ²⁶ Sigmund, 181. ²⁷ Kenneth Freed, “The Cross and the Gun,” Los Angeles Times, 9 Oct. 1990, H8. ²⁸ Sigmund, 196. ²⁹ Arthur F. McGovern, Liberation Theology and Its Critics (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 230. ³⁰ Dean C. Curry, “Liberation Theology in 80s: Is There Something New?” Eternity, November 1985, 13. ³¹ Sigmund, 179. ³² Freed, H8. ³³ Ibid. ³⁴ Ibid. ³⁵ Sigmund, 177. ³⁶ Ibid. ³⁷ Daniel Wattenberg, “Protestants Create an Altered State,” Insight, 16 July 1990, 9. ³⁸ David Neff, “God’s Latino Revolution,” Christianity Today, 14 May 1990, 15. ³⁹ John Marcom Jr., “The Fire Down South,” Forbes, 15 Oct. 1990, 66-67. ⁴⁰ Daniel Wattenberg, “Gospel Message of Getting Ahead Inch by Inch,” Insight, 16 July 1990, 16. ⁴¹ Ibid. ⁴² Ibid. ⁴³ Ibid. ⁴⁴ Ibid. ⁴⁵ Vernon C. Grounds, “Scripture in Liberation Theology,” in Challenges to Inerrancy, ed. Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce Demarest (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), 344. ⁴⁶ Norman L. Geisler, Explaining Hermeneutics (Oakland, CA: International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, 1983), 7.⁴⁷ Ibid. ⁴⁸ Nunez, in Carson, 173. ⁴⁹ W. Dayton Roberts, “Liberation Theologies,” Christianity Today, 17 May 1985, 15. ⁵⁰ Ibid., 14-15. ⁵¹ Geisler, 15. ⁵² Graham N. Stanton, “Presuppositions in New Testament Criticism,” in New Testament Interpretation, ed. I. Howard Marshall (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), 68. ⁵³ Ibid.