To me, it’s quite telling that Glenn Beck essentially illustrates every negative point that Liberation Theology could possibly make against mainstream white Christianity in his attempt to defend it. “Christ is a conqueror, not a victim,” he says. Of course, Christ is either a conqueror or a victim, or both at once, depending on who’s doing the looking. Glenn Beck may believe his idea of Christ is the only Christ, but he is guilty of projection just like any of us who would take it upon ourselves to create God in our image. (Which is to say, any of us who would take it upon ourselves to define for others what God is and isn’t.)
In the early 4th century, Christianity was transformed from a decentralized group of subversive spiritual movements into a centralized global power, imbued with all the force and terror of the erstwhile Roman Empire. Heresy-hunters forcibly (and often violently) stamped out the diversity that existed in pre-Nicene Christianities and made them over into a unified state religion, plunging Europe into the Dark Ages and systematically dismantling virtually all of the knowledge acquired over some twelve centuries of Classical Civilization. Yes, one could certainly say that the opportunistic Christ that was fabricated in the image of these power-hungry European men is a conqueror, but it is just as easy to say that the true essence of Christianity is that which was utterly trampled by their efforts. Personally I find the latter angle to be more morally uplifting, but that’s because I identify with the victims over the oppressors.
In the grand scheme of things, Liberation Theology represents a modest attempt to claim identity with Christ for the victims of oppression. I say modest because its influence within Christianity is quite limited, even within oppressed minority communities, and unlike Beck, I am able to fully empathize with the passionate rhetoric. I would say that it’s more than called for.
I suppose when the adherents of Liberation Theology conquer the world, squander it resources, enslave its inhabitants and subject them to institutional violence and discrimination at a rate that begins to rival that of institutional Christianity, Glenn Beck might have a fraction of a point. At this point in history, however, this is simply not the case.
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Emily Pothast is the author of Translinguistic Other, a fine blog, and guitarist and co-founder of Midday Veil.
