Medellin’s denunciation of “institutionalized violence” and “structures of sin” was frequently cited thereafter. With regard to approaches to development, the bishops questioned “conservative” and “developmentalist” mind-sets, and they spoke positively of a “revolutionary” framework, which they identified not with violence but with an emphasis on structural change and a conviction that people should be “agents of their own development,” rather than objects of planning by technocrats. In their call for liberating education not only in schools but also in the church’s own education work, the bishops implicitly endorsed the ideas of Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and indeed several times they spoke of “consciousness-raising” as part of pastoral work. They also urged the formation of Christian base communities and provided both a theological and a sociological rationale for such a pastoral strategy. An important theme was poverty: the stark reality of the living conditions of most Latin Americans, the gospel ideal of poverty, and voluntary poverty as a symbol of solidarity with the poor. Although several Protestant observers were present at Medellin, ecumenical issues were a relatively small concern in the 1960s when Latin America was still regarded as Catholic.
The Medellin conference reflected the turbulence of the 1960s. Latin American social scientists were developing the consequences of “dependency theory” not only in economics but also in other spheres. Vatican II had unleashed a great deal of questioning among priests, sisters, and active laypeople, and numerous groups issued manifestos questioning inherited pastoral practices and theology. Not accidentally, Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez provided the first sketch of a Latin American theology of liberation in a talk to clergy about a month before Medellin.
The 130 bishops assembled at Medellin representing the Latin American episcopacy were aided by about 100 advisors, including Gutiérrez, who may have seen more than the bishops themselves saw as the implications of the texts. For a brief period the various pastoral institutes run by CELAM in Colombia and elsewhere were centers for the diffusion of the new liberation theology. By the early 1970s, however, a backlash set in as conservatives under Colombian Archbishop Alfonso Lopez Trujillo took over the CELAM administration. CELAM III, held at Puebla, Mexico, in 1979, was far more tightly controlled, and although it did not reverse Medellin, its conclusions were more of an admixture of many elements. Under Pope John Paul II (1978–), the Vatican itself vigorously endorsed the more conservative approach represented by Lopez.
PHILIP BERRYMAN
Bibliography
Edward L. Cleary, Crisis and Change: The Church in Latin America Today.
Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops, The Church in the Present-Day Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council; vol. 1, Position Papers, vol. 2, Conclusions.
Cross-Reference: Communities, Institutionalized Violence, Liberation Theology–Latin American, Mujerista Theology, Poverty, Praxis, Sin, Vatican II.
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
Theology comes from the Greek words theos (deity) and logos (discourse). In its simplest form, then, theology seeks to answer the question of the existence and nature of God. More broadly speaking, however, theology is the endeavor to think about every aspect of religious belief. Theology thus takes as many forms as faith itself. Indeed, theology need not be limited to reflection on Christianity, especially since the source of faith for many people is increasingly an eclectic assortment of religious traditions. Nevertheless, theology is most frequently associated with the Christian faith, and if it is to be a disciplined form of thought that is distinguished from a more generic philosophy of religion, it must be developed in continuity with its historical roots.
Another way to define theology is to refer to the classical phrase of “faith seeking understanding.” Unlike philosophy, which begins with skepticism in order to discern what human beliefs can be shown to be most certain and clear, theology begins with faith. Since Christian faith emerges from a community of witnesses to the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ, its exposition is an ongoing process. Faith is the first step in a religious journey that leads to many intellectual quandaries. Although religious questions can complicate and even destroy an innocent or naïve piety, theology seeks to deepen and strengthen faith by absorbing the dynamic of doubt into the process of spiritual maturation. Theology attempts to give an account of faith that will respond to the questions of religious believers and skeptics alike. Theology does this by drawing from a wide array of philosophical and secular resources, while remaining loyal to the initial insights afforded by faith.
Theology is more like a journey with false starts, confusing detours, and delayed destinations than a recipe book with a single set of instructions. The study of theology can be intensely personal—so much so that every religious person can be said to have her or his own theology—but it is never merely private. The fact that theology involves an individual’s most passionate and ultimate beliefs does not mean that it is a subjective and relativistic form of thought. The creative insights of every theology are born of a personal experience that is nurtured and shaped by the great religious traditions and thinkers of the past.
That theology is a mixed genre balancing a variety of discourses is especially evident in the case in Christianity, which early in its development began borrowing from the philosophical culture of Greek thought in order to elaborate and explain its faith. The decision of the church to utilize philosophy on its own behalf was one of the most remarkable—and unlikely—events in Western history. Israel worshiped a God who was involved in history, reacting with love and impatience to the people God chose to lead. The greatest philosophers of Greece had spoken about God as an unchanging principle, without emotion, and unmoved by anything beyond itself. Against all probability, Christian theology came to identify these two as the same God. Although many theologians today see this as a problematic move at best, the practical implications were immense. Theologians were given a license to adopt the rich heritage of philosophical speculation as their own. The church thus preserved ancient learning throughout the ancient and medieval periods, until philosophy once again gained its independence from theology in the modern world.
Theology, with the aid of philosophy, was one part of the church’s witness to its faith in Jesus Christ. Theology is essentially responsive, in the sense that it responds to the grace of God as well as the quotidian details of life in the Christian community. From the beginning, the practice of theology was related to questions of church authority, the proper reading of scripture, and the ongoing interpretation of the faith. As ecclesial conversation, theology is governed by a complex set of rules arising from rituals, creeds, and Scripture. Determining what those rules are, what weight they carry, and how they can best be understood today is one of the chief tasks of theological reflection. Theology is thus a self-reflective discipline in the sense that its self-interrogation is essential to its purpose and mission.
Theologians do not examine the past merely for its own sake. They engage the past in order to speak to the present. Theology thus consists of two kinds of conversation occurring simultaneously, one with the past and one with the present. One way to sort out the different kinds of theology is to ask what relative weight they give to these two foci. Some theologians are primarily interested in contemporary issues and problems, and they draw on traditional resources carefully and critically. They are concerned to establish the intelligibility and credibility of Christian faith in the modern, secular world. This effort is called constructive theology. Theology that is more interested in recovering the religious life of the past is called historical theology. Historical theology is motivated by a need to pay the debt all Christians have to the saints who have preceded us.
For