1. Political Hermeneutics of Liberation [1]
The psychological hermeneutics of life in the situation of the crucified God came up against a limit where psychological suffering becomes the suffering of society and suffering in society, and is determined by that. It therefore remains incomplete, if it is not supplemented by a corresponding political hermeneutics. What is meant by the contemporization of the crucified God in the political religions of society? In what dimensions must a human society develop in the free sphere of the history of this God? What are the economic, social and political consequences of the gospel of the Son of Man who was crucified as a ‘rebel’? In the Reformation, the theology of cross was expounded as a criticism of the church; how can it now be realized as a criticism of society? If in the political trial of Jesus, the Caesar was the external reason for his end on the cross, how can the risen Christ become the internal reason for the end of Caesar?
If we attempt to draw the consequences of the theology of the cross for politics, the matter cannot be exhausted in general and abstract definitions of the relationship between church and state or dogmatic faith and political action. Concrete attention must be paid to religious problems of politics and to laws, compulsions and the vicious circles which for economic and social reasons constrict, oppress or make impossible the life of man and living humanity. The freedom of faith is lived out in political freedom. The freedom of faith therefore urges men on towards liberating actions, because it makes them painfully aware of suffering in situations of exploitation, oppression, alienation and captivity. The situation of the crucified God makes it clear that human situations where there is no freedom are vicious circles which must be broken through because they can be broken through in him. Those who take the way from freedom of faith to liberating action automatically find themselves co-operating with other freedom movements in God’s history. Political hermeneutics calls especially for dialogue with socialist, democratic, humanistic and anti-racist movements. Political hermeneutics reflects the new situation of God in the inhuman situations of men, in order to break down the hierarchical relationships which deprive them of self-determination, and to help to develop their humanity. So there is need for critical solidarity with these movements; for solidarity with them in the struggle against the forms of inhumanity which threaten mankind; and for criticism and acceptance of criticism of the aims and methods of liberation. Political hermeneutics of faith is not a reduction of the theology of the cross to a political ideology, but an interpretation of it in political discipleship. Political hermeneutics sets out to recognize the social and economic influences on theological institutions and languages, in order to bring their liberating content into the political dimension and to make them relevant towards really freeing men from their misery in certain vicious circles. Political hermeneutics asks not only what sense it makes to talk of God, but also what is the function of such talk and what effect it has. Even here, none of the so-called substance of faith is lost; rather, faith gains substance in its political incarnations and overcomes its un-Christian abstraction, which keeps it far from the present situation of the crucified God. Christian theology must be politically clear whether it is disseminating faith or superstition.
Christian faith has hitherto made its political situation and function clear by means of two models: the model of unburdening and the model of correspondence. The model of unburdening says that church and faith must be freed from politics so that at the same time politics may be freed from religion.[2] The church relieves the state of the burden of religion and in so doing relieves religion of the burden of the state. The more unpolitical—in this critical sense—the church becomes, the more irreligious, secular and rationalist becomes the state. The more faith relieves reason of the enfleshed superstition of men, the more reasonable and realistic political reason becomes. This model is often misunderstood as a programme for the separation of church and state, faith and politics. Fundamentally, however, its concern is merely to make a proper distinction between what is always confused in political religion and religious politics. The distinction between the two realms which is constantly necessary in every new situation is thus not a-political, but to the highest degree a political-critical action. This distinction is directed against both the theological idea of a church state and against the political idea of a state church, against both theological politics and political theology in the old sense of the term. This model has an element of truth which must not be overlooked. But, as history shows, it is difficult to maintain the critical distinction of the two realms which has to be made in constantly new ways. There is a grave risk of the immediate separation of faith and reason as of church and state, followed by a laissez-faire addition of faith and the church to that form of political irrationality which declares itself to be rational, and to unjust and lawless forms of the state. The freedom experienced in faith and practised in the church can then coexist with any form of economic and social oppression. Furthermore, the freedom before God experienced in faith can be used as a substitute for the necessity of a real political liberation in the world. The latter is then often slandered as an apostasy from the righteousness of faith and as a righteousness achieved by works. Finally, if faith only has an indirect effect on the liberation of political reason for its supposed rationality, then no interests or criteria are offered for a use of reason which may be termed ‘human’ and ‘rational’. What often happens is a theological blessing on positivist reason, a rationality of mere ways and means, and so-called ‘real politics’. The model is fundamentally a transference of the old potestas directa of the church in politics into a potestas indirecta. The critical distinction of this model may be important, but it is of little help in the individual case when the decision is made. One can still be for or against the peasants in the German peasant war or for or against Nixon’s policy in Vietnam, for in such cases what does ‘reasonable’ mean?
The model of correspondence presupposes the critical distinction between faith and politics mentioned above, but seeks to build a bridge from the realm of free faith and the liberated church into the realm of politics by means of correspondences, reflections and images.[3] The liberation of the believer from the prison of sin, law and death is brought about by God, not by politics, but this liberation calls for something to correspond to it in political life, so that liberations from the prisons of capitalism, racism and technocracy must be understood as parables of the freedom of faith. In this model a distinction is made between the ‘great hope’ of the gospel and the ‘little hopes’ which are necessary for the immediate future on earth.[4] A distinction is made between the ‘last thing’, which faith believes, and the ‘next to the last thing’, which faith does.[5] This distinction is not a quantitative but a qualitative one. God is God and man is man. So the gap can only be bridged by analogies from the side of God, the church and faith. This means that there can be no equations, but only parables; no unbroken continuity, but only continuity in discontinuity. But for that very reason, faith discovers these parables of the freedom of Christ and the kingdom of God not only in its own programmes and actions, but also in other movements in history. The kingdom of God can be socialism, but that does not mean that socialism is now the kingdom of God.[6] It can be regarded as a mirror and parable of the ‘peace which is higher than all reason’. In the democratic movement the church can discover a parable of its own brotherly christocracy, and conversely offer itself in its order and ecumenical fellowship as a model for correspondences in social politics and international politics. This model, too, contains a grain of truth which is not to be forgotten. The critical distinction of what is qualitatively different remains without effect unless there are no correspondences. The model of parables and correspondences introduces faith in a liberating way into politically oppressed life, and at the same time preserves it from presumption and self-surrender. Nevertheless, the model of correspondence is often conceived in too hierarchical terms. In view of the qualitative difference between God and man, the correspondences go from above to below, and are often arbitrary. If the difference is transferred to the relationship between ‘Christian community and civil community’, the church is idealized so as to become the model of society. Its liberation is already presupposed, whereas in practice it only becomes free with the society in which it lives. If the difference is ultimately transferred to faith and action, faith easily comes to be understood as that powerful idea before which reality cannot hold out without adapting itself to it and corresponding to it. It would probably be more appropriate to history to regard these correspondences not as parables of what is perfect, but as anticipations and promises in the process of realization, in which the ultimate announces itself in the penultimate and the unconditional in the conditioned.[7] The identity and difference of God and man, of kingdom of God and the history of liberation, would then be associated dialectically. It is the history of the crucified Christ which binds together God and man and distinguishes one from the other. What God has really put together in Christ, no man should idealistically put asunder.
The models of unburdening and correspondence have been worked out to such a degree that they can only be introduced into the human history of God’s liberation with difficulty. Both leave freedom in action in the realm of the possible and the arbitrary. They understand the Christian event of liberation in general terms first and only then look for ‘concretions’ of the abstract. To make a correct distinction between God and the world, the absolute and the relative, the last things and the things before the last is one thing. To look for what corresponds to God in the world, to the last things in the things before the last, to the great hope in the lesser hopes, is something else. But must we not go beyond that and from the start understand God in the world, the beyond in the this-worldly, the universal in the concrete and eschatology in the historical, in order to arrive at a political hermeneutics of the crucified Christ and a theology of real liberations?[8] That would lead beyond difference and parable in thought and language to a synecdochic understanding of the ‘explosive’, liberating presences of God in the extremities of inhuman misery. In that case we would have to understand the incarnations and anticipations of the presence of God in a history of ‘transformations of God’. That would lead beyond difference and parable to a perception of God’s identifications in history. The criterion of perception would be the identification of God with the crucified Christ. The horizon of perception would then be the kingdom of the perfected indwelling of God in the new creation, that is, the consummation of the Trinitarian process of God in history. History is the ‘sacrament’ of Christian ethics, not just its material.
2. Political Religion
When Christian theology reflects on its political dimensions, it always finds this realm already occupied by political religions and political theologies, in which political interests dominate religion, theology and the churches.[9] Unless Christian theology frees itself from the needs and demands of the prevalent political religions, there can be no liberating theology. And on the other hand, without Christian criticism of religion, there can be no liberation of man in society.
From the beginning, Christian faith has had to struggle with the political religions of the societies in which it has been expanding. The Stoa distinguished three classes of divine figure: natural forces represented as divine persons, the gods of state religion and the gods of myth. Accordingly, they distinguished three forms of theology: the metaphysical theology of the philosophers, the political theology of the statesmen and the mythical theology of the poets.[10] Political theology teaches society which gods should be recognized because of the state and by which symbols and rites they should be reverenced. Because according to the doctrine of the state in antiquity it is the supreme purpose of the state to show due honour to the gods of the fatherland, so that they for their part bring the blessings of prosperity and peace to the country, the citizens were bound together with the aid of common religion. Religion became the supreme bond of society. The old and persistent trilogy of religion, authority and tradition comes from the political religion of Rome.[11] These are the symbols of the power which secures the existing state of affairs against chaos. Christians who no longer took part in the state cult in those societies of antiquity were regarded as ‘atheists’ and ‘enemies of the human race’.[12] Their omission to observe the practices of the religious cult of the state made them guilty of the crimen laesae religionis. In martyrdom they followed their Lord, executed as a ‘blasphemer’ and ‘enemy of the state’. However, when Christianity was elevated to the rank of a state religion by the legislation of the Christian emperors Theodosius and Justinian (religio licita), the charge of political atheism was shifted to Jews, pagans and heretics. This shows the political character of religion and also the inescapably political character of Christian belief.
From the time of Constantine and the Christianization of Europe Christianity has taken over the role of the political religion of society. It has indeed Christianized the existing state religions, but as a counter-move has been politicized in accordance with the standards of the reasons of state which have obtained at various times.
Remnants of this form of Christian state religion and popular religion still survive. This is shown by the history of the blasphemy paragraphs in penal legislation from the Carolina of 1532 down to present penal law reform in Germany. It is further shown by the theonomous justification for the death penalty, which has been put forward again and again, and the religious roots of expiatory penal law.[13] The political religion of society also keeps coming into the foreground in the sphere of Christian religious education which enjoys the protection of the state. Religion is to be integrated into the needs of the prevailing society and is for its part to contribute to social integration.[14]
The formation of new civic religions can also come about where there is a democratic separation of church and state. These take on different appearances depending on the history and structure of a society. The nationalism of the nineteenth century evoked patriotic religions which cultivated their own symbols, sacrifices and altars. National acts of remembrance and festivals, school books and presidential speeches were cultivated by these national religions, as they contributed to the symbolic and ritual integration of the different groups of peoples and classes and helped to rouse them in case of conflict. There are also political religions of imperialism, of the ‘pre-eminence of white Christian civilization’, of capitalism, and unfortunately also of socialism. Imperialistic religions are completely monotheistic, in order to lend religious support to the central authority. Patriotic religions are for the most part polytheistic, because each fatherland has its especial gods. In socialism the political religions tend towards pantheistic materialism. Capitalism in turn displays primitive forms of fetishism, involving gold and possessions. As bearers of the religions of society, the Christian churches are constantly subject to one or other form of religion. When they regard themselves as being either unpolitical or apolitical, this is only because of the blindness which their social position inflicts on them.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau gave a classic analysis of the form of réligion civile.[15] He distinguishes between the religion of man and the religion of the citizen. He finds the former in Christianity, which did not come into being as a national religion. It consists in inward worship of the supreme God and the simple teachings of the gospel of Jesus. For him, that is the true faith and the divine law of nature. The second is limited to a country and gives it its special gods and protectors. Every service performed for the fatherland is a sacrifice offered to the tutelary deity. There are also dogmas in the positive religion of the citizen. They are simple, few in number, expressed in definite terms and need no explanation. Like social life itself, they must be ‘self-explanatory’. Rousseau names four: 1. the existence of the Almighty; 2. all-embracing providence; 3. a future life; 4. reward for the good and punishment for the godless. These are not really religious doctrines but general views; unless they are observed, a man can be neither a good citizen nor a true subject. Rousseau thought that it could be proved that there had never been a state which was not based on this kind of religion. He also recognized that little conflicted with the social spirit of this religion more than Christianity. Christianity did not come into being as a national religion and therefore cannot be one. It does not bind the hearts of citizens to the state, but lures them away from it. It separates the theological system from the political system and disquiets the people. This is why the pagans always regarded Christians as ‘real rebels’. Rousseau therefore held the true religion of the gospel to be an ideal, but believed that it was politically impracticable and even dangerous. So he located the ‘religion of the citizen’ only in the social contract, and left the ‘religion of man’ free from the individual within the framework of whatever laws were valid.
More recent sociology of religion has taken up Rousseau’s basic idea of a socially necessary civic religion.[16] It can point to equivalent state Shintos in capitalist and socialist societies. It shows how the established Christian churches are functionally adapted to the civil religion of a particular time. We will not therefore be far wrong in assuming that modern societies, too, need and produce political religions—if not with the help of the established churches, then without or against them. This produces a dilemma for political theology: the more the churches become departments of bourgeois religion, the more strongly they must suppress recollection of the political trial of Christ and lose their identity as Christian churches, for recollection of it endangers their religio-political relevance. However, if they retreat from the social theme of ‘bourgeois religion’, they become irrelevant sects on the boundary of society and abandon their place for others. The path of a theology of the cross that is critical of society goes between irrelevant Christian identity and social relevance without Christian identity. It must make the idols of bourgeois religion superfluous in their own place and destroy them. In place of the ritual integration of a people, a race or a class and its confirmation of itself as a symbol, it must develop openness for the recognition of others and a humanity that is free from anxiety and self-esteem. To make present one who was once crucified in the name of bourgeois religion means to replace bourgeois religion in a society with the churches as institutions which freely criticize society,[17] and which in this way are dysfunctional to themselves. This happens in theory through criticism of idols, taboos, hostile caricatures and self-justifications in political religion, and in practice in support for those ‘others’ who have become the victims of the political religions which are dominant at any particular time.
3. Political Theology of the Cross
Early Christianity was persecuted as godless and hostile to the state by both the Roman authorities and by pagan philosophers. Christian apologists were therefore all the more zealously concerned to rob these charges of their force and to present the Christian religion as the religion which truly sustained the state. Even before Constantine, and then explicitly in the imperial theology of Eusebius of Caesarea, a Christian-imperial political theology was developed. It was meant to secure the authority of the Christian emperor and the spiritual unity of the empire. It consisted of two basic ideas, one hierarchical and the other with a chiliastic philosophy of history. The authority of the emperor was secured by the idea of unity: one God—one Logos—one Nomos—one emperor—one church—one empire. His Christian empire was welcomed in chiliastic terms as the Christ’s promised kingdom of peace. The Pax Christi and the Pax Romana were to be bound together by the providentia Dei. In this way Christianity became the unitive religion of the unitary Roman state. Recollection of the fate of the crucified Christ and his followers retreated into the background. As often happens in history, the persecuted became the rulers. E. Peterson and H. Berkhof have shown[18] how this first attempt at a Christian political theology shattered on the power of Christian faith itself, at two points in theology and at one in practice. Politico-religious monotheism was overcome by the development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the concept of God. The mystery of the Trinity is to be found only in God, and not by reflection, in creation. In the doctrine of the Trinity Christian theology describes the essential unity of God the Father with the incarnate, crucified Son in the Holy Spirit. So this concept of God cannot be used to develop the religious background to a divine emperor. The identification of the Pax Romana with the Pax Christi shatters on eschatology. No emperor can guarantee that peace of God which is past all understanding; only Christ can do this. The political consequence is a struggle for the freedom and independence of the church from the Christian emperor. Trinitarian theologians like Athanasius and Lucifer of Cagliari thus incurred banishment and persecution.
According to E. Peterson, with the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, eschatology and the struggle for the freedom of the church in the Christian state, Christian theology made a fundamental break with all political religion and its ideology in political theology. Christian faith can no longer be misused to justify a political situation.[19] The theological and politico-religious systems are fundamentally separate.
The new ‘political theology’ and ‘political hermeneutics’ presuppose the early church’s criticism of the political theology of political religions. But they become more radical when they seek to reclaim from the biblical tradition the awareness of a trial between the eschatological message of Jesus and social and political reality.
Salvation, the object of the Christian faith in hope, is not private salvation. Its proclamation forced Jesus into a mortal conflict with the public powers of his time . . . This ‘publicness’ cannot be retracted nor dissolved, nor can it be attenuated . . . Every eschatological theology, therefore, must become a political theology, that is, a (socio-) critical theology.[20]
Christian theology which wants to be aware of the present political restraints on and functions of its language, rites, institutions and practice will therefore do well to recall the political crucifixion and divine resurrection of the Christ who was executed as a ‘rebel’ and the consequence of discipleship. The memory of the passion and resurrection of Christ is at the same time both dangerous and liberating. It endangers a church which is adapted to the religious politics of its time and brings it into fellowship with the sufferers of its time. It frees the church from politicoreligious church politics for a critical Christian political theology. The new political theology is not concerned with the dissolution of the church into left-wing or right-wing politics, but with the Christianization of its political situation and function in terms of the freedom of Christ.
Christian theology has continually interpreted in soteriological terms the history of the Christ who was condemned in the name of the law, and in his exaltation by God brings to an end the law and the demands made on men by the law: man is not made righteous before God by works of the law, but by God’s grace in faith. Faith brings liberation from the compulsion of works. But a theological interpretation of the political dimension of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is absent. Because it has been assimilated to the state, the church has left this dimension unexplained. Now the death of Christ was the death of a political offender. According to the scale of social values of the time, crucifixion was dishonour and shame. If this crucified man has been raised from the dead and exalted to be the Christ of God, then what public opinion holds to be lowliest, what the state has determined to be disgraceful, is changed into what is supreme.[21] In that case, the glory of God does not shine on the crowns of the mighty, but on the face of the crucified Christ. The authority of God is then no longer represented directly by those in high positions, the powerful and the rich, but by the outcast Son of Man, who died between two wretches. The rule and the kingdom of God are no longer reflected in political rule and world kingdoms, but in the service of Christ, who humiliated himself to the point of death on the cross.
The consequence for Christian theology is that it must adopt a critical attitude towards political religions in society and in the churches. The political theology of the cross must liberate the state from the political service of idols and must liberate men from political alienation and loss of rights. It must seek to demythologize state and society. It must prepare for the revolution of all values which is involved in the exaltation of the crucified Christ, in the demolition of relationships of political domination. Now political representations and master-slave relationships continually arise when a people is capable of action in the medium of history. The citizen surrenders the right of self-determination to his representatives, so that they may act for him. This process of unburdening in political action is associated with the alienation of those who are relieved of their burdens. ‘In representative institutions there is always subjection to a visible image, and that is idolatry’.[22] Political idolatry and political alienation arise when the representatives go over the heads of those whom they are meant to represent, and when the people bows to its own rulers. Alienation between government and people is then shown in an all-embracing apathy of the people towards those ‘up there’. Because the representatives are out of their control, the citizens lapse into a passivity which allows further misuse of power to go unhindered. The democratic movement has clearly seen the connection between political idolatry, with the consequent apathy of its subjects, and the deprivation of political rights. ‘Democracy has no monuments. It mints no medals. It does not bear a man’s head on its coins. Its true nature is iconoclasm’.[23] If the nature of democracy is political iconoclasm, its reality lies in the demolition of master-slave relationships, in the limitation and control of the political exercise of power, and in activating the people from their apathy as subjects towards responsible participation in the processes of political decision.
If the Christ of God was executed in the name of the politico-religious authorities of his time, then for the believer the higher justification of these and similar authorities is removed. In that case political rule can only be justified ‘from below’. Wherever Christianity extends, the idea of the state changes. Political rule is no longer accepted as God-given, but is understood as a task the fulfilment of which must be constantly justified. The theory of the state is no longer assertive thought, but justifying and critical thought.[24] The early church rejected the cult of the emperor and replaced it with prayer for the emperor which represented a limitation of his power. The Middle Ages and the Reformation relativized political ordinances so that they became necessary ordinances in the world, which served the well-being of people but not their salvation. Puritanism abolished the feudal system and replaced it by the covenant or the constitution of the free citizen.[25] A critical political theology today must take this course of desacralization, relativization and democratization. If the churches become ‘institutions for the free criticism of society’, they must necessarily overcome not only private idolatry but also political idolatry, and extend human freedom in the situation of the crucified God not only in the overcoming of systems of psychological apathy, but also in the overcoming of the mystique of political and religious systems of rule which make men apathetic. Christianity did not arise as a national or a class religion. As a dominant religion of rulers it must deny its origin in the crucified Christ and lose its identity. The crucified God is in fact a stateless and classless God. But that does not mean that he is an unpolitical God. He is the God of the poor, the oppressed and the humiliated. The rule of the Christ who was crucified for political reasons can only be extended through liberation from forms of rule which make men servile and apathetic and the political religions which give them stability. According to Paul, the perfection of his kingdom of freedom is to bring about the annihilation of all rule, authority and power, which are still unavoidable here, and at the same time to achieve the overcoming of equivalent apathy and alienation. Christians will seek to anticipate the future of Christ according to the measure of the possibilities available to them, by breaking down lordship and building up the political liveliness of each individual.
4. Vicious Circles of Death
Political hermeneutics is not just a theoretical development of tradition, nor is it accomplished only on an ideological and religious level. It sets out to be a hermeneutics of life in the situation of the passion of God, and therefore includes both practice and the alteration of practice. Liberation of mankind towards better mutual relationships is always practised in particular vicious circles which do not allow men to be men. Just as there are psychological pattern formations which make men ill, so too there are hopeless economic, social and political pattern formations which drive life towards death. In such formations there are always a number of vicious circles, each of which contributes to another. So there is no sense in talking about a ‘theology of liberation’. It is necessary to speak of ‘liberations’ in the plural and to advance the processes of liberation in several dimensions of oppression at the same time. One cannot liberate a particular area by setting up dictatorships elsewhere. So in what follows we are in search of the traces of men’s liberation in a series of realms and dimensions. Only those will be introduced which cannot be reduced to other dimensions. In each concrete instance these dimensions work together. Distinguishing them will provide directives for action in particular instances. By this, one does not envisage any pyramid-like gradation in reality or any historical sequences with priorities. But in most cases a mutual influence of one dimension on another may be observed.
(a) In the economic dimension of life there is the vicious circle of poverty.[26] It consists of hunger, illness and early mortality, and is provoked by exploitation and class domination. There are vicious circles of poverty both in individual societies and between the developed industrial nations and the underdeveloped agrarian countries, the former colonial territories. The economic systems of labour and production keep producing unequal and unjust advances at different times. Granted, the overall per capita income increases, but this is not to everyone’s advantage. For individual groups within a people and for entire peoples the result is a vicious circle of poverty, work, illness and exploitation. Millions of immigrant workers in Northern Europe have been caught up in this hopeless circle. Most negroes in the USA are caught in a similar trap; poverty, police, courts and prisons all being linked together. Within the larger circle, smaller vicious circles appear; poverty, drugs, crime, prison and further poverty all being linked together. From a global perspective, the economic systems of the world work in a spiral which makes the rich nations richer and the poor nations poorer. The prices of agrarian products decline and the prices of industrial products rise. Thus the underdeveloped countries fall increasingly into debt and cannot obtain freedom.
(b) In the political dimension, the vicious circle of force is inextricably bound up with the vicious circle of poverty.[27] It is produced in particular societies by the domination of dictatorships, upper classes or those with privileges. It is also produced through the relationships between powerful and weaker nations. The institutionalized rule of force produces counter-force. Human rights of self-determination and political co-determination are suppressed and then can only be asserted in revolutionary terms. Here, too, hopeless spirals develop: after the failure of reforms or revolutions the oppressors are better organized, and successful revolutions often organize new oppression. The growth of organized force and spontaneous counter-force is a threatening sign. No less threatening is the vicious circle of the international arms race.[28] Whereas previously military deterrent systems have secured peace, their escalation is now leading towards instability. The predictable course of the arms race is ‘an open spiral upwards into nothingness’.[29] Mistrusts and interests in hegemony make the armament spiral a deadly threat to the whole world.
(c) Also involved with the vicious circles of poverty and force is the vicious circle of racial and cultural alienation. Men are adaptable and compliant once they have been robbed of their identity and characteristics and have been degraded to the point of becoming manipulable factors in the system. They are then shaped in the image of their rulers.[30] There can be no conquest of poverty and oppression without the liberation of men from their racial, cultural and technocratic alienation. The conquest of poverty and political oppression is often achieved only at the cost of alienations of this kind. Men then survive in relative freedom, but they no longer know who they really are. They become apathetic cogs in a technocratic mega-machine.[31]
(d) The vicious circles of poverty, force and alienation are now bound up in a greater circle, the vicious circle of the industrial pollution of nature.[32] Mindless faith in progress has irreparably destroyed the balance of nature by industrialization. It is possible to calculate the ‘limits of growth’.[33] If no wise balance of progress and social equality is achieved, then ecological death is more than to be feared. The great undertaking of the industrial revolution comes to its end in the vicious circle of the ecological crisis. The destruction of the natural environment, the exploitation of nature, will also ruin the whole industrialized world and the rest of life on earth. Today a one-sided orientation on economic values and the hopes for self-liberation which earlier generations often rested with messianic fervour on work, the machine, profit and progress, are bringing about a reversal in the systems of men and nature from an orientation on life to an orientation on death.
(e) In the economic, political, cultural and industrial vicious circles one can see a deeper, more embracing drive: the vicious circle of senselessness and godforsakenness. Today we are making the world hell, say some, in view of our inextricable situation. The future has become obscure. So in the present people become perplexed, disheartened, and many men lose all sense of purpose. Just as the rabbit is transfixed by the snake’s look, so today men are transfixed with future shock and become apathetic. Some seek escape in enjoyment of the present. Others look for peace in dream-worlds. Others again anticipate the decline by terrorism. The general sense of disheartenment is experienced in different situations in different ways. But this makes men see the areas of misery outlined above as hopeless vicious circles. From the experience of senselessness arises apathy, and from apathy there often follows an unconscious death-wish.
5. Ways towards Liberation
Wherever the five vicious circles mentioned above work together, a general syndrome of decay develops. The vicious circles work together as a linked system and bring the human life involved in them to a state of dehumanization and death. Liberating action must therefore localize these vicious circles and recognize the way in which they work together. It must be active in all five dimensions at the same time, if it is to free the whole of life from oppression.
(a) In the economic dimension of life, liberation means the satisfaction of the material needs of men for health, nourishment, clothing and somewhere to live. A further part of this is a social justice which can give all members of society a satisfying and just share in the products they produce. In so far as the vicious circle of poverty is produced by exploitation and class domination, social justice can only be achieved by a redistribution of economic power. The privileges of capital over labour strengthen the vicious circle of poverty. The vicious circle of poverty can be broken only through economic co-determination and control of economic power by the producers. Social welfare for those who are economically weak and development aid for the so-called underdeveloped nations are necessary as transitional measures to keep men alive who would otherwise go to the wall. But they are only justified by a social policy which brings social justice to the poor, the exploited and the weak. If and in so far as socialism in this sense means the satisfaction of material need and social justice in a material democracy, socialism is the symbol for the liberation of men from the vicious circle of poverty.
(b) In the political dimension of life, liberation from the vicious circle of oppression also means democracy. By this we mean human dignity in the acceptance of political responsibility. This includes participation in and control of the exercise of economic and political power. The vicious circle of force can only be broken by giving each individual political responsibility and an active part in the processes of decision. Otherwise the exercise of power is not freed from the privileges and hegemonies of particular classes and groups. Only through equal and just distribution of political burdens can the alienation of the people from political power and its political apathy be overcome. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights may be taken as a standard for democratic justice. In the formulations which have been hitherto held to be valid it derives from the civic revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and to that degree needs to be supplemented. Democracy means the recognition of human rights as the basic rights of the citizen in a state. The aim of the democratic movement, for we must speak of a movement and not of a condition or an ideal, is the making possible and the realization of human dignity through liberation from political oppression and control. If and to the degree that the democratic movement means the abolition of privilege and the establishment of political human rights, democracy is the symbol for the liberation of men from the vicious circle of force. This is true not only within a state but also between competing states, for the abolition of military deterrent systems and the construction of systems for political peace and control.
(c) In the cultural dimension of life, liberation from the vicious circle of alienation means identity in the recognition of others. By this we mean the ‘human emancipation of man’ (Marx), in which men gain self-respect and self-confidence in the recognition of others and fellowship with them. True, the struggle here is always one over integration or identity. But these are not contradictions. The recognition of racial and cultural and personal differences and the recognition of one’s own identity belong together. Integration cannot lead to a grey mass of uniform men. Identity cannot mean ultimate separation. Identity and acknowledgment belong together and are not possible without each other. The human emancipation of men from self-alienation and alienating dealings with each other is only possible when different kinds of people encounter each other without anxiety, superiority or repressed feelings of guilt and regard their differences as fruitful, working together productively. If and in so far as emancipation means personalization in socialization and finding one’s identity in the recognition of others, emancipation is the symbol for liberation from the vicious circle of alienation.
(d) In the relationship of society to nature, liberation from the vicious circle of the industrial pollution of nature means peace with nature. No liberation of men from economic distress, political oppression and human alienation will succeed which does not free nature from inhuman exploitation and which does not satisfy nature. As far as we can see today, only a radical change of the relationship of man to nature will get us out of the ecological crisis. The models of self-liberation from nature and domination of it by exploitation lead to the ecological death of nature and humanity. They must therefore be replaced by new models of co-operation with nature. The relationship of working man to nature is not a master-servant relationship but a relationship of intercommunication which pays respect to the circumstances. Nature is not an object but man’s environment, and in this has its own rights and equilibria. Therefore men must exchange their apathetic and often hostile domination over nature for a sympathetic relationship of partnership with the natural world. The hominization of nature in the sphere of human control only leads to the humanization of man when the latter are also ‘naturalized’.[34] Therefore the long phase of the liberation of man from nature in his ‘struggle for existence’ must be replaced by a phase of the liberation of nature from inhumanity for the sake of ‘peace in existence’. To the degree that the transition from an orientation on economic and ecological values and from an increase in the quantity of life to an appreciation of the quality of life, and thus from the possession of nature to the joy of existing in it can overcome the ecological crisis, peace with nature is the symbol of the liberation of man from this vicious circle.
(e) In the relationship of man, society and nature to the meaning of life, liberation means a significant life filled with the sense of the whole. A society which is oppressed with economic, political, cultural and industrial vicious circles is always also a ‘disheartening society’.[35] In the background of personal and public awareness, perplexity, resignation and despair are widespread. This inner poisoning of life extends not only through poor societies but through rich societies as well. It cannot therefore be overcome simply by victory over economic need, political oppression, cultural alienation and the ecological crisis. Nor can it be reduced to these realms and dimensions. The crisis of meaning oppresses an unfilled life and a life filled in other ways, albeit in different manners. This wound remains open even in the best of all conceivable societies.[36] It can only be healed by the presence of meaning in all events and relationships of life.
The absence of meaning and the corresponding consequences of an ossified and absurd life are described in theological terms as godforsakenness; the presence of meaning is termed the presence and indwelling of God in a new creation. If God is all in all in it, man and nature then take part in God’s fullness of meaning and potentiality. The freedom of the sons of God and the liberation of enslaved nature (Rom. 8.19ff.) are consummated in the arrival of the complete and universal indwelling of God. In a situation of godforsakenness and senselessness the knowledge of the hidden presence of God in the godforsaken Christ on the cross already gives ‘courage to be’, despite nothingness and all annihilating experiences.[37] Hell does not lie before men. It has been conquered in the cross. Here life and sacrifice for life against death gain their meaning amidst the general senselessness. Thus ‘courage to be’ becomes a ‘key for being’. Faith becomes hope for significant fulfilment. Therefore in the situation of a ‘disheartened society’, Christian faith becomes ‘counting on hope’ and is demonstrated through freedom from panic and apathy, from escape and the death-wish. It then leads to courage to do what is necessary, resolutely and patiently, in the vicious circles mentioned above.
6. The Transformations of God in the Liberations of Men
If we begin to look at the relationships which condition the various processes of liberation, and attempt to make a counter test, we shall discover that socialism is impossible without democracy and democracy is impossible without socialism in the sense mentioned above.[38] Any attempt to establish social justice with the help of an élite dictatorship of the meritocracy or with the help of a nationalist dictatorship would only be to drive out one devil with another. As history shows, it would change democratic movements into socialist dictatorships. ‘There is as little human dignity without the end of need, as there is good fortune for man without the end of old and new subservience’.[39] Conversely, if one were to try to set up political democracy at the cost of social justice, it would become incredible and lead to an aristocracy of those with economic privileges. As history shows, socialist movements would soon be established. Social justice and democracy are therefore reciprocally related. Human emancipation of man, indeed even racial identity, is impossible if economic and political relationships are overlooked.[40] Racism is too closely bound up with social injustice and political deprivation of rights. Conversely, social democracy or democratic socialism cannot come into play if they are not bound up with recognition of one another in racial, cultural and personal identity. There can be no social democracy without identity in recognition, and there can be no human emancipation without social and political democracy. Further, no human society worthy of the name can be constructed without peace with nature. And conversely, there will be no co-operative system of peace with nature as long as men do not organize themselves into a total human society. A technocratic solution of the problems of mankind without a solution of the ecological problem does not lead to life. Finally, there can hardly be peace between man and man and between mankind and nature without the overcoming of despair with hope for the indwelling of meaning in everything. Conversely, there can be no presence of meaning, no meaningful and fulfilled life without liberation from the needs outlined above. In every specific situation, these vicious circles are reciprocally interrelated, and as a result no way out of them can be seen. Therefore liberation must be sought in all these five dimensions simultaneously in every specific situation. Anyone who falls short here is courting death. Anyone who becomes too abstract and general here will achieve nothing. It is enough for liberating action that these five dimensions should constantly be remembered as guidelines.
It follows from this that in any theology of liberations the universal must be understood in the particular and the eschatological in the historical. Otherwise it is impossible to think concretely without becoming pragmatic, and impossible to think universally without becoming abstract. Hitherto we have allowed the concept of liberation to run through the dimensions of oppression and have found that in the vicious circle of poverty, liberation must be called social justice; in the vicious circle of force, it must be called democratic human rights; in the vicious circle of alienation, it must be called identity in recognition; in the vicious circle of ecology, it must be called peace with nature; and in the vicious circle of meaninglessness, it must be called courage to be, and faith. We have called these identifications symbols, because they both show liberation in real terms in various spheres and at the same time invite further thought. This thinking in particular symbols is thus capable of overcoming the general conceptual fetishism with which events in process are defined in order to establish them, while at the same time bringing the process to a standstill. In that way the word ‘liberation’, like the words ‘revolution’ and ‘establishment’, loses its evocative character. Symbolic thought which makes fast in negatives and takes matters further in positives is iconoclastic of language. It overcomes both the idolatry of ideological fixation and its counterpart, idolatry, with the normative force of what is factual. Thus the cause of liberation is not established, but is constantly in process and is only comprehended by participatory, dialectical thought.
The symbol in thought is matched by the conception of reality as a sacrament, that is, as a reality qualified by God’s word and made the bearer of his presence. These realities are not another kingdom separate from God, nor are they just similes and equivalents of his kingdom. They are synecdochically, to take up Luther’s language, real presences of his corning omnipresence. In this sense a theology of liberation cannot get by without corresponding materializations of the presence of God, unless it means to remain idealistic. For it, the identifications of the presence of God with the matter involved in liberation from vicious circles are real symbols, real ciphers and material anticipations of the physical presence of God. They are incarnations which point beyond themselves. They stand in parallel to the traditional real presence of God in the sacraments, and do not replace this. If we allow the theological language of the real presence of God to run through these dimensions of misery, we reach the following sequence of identifications. In the vicious circle of poverty it can be said: ‘God is not dead. He is bread’. God is present as bread in that he is the unconditional which draws near, in the present sense. In the vicious circle of force God’s presence is experienced as liberation for human dignity and responsibility. In the vicious circle of alienation his presence is perceived in the experience of human identity and recognition. In the vicious circle of the destruction of nature God is present in joy in existence and in peace between man and nature. In the vicious circle of meaninglessness and god-forsakenness, finally, he comes forward in the figure of the crucified Christ, who communicates courage to be.
In accordance with theological tradition it is possible to see this real presence of God, pointing beyond itself, as the history of the Shekinah wandering through the dust, as the history of the spirit which comes upon all flesh. We understand it here in the process of the Trinitarian history of God. Thus the real presences of God acquire the character of a ‘praesentia explosiva’. Brotherhood with Christ means the suffering and active participation in the history of this God. Its criterion is the history of the crucified and risen Christ. Its power is the sighing and liberating spirit of God. Its consummation lies in the kingdom of the triune God which sets all things free and fills them with meaning.