Liberation Theology

My professor gave a quick summary of Liberation Theology in Monday night's class. He said "God identifies with and loves the poor because they are poor." That quick summary has stayed with me and I have been wrestling with it especially because the rest of the classes seemed to recognize an inherent flaw in such a presumption; that God would love someone more because they are poor.

Being the liberation sympathizer that I tend to be, I was not satisfied with my professors explanation. He seemed to be emphasizing by his wording (and of course I could be reading way too far into it) that God does not identify with the rich, which would be a potential issue with liberation theology. So I have been pondering and I would suggest that liberation theology is not so much presuming that God loves the poor because they are poor but that God's love is heading toward "the poor," not just poor people but that actual realm of poverty, the state of being poor. God's love is moving to the poor so as not to leave anyone behind in the wake of status or class distinctions. God's love moves to low places, the lowest places, in society including space reserved for races and genders. God's love moves to the poor and thus invites all to identify, all to be caught up in the movement of God's love. God's love draws all in and does not stay still but moves to that place reserved for crucified people in order to bring about resurrection. Oh yes, God identifies with you but now he calls you to identify with him.

Comments

Anonymous said…
This is something that I have always struggled with about liberation theology. I think that liberation theologians have to be really careful how they word things or people will start assuming that they are saying that God loves the poor more than the rich. I like your explanation here. =)