Salvation the Holy Spirit and Theology

Moving to a Liberation Theology
Introduction
The traditional doctrines of Salvation and the Holy Spirit can be viewed differently when approached from the perspective of Liberation Theology. The theological position of the liberation theology is that social justice and the liberation from oppression is the key to executing the philosophy and teachings of Christ on Earth. According to Juan Luis Segundo in The Liberation of Theology, the central premise of Christianity is liberation: God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Trinity must all be understood in the light of liberation. As Segundo states, “Adam communicated sin and death to all human beings. Christ communicated justice and life to all….[Christ’s] communication of life and justification outdid Adam’s communication of sin and death.”[footnoteRef:2] In other words, Christ liberated mankind from the wages of sin, and those who call themselves Christians should engage in demonstrating this liberation by advocating for social justice and the end of oppression. Salvation is thus reinterpreted in liberation theology in terms of the extent to which social justice is achieved for people here on Earth. The Holy Spirit is reinterpreted to be seen as a guiding spirit for justice and equality—the motivating force for ending oppression and inequality. This paper will summarize developments seen by moving to a liberation theology from the original thoughts of the four doctrines expressed below. [2: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 211.]
Original Thoughts on the Four Doctrines
My original thoughts on the four doctrines of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Trinity are comprised of the following definitions, which serve as the starting point in my movement towards Liberation Theology. Of these four doctrines, the main two that I will focus on are salvation and the Holy Spirit.
God
God is the beginning and the end—the Alpha and the Omega: the ultimate Divine—the essence of all that is. God is neither male nor female, because these are genders of the human species, but God is a spirit: God IS—“I AM Who Am.”[footnoteRef:3] God is the Great protector and the Great destroyer—a concept that is found in the Hindu religion as well with Shiva being the creator and destroyer, the spirit in whom opposites meet.[footnoteRef:4] God is eternal. God is also internal and is the loudest voice I hear in the morning and the softest voice I hear at night. God is the blue moon beams shining down on my morning meditation. God is the radiant sun lighting my way throughout the day. God is my best friend yet is in my worst enemy. God is free from lateral comparisons. God is failure. God is suffering. God is with me. God is the supreme soul I desire. [3: Ex 3:14] [4: “Religions,” BBC, 2003. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/beliefs/intro_1.shtml]
Jesus
Jesus is the way the truth and the light.[footnoteRef:5] I cannot access redemption and grace except through him…although I am having doubts about this holding true to all. The more I am looking and exploring world religions the more I am seeing each as a pathway to the ultimate result which is God. Jesus directs me, in a language that I understand, on a path which will lead to the same place that the Jews, Muslim, many Hindu, Buddhists, and other religious sects ultimately seek. I believe that too many people in ALL religions concentrate too much on the path and not enough on the destination. This perspective on Jesus is not far from the perspective of the liberation theologians who view Jesus as a source of revelation for a particular people. [5: John 14:6]
Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the eternal force of God permeating all existence. The feeling I feel in my gut when things go right and when things go wrong—this is the communication of the Holy Spirit, Who is God. The Holy Spirit exists to teach us new methods of talking, of feeling, of seeing, and of believing so that we can achieve the process of salvation.
Trinity
I have no problem believing in the Trinity. People ask me all of the time if I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Of course I believe Jesus is the Son of God; and I also believe that I am the son of God, as we ALL are children of God.
Approaching Liberation Theology from the Doctrines of Salvation and the Holy Spirit
What bothers me is this idea that GOD is this old white man sitting on a cloud issuing grace, weeping for me, and eternally mad and vengeful. God IS—as has been stated in Exodus 3:14: When Moses asked for God’s name the answer was and still is I AM THAT, I AM. God is everywhere, in everything. God is inside of each one of us. With this in mind, it is not a far step to seeing how liberation theology can be applied to these doctrines—in particularly to the doctrines of Salvation and the Holy Spirit. In moving from these concepts and doctrines, the ideas of the theology of liberation can be felt and seen and understood in an easy manner, as shall now be explained.
Segundo
As Kenneth Leech points out, Segundo’s view of liberation theology is that it deals in methodology rather than in content.[footnoteRef:6] Segundo “has little time for the academic theology of the ‘death of God’ school: the problem, as he sees it, is not the death of God but the death of the theologian, his interpreter. The choice is in fact between two views of theology: theology as an academic profession, versus theology as a revolutionary activity.”[footnoteRef:7] According to Segundo, Christ is a revolution—a revolution over oppression, over the evilness of the enemy of God who seeks to oppress people and hold them down in abject misery. Segundo looks to Latin America and shows that there liberation theology has “rediscovered an essential feature of Christian theology by applying the teachings of justice and equality to the political realm: “Jesus seems to go so far as to suggest that one cannot recognize Christ, and therefore come to know God, unless he or she is willing to start with a personal commitment to the oppressed.”[footnoteRef:8] Just as Christ united Himself to the suffering people of his time and place, today’s Christians are expected to do the same under the teaching of liberation theology. The aim is to ease their suffering and to oppose the oppression that keeps them down. [6: Kenneth Leech, “Liberating Theology: The Thought of Juan Luis Segundo,” Theology, 84, 700 (1981), 258.] [7: Kenneth Leech, “Liberating Theology: The Thought of Juan Luis Segundo,” Theology, 84, 700 (1981), 258.] [8: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 81.]
Salvation
On the doctrine of salvation, the theology of liberation holds that “the longstanding stress on individual salvation in the next world represents a distortion of Jesus’ message.”[footnoteRef:9] The real message and mission of Christ was just begun with His time on Earth: the Church was tasked with going forth and teaching to all people the message of Christ, and in this sense, the mission of Christ is a historical one, a process that is not completed into the liberation of all peoples has been achieved: as Segundo states, Christ “was concerned with man’s full and integral liberation, a process which is already at work in history and which makes use of historical means.”[footnoteRef:10] The doctrine of salvation is one that is not concerned with “magical effectiveness…but rather liberating factors in its faith and its liturgy”—i.e., the victory of God and His Church is one that “must be viewed in functional terms rather than quantitative or numerical terms.”[footnoteRef:11] The people of God have as the destiny the mission of acquiring the supernatural grace to raise themselves up and to raise up the oppressed in order to achieve their destiny. This is similar to what Paul Freire asserts in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire states that “if I do not love the world—if I do not love life—if I do not love people—I cannot enter into dialogue…[and that] dialogue cannot exist without humility.”[footnoteRef:12] From the standpoint of liberation theology, Christ is dialogue that moves the world, and salvation is effected and achieved by implementing the love of Christ among the people of the world who are downtrodden. [9: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 3.] [10: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 3.] [11: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 3.] [12: Paul Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (NY: Continuum, 2000), 90.]
From my position on the doctrine of salvation to the position of liberation theology is but a few steps in the evolution of one’s thought on what theology is. If the Old World view of theology was intellectual and theoretical, the modern view held by liberation theologians is that theology is active and instrumental in effecting real change in the world. Through action, one’s salvation is processed and accomplished. This is supported by the declaration that “faith without works is dead.”[footnoteRef:13] Works are needed to make faith alive and faith that is not alive cannot be tied to salvation. To make works alive, however, one must correspond and communicate with the Holy Spirit. This is how the doctrine of the Holy Spirit interrelates with the doctrine of Salvation. [13: James 2:14-26]
The Holy Spirit
In order to understand the Holy Spirit from the standpoint of liberation theology, it is important to consider how Segundo explains the problem of ideologies: ideologies are human constructs that form obstructions between God and man. Ideologies are ways of thinking that actually lead to oppression instead of to freedom. Ideologies confine people into thought, whereas the Spirit is about action. Ideologies box in and limit, whereas the Spirit elevates and makes free. By focusing on ideology, people lose their focus on God and are unable to participate in the revolution that is required of them. This is why Freire also asserts that “it is absolutely essential that the oppressed participate in the revolutionary process with an increasingly critical awareness of their role as Subjects of the transformation.”[footnoteRef:14] Ideologies lead one into subjection, according to Segundo and the theology of liberation, and unless people are critically aware of this and critically aware of how they must apply themselves to the Spirit in order to be transformed, they will continue to be oppressed and disconnected from the experience of salvation as defined by liberation theology. [14: Paul Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (NY: Continuum, 2000), 127.]
Segundo likewise differentiates between Christ and the Holy Spirit: Jesus is a physical reality, whereas the Spirit is an invisible presence. Jesus exists in a historical time and place, but the Spirit is always present in all places (which dovetails nicely with the original doctrine of God being everywhere and in everything). Jesus teaches one set of truths to one particular people in one particular time, according to Segundo: but when Jesus leaves for Heaven, a new set of truths, a new set of doctrines, a new set of ideologies have to used in order for the Church to communicate with others. The Church uses the Spirit for this exercise, as the Spirit knows how to talk in the language of everyone in all places. The Spirit understands the ideologies that are in men’s minds and hearts, and that is why the Church uses these ideologies when it engages with people—but they are not the point: the point is liberation—it is the rising above: Segundo puts it in these terms: “There are things that Jesus cannot say because they do not dovetail with the historical situation in which his disciples are living. They could not bear them now. When they are spoken by the Spirit, however, they will automatically be converted into ideologies associated with a specific historical situation that renders them comprehensible and useful.”[footnoteRef:15] Thus, the Spirit acts as the conduit of new meaning for people throughout time: in other words, meanings and ideas change over time and in order for the message of Jesus and the salvation of mankind to be communicated, the Church has to know how to speak in a way that is meaningful. The Spirit is what helps to make that meaning real in the tongues of the missionaries who go out to preach and to live the Word of God in real places in real time. The process of Salvation cannot be achieved without the help of the Holy Spirit. [15: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 121.]
Segundo elaborates on the concept of the role of the Holy Spirit in liberation theology by posing a new understanding of the role of Christ and a more definite role of the Spirit: “The former revealer, Christ, is replaced by the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit is not a visible, identifiable revealer, which would seem to indicate that one can really have faith only in past revelation.”[footnoteRef:16] However, the theology of liberation does not assert that faith is dead or that it is rooted in the place and time of Christ. On the contrary, it presents a new hypothesis on faith, which is rooted in the “notion of a deutero-learning process, a process of learning to learn.”[footnoteRef:17] This process of learning to learn is an important aspect in the work of the Holy Spirit among men especially in relation to traditional concepts of the “deposit of faith” for this deutero-learning process “is by its very definition the opposite of any sort of deposit, for it involves an unending process of acquiring new pieces of information that multiply the previous store of information.”[footnoteRef:18] It is this configuration of truth, from the standpoint of the liberation theology, that provides meaning for people in all places in all times. [16: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 121.] [17: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 121.] [18: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 121.]
The Case for Liberation Theology
The case for liberation theology as the lens by which the doctrines and teachings of the Christian Church can best be viewed is illustrated by way of how Salvation and the Holy Spirit are understood—the way by which they are intertwined in the work and mission of Christ and the Church. The theology of liberation refers to the awakening of the soul to the mission of freeing people from their oppressive state. The first liberation theologian is said to have been the Dominican missionary in the New World: Bartolomeo de las Casas. Las Cases saw the cruelty with which the conquistadors were treating the natives. He objected to this oppression as being un-Christian. He stated that “it was better for Indians to live as pagans than to die as Christian slaves.”[footnoteRef:19] Las Casas wanted his fellow Spaniards to respect the natives in the Indies. Instead, he saw the conquistadors taking advantage of the natives; he watched the Spanish oppress them, and exploit and abuse them. This was not behavior becoming of a Christian, as far as Las Casas was concerned. [19: “Latin American Liberation Theologians.” Latin Life, 2018. http://latinolife.co.uk/node/214]
For Las Casas, Christians should resemble Christ, should reflect His mercy, patience, kindness, humility, and charity. To see other human beings as dogs was not Christian in Las Casas’ eyes. Thus, he wrote that the human race had been divided into kingdoms and peoples so that each land’s rulers should act as “fathers and shepherds to their people” and serve as “the noblest and most virtuous of beings.”[footnoteRef:20] He is considered by liberation theologians as to be one of their early founding fathers because of his sensitivity to the plight of the oppressed in the New World. Las Casas was upset to see the supposedly Christian Spaniards harassing and torturing the natives, whom Las Casas described as “open and as innocent as can be imagined. The simplest people in the world—unassuming, long-suffering, unassertive, and submissive—they are without malice or guile, and are utterly faithful and obedient both to their own native lords and to the Spaniards in whose service they now find themselves.”[footnoteRef:21] He saw that the Native Americans would make excellent Christians if only the Christians were willing to teach them the faith and treat them with the kind of love expected of them. He felt that the Spanish were not in communication with the right spirit, with the Holy Spirit. Las Casas was dismayed by the cruelty of the Spaniards and did not view their behavior as Christian in the least: it was anti-Christian as it sought to keep the Natives down rather than to lift them up as brothers and sisters. [20: Bartolomeo de las Casas, “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,” p. 108.] [21: Bartolomeo de las Casas, “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,” p. 110.]
The case of liberation theology is rooted in this idea that Christianity in its essence is about lifting people up like brothers and sisters to share in the great blessings that God has given to all his children. It is about freeing them from their woes through the grace brought down by the Holy Spirit. Sharing and strengthening with actions that unite the children of God to those who suffer—this is the aim of liberation theology. It is less about teaching and using words to convey truths and more about action and using actions to speak for one’s beliefs. By working to end oppression, the theology of liberation is put into effect.
Segundo’s position is that the Bible’s teachings are consistent and apply today as they did 2000 years ago: Christ taught His followers to look after the poor, and so too should we. God wants us to address today’s social needs first and foremost instead of putting them on the backburner. Religion is not just about saying prayers and being on the “right team.” It is about showing that you care about people and helping to lift them out of oppression. That is why the aim of liberation theology and its focus is to remind people that Jesus cared for the poor in the New Testament and serves as the example of how Christians must continue to put the needs of the poor at the front and center of their religion.
Arguments against Liberation Theology
Arguments against liberation theology include its association with Marxism and socialism.[footnoteRef:22] Liberation theologians have a history of recommending waging war against capitalism as this form of economic enterprise is viewed as inherently oppressive because it represents a zero sum game in which the interests of the many are sacrificed for the interests of a few. To “establish socialism and abolish capitalism” was how the Boff Brothers put it in their crusade to bring liberation theology to the world.[footnoteRef:23] This kind of focus on the atheistic philosophy of the Marxist revolutionaries serves as a bad place to start a theological movement. [22: Malachi Martin, The Jesuits (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 33.] [23: Sigmund, P. E. Liberation Theology at the Crossroads: Democracy or Revolution? Oxford University Press, 1990.]
Likewise, the Church has expressed concern about liberation theology in the past: “They [emphasize liberation] in such a way that they seem to put liberation from sin in second place, and so fail to give it the primary importance it is due. Thus, their very presentation of the problems is confused and ambiguous.”[footnoteRef:24] The Church has shown that incorporating the teachings of Marx into theology can lead one away from God: “If one tries to take only one part, say, the analysis, one ends up having to accept the entire ideology. That is why it is not uncommon for the ideological aspects to be predominant among the things which the ‘theologians of liberation’ borrow from Marxist authors.”[footnoteRef:25] The danger of liberation theology from the standpoint of the Church was that it might focus too much on the socialistic aspects of economic life and neglect the spiritual aspect of the teachings of Christ. [24: Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Notification Regarding Liberation Theology: Instruction on Certain Aspects of the ‘Theology of Liberation’ Roma Italia, 1984. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19840806_theology-liberation_en.html] [25: Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Notification Regarding Liberation Theology: Instruction on Certain Aspects of the ‘Theology of Liberation’ Roma Italia, 1984. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19840806_theology-liberation_en.html]
Theology has to have something of morality in it, something of the ways of God in it, otherwise it is an empty doctrine. Simply saying that those who are oppressed are the only concern of those who call themselves Christian is to miss what it means to be a Christian. Being a Christian is both having a love of God and a love of neighbor. It is not so much a political or economic or even social struggle. One does not need to be a revolutionary to love God nor to love one’s neighbor. For that reason, people who want to be Christian have to be careful of applying a theology that is associated with a doctrine that is not centered on God.
Response
In the modern world where so much of what passes for morality is really an empty slogan or a prelude to violence and oppression, it is necessary to be a revolutionary in order to love God and to love one’s neighbor, because these are revolutionary acts in a world that insists of oppressing neighbors, bombing countries in order to take its resources, and teaching that God does not exist but that the State should be viewed as one’s God. In such a world, to renounce these false views does make one into a revolutionary, and so one does have to have the mindset of a revolutionary—the mindset of a guerrilla who will do everything he can to show support for his neighbor and to show his love of God through his actions and not just his words.
Does this mean that one has to crawl into the trenches and engage in violent combat with the state or endorse communism over capitalism? No. One can reject both as both are materialistic at their core and instead promote the teaching of Christ—to have charity for one’s neighbor and to share what one has with those who have nothing. There are many examples of this kind of charity in the Gospels, and the best example is the story of the Samaritan. The Samaritan was not even a welcome figure among the Jews—so when Christ told this story, he was basically telling to the Jews that just because they were the chosen people of God did not mean that God actually liked or favored their spirit. They had the wrong spirit, in other words. They did not have the Spirit of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is love and teaches men to love one another. The Samaritan who loved his neighbor and took care of the beaten man in the streets showed that he had the Holy Spirit working in him. The Jews did not want to hear this and that is why they turned against God. They wanted to oppress God because they did not like this Spirit or this kind of love. They wanted to love themselves only—and that is not what God wants His children to do.
In response to the argument that liberation theology focuses too much on the idea of freedom from economic, political and social chains, one can answer that the same Church that expressed concern for this also stated that this theology is still in accordance with the teachings of the Church, the teachings of God. The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made on August 6, 1984, under the orders of John Paul II, an address that was meant to clarify the relationship between the teachings of the Church and Liberation Theology. The first and main assertion the Sacred Congregation made was that “Liberation is first and foremost liberation from the radical slavery of sin. Its end and its goal is the freedom of the children of God, which is the gift of grace.”[footnoteRef:26] The Congregation then explained that Liberation Theology’s goal is the same as that of the Church’s: “As a logical consequence, it calls for freedom from many different kinds of slavery in the cultural, economic, social and political spheres, all of which derive ultimately from sin, and so often prevent people from living in a manner befitting their dignity.”[footnoteRef:27] So even if one does hold onto the theology of liberation, one should not ignore the importance of freeing oneself from sin and seeing sin as the ultimate oppressor. Sin oppressors more than any economic or political system. Sin keeps the mind and heart and soul in the dirt. Lifting one out of sin is the most elevating thing that one can do—and that comes through the grace of God. But helping people to be open to grace comes by neighborly love—the kind of love that the Samaritan showed. So it is very important that people show this kind of charity and love because it helps to set the stage for grace coming into the soul. The more love and charity that people receive, the more likely they are to respond favorably to God’s grace and to the gifts of the Holy Spirit in their own lives. [26: Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Notification Regarding Liberation Theology: Instruction on Certain Aspects of the ‘Theology of Liberation’ Roma Italia, 1984. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19840806_theology-liberation_en.html] [27: Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Notification Regarding Liberation Theology: Instruction on Certain Aspects of the ‘Theology of Liberation’ Roma Italia, 1984. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19840806_theology-liberation_en.html]

As Rhodes has pointed out: “Praxis 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.”[footnoteRef:28] The struggle for society that the liberation theologian must engage in is one that goes against the modern transformation of people into mindless and heartless materialists. People who do not care that others are suffering, people who do not care that people are going without food and shelter, without water, without clean air, without hope—these people have to realize that the Holy Spirit does not want us to be ignorant of the struggles of others anymore than the Samaritan was ignorant of the man who was beaten and left for dead. The Holy Spirit wants us to see these people, not ignore them. To liberate them from their suffering is the point—and that is the point of the theology of liberation. That is the point that the Samaritan made in helping the beaten man. That is the point that Christ made when He told that story in the Gospel. Real charity, as Segundo points out, is commitment to other men, to expressing love and support for them.[footnoteRef:29] That is what this theology is all about. [28: Rhodes R. Christian Revolution in Latin America: The Changing Face of Liberation Theology Christian Research Journal, 1991.] [29: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 71.]

The theology of liberation is centered on God to the extent that God does not want His children to ignore one another. Some have a good life, and some do not. Those who have the means to help others should do so, because this is the meaning of life as the Holy Spirit directs it, as the message of God comes down to people over the centuries. To ignore the urgings of the Spirit, to turn away from the sufferings of others and act like there is nothing that one can do is to be rooted in self-love, like the Jews who rejected Christ because He told them to love their neighbors. The Jews who rejected Christ did not want to love their neighbors. They wanted to lord it over their neighbors. They wanted to be better than their neighbors and wanted to oppress them because they felt no one had the right to be chosen but them. True salvation lies in loving God and in loving one’s neighbor. Salvation and the Holy Spirit go together in the sense that the latter is directing us towards the former by teaching us to love each other, support those who are downtrodden, and help them to be lifted up so that they can be part of God’s grace if they are not already.
Conclusion
The theology of liberation can be reached from the doctrines of the Holy Spirit and Salvation as I have described them: the Holy Spirit is God and is Love and is everywhere. Christ existed in history but now we have the Holy Spirit with us, seeking to talk to us. We are meant to listen and to learn of this Spirit what it means to be saved and to take part in the process of Salvation. To love God and to love one’s neighbor—these are the keys that the Spirit gives to us. Without these keys, there can be no entry into heaven. We have to be striving to bring heaven to other people—to those whose lives are like a living Hell. We have to bring what Heaven gives to us and share it with them. That is what the Spirit teaches us to do and that is what we can think of when we think of the theology of liberation. God is with us in this Spirit—and the Spirit is love. Love is liberty from the oppression of sin and all its ill effects.

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