Sunday, March 20, 2011

Part: 2: Liberation Theology - "God is God of the poor."

Abe V Rotor

"God of the rich"
"God of the poor"
"God in times of war"

Freed from their master the subjects faced self-rule. The end led however, to autocracy. Dictatorships prevailed where people were weak. The few where wealth and power were concentrated took the helm of government. A new master was born.

The paradox is even greater if we take the case of the woman who is now doubly jeopardized of her status of being a woman and at the same time poor. For poverty plagued the newly independent states now depleted of resources. Neophyte managers ran new governments poorly. These scenarios naturally led to a paradigm still reminiscent of the cities of the French Revolution, which sought social justice, this time addressed to the new master in cohort with the old one.

Here Liberation means first and foremost, meeting the people’s basic needs, removal of inequities of wealth distribution, respect of the rights of the common man. It was also a call for the end of the vestiges of colonialism in the guise of capitalism. Thus, the birth of the masses. Conflict then moved away from the “David and Goliath” model. There must be a solution to an “Abel and Cain” conflict.

To poor people, God is a God of the poor. Being poor is also historical but people cannot accept that. It is structural. Unjustly structural. Life the pork barrel and other hidden compensation for members of congress. What is sin then?

From the viewpoint of this paradigm, sin is likewise structural. Graft and corruption is structural sin. If the dialectics is that poverty is the result of unjust structure, this model calls also for a dialectical method: bring out the conflict.

Liberation from sin is not being passive, but active, and often results in war.

Continued...

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