CHURCH AND POLITICS IN DIALOGUE: A VIEW OF A PROPHETIC PARADIGM
2.4 PROPHETIC THEOLOGY AND PROPHETIC RESPONSIBILITY
The theology of liberation is mostly seen as a theology of prophetic mode. Gustavo Gutiérrez is on the basis of his theology of liberation considered a modern prophet. Nolan describes some characteristics of prophetic theology that in relation to possible prophethood in the present day and age, have to be taken into account. Contemporary liberation theology speaks of, and to, a particular place in a particular era about a particular situation (Maduro, 1989:433). The human being usually has a social, political, and cultural environment. Doing theology in a determined context is what Gutiérrez calls the real Gospel message (Maduro, 1989:89). This will later in this thesis be presented in a section devoted to the Kairos tradition as a demonstration of the prophetic voice in South Africa. Three key points are of importance and need to be addressed, namely:
when, where and what. In each country its particular situation can be defined as well as what prophetical theology suits it. The situation in the DR Congo features as my case for which to develop a suitable prophetical theology, draw on a Kairos tradition.
In Maduro’s writing, Nolan criticizes the ’Western theology’ which he considers unprophetic because it understands truth as being timeless and universal. According to Nolan this way of thinking endangers Africans of being kept in a state of colonisation (Maduro, 1989:434).
‘Prophesy’ can be defined as the action of receiving and delivering the message of God.
‘Prophetic’ is usually applied to indicate a group of people exercising the activity of prophecy. In Greek, the word ’Prophetes’ referred to a member of the Classical temple who interpreted the ecstatic or unintelligible utterances of a priestess of Zeus or of the Pythia (Goranzon, 2010:68). Many scholars observe that there are few similarities between ancient and more recent prophets. The Hebrew word ‘nabi’ is translated into
‘prophetes’ in LXX. From this word are derived two titles. The first is ’hozeh’ translated as
‘seer’, from the Hebrew verb ‘haza’ which means ‘to see’. Hence, a prophet can get a
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vision, referring to Numbers 24.16-; Ezekiel 13.16,23. The second title is ’ro’eh’ which refers to a diviner who uncovers things that used to be hidden (McConville, 2012: 589).
Goranzon (2010:34-42) mentions that nābî is not the only type of prophet in the Old Testament. LXX also uses the word prophētēs, translated as roeh (seer) and mālāk (messenger).
Max Weber, studying the image of the prophets in the OT, understands them as acting predominantly on their own. They used dramatic language in emotional ways to convey their message in a convincing way and often had to overcome great resistance. Weber concludes that the Old Testament prophets were heroic, charismatic, exceptional, and also lonely persons. Israel faced political crises which feature in the theologizing of Old Testament prophets. If Israel sometimes was unfaithful, God never stopped demonstrating his faithfulness, promising liberation from political oppression and even from material deprivation. Weber is impressed by the charismatic leadership of biblical prophets. He proposes their leadership as a model for contemporary political leaders (de Villiers, 2010:1,2).
Today, prophetical preachers are simply understood as people who address political issues from the pulpit. In South Africa, for example, Mandela, Boesak, Beyers Naude and Tutu used the bible as their primary source for articulating an alternative society. The bible was a resource for societal transformation (Cilliers, 2015:374). Next to these prophetical preachers there are many other preachers who chose to avoid political utterances and who could be called the silent majority.
Particular points that concerned the OT prophets are the following. There was, firstly, the syncretism that could lead to the degeneration of Yahwism. Another point was the political motivation for the establishment of a state in the process of which ‘Israel had thrown off Yahweh’s guiding hand and become politically autonomous’. Simultaneously, economic and social developments and the rise of social injustice (Isaiah 5:8, Micah 2:1f) had
become worrisome, while there was also the disturbing rise of Assyria.
Two prophetic traditions can be distinguished in the Old Testament. The prophets in the Davidic tradition support the monarchy and the higher classes whereas the Mosaic
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tradition is liberative in character and focuses on God’s righteousness and justice as we see from Nathan who, in the court of David, prophesised according to the will of God (1 Samuel 12.1-15). The role of prophets in the Mosaic tradition was to admonish the evil in the king’s yard. Many prophetic messages were directed at kings, priests and leaders, from whom they generated diverse reactions (McConville, 2012:590). By Jeremiah prophets are portrayed as spokesmen for God in directing the nation while the priests carried the responsibility for teaching the Law (Jeremiah 23.11). Thus, the Old Testament exposes certain characteristics of prophets. The prophets were seers who in dreams or divination received the message from God which they passed on (1 Samuel 9.9). They were called future predictors and recognized as genuine if their predictions were fulfilled.
Prophets – Elijah, Elisha, Nathan – performed miracles and, furthermore, they acted in the social life of people (Amos 7.10-13, Jeremiah 26.8, Isaiah 6.9). Many prophets objected to aspects of royal court proceedings. They engaged critically with political authorities or with the sacrificial system if behaviours were not truthful and neglected moral responsibility (Isaiah 1.10-, Amos 5.24-25) (Browning, 1996:303-304). From Isaiah and Jeremiah, we see that prophets were also advisors to the kings of their time (Isaiah 7.1-17, Jeremiah 21.10, 37.16-21). Based on Amos 7.14, Freedman (2009b:487) states that none of the canonical prophets was comfortable with being called ’nabi’. They avoided calling themselves by that name. Their popular success was very limited.
Scholars think that ’nabi’ implies induced ecstasy, manic bizarreness and, in general, irrational activity.
Crucially, the OT prophet is defender of God’s rights and human rights. It is the prophet’s duty to remind human beings of God and of their belonging to him. Israel must be faithful.
Faithfulness to the Law requires respect for God and the human being. The prophet is not just supporting one side. Dosithee Atal (1993: 144-145), developing an interpretation of the prophet’s presence in the Old Testament, emphasises that God in the Old Testament spoke to rich and poor, men and women in every situation. Each domain of life, spiritual, social, or spiritual, is the concern of the prophet. It appears that some prophets were also priests; such as Isaiah and Joel in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
In the New Testament, the prophet has taken on a different character. Jesus Christ is portrayed as the Prophet of prophets. The New Testament is the fulfilment of what the
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OT prophets spoke about. For an understanding of New Testament prophecy three points can be highlighted: the disclosure of future events, the keeping alive of expectations of the ’parousia’ and the addressing of contemporary issues. It is also important to be aware of the different relations between prophets and other societal groups. Villa-Vicencio in Goranzon’s writing argues in a history of the church that, since the Edict of Milan in 313, churches have been, almost without exception, an integral part of socio-economic structures in their respective communities. The impression exists that few churches supported radical social change. However, there was a noticeable polarisation in the church. On the one hand the church was tempted to leave the political arena and to function as an apolitical institute. For some time, it managed to avoid the extremes, sometimes opposing the harshest rulers, at other times favouring the existing regime.
These varying positions are noted in church histories. Mostly, when it needed to position itself in respect of some political dilemma or was faced with the need to take prophetic responsibility, the church has been divided, as was the case during apartheid in South Africa. Goranzon (2010:87), discussing how Christian tradition dealt with church-state relations, selects some salient aspects. As the political order is recognized as God’s institution, the church was forced to make political choices. Obedience to God had to come first and disagreements in this respect – to stay obedient or to diverge - posed an enormous challenge. Christian history contains some reports on resulting violence. Along with Goranzon, the present researcher agrees with Villa-Vicencio, that Christian resistance to worldly powers can be described as prophetic.
Many scholars judge the Christian church for having played an ambiguous political role throughout its history. At times, it has blessed and legitimated the state. At least since the Constantinian settlement, this has been the dominant approach of the church. At other times the church, although more often minority groups within the church, has rejected the status quo by affirming the rule of God which often meant a renunciation of the existing social order.
Some scholars see the concept of prophetic politics as an infusion of religion into politics.
It is a charismatic political leadership that focuses on the use of future-oriented storytelling as well as narrating the past differently, transforming each present act of politicking into a moment of choice. Accepting that religion plays a huge role in prophetic politics, Hanska
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(2009:94) tries to distance the concept from the more established church religions. He separates the idea of prophesying from its religious connection arguing that prophetic politics can use the religiosity that is inbuilt in all of humanity.
Hanska (2009:97, 99) understands the role of the prophetic politician as quoted by Frye, namely as revealing the god's will in respect of a specific occasion. According to Hanska, one of the greatest challenges of prophetic politics is to combine notions of God's will with such rational political guidelines that even an atheist could accept the reasoning behind them.
Hanska (2009:101) has another way of looking upon prophetic politics which he reduces to political figures or institutions of which the identities are based in certain biblical narratives that, in turn, enable the formation of relatively stable political positions and visions.
The aim of the church is to bring about social justice. Justice must be done to the poor and oppressed. When the church of the oppressed becomes the church of the oppressors, the danger is that its theology will be remoulded accordingly. The challenge to continue to speak prophetically after the fortunes of history have changed faces all churches which are committed to the liberation of an oppressed people (Goranzon, 2010:33-49).
The status of most African churches is affected by people losing confidence in their support during periods of adversity. The church seems to have established a dichotomy between theology and societal realities by concentrating mostly on evangelizing people and getting them to attend Sunday services while neglecting those who live on the streets.
In this context, sermons reflect a degree of passivity when democracy is spoken of, and the faithful are not urged to strive for a committed and responsible stewardship (Nyiawung, 2010:1).
Walshe (1995:12-15) mentions the early utterances of a prophetic voice heard between 1910 and 1960 that was open to the social Gospel, working on the nascent liberation or contextual theology. In this period, many priests were directly involved in political affairs.
Example are Reverend John Dube, a Congregational minister and the first President of
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the ANC (African National Congress), Reverend Zacheus Mahabane, a Methodist minister and ANC President in the late twenties and thirties. In their belief, according to Walshe, “the universal acknowledgment of Christ as common Lord and King would break down the social, spiritual and intellectual barriers between the races”.
A contextual theology came into force between 1977 and 1990. The church had come under international pressure and sanctions against the state had been instituted. The governing Afrikaner National Party attempted to modify apartheid by co-opting blacks into the system. The churches were divided. Some supported the regime and others opposed it. At this time a prophetic Christian movement was created and dedicated to the social Gospel and defiance of the state. With ongoing regional and international pressure, the apartheid system was increasingly threatened. An ambiguity in the prophetic voice in South Africa arose from its beginning in a context of confusion and division between Christians. Walshe (1995:63) writes: “Passing through an interpretive crisis, [the] minority came to understand their faith as a call to proclaim the dignity of human beings and so to join with the poor and repressed in a popular struggle against the system”. The key point in the successful beginning of the liberation thought in contextual theology lies firstly in the existence of a minority that was aware of its calling. The prophetic voice did not necessarily come with the support of a majority but was driven by people with a prophetic vision. From 1977 onwards, the South African Council of Churches had continued the struggle against apartheid after it had come under the leadership of the activist Desmond Tutu as General Secretary. The SACC (South African Council of Churches) was joined by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference. Together they participated in the struggle against repression. Eventually, as liberation theology took effect in Latin America, the struggle for justice in South Africa became an integral part of the church’s mission. From moment Christian witness must bear the capacity of social analysis (Walshe, 1995:114-115).
Gutierrez’s life is in all its different phases defined by his interest in the poor. Writing a biographical note on Gutierrez, Teresa Okure (at the time executive secretary of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians), mentions that from correspondence between dominant theologians it is clear that Gutierrez conceived of a lifestyle that mirrored his theology (Maduro, 1989:86). Gutierrez ‘lived his theology’ as the symbol of a committed faith. Against this background, not to live one’s theology would be
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the sign of a lack of faith. The prophetic theology and the prophetic voice come into play when theologians begin to consider doing theology in the way of Gutierrez. Theology then is not just an academic exercise, but a consolidation of one’s Christian life. Ways of doing theology are concerned with what theologians have called person-centred and life- centred theology (Maduro, 1989:86). It involves demonstrating one’s theology in one’s manner of daily living. In my view, the success of the liberation theology is that Gutierrez reasoned from the perspective of the poor and not for the poor. His life among poor people inspired him to develop a way to think with those who were suffering instead of thinking on their behalf, or of reflecting on theological studies with the aim of fulfilling academic duties without making an effort to come down on real-life experience. This is what Okure calls the authentic inspiration of doing theology as testifying. Gutierrez’ daily contact with the living experience of certain people provided a generative impulse for doing theology of liberation (Maduro, 1989:87). This prophetic theology reminds humanity of Jesus living with the poor.
The ecumenical church in South Africa was very strong, active and, prior to 1994, committed in its critical voice on justice, freedom, democracy and non-racism. It was even referred to as the struggle church, the voice of the people, and the church of God. The unity of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), bible study groups, the World Council of Churches (WCC), the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), the Africa Alliance of Reformed Churches (AARC), and the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) for the sake of justice made the movement effective and its commitment was determined (Katts, 2015:197).
In this context Haspel (2004:14-17) speaks of the substantial contribution of the church to the establishment of a normal public discourse by developing a political theology. This was possible by combining the hermeneutical reconstruction of the Christian tradition with the rational standards of discourse ethics. The process involves what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls the ‘ecclesia visibilis’, whereby the church is being church at all, its vision having an overall impact.
In South Africa was in 1981 a foundation established linked to the Institute for Contextual Theology. It focused on liberation theology, taking account not only of issues of race and
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exploitation, but also dealing with a complex of participants from Christian denominations and Islam to the heritage of traditional religion. A statement was published in 1985, signed by 151 clergy, laity and academic theologians. This was the Kairos document. It distinguished three forms of theology (Walshe, 1995:117-118).
The first was the state theology which is simply the theological justification of the status quo, including its racism, capitalism and totalitarianism. It blesses injustice, canonises the will of the powerful and reduces the poor to passivity, obedience and, inevitably, apathy (Leonard, 2011:6). The methodology used by state theology involves the misuse of theological concepts and biblical texts. Blind obedience can be ‘justified’, for example, by citing Romans 13.1-7 which text should however strictly be interpreted in its context. Paul addresses this message to Roman Christians who were claiming that Christians are exonerated from obeying state regulations because Jesus alone is Lord and King and must be obeyed. Paul clarifies that, until the coming of the Lord, Christians have to accept secular authority. The use of religion to strengthen tyrannical structures, to manipulate populations and keep them in slavery, has been a fairly common experience. The theology of state is a tool applied by many colonial systems with the bible serving as an instrument to ensure people’s obedience.
As stipulated by Moltmann, in this way religion becomes a supreme bond of society. “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 religious-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” (Moltmann, 1993:322,324).
In his political theology of the cross Moltmann argues for liberation of the state from the political service of idols and for the liberation of human beings from political alienation and loss of their rights. God was crucified in Christ by the politico-religious powers of his time. The church must end its political bondage.
The Kairos document furthermore mentions church theology as applied without proper analysis of circumstances. It follows the Christian tradition without any critical appraisal of details and without appreciation of changing contexts. The Christian tradition
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represents notions of reconciliation, peace, justice, non-violence. It is fair to say that reconciliation without justice and repentance can’t avoid being superficial. Justice might not be offered by the oppressors (Leonard, 2011:11-14) and church theology was criticised because it opened a door to premature reconciliation with the apartheid regime and its followers without making significantly deep social analyses.
The approach supported by the Kairos document is the prophetic theology that declares solidarity with the poor and oppressed. Christians are called upon to confront evil and, yet, love their enemies. This message can be effective provided the church sides with the oppressed. Civil disobedience inevitably played an essential part in maintaining the morally weak and illegitimate apartheid regime. The formation of the prophetic Christianity resulted from three factors. These were the popular struggle, strong social analysis, and the capacity to build a network such as that uniting four prophetic South African organisations, namely the SACC, the Catholic bishops, ICT and Diakonia (Walshe, 1995:120).
CONCLUSION
Chapter Two considers the prophetic paradigm and its function in church and politics. In this respect several points are highlighted.
The first is the ambiguity of the African political situation where people seem to be bound by locally imposed limitations after having been freed from Western domination.
Inevitably, contemporary African states remain the product of Western geopolitical and economic interests. Many Africans involved in politics turn out to be opportunists while some others are simply revolutionaries and not politicians at all. Another concern discussed in the present chapter is the lack of quality of leadership which exacerbates the weakness of African democracy. Much effort focuses on the central levels of leadership with the aim of enforcing its power whereas local levels are overlooked. The lack of accountability of political leaders is highly problematic. Among developments are polities defined as a Christian vocation involving people who have become convinced of the need to accomplish God’s responsibility. The chapter considers political positions