“If the wicked oppress the righteous, God takes the side of the oppressed. If the righteous oppress the wicked, God takes the side of the oppressed.”
–Leviticus Rabbah 27:5 quoted in To Heal a Fractured World by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
“Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. ‘Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers… Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator [or vindication] shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.”
Isaiah 58 NRSV (emphasis mine)
Why Theologies with Adjectives?
There is a t-shirt which says, “All theology has an adjective.”* Whether we know it or not…whether we want to admit it or not, that statement is undeniably correct. In other words, there is no objective, pure task of theology. Even if we don’t put an adjective before the word “theology” like: Liberation theology, Process theology, Classical theology, Reformed theology, Feminist theology, Womanist theology, etc., our theology is still conditioned and still a result of human perspectives.
Let me explain.
Even if we are Bible-believing Christians who think that all we need is a Bible (and perhaps a devotional, a pastor, or maybe even a trusted commentary), we cannot read the Bible without interpreting the meaning of its words, and we cannot interpret the meaning of its words without the help of experience and reason. Therefore, our interpretations are based on experiences and thoughts that are familiar to us, and therefore our interpretations may (and will) differ from interpretations based on experiences and thoughts familiar to someone else.
None of us can read the text in an objective, God’s-eye-view manner. We may try to do so, but we inevitably fall short. We read the Bible through the lenses we are equipped with, lenses that are crafted and tinted by our own place situation in history, our own context, our own upbringing , our own experiences, our finitude.
Perhaps more frustrating is the fact that we can’t pick up another’s lenses without help. Left to ourselves, we each only have our own particular lenses, hoping that these are good enough, hoping that these give a clear and non-distorted view of reality. For instance, as a white male born and raised in the US, I can’t decide to pick up the Bible and interpret it as an Inuit woman would.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean we can’t modify our lenses or try to adopt the lenses of another.
We can, to the best of our ability, observe and listen to others as they read the Bible through their own unique lenses. We can be open to their readings, trying to understand things from their point of view as best we can, so that we can learn from them and evaluate our own readings and our own understandings.
Why These Authors?
You may notice that there are no white male theologians in this list, and that’s by design. Now, believe me, I have nothing against white male theologians, but if you are like me, you probably receive most if not all of your theology and Bible interpretations (i.e. sermons, teaching, and commentary) from white male perspectives and white male word choices.
Again, all white male perspectives and words are not evil. If you have read my blog posts, you should be able to ascertain that many if not most of my theological sources are white male scholars. Some of my favorite theologians are white and male.
But the point of this is to read non-white male perspectives (and these are only a few non-white male perspectives among many) specifically in regards to theologies of liberation.
So here’s the list of Liberation Theology works that I have put together (some are classics in the field and some are less-known) and intend to read (or re-read)… perhaps with you:
The Book List
- A Theology of Liberation: 15th Anniversary Edition by Gustavo Gutierrez (May 2020)
- The God of the Oppressed by James Cone (May 2020)
- A Black Theology of Liberation – Fortieth Anniversary Edition by James Cone (June 2020)
- Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology by Kwok Pui-lan (June 2020)
- Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives by Phyllis Trible (July 2020)
- Mourner, Mother, Midwife: Reimagining God’s Delivering Presence in the Old Testament by L. Juliana M. Claassens (July 2020)
- Unsettling the Word: Biblical Experiments in Decolonization by Rose Marie Berger (August 2020)
- Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr. (August 2020)
- Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? By Martin Luther King Jr. (September 2020)
- A Palestinian Theology of Liberation: The Bible, Justice, and the Palestine-Israel Conflict by Naim Stifan Ateek (September 2020)
- Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century by Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz (October 2020)
- American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty by George E. Tinker (October 2020)
- Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk by Delores S. Williams (November 2020)
- What the Women of Exodus Teach Us about Freedom by Kelley Nikondeha (November 2020)
If you are willing to join me on this adventure, you may find this to be an uncomfortable or even painful journey. Many of these authors will not interpret the Bible or see the world in the way that you or I do. This doesn’t mean that they are wrong, however. Remember they come from different (yet real) backgrounds and have different (yet real) experiences that shape and color their interpretive lenses in unique (yet real) ways. But I hope that we can read these books curiously, holding off our knee-jerk reactions and laying aside quick judgments. The goal in this reading, after all, is to learn (or do our best) to read the Bible and see the world through their lenses. Only with an open and honest exploration can we consider the task of evaluating those lenses and reevaluating our own.
*The t-shirt that says “All theology has an adjective” can be purchased here: https://peteenns.com/shop/theology-tee/
Elijah Keay 
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