Abstract
“Re-written in unfortunate compromises, the Gospel has been so muddied that it has been made unrecognizable, if not detestable, as the ‘opium of the people,’ a friend of slave-traders, an ally of colonialism and apartheid,”1 writes Oscar Bimwenyi, delineating the rationale for the proposed dialogue among third world theologians. Bimwenyi and other third world theologians who were at Louvain were convinced that a joint effort among the people in the periphery had the radical potential to reclaim the liberative dynamism of the gospel.
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Notes
O. K. Bimwenyi, “The Origin of EATWOT,” Voices from the Third World 4, no.2 (December 1981): 26.
Enrique Dussel, “Theologies of the Periphery and the Centre: Encounter or Confrontation?” in Different Theologies, Common Responsibility: Babel or Pentecost, ed. Claude Geffre, G. Gutierrez, and V. Elizondo (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1984), 87.
Enrique Dussel writes, “In the circular letter it was said for Africa: ‘the Bishops of Africa and Madagascar consider that a certain kind of theology of adaptation is completely out of date. They prefer a theology of incarnation…the young Churches of Africa must encourage by all means research into an African theology.’ From Asia we published the declaration from Cardinal J. Paracattil of India: ‘It is imperative that a new orientation is given to evangelical work… theology should reformulate its theses in intelligible native idioms and indigenous philosophical terms.’ From Latin America we quoted from a text of the II General Conference: ‘It is impossible to try to impose fixed universal moulds…We must treat with particular importance the study and investigation of our Latin American reality in its religious, social, anthropological and sociological aspects’” (Dussel, “Theologies of the Periphery and the Centre,” 1984, 87).
Gregory Baum, “The Christian Left at Detroit,” in Theology in the Americas, ed. Sergio Torres and John Eagleson (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1976), 399.
Sergio Torres Gonzalez, “Dar es Salaam 1976,” in What Are Third World Theologies: Convergences and Differences, ed. Leonardo Boff and V. Elizondo (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988), 109.
David Paton, ed., Breaking Harriers (London: SPCK, 1976), 136.
Quoted by M. M. Thomas, in Religion and the Revolt of the Oppressed (Delhi: ISPCK, 1981), 49.
James Cone states this point palpably, “Whenever Third World attempted to set the theological agenda, Euro-Americans either voted us down or they cut off the financial resources that they had stolen from Third World countries through military conquest and economic imperialism,” in Tor My People (New York: Orbis Books, 1984), 144.
Sergio Torres, “Opening Address,” in The Emergent Gospel: Theology from the Developing World, ed. Sergio Torres and Virginia Fabella (New York: Orbis Books, 1978), 2.
The reaction of Pope Paul VI against the attempt of the African church to develop a theology of incarnation expresses the view of the church hierarchies. While admitting that it is necessary to find a better expression of faith to correspond to the racial, social, and cultural milieu, the pope warns that “it would nevertheless be dangerous to speak of diversified theologies according to continents and cultures. The content of faith is either Catholic or it is not,” cited by Valentin Dedji, in Reconstruction and Renewal in African Christian Theology (Nairobi: Acton Publishers, 2003), 18.
Cornel West, “The North American Blacks,” in The Challenge of Basic Christian Communities,” ed. Sergio Torres and John Eagleson (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1982), 255.
Aloysius Pieris, “The Place of Non-Christian Religions and Cultures in the Evolution of Third World Theology,” in Irruption of the Third World: Challenge to Theology, ed. Virginia Fabella and Sergio Torres (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1983), 113.
Samuel Rayan, “The Search for an Asian Spirituality of Liberation,” in Asian Christian Spirituality: Reclaiming Traditions, ed. Virginia Fabella, Peter K. H. Lee, and David Kwang-sun Suh (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1992), 11–30.
Engelbert Mveng, “African Theology: A Methodological Approach,” Voices from the Third World 18, no. 1 (June 1995): 115.
S. Kappen, Spirituality in the New Age of Recolonization (Bangalore: Vistar, 1995), 3–8.
“The Irruption of the Third World: Challenge to Theology: Final Statement of the Fifth EATWOT Conference, New Delhi, August 17–29, 1981,” in The Irruption of the Third World: Challenge to Theology, ed. Virginia Fabella and Sergio Torres (New York: Orbis Books, 1983), 199.
For an informed discussion, see Enrique Dussel, “Anti-Cartesian Meditations: On the Origin of the Philosophical Anti-Discourse of Modernity,” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 13, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 11–53.
Virginia Fabella, Preface, in Irruption of the Third World: Challenge to Theology, ed. Virginia Fabella and Sergio Torres (New York: Orbis Books, 1983), xii.
Aloysius Pieris, “The Place of Non-Christian Religions and Cultures in the Evolution of Third World Theology,” in Irruption of the Third World, 1983, 113.
Alfred Sauvy, “Trois Mondes, Une Planete,” L’Observateur 118 (August 14, 1952)
quoted by Vijay Prashad, in The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York: New Press, 2007), 11.
Prashad, The Darker Nations, 2007, 12.
Virginia Fabella, Beyond Bonding: A Third World Women’s Theological Journey (Manila: EATWOT and The Institute of Women’s Studies, 1993), 3.
Asians were not unanimous in embracing the term third world. The displeasure of a section of the Asians was captured in a statement of Raymond Fung, who was in charge of the evangelism desk of the WCC He expressed his concern by writing in his Monthly Letter on Evangelism. After the Geneva meeting of EATWOT, he wrote, “The designation ‘Third World theology’ disturbs me. By definition it is a theology situated in the reality of First or Second World domination… But while the general analysis that the solution to Third World problems lies in the First World makes sense, somehow I feel that we in the Third World must pretend that it does not quite make sense. Or we would find it doubly hard to get out of the dependency syndrome, even in the choice of theological categories, however liberating our rhetoric. Therefore ‘Third World Theology’ may not be the most direct instrument to locate the source of power which would sustain us in our own reality” (Raymond Fung, Monthly Letter on Evangelism, no. 1, WCC, January 1983).
Carlos H. Abesamis, “Doing Theological Reflection in a Philippine Context,” in The Emergent Gospel, 1978, 113.
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© 2015 M. P. Joseph
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Joseph, M.P. (2015). From a Vision to a Reality. In: Theologies of the Non-Person. Palgrave Macmillan’s Christianities of the World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137550545_2
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