―Would God That All the Lord‘s People Were Prophets‖:

Liberation Theology and Scholars as Prophets for the OppressedLoyd Ericson

–

Claremont Graduate UniversityApril 2011Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology, BYUThis conference poses the

question: ―Do

es philosophy and disciplined theological

reflection have a place in a [prophetic] church?‖

In my paper I will turn this question around andargue that the very place for philosophy, theology, and other scholarly pursuits is in an activeprophetic role

—

to be prophets

(not

for

) the Church and the world on behalf of the oppressed.This is a prophetic role as understood in the tradition of liberation theology that differs from thatheld by those sustained in the Church as prophets, seers, and revelators. While the latter isauthoritative for the Church by virtue of priesthood hierarchical authority, the former has noecclesiastical authority.The paper will consist of five parts: a synopsis of liberation theology

—

primarily from theperspective of Latin American liberation theologians

—

and the role of prophets and prophecy inliberation theology; a look at extra-hierarchical prophets in the scriptures, with an emphasis onSamuel the Lamanite in the Book of Mormon; an expanded definition of this distinct propheticrole and its relationship to the authoritative prophets of the Church; an overview of modern-dayextra-hierarchical prophets within and without the Church; and finally, a call for furtherprophetic voices from philosophers, theologians, and scholars in the Church.In the preface to

Mysterium Liberationis,

a collection of essays on Latin American

liberation theology, Jon Sobrino writes that the purpose of theology is to ―give a voice

to the

voiceless, to combat lies and injustice, and to foster truth and community.‖

Growing out of themid-twentieth century, liberation theology arose as a result of theologians in Latin America,

primarily Catholic, asking what it is that Christ and Christianity had to do with the grosssystemic poverty and injustice plaguing their countries. As Roberto Oliveros writes,As we turn to the world of the Latin American popular masses and open our eyesto see those masses, we find ourselves face to face with the results of centuries of institutionalized injustice. Millions upon millions of persons are subjected to an inhuman,demeaning poverty. We run up against this unjust poverty with every step we take, andthe collision deeply shakes the hearts of Christians of goodwill. . . .[Like Moses and Egypt] . . . the brutal facts of the slavery and poverty of the LatinAmerican masses has been decisive in our reflection upon reality in the light of the Godof Jesus Christ. . . . In order to proclaim and live the Good News of the Reign of God, wemust acquire a new consciousness of the being and the task of the church. . . .What seminal experience and intuition has given the rise to the theology of liberation? Purely and simply, the daily experience of the unjust poverty in whichmillions of our fellow Latin Americans are obliged to live. In and from this experienceemerges the shattering word of the God of Moses and of Jesus:

this situation is not thewill of that God

Taking literally Jesus‘

s announcement that he i

s the anointed one to ―bring good news to the

poor, . . . to proclaim release to the captives . . . ,

[and] to let the oppressed go free‖ (Luke

4:18)

—

as well as his declaration that the primary recipients of his good news were the poor,hungered, injusticed, and meek

—

liberation theology contends that the gross reality of povertyand oppression requires that we understand the Christian message through a hermeneutic of,what Gustavo Gutierrez termed,

the ―preferential option for the poor.‖

This means that allaspects of Christ, the Gospel, and Christianity need to be understood in how it addresses theplight of the poor

—

including

Jesus‘s life, the Cross, and resurrection, soteriology, ecclesiology,

evangelization, scripture, sacraments and community. In approaching the question of sin, IgnacioEllacuria writes:We must ask in all seriousness what the sin of the world is today, or in what forms the sinof the world appears today; this sin is different from personal sins but is oftenconditioned by them and continues or prolongs them. . . .If we look at the reality of the world as a whole from the perspective of faith, wesee that the sin of the world is sharply expressed today in what must be called unjust

poverty. Poverty and injustice appear today as

the great negation of God‘s will and as the

annihilation of the desired presence of God among human beings.

If unjust poverty is the sin of the world, then Christ, who came to save us from the sins of theworld, is foremost concerned with liberating captives (the poor) from unjust poverty. Salvation,thus, is salvation from temporal suffering and oppression.Like Christ, sin, and salvation, prophecy (or what it means to be a prophet) must also beinterpreted through this hermeneutic of poverty and oppression. According to Ellacuría,

―Prophecy is understood

[in liberation theology] to be the critical contrasting of the proclamation

of the fullness of the Kingdom of God with a definitive historical situation.‖

In other words,prophecy primarily consists of pointing out where our current situation fails to meet the divinestandards of justice and equality. Thus, in light of the preferential option for the poor, thegreatest contrast between the idealized Reign or Kingdom of God (what Ellacuria calls

―Christian utopia‖)

and the current historical (or real) situation is seen in the plight of theeconomically oppressed. For Latter-day Saints, a similar contrast

between God‘s ideal Christian

utopia and historic poverty is made explicit in LDS scripture w

here Enoch‘s Zion utopia in the

Book of Moses is such that

―there was no poor among them‖ (Moses 7:18) and the

Nephiteutopia in the Book of Mormon is a state in which

―there were no rich and poor, bond and free‖ (4

Ne. 1:3). Simply put, prophecy declares that the reality of poverty marks a failure of humanity torealize the equality that God demands. (Compare this to

D&C 49:20, which states that ―

it is notgiven that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth insin.

‖)

It is with this understanding of prophecy that Gilberto da Silva Gorgulho, writes that

―the

most radical prophecy [in the Hebrew Bible] . . . is uttered as defense of the rural population and

of the rights of the poor.‖

This radical prophecy is exemplified in nearly all of the writings of