Chapter Four - Domination and Political Theology

The Relevance of Theology

The relevance of theology for a discussion of domination is indicated by the fact that the political theology of Davis, Metz, Moltmann, Peukert, and Siebert, takes up many of the concerns of critical theory and explores and develops them in significant ways. This is of intellectual interest because it would have been initially reasonable to assume that critical theory, as a kind of Marxism, would have been at the very least antithetical to theological discourse which takes as its beginning the existence of God. Many forms of Marxism reject the notion of God, and thence reject theology, dismissing religion as an ideology, though by no means do these forms of Marxism neglect the sociological importance of a faith in God, just as they do not neglect the importance of other ideologies they take to be obstacles to humanity's struggle for maturity, autonomy, and freedom from domination. Critical theorists, especially Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, largely followed this atheistic tack. The fact that Max Horkheimer, especially towards the end of his life, was explicitly drawn to raise theological issues and indeed asserted that any politics which does not contain a theological moment was mere business, ought not be overlooked even as his closest colleagues, Adorno and Marcuse, always remained true to the atheistic trends in Marxism, though Adorno did briefly use theology­like language near the end of his life. But what Horkheimer was seeking to describe was not so much an explicitly Christian belief in God, but rather the indefatigable human hope that 3... this injustice which characterizes the world is not permanent, that injustice will not be the last word2 (in Küng, 1978: 491). The fact that some political theologians are developing their theologies along lines indicated by the work of Jürgen Habermas further relates the two traditions in the theoretical sections of this thesis, if only for intellectual reasons (Siebert, 1976, 1983, 1985; Peukert, 1986). To be sure, Christianity and major religious institutions have traditionally served to legitimate the status quo far more than challenge it, or more recently sought to become bastions against disturbing social changes wrought by modernity. Religious movements have also been change agents to challenge, and in some cases, overturn relations of domination. This latter role of religion, particularly Christianity, is what radical political as well as Liberation theologians, have emphasised. In many cases, the critiques of domination offered by these theologians have been one­sided, emphasising economic domination manifesting in unjust economic relations to the neglect of the domination of women as producers in so­called Third World economies, or emphasising ethnic domination to the neglect of structural aspects of domination built into the routine workings of their society. Alistair Kee, a British political theologian, has cautioned against grappling with specific instances of domination to the neglect of domination as such. Domination, for Kee, 3... has to be understood as an ideology which hides behind accepted values and respected institutions [which] ... runs so deeply that in many cases those who have no intention of dominating nevertheless continue oppression2 (Kee, 1986: xi). Kee points to an aspect of domination already mentioned in this thesis. The motives of, say, Western aid workers in so­called Developing countries may be entirely noble, but the ways they might use when helping the locals might correspond with a Îbanking1 conception of education as criticised by Paulo Freire, deflect the people1s attention away from the social, political, and economic roots of their misery, and thus reinforce the domination under which they exist (Freire, 1972). Domination is often obscured, and can be difficult to identify. But the way liberation and political theologians tend to attempt to identify domination and its causes is to join with society1s victims to hear their cries and mediate those cries to others concerned to transform social orders and individuals. This discussion emphasises the broad, socially directed, political dimensions of the theologies being considered, but both political and liberation theologians also explicitly consider the private, inner, spiritual dimensions of faith and practice. To be sure, the tension between inner spirituality and outward action can itself be a means of reinforcing domination, and not a few Christians traditions emphasise inner spirituality in ways which lend support to established domination, if only by calling on their adherents to avoid political action. In contrast, if domination has existential components to it, and results in malformed personalities, then positing an alternative praxis rooted in more spiritual dimensions of human experience becomes crucial to an holistic approach to the practical critique of domination. The American Jesuit, John Kavanaugh, argues that prayer, as a social and political act, repudiates the insidiousness of materialist and consumerist domination: The centring of prayer is ultimately an exercise in honesty, in getting in touch with our needfulness and poverty so shrilly denied by commercialism and materialism. It is an exercise in self­revelation rather than self­deception. Prayer is an assault upon the fraudulence of mere roles, of social and cultural pretence, of the idols we cling to and are enslaved by (Kavanaugh, 1982: 121). The dynamic relationship between inner faith and outward action can be visualised as an endless spiral rather than a simple dialectic, as something of a continuing movement from orthodoxy, or Îright belief1, to orthopraxy, or Îright praxis1 or action in and upon the world, and back again (Gutierrez, 1973: 10 ­ 13). Gustavo Gutierrez, a leading Peruvian Liberation theologian, maintains that spirituality lies at the foundations of theological reflection: Spiritual experience is the terrain in which theological experience strikes root. Intellectual comprehension makes it possible to carry the experience of faith to a deeper level... The level of the experience of faith supports a particular level of the understanding of faith. For theology is in fact a reflection that, even in its rational aspect, moves entirely within the confines of faith and direct testimony (Gutierrez, 1984: 35 ­ 36). Gutierrez recognises the multi­dimensionality of Christian faith and practice, a multi­dimensionality which the German theologian, Hans Küng, argues is embodied in Jesus. 3He determines and influences man's life and conduct, not only externally, but from within. Following Christ means not only information, but formation: not merely a superficial change, but a change of heart and therefore the change of the whole man2 (Küng, 1974: 551 ­ 552). From this position it appears possible to argue that at least one way in which domination can be challenged, perhaps even overturned, is to follow Christ because doing so puts the believer outside the demands of allegiance to any secular ideology or power, and thence necessarily brings the believer into conflict with those ideologies and powers, especially if the unity of belief and practice is accepted as crucial to authentic faith. A further dimension to political and Liberation theologies ought to be mentioned as well. If critical theory is accurate about its general diagnosis of individuals being squeezed, as it were, into a diminishing space which remains free from being colonised by rationalization, but which is under constant threat of colonisation, that diminishing space ought to be seen as rather crucial because it is here that individuals remain at least partly free from having their Îselves1 determined by the pressures and requirements of the public world of work and formal organisations (e.g., Habermas, 1984: 70 ­ 74; 340 ­ 343; 1987: 332 ­ 373). Habermas puts the matter this way: Owing to the instrumentalization of the lifeworld by systemic constraints, the communicative practice of everyday life suffers from a forced adjustment to cognitive­instrumental action orientations and tends to corresponding reaction­formations. But this one­sided rationalization or reification of everyday practice, a practice which is wholly reliant upon the interplay of cognitive with moral­practical and aesthetic­expressive elements, should not be confused with a, in my view, different phenomenon: the complementary manifestation of cultural impoverishment that threatens a life­world whose traditional substance has been devalued (Habermas, 1987: 325 ­ 326). The Christian Church, of whatever major denomination, as a large, bureaucratic, hierarchical, and decidedly patriarchal organisation is prey to rationalization as much as any secular organisation, but the Church, understood as simply a community of believers in Christ, is also viewed by some political theologians as a public space in which explicit intersections between private and public lifeworlds can occur. While not denying the importance of private, individual spirituality and religious experience, political and liberation theologians tend to argue that restricting religion to the private sphere contributes to the rationalization of the private life­world by removing another obstacle to this process. The argument from the system's perspective is that the sphere of morality, values, and religion is irrational and best kept to the private areas of one's life. Some political theologians argue that communicative action can be rationally justified and thence ought to expand into the public sphere, leading to a deprivatisation of religious experience: The deprivatization advocated by political theology, if not illusory, must be the overcoming of the polarity between the rational and the existential, between public knowledge and strategic action on the one hand and private faith and voluntary involvement on the other... It must articulate and defend a wider concept of rationality than that of the positivists, so that norms and values, moral and religious, can be recognized as subject to the procedures and criteria of an intersubjective communication and a prudential or practical rationality (Davis, 1980: 177 ­ 178). It is the external information and action aspects of this multi­dimensional faith and practice that matter here. One of the modern founders of political theology, the German theologian Johannes Metz, summarises his understanding of political theology this way: I understand political theology, first of all, to be a critical correction of present­day theology inasmuch as this theology shows an extreme privatizing tendency (a tendency, that is, to centre upon the private person rather than 3public,2 3political2 society). At the same time, I understand this political theology to be a positive attempt to formulate the eschatological message under the conditions of our present society (Metz, 1969: 107).