Was Jesus a revolutionary?
Well … obviously not in the conventional sense. Yet, with the pope in Brazil last week to open a meeting of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean, the question has surfaced again. Why? Because this region, which has the most Catholics, is also the most unequal in the world. While Catholic leaders worry about growing secularization and the hemorrhaging of the faithful to Pentecostal churches, pervasive poverty is impossible to ignore. So is the familiar question, What would Jesus do?, and another, What should his followers do?
Most agree they should feed the hungry and clothe the naked. But what about the policies and institutions that generate death-dealing poverty? Not all agree on a response. Bishop Hélder Câmara of Brazil used to say, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
Some, including some bishops, see the church’s mission as the salvation of souls –of rich and poor alike. For these Christians, promoting justice, although important, is not strictly “religious.” It ranks low on the church’s agenda.
For others, social justice is central to the faith. The poor –meaning all oppressed and vulnerable people-- are the crucified vicars of Christ today. Unless the church walks with them, it fails to walk with him.
Take Guatemala, where half the children under five are chronically undernourished and wealth and income are extremely concentrated. How can the church announce a credible good news (“gospel”) there, if it fails to denounce that situation? Fortunately, the church in Guatemala does protest --and suffers for its trouble.
Christians with this justice-oriented faith place the poor at the center of their worldview and at the top of the church’s agenda. For them, the same Jesus who said, “My kingdom is not of this world” also said, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth.” His kingdom (or reign) does not “proceed from” this world, with its lies and violence. (If it did, Jesus said, his followers would have fought to rescue him.) Jesus was telling Pilate, “My politics are very different from yours and Caesar’s.”
His are the divine politics of truth and service, of a “reign” that transforms social relations as well as souls. This implies that the clergy do well not to run for Congress. Their job is different from Caesar’s. On the other hand, we dare not privatize religion, isolating it from politics. Rather, let church leaders stay free enough to remind Caesar that he will have to render to God an account for the fate of the poor and weak.
Countless Christians --like bishops Oscar Romero in El Salvador and Juan Gerardi in Guatemala and Sister Dorothy Stange in Brazil—have suffered death in recent years in defense of the poor in Latin America.
Their examples will help keep the social question on the Church's agenda.
J. Dean Brackley has taught theology at the Universidad Centroamericana in El Salvador, Central America since 1990, where he also serves as pastor in an urban community. Brackley was born in the U.S. in 1946, entered the Jesuit order in 1964 and was ordained in 1976. He received his doctorate in theological ethics at the University of Chicago in 1980. In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked in social ministry and popular education in New York City, before teaching briefly at Fordham University (1989-90). His most recent book is "The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times."
