Ancient Christian Witness

Just like Saint Augustine (and other Church Fathers) christianized the philosophy of Plato.

Just like Thomas Aquanius and John Calvin christianized the philosophy of Aristotle.


Some thought that they could do the same for the political philosophy of Karl Marx.



What started in Germany soon went to South America, and from South America it has found it's way in some black American churches. It was real popular in the 1960's, but such a theology is really unnecessary.


Christianity has always had a social theology. One can find it in the Gospels when one looks at the Sermon on the mount.

One can look in 1st John and in the Epistle of Saint James to see that Christians cared about their neighbor.

One can look at the early Church right after the Apostolic era. Christians gave to the poor, they saved the lives of unwanted Babies that were discarded by the pagan Romans.

It wasn't uncommon to see christians give all their monatory wealth to the poor around them.

Saint Cyprian gave his wealth away. Saint Augustine sold his estate(or part of it....I forgot which) and gave the money to the poor in his community.

One of Saint Augustine's enemies did the same. Julian was defrocked as a Bishop for supporting Pelagius against Augustine.......and just like Augustine.....he too gave all his wealth to the poor in his town.


So we don't need Liberation Theology. But since it is here.........what needs to be done is what was done in the past when christians tried to christianize the pagan culture around them.

One needs to use "some" of the truths found in Liberation theology to express "some" of the teachings of the christian faith. This method should be done when the audience is trapped in a communist culture.

And when the Audience is a christian culture or a mixed audience ...then one needs to change the pagan word or concept to fit a christian teaching. This is what the Church Fathers have done. They purged the meaning and contexts of pagan words all the time. Even the Apostles did it.

When one looks at the word heaven, "Kosmos".....one will notice that this greek word meant something different to the pagan greeks. The Apostles christianized that word. the Hellenistic Jews had to do the same when they translated texts from Aramiac and Hebrew to greek.


This same concept applies to all of our contact with the nonchristian World.





Christianity has never embraced all of the pagan culture around them. Only the good. And how one does that is to see what is in agreement with the Christian Faith.

Once that goodness is found then everything around it needs to be purged. Something similar happens in medicene. One finds the active ingredient in order to help find cures.

In our case, the active ingredient is the "good" found in the culture. It is my belief that God through Prevenient grace planted certain seeds of truth in pagan cultures to help draw them closer to Christ.

Once we find these truths in our missionary efforts, we can use them to help express a truth of the christian Faith.


This hasn't happened yet in Liberation Theology. It still looks to much like Marxism. Thus it needs more purging.



But like I said before...........it is unnecessary for Christianity always had it's own social view.

Thus Liberation Theology was an experiment gone wrong. We can't christianize everything.

Out of all the pagan greek philosophers, Socratese and Plato were two of the closest to christianity.

This was the only reason why they were usable. Every philosophy can't be christianized.........especially the philosophy of Karl Marx.









JNORM888