Theological Reflection - The significance of Political Theology on Vulnerable People

Introduction

The objective of this essay is a limited treatment assessing the significance of Johann Baptist Metz’s political theology on the situation of (subjects) vulnerable individuals and groups, persons and communities. In this essay, ‘the vulnerable’ is used mostly for vulnerable subject/community. The essay bear in mind Metz’s clarity that both Jesus and his kingdom message are unblemished. Given that the problem of vulnerability implicitly connect to many actors including its drivers who operate contrary to the Kingdom message, then the core issue revolves around all subjects as bearers of human condition. This implying that ‘Christians continue to fail until’.

In order to address the problems and associated issues, the essay is divided into three sections. The first section will identify in what sense the subject/community in modernity is ‘vulnerable’. This process enables us to provide distributed geographical perspectives of vulnerable people in modernity. The process ends with linking the identified perspectives in light of both historical and geopolitical connections to a common source and its temporal vehicle of transmission from origin to its current manifestation. The second section focuses on how Christianity responds to vulnerability in order to identify specific strategies and operations for addressing the problems. This treatment will review and explicated Christian spirituality for strengthening vulnerable subject/community towards making it resilient.

The third section previews Christian response to vulnerable subject/community in Africa. Metz’s political theology will be assessed based on its original contexts and potential replicability in Africa. The outcome of the exercise will fuel a comparison of Metz’s and Emmanuel Katongole’s political theologies geared towards ‘extracting’ constructive and insightful themes for advancing Christian responds to vulnerability in Africa.

Insights from the three sections will be summarised in the conclusion.

 Vulnerable Subject/Community in Modernity?

Metz placed reality in its historical, social, economic and political contexts at the centre of his reflections. For him it is only on this basis that a Christian theology of hope is feasible. Christian theology is “a defence of hope (in God)” with a holistic and integrated lived experience including but unlimited to intellectual labour.[1] In a sense his reflection could be categorised as a theology of hope for the subject, persons and communities in their ordinary reality. We readily admit that these reflections draw from unique contexts set within a distinct historical panorama and its coterminous geography. Nevertheless, an appreciation of vulnerable subject/community can make sense with acknowledging the situations accentuated by Enlightenment in its civilizational upset, and examples in later times in other places.

The emergence of two situations opened the way to vulnerability in the new era. First, from this time, the identity of faith and religious consciousness as the accepted popular norm ceased, so going forward faith had to defend and justify itself publicly. Second, is the breaking up of unity of religion and society. As a result the spiritual order underpinning daily ordinary lived experience was irreversibly overthrown.[2] The ensuing crisis of religion due to attack on tradition and authority led to the rejection of revealed religion, loss of both authentic spirituality and genuine Christian community.[3] With this background the picture of the vulnerable becomes clearer especially in contrast with other subjects.

The vulnerable is not the new man in so far as they aren’t part of the middle and ruling classes. However, the combined ‘upper’ classes are a minority “who arose in the Enlightenment and came to assert himself in the processes of the modern era, during which he was made absolute.” Middle-class Christian view is “reduced to the level of private subject existing without problems in society and to that of individual moral righteousness.”[4] The resulting spirituality is inauthentic, privatised and interiorised.

Metz concluded that the vulnerable is the subject who is in society but doesn’t control any of its aspects. They are unable to control it rather are dominated and alienated in almost “everything in the natural world and in human history.”[5] They are victims of the ruling and middle-classes, the interlocking networked elite “that attempt to dictate and define the essence of Christianity according to their sensitivities.”[6] Vulnerable subject/community oppose the ruling and middle-classes, and their power whose “rejection or destruction of tradition and memory led to the vulnerable’ loss of freedom and autonomy.”[7] For the vulnerable, imposed disconnection between religion and spirituality led to their exclusion and alienation within a structure that sustain their situation rather than improve it.

Gutierrez identified the vulnerable with the poor for whom “poverty means death; lack of food and housing, the inability to attend properly to health and education needs, the exploitation of worker’s permanent unemployment, the lack of respect for one’s human dignity, and unjust limitations placed on personal freedom in the areas of self-expression, politics, and religion”.[8] He also noted that the vulnerable aren’t passive in their situation rather observed that “being poor is a way of living, thinking, loving, believing, and hoping, spending leisure time, and struggling for a livelihood. Being poor today is also increasingly coming to mean being involved in the struggle for justice and peace, defending one’s life and freedom, seeking a more democratic participation in the decisions made by society, organising ‘to live their faith in an integral way, and being committed to the liberation of every human being’.”[9]

Davidson saw the vulnerable in African populations as “the newly ‘urbanised’ were consigned to shantytowns in places of largely waterless desolation on the fringes of European quarters and urban unemployment; meaning in practice a fight for survival at the lowest possible levels of subsistence, because the curse that would afterward spread an epidemic scourge of relentless poverty.”[10] These are victims of the state and development policies which “turned into concerted aggression against the common people, producing a theatre of alienation.”[11] For these people, “there were the miseries of hardship, danger and solitude, the temptation to withdraw into neutrality, the longing for hope and sleep and safety when no such safety, let alone for food or even sleep, was anywhere to be looked for or even to be hoped for.”[12]

Katongole in an update located the vulnerable in post-cold war Africa as the majority peoples of national populations caught in “the predicament of a continent suspended between hope and despair.”[13] After decades of post-independence poor governance and conflicts, these peoples continue to suffer and struggle with “hope and pain, the beauty and tragedy, the dreams and frustration of a continent that is at once overwhelmingly Christian and at the same time politically, economically and socially distressed.”[14] Clearly, while the states alienated the peoples the new religion faced scrutiny.

Paul VI recognised the situation of vulnerable subject/community by providing them with transnational and geopolitical significance. He viewed them as “peoples as we know, engaged with all their energy in the effort and struggle to overcome everything which condemns them to remain on the margin of life: famine, chronic disease, illiteracy, poverty, injustices in international relations and especially in commercial exchanges, situations of economic and cultural neo-colonialism sometimes as cruel as the old political colonialism.”[15] The papal view brought other cited views into sharp focus in seamless alignment with Metz reflections, particularly the systemic process of exclusion and alienation of vulnerable subject/community within national and international structures across generations up to the modern era.

In summary vulnerable subject/community have a long history and global reach. Exclusion, alienation and marginalisation defines their existence in different territories irrespective of governmental system run by middle and ruling classes. Metz identified the primacy of profit-oriented exchange over all activities in the territory, which consigned religious and other non-exchangeable values to the private domain. For rulers, the middle-class who rejected tradition, memory and religion is the keys to resource control for creating a new society.[16] The implication is that vulnerable subject/community is seen as a strategic threat hence their alienation, exclusion and marginalisation.

Kirwan attempted to clarify the underpinning theological templates including the ‘high tradition of political theology’ of the Middle Ages which inherited Augustinian two cities or ‘doctrine of the two. The contrast and struggles between earthly and spiritual matters for a time consolidated with the amalgamation of the Church and Empire in Christendom as “the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order.” Pope Gregory’s supremacy of spiritual authority on the basis of pope’s headship of the Church and regency of God on earthly matters clearly diverge from Augustinian thought.[17] This framework held despite numerous conflicts until the Enlightenment.

Convergence of forces from 1648 Treaty of Westphalia and the Enlightenment overthrew Christendom thereby inserting the primacy of civil authorities with subordinated religion under absolute earthly rulers, as stipulated in 1555 Peace of Augsburg (cuius regio, eius religio = whose territory, his religion). This implies the absolute right of each ruler to govern his own territory, and duty of non-interference in other territories. The ruler also impose his own religion on his subject, and other rulers/territories must not interfere.[18] 1555 treaty also approved the secularisation of Catholic lands expropriated by protestant rulers before 1522, and decreed equality between Catholics and Lutherans as Christian religious entities.[19] In this climate new spaces opened for diverse and conflicting confessional interpretations of ‘the doctrine of the two’ while the process of earthly rule consolidated in sovereign territories. Intergenerational transformation of these territories where profit-oriented exchange is the public activity resulted in nation-states of the modern era. We argue without condemnation of territory itself that nation-states within a geopolitical system imbued with imperialist connotation are the transmission vehicles of vulnerability once Enlightenment sparked crisis of tradition, authority and religion. At this point we turn to solutions to vulnerable subject/community.

Christianity’s Responds to Vulnerable Subject/Community

By its commission and mission, Christianity must respond to the plight of vulnerable subject/community. Such response must be situated in authentic (political) spirituality which rejects idolatry of political religions and acknowledge fragility of post-Enlightenment modern subject including the vulnerable. Kirwan linked an authentic response to Augustinian discernment that connect political spirituality to true love, true worship and true (lasting) peace.[20] It is important to clarify fragility of subjects towards an advantage for an authentic Christian responds.

Distinction between fragility of middle class subject cum middle class Christianity and that of the vulnerable deserve attention. The former results as beneficiary of freedom and autonomy promised by Enlightenment by switching loyalty from religion to political idolatry where prayer (and community) is absent.[21] The cost of limited perception of freedom and narrow institutional options include immaturity, identity crisis, dehumanisation and devaluation. Most importantly, the middle-class is strategically disempowered towards finding lasting holistic solutions to their problems outside religion despite their material sufficiency.[22]  With these points we’ll focus on Metz reflections on (spirituality) response.

Metz correctively articulated that Christianity is equally compromised and in need of transformation, a necessary step towards an authentic spirituality for effective response. Any response must reject privatisation, individualisation and isolated interiorisation of religion. Christianity must recover its radical edge through reappropriating “‘dangerous memory’ of freedom of Jesus’ proclamation of the coming kingdom as the liberating power of unconditional love.” Christianity must mobilise dangerous tradition and subversive memory challenging, oppressing and questioning the present to liberate us from all attempts to idolise cosmic and political powers and make them absolute.”[23] This actions “enable the Church to draw strength to criticise all totalitarian system of government and all ideologies of a linear and one-dimensional emancipation.”[24] We argue that systems are totalitarian precisely for unleashing “social forces which threaten to prevent or undermine the individual’s potential for empathy, and for independent thought and action.”[25] This reflects modern nation-states.

Praxis of Imitation

The spirituality underpinning dangerous memory concentrate on the praxis of imitation of Jesus Christ, a practical theology structure melding pure reflection and practical variables. Metz argued that “it is only when they imitate Christ that Christians know who it is to whom they have given the consent and who saves them.” The Gospel narratives and commandments are the fuels of praxis (of faith in mystical and political imitation of Christ).[26] Its Christological and eschatological knowledge under the Holy Spirit connects to metanoia, conversion and exodus. Praxis must not be neutral or politically innocent, it must take the side of the vulnerable.[27] This praxis of imitation connects to transformed mimetics which locates desire to non-rivalry, cohesion, respect and mutual self-emptying. This is both contrary to and opposite of Girardian propositions regarding violence.[28] Nevertheless in light of disrupting evil structures feeding vulnerability, Girard agrees that Christ is the object of imitation, the image of God the Father through the Holy Spirit. Simply put, the mission of Christianity is teaching and effecting transformed mimetics of Christ.[29] Still Metz didn’t clarify clerics’ leadership role in praxis of imitation. 

Authentic praxis has qualities. It must be ethical in other to overcome malice, hatred and violence without using violence. It must be historical in real situations to elevate accurate memory of truths in society, economy and politics in order to successfully subvert the status quo. Dangerous memory facilitates harvesting of dangerous narratives from refreshed collective historical memory.[30] Praxis must understand sorrow, suffering, joy and solidarity (including with the dead) to crystallize truth and relevance.[31]

Metz recognised that praxis i.e. authentic spirituality is effective through three important practices consisting of prayer, faith and hope. These and more restore Christianity’s sensitivity to suffering and renew its zeal to respond on behalf of the vulnerable.[32]

Prayer is a critical resource that grounds the vulnerable in God’s presence and concretise her place in the community. This solidarity in supplication connect the living together strongly and with the dead. To pray is courageous, as a reserviour of powerful movements of interactions that revitalise dignity and identity, renew relevance of community and refresh responsible actions against challenging situations.  Metz saw that “prayer therefore impelled the one who prayed to remain a subject and not to avoid his responsibility in view of his own guilt. It made him become a subject in the presence of his enemies and in the midst of fear to lose his name, and his own and himself.”[33] Especially through Baptism, Holy Eucharist and Paschal Mystery; Christ meld with the vulnerable in unchangeable solidarity, nourishing and redeeming it with the world.[34] Therefore in prayer the vulnerable unites with God, is irreducible, strengthened and motivated.[35]

The second practice is faith in God. This is the expression of enduring consent to God in the face of uncertainties and unchanging situations even when it is going horribly wrong. It is not a deceptive device to deny the situation rather consistent dynamic decision to face situations in solidarity with the community. For Metz, “the faith of Christians is a praxis of history and society that is to be understood as hope in solidarity in the God of Jesus Christ as a God of the living and the dead who calls all men to be subject in his presence.” This is also faith in “a God of universal justice and resurrection of the dead.”[36] Faith is the source of the power that liberates, the power to bear and overcome, the power that unites communities.

Hope is the virtue that enables the vulnerable to endure suffering without justifying or accept it, to recall memories and be joyful in the face of oppression. This is not isolated movement rather it connects strongly with everyone in the community including the dead. Hope fuels empathy and nourishes solidarity. Metz recognised that “the Christian does not primarily hope for himself – he also has to hope for others and, in this hope, for himself. The hope of Christians in a God of the living and the dead in a revolution for all men, including those who suffer and have suffered unjustly, those who have long been forgotten and even dead.”[37] With this resourceful hope, we turn to African political theology on the vulnerable.

African Political Theology on Vulnerable Subject/Community

Any attempt at African Christian political theology in the modern era must acknowledge a number of issues. First, it must recognise a dynamic complexity funded by foreign imposition of ideas of Africa. These are mostly European imagined representations and perceptions unconnected to African contexts that deny African dignity, African agency and contributions.[38] Second, despite Christianity’s mission and diverse continuing contribution in Africa, its post-slavery mission from Europe connected with the first point started as a handmaid of colonialism. Simply put, Christianity is part of the problem. This point doesn’t imply that Christianity is foreign to Africa, no, Christianity is African from the start.[39] Third, modern Africa vulnerable subject/community is a product of dynamic processes sparked by the Enlightenment, transmitted to the continent with Christianity contribution and sustained by a geopolitical system of nation-states as successors of colonial states.[40]  The above points help us to navigate both Metz and Katongole’s reflections including an example of the latter’s praxis.  

Metz’s reflection is christologically consistent and theoretically dynamic, drawing from his German and European contexts for wide interaction irrespective of cultures, times and contexts. Petrella’s diversionary insights on Metz’s contexts that minimised Metz’s own victimhood of the Third Reich national socialist policies is unhelpful.[41] No single context or culture has monopoly of theological reflections to alleviate political problems including vulnerable subject/community.[42] Therefore Metz’s reflection are replicable in the our situation in so far as African primary contexts are considered and seriously taken into account.

Katongole’s reflections is rich with hopeful potentials and unique innovative insights including points of agreement with Metz. Like Metz, he argued for the recovery of the true political core of Christianity and Christian theology in Africa.[43] He rejected division of labour or relegation of Christianity from politics of everyday experience by answering an oppressed colonial Congolese question, “Has the Saviour you tell us of any power to save us from rubber trouble?”[44] Like Metz, he holds “reticence of Christianity” (in Africa) to account because of its middle-class privatised and individualised spirituality.[45] He identified politics of greed and plunder, and abuse of noble ideas of civilisation, progress, democracy and development; both by the colonialists as the root-causes of a theology of desacralisation of Africans. Colonial coercion, oppression, impunity, marginalisation, conflict and genocide normalised. Desacralisation is the key to dispensability of African lives, their devaluation and stripping of dignity. The legacy errors/horror and institutions were inherited and extended by most modern African leaders.[46] 

Katongole like Metz located authentic Christian response to vulnerable subject/community is “a different story that assumes the sacred value and dignity of Africa and Africans” to shape “new forms of politics that reflect this sacredness and dignity.”[47] He also concluded that  (lamentation) prayer of theopraxis and solidarity as resources of corrective praxis.[48] We’ll look at an example of impactful praxis.

Emmanuel Kataliko was the Catholic Archbishop of Bukavu, DR Congo. He assumed office during a turbulent transition from 1997 in Eastern Congo. He saw the practical and political issues as the core elements of his theological and pastoral ministry.[49] He lived authentically simple as “a humble, soft-spoken but courageous priest…he had not only spiritual but also social/political power in the community.”[50] He was personally involved in the building of roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and even a university.[51]

During the second Congo war his praxis prioritised practical public community issues. As a spiritual leader he strategically conscientized the vulnerable subject/community with pastoral letters. In one he wrote that, “our city will soon disappear if we are not careful. We must do something before the next rainy season in September.” This was a reminder to all including non-Catholics, Muslims and indigenous practitioners. Anxiety and insecurity of conflict led him to encourage the people to “stay strong and courageous. The Lord is not abandoning us.”[52]

When a rebel proxy of Rwanda upped looting, plunder, massacre and heavy taxation on his city; he publicly denounced both the proxy and Kigali saying that, “we are crushed by the oppression of domination. Foreign powers, in collaboration with some Congolese brothers, organise wars with the resources of our country.” The entire people mobilised to organise series of long strikes against the presence of foreign troops in Eastern Congo after his arrest and exile until he was released seven months later.[53]

For Kataliko, liturgical ceremonies are resources of life reminding the people not “forgetting liturgical ceremonies, the source of spiritual strength, of our courage to face the future seriously.” In another homily, he advised that, “in the face of violence, let us endeavour to resist with all the strength of our faith, without letting ourselves be taken in by an equal spirit of violence. In the face of poverty that weakens us, react with an effort made in solidarity. In the face of famine that threaten us, let us strive to respond with an even greater engagement in work, without letting ourselves be paralysed by fear and lassitude.”[54]

Conclusion

In this essay, we depict how Metz’ reflection highlighted vulnerable subject/community as a product of Enlightenment-driven assault on tradition, authority and religion. It is also encouraged by Christianity that prioritise privatised and individualised spirituality. We argue with Metz that political theology is grounded in authentic spirituality based on praxis of imitation of Christ via dangerous memory of Christ sustained by prayer, faith, hope and solidarity. Lastly, we drew from Katongole’s insight on African vulnerable as an outcome of colonial states’ policies inherited and extended by successor nation-states. Modern African leaderships are mostly continuing the colonial project and its consequences. We cite an example of praxis underpinned by sacred value of life and human dignity focused on priority of public issues, conscientisation of people and mobilisation of resources in solidarity. The example of personal authenticity and liturgical solidity reveals the fertility of authentic praxis and theology of hope. 

Life is beautiful!

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[1] Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society – Towards a Practical Fundamental Theology. (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), 3.

[2] Ibid., 15.

[3] Ibid., 44 – 45.

[4] Ibid., 28

[5] Ibid., 29.

[6] Ibid.,

[7] Ibid., 29 – 30.

[8] Gustavo Gutierrez A Theology of Liberation – History, Politics and Salvation (London: SCM Press, 1988), 11.

[9] Ibid.,

[10] Basil Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of Nation – State (Oxford: James Currey, 1992), 190.

[11] Ibid., 294.

[12] Ibid, 296.

[13] Emmanuel Katongole, The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2011), 31.

[14] Ibid.,

[15] Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation (Evangelii Nuntiandi), (8 December, 1975), https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19751208_evangelii-nuntiandi.html (last accessed 07 May 2024). Para.30.

[16] Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society – Towards a Practical Fundamental Theology. (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), 36.

[17] Michael Kirwan, Political Theology: A New Introduction (London: Darton, Longmann & Todd, 2008), 54.

[18] Manlio Graziano, Holy Wars & Holy Alliance: The Return of Religion to the Global Political Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 19.

[19] Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present (London: Allen Lane, 2013), 37.

[20] Michael Kirwan, “Spirituality and Politics”, In Bloomsbury Guide to Spirituality, eds. Richard Woods and Peter Tyler (London: Bloomsbury Press, 2012), 189 – 190.

[21] Andrew Prevot, “Apocalyptic Witness: Johann Baptist Metz,” Political Theology 21, no.3 (2020): 274 – 275.

[22] Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society – Towards a Practical Fundamental Theology. (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), 40.

[23] Ibid., 90 – 91.

[24] Ibid., 91.

[25] Michael Kirwan, “Spirituality and Politics”, In Bloomsbury Guide to Spirituality, eds. Richard Woods and Peter Tyler (London: Bloomsbury Press, 2012), 196.

[26] Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society – Towards a Practical Fundamental Theology. (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), 77

[27] Ibid., 54.

[28] Michael Kirwan, Girard and Theology ( London: T & T Clark, 2009), 22 – 25.

[29] Ibid., 100.

[30] Ibid., 57.

[31] Ibid., 60.

[32] Johann Baptist Metz, “God and Evil of this World: Forgotten, Unforgettable Theodicy,” In Concilium, ed. Catherine Cornille (London: SCM Press, 2022), 158.

[33] Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society – Towards a Practical Fundamental Theology. (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), 61.

[34] John Marsden, “The Political Theology of Johannes Baptist Metz,” Heythrop Journal 53 (2012): 451.

[35] Johann Baptist Metz, Love’s Strategy: The Political Theology of Johann Baptist Metz (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999), 164.

[36] ________ Faith in History and Society – Towards a Practical Fundamental Theology. (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), 73 – 74.

[37] Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society – Towards a Practical Fundamental Theology. (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), 76.

[38] V Y Mudimbe, Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the order of Knowledge (London: James Currey, 1988), 25.

[39] Thomas C Oden, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press), 13, 25.

[40] Basil Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of Nation – State (Oxford: James Currey, 1992), 251.

[41] Ivan Petrella,  The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 127.

[42] Aristotle Papanikolaou, The Mystical As Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy (Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 2012), 5 – 9.

[43] Emmanuel Katongole, The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2011), 1.

[44] Ibid., 20.

[45] Ibid., 21.

[46] Ibid., 14 – 17.

[47] Ibid., 21.

[48] Emmanuel Katongole, Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), xvi – xviii.

[49] Ibid., 123.

[50] Ibid., 127.

[51] Ibid.,

[52] Ibid., 124.

[53] Ibid., 124 – 125.

[54] Ibid., 131.