The reason for reading had been a passing interest in Romans 16 v. 1-16, but, having noted the gifted writer’s comments, we read on to find what he had to say on the next four verses. They referred, he said, “to a serious spiritual peril in the Roman community” which must be handled even if only briefly, before Paul closed his epistle. There were men who talked much of a mystic freedom, and they were “free indeed from the accepted dominion of the Redeemer — but all the more they are enslaved to themselves.” These men might have had special hopes of beguiling the Roman Christians with their “good words and fair speeches” because of their well-known readiness to submit with the submission of faith, to sublime truths. Paul, however, “would not have their holy readiness to believe, distorted into an unhallowed and falsely tolerant curiosity. He would have their faith not only submissive but spiritually intelligent; then they would be alive to the risks of a counterfeited and illusory ‘Gospel’. They would feel, as with an educated Christian instinct, where decisively to hold back, where to refuse attention to unwholesome teaching.”
The apostle concludes his exhortation by likening this spiritual mischief to a serpent, to a stratagem of their arch foe, that old serpent the devil, showing in this way his antagonism to Christ and his people. “But the Enemy’s Conqueror, working in you, will make the struggle short and derisive.”
The writer went on to ask what was the mischief, and who precisely were the dangerous teachers spoken of so abruptly and urgently by Paul. And having agreed that the question is not easily answered, and also dismissed the idea that they were an extreme school of theoretical “liberty” such as chapters 14 and 15 might suggest, he decided that Paul had in mind men whose purposes and teachings were nothing but evil, and who should be avoided; not met in conference, but solemnly refused any further hearing.
What he said next caught our special attention. Last year those attending the Theological Conference were alerted to the dangers of a new religious theory going by the name of the Theology of Liberation. Since then, several clergymen stationed in depressed industrial areas had been heard putting over what sounded like simplified forms of this teaching in the early morning religious talks. And, more recently, Gerald Priestland, the religious correspondent of the BBC had been heard discussing this Liberation Theology as it affected religious life in many parts of Latin America today. This programme had been tuned into accidentally, and in circumstances which, unfortunately, allowed only a short part of it to be heard.
In that brief period we heard several exponents of the new theology give their interpretation of some parts of the Gospel in which the freeing of persons from hunger, disease, etc is described. The Gospel was presented as a message solely for the benefit of the literal poor. The words in Luke 6 v. 20 — “Blessed by ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” were in an authoritative and plausible manner made to mean, “Blessed are you who have been made poor” (by the oppression of rich men), for yours is the kingdom of God.” And, of course, much was made of the woe pronounced on the rich a few verses further on. Several passages were treated in like manner, divested of all spiritual meaning, and applied to the poor, the underprivileged, the oppressed, and so on. The Gospels were by this treatment made to yield a political, not a religious message.
With this in mind we read on — “In our view, the case was one of embryo Gnosticism. The Romans, so we take it, were troubled by teachers who used the language of Christianity, saying much of ‘Redemption’, and of ‘Emancipation’, and something of ‘Christ’, and of ‘the Spirit’; but all the while they meant a thing totally different from the Gospel of the Cross. They meant by redemption and freedom, the liberation of spirit from” matter. They meant by Christ and the Spirit, mere links in a chain of phantom beings supposed to span the gulf between the Absolute Unknowable Existence and the finite World. And their morality too often tended to the tenet that as matter was hopelessly evil, and spirit the unfortunate prisoner in matter, the material body had nothing to do with its unwilling and pure Inhabitant: let the body go its own evil way, and work out its base desires.
“Our sketch is taken from developed Gnosticism such as is known to have been a generation or two later than Paul. But it is more than likely that such errors were present, in essence, all through the Apostolic age. And it is easy to see how they could from the first disguise themselves in the special terminology of the Gospel of liberty and of the Spirit.
“Such things may look to us, after eighteen hundred years, only like fossils of the old rocks. They are indeed fossil specimens — but of existing species. The atmosphere of the Christian world is still infected from time to time — perhaps more now than a few generations ago, whatever that fact may mean — with unwholesome subtleties in which the purest forms of truth are indescribably manipulated into the deadliest related error: a mischief sure to betray itself, however, (where the man tempted to parley with it is at once wakeful and humble), by some fatal flaw of pride, or of untruthfulness, or of an uncleanness however subtle. And for the believer so tempted, under common circumstances, there is still, as of old, no counsel more weighty than Paul’s counsel here. If he would deal with such snares in the right way, he must ‘turn away from them’. He must turn away to the Christ of history. He must occupy himself anew with the primeval Gospel of pardon, holiness and heaven.”
The Gnosticism referred to above was a serious danger to the Church in the second and third centuries. It was a gross perversion of the Gospel, but was presented in much of the familiar language of the Gospel. Satan has repeatedly employed what he has found to be a successful device for luring souls away from the truth. It is being done still by Protestants teaching liberal doctrine, by some of the modern sects, and now by the exponents of the Theology of Liberation. “Saying much of ‘Redemption’, and of ‘Emancipation’, and something of ‘Christ’, and of ‘the Spirit’; but all the while they meant a thing totally different from the Gospel of the Cross.”
A flood of pernicious errors has engulfed the visible church in our time. They are all the more dangerous when couched in the hallowed, familiar language of the salvation of God. We are apt to be affected by the imposing facade of human learning, and the ingenious and plausible mixing of the invented and the true. When, additionally, there is a plea for the elimination of gross social injustice, and the whole flavoured with some of the language of the evangel; why, we may wonder if there is not something in it after all!
When perplexed, or even tempted in this way, we should at once go “to the law and the testimony”, and ask some pertinent questions. Does the new teaching glorify God, or concentrate on man? Has it to do with men’s souls and their eternal destiny, or their earthly wellbeing? Does it stress the evil of sin as transgression of God’s law? Does it account for the death of Christ by the satisfaction of divine justice? Does it emphasize man’s lostness, and the need for a spiritual rebirth by the Holy Spirit? Even these few questions will generally be enough to test the doctrine, whether it be carnal or spiritual. Of the Freedom Theology it may be said that under the profuse screen of Scripture quotations and orthodox terminology, there is no religion worthy of the name, but much dangerous political theory.
The Theology of Liberation is not Christian at all, and Paul’s counsel as to its propagators should be followed — “Avoid them”; give them no place as teachers, and condemn their teaching outright as ruinous to souls. As far as poor Roman Catholics in South America are concerned, it is the exchanging of one deadly doctrine for another, and they are to be pitied and prayed for. A.McP.