Towards a Slumdweller's Theology
Course Outline
Viv Grigg
December 1994
(Revision 14)
Theological Presuppositions
The Nature of The Word
The Nature of Theologizing
Responsibility is to protect flock not destroy them.
Not premised on submission to authority of word
Catholic theologies generated from Liberal Protestant influence
Evangelical theology of poverty will begin with the word (Biblical Theology), not with other theologians. It will be a reflection on the realities and the word. It will also be a reflection on philosophies, but a critical judgment of those philosophies in the light of these two sources of truth.
Six Fulcrum for a Holistic Missions Theology
From Genesis to Revelation
The Kingdom and Mission
Covenant as Integrative Theme
Discontinuity in Jesus
Kingdom Relationships to Culture
Biblical Starting Points for Theologies of the City
The Urban Context - Sociological and Biblical Analysis.
The Impact of the Urban Church
Causes of Poverty - Sociological and Biblical Analysis.
Poverty in the Third World is the result of colonial looting in the past and economic colonialism in the present.
Is foreign investment a drain on existing resources in Third World countries or has it in fact expanded opportunities and raised incomes?
Bauer tells some interesting anecdotes reflecting on a pamphlet from a student group at Oxford on the subject of the moral obligation of the West to the Third World: "We took the rubber from Malaya, the tea from India, raw materials from all over the world and gave almost nothing in return." He says: This is nearly the opposite of the truth as one can find. The British took rubber to Malaya and the tea to India. There were no rubber trees in Malaya or anywhere else in Asia (as suggested by their botanical name Hevea brazilienses) until about one hundred years ago, when the British took the first rubber seeds there out of the Amazon jungle. From these sprang the huge rubber industry - now very largely Asian-owned. Tea-plants were brought to India somewhat earlier; their origin is shown in the botanical name Camilla sinensis, as well as in the phrase "all the tea in China."
Historically benefits have spread from richer to poorer areas.
It is behind the large increase in life expectation in the third world. Disease have been controlled. Medical ideas and hygiene have been introduced, clean water and sewerage,
Public security, law and order, roads, railways, man-made ports formal education.
Virtual elimination of the slave trade in Africa and the Middle East.
The most prosperous areas in the third world are those with the most commercial contacts with the West. It has been the principal agent for prosperity.
Concept of sustained, steady material progress is a Western concept.
Centralized governmental planning - a negative contribution to some extent.
Continuation of colonial oppression of minorities.
Move from political colonialism to economic and cultural imperialism through debt repayment problems. A continual transfer of funds from poorer to richer centers of power. This is not in itself unjust, but levels of injustice exist in the size of usury and interest demanded. Inability to repay debts is often related to mismanagement more than exploitation. the loans were given as capital with reasonable interest. the debts are often the result of wasteful use of the capital or inappropriate monetary or fiscal policies.
Manipulation of international trade.
The demonstration effect. Import of consumer goods. Results in import replacement to a significant extent. Nevertheless it does not as rapidly increase the means of production as it does increasing levels of consumption.
There is a brain drain. It is insignificant in its effect on material advance compared to the levels of migration caused by internal warfare, ethnic oppression and the governmental restrictions on foreign expertise.
A false aspect of the rhetoric of dependency implies that any prosperity of some group means that others have been exploited. In Marxist ideology, any return on private capital implies exploitation. In the literature, a proletariat is exploited by definition, and is poor because it is exploited.
However the prosperity of the West was not the result of colonialism. It was generated by its own peoples. Switzerland never had colonies. The income of well-to -do people do not necessarily come from exploitation. the rich do not owe the poor because they are poor.
Thus the Third World has been described as the underprivileged and deprived.
The poverty of the poorest nations tends to increase the less they are linked to Western contacts. Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal;, Liberia, Ethiopia (only 6 years under Italian rule) never were colonized.
Universals of the Religion of the Urban Poor.
The Kingdom of God and the Poor
The Poor and Poverty in the Message of Jesus
The Poor and Poverty in the Church of the First Century
"as any had need" means it was not a denial of the need of possessions or property.
see attached quotes from Julio de Santa Ana p 50
The next two Centuries saw an increasing disparity of social classes, rich and poor come into the church. Mission was from the powerless to the powerful
"He who is in need and poverty in his daily life is in great torment and anxiety. Thus he who frees the soul of such a man from his great need attains great joy for himself."
(written in Syria at the turn of the 2nd Century)
It is only at the time of Clement of Rome that the issue arises "Can the rich be saved and not give up their wealth?" up to this point it had always been normative.
but the scriptures were not applied to the rich and powerful.
people gave and remained in comfort
i.e. to eradicate poverty
The radical opposition between church and culture had lead to accommodation.
A hermit theologian who created a whole complex of charitable welfare institutions. There arose a whole new city consisting of hostels, alms houses and hospitals for infectious diseases. the bishop himself took up residence there and organized the free meals.
He saw wealth as a "good to be administered and not a source of enjoyment." The error lies in covetousness
Covetousness leads to evil which leads to injustice (1 Timothy 6:10)
He criticizes irresponsible economic growth ( Luke 12:16-21) (de Sta. Ana 69).
He saw poverty as an evil not as an ideal
The value of wealth depends on how far it is applied to helping the needy.
The greater a man's wealth , the less perfect his charity.
"Though you have not killed, like you say, nor committed adultery, nor stolen, nor borne false witness, you make all of this useless unless you add the only thing which can allow you to enter the Kingdom. Clearly you are far from that requirement (charity) and you are mistaken in claiming that you love your neighbor as yourself. If it is true that you have kept the law of charity from your childhood, as you claim, and that t you have done as much for others as for yourself, then where does all your wealth come from? care for the poor absorbs all available resources..." (quoted in de Sta. Ana 73).
Accumulating wealth hurts the poor and so hurts Jesus
The poor cannot overcome by dependence on the wealthy. It must be through self-reliance
The solution is in true solidarity, community, mercy, not through extreme sacrifice and only verbal agreement to seek the common good.
The struggle to eradicate poverty had ceased to exist, and was replaced by ways of alleviating the sufferings of the poor, the victims of injustice, rather than to present the radical witness to the justice of God.
Historical Responses By The Western Church in the Late Middle Ages
It was a time of population growth, development of crafts, industries, textiles, communities. The church preached charity but ignored reforms needed in society. this resulted in a time of protest against the prevailing social, economic, and political order of the times.
The church remained captive to the structures of mediaeval power which prevented it from making a concrete response to the challenges of the poor. The orientation of charity as assistance to the suffering was maintained with orphanages, hospitals, schools etc.
The Celtic Monks - powerless monks who converted Northern Europe.
" I heard from our great moulder of men, Ignatius, that the toughest material he had ever handled was the young man Francis Xavier in the earler stages. God, however has made better use of him than any other man of our time ... to conquer nearly a fourth part of the world to the cross of His Son.
" He was a young, gallant and noble Basque, well versed inphilosophy. He thought little of Ignatious who depended on charity to keep body and soul together. He would not break off his career of liberal arts and theology he was pursueing. He never met Ignatius without making sport of his his designs and burning his friends into a joke... But Ignatius learned to humor him and win him with such tact and patience that he made him the immortal apostle of the Indies ...(see notes)
Poverty (not as an ideal, but as a way of sharing for the advance of the gospel)
Freedom of mission in popular forms through popular culture
A church of the people not of the gentry
"These people do not own houses. they travel in twos, barefoot, with no luggage, placing everything under common ownership, following the example of the apostles. Naked they follow the naked Christ." Walter Map.
Valdes and the poor men of Lombardy thrown out of the church
A communal movement that defeated Emperor Frederick (1176)
A movement of the poor which exposed the responsibility of the rich and powerful for the social evils of the time.
For Valdes the gospel involved no compromise
Poverty should be the companion of itinerant preaching. This was a criticism of the daily routine of life.
Mission leads to service to the poor.
A similar birthing
Accepted by the church
Rejection of social structure, accumulation of wealth and its effects on commercial agreements and exchanges of that time.
Opened the possibility of monastic life to the poor
Poverty was a condition of itinerant preaching
Poverty also renews the church, releasing it from the worldly powers, freeing it for the struggle of love between human beings without which no true justice can exist.
Free community, in a democratic style.
A vow of poverty was required of its members but the order could own property
Responses to the Poor: Modern Western Movements
A breakaway from the Methodists.
They gave a prominent role to women
The use of a higlhly regimented structure enabled the poor to function effectively. Poor people need clear structure.
A vocation of poverty arose as a response to the poor man of God.
Missionary existence demanded poverty
Helping the poor, criticism of riches, willingness to accept poverty were often a protest against the ruling order, a spiritual strike. only radical impoverishment could free the church.
Denunciation of class structures. A practical response leads to a position of militant and active criticism of unjust structures at a social and economic level as well as gospel confrontation with the powers which maintain them. In those days this involved a Christian confrontation with a Christian order which only sanctified social injustices, the division of society into classes of clergy , masters and servants. The church of Christ must renounce any type of accommodation with authoritarian power. It is a minority community. It is salt.
Practical solidarity results in popular pedagogy and popular theology. i.e. identification results in poor peoples paterns of preahing and theologizing.
Incarnation: if you do not live among them, you do not minister among them
Leadership Selection and Training; Renewal movements have new methods of Selection and traingin.
Strong sense of community of goods
Upward Social Mobility; There has to be a pattern of leadership selection that keeeps sending people down.
Kingdom Economics - Foundations of Managing Wealth
The Kingdom and Economic Theories
Shipping, engineering, consulting, design, insurance etc.
"Economy itself is the creation and production of value. Since at its root, value is an expression of spiritual qualities with moral implications, religion which is the promulgation of values , is intimately connected to the economy. From this perspective religion can be seen as supply-side in nature...true economy becomes the active expression of God-derived qualities in human endeavor, including the process by which we give raw matter value and purpose and turn it into economic "goods" (Brooks p27).
"You are not social managers, political leaders or functionaries of a temporal Power.... a soul living in habitual contact with God will know how to care for the poor without surrendering to sociopolitical radicalisms, which in the end are shown to be inopportune and counterproductive. Whatever the miseries of suffering that afflict man, it is not through violence, the interplay of power and political systems, but through the truth concerning man, that he journeys to a better future." John Paul III
In developing countries many governments sought to bypass agricultural development. e.g. for Peru and Mexico in the early 1980's the % of agriculture was only 8% of GNP. This is only half of Germany in the 1930's.
As Warren Brooks asserts in his essay "Goodness and the GNP", a healthy capitalist economy is in turn dependent on moral standards: "Without the civilizing force of universal moral standards, particularly honesty, trust, self-respect, integrity and loyalty, the marketplace quickly degenerates."
Theologies of Development - A Wealthy Man's Role in Society
Theology of Community Development - Realistic Middle Class Involvement
Theologies of Incarnation - Moving from Riches to Poverty
Theologies of Justice - Exercising Power for the Poor
Theologies of Suffering
Theologies Responding to Oppression
Theologies of Communication Among the Poor
Theologies Related To Class Struggle
Theologies of Land Rights
Entrance Issues (Matthew 10)
Poor People's Ecclesiology
Apostolic Development: Growing Movements
Diaconal Growth: Dealing with Poverty
Alinsky, Saul
1969 Reveille for Radicals New York: Vintage Books.
Bruce Kirchhoff, Prof. of entrepreneurship at New Jersey Institute of Technology quoted in the Christian Science Monitor Spiking Stereotypes About Small Firms May 7, 1993 tells us only 18% of small businesses fail during the first 8 years, 28% voluntarily terminate without loss to creditors, 28% survive with their original owners and 26% survive with a change of ownership. Larger start ups with 4 or more employees, are twice as likely to survive for eight years.
Finale
Limited to some of the major texts used in the field. More detailed references can be obtained from the footnotes of Cry of the Urban Poor and Companion to the Poor.
Abrams, C.
1964 Man's Struggle for Shelter in an Urbanizing World. MIT Press.
Alinsky, Saul
1969 Reveille for Radicals New York: Vintage Books.
Berger, Peter
1987 The Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions About Prosperity, Equality and Liberty. Basic Books: N.Y.
Berger, Peter and Brigitte Berger and Hansfried Kellner
1974 The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness. Vintage Books.
Booth, William
1890 In Darkest England and the Way Out. Salvation Army.
Brandon, Richard Duane
1981 Culture and Poverty. Unpublished Thesis, Pasadena: Fuller School of World Mission.
Brueggemann, Walter
1977 The Land. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
Building Together Assoc. and NHA, Thailand
l984 The Right to Stay: The Poor, The Land and The Law in Asian Cities. Building Together Notes from a seminar held January 26, 1984
CASA
1984 Calcutta Slums: Problems and Challenges. CASA, 5 Russell Street, Calcutta 700071.
Centre for Urban Studies
1983 Slums in Dhaka City. Centre of Urban Studies, Dept. of Geography, University of Dhaka.
1982 The People of Dacca. Centre of Urban Studies, Dept. of Geography, University of Dhaka.
Cherupallikat, Justinian O.F.M. Cap
1975 Witness Potential of Evangelical Poverty In India. Nouvelle Review de science missionaire, CH-6405 Immensee, Switzerland.
Chowdhuri, B
1983 "Bank Finance for Slum Dwellers in Calcutta Metropolitan District" in Calcutta Slums. pp. 130-132. CASA.
Clinard, M.D.
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Cook, William
1982 The Expectation of the Poor: a Protestant Missiological Study of the Catholic "Communidades de Base" in Brazil. Ph.D. Dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminary.
Davies, Cyril
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Davies, William
1974 The Gospel and the Land. Berkeley:University of California Press.
Dawson, John
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de Sta. Ana, Julio
1977 Good News to the Poor. Geneva: WCC
Dorr, Donal
1983 Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teaching. Orbis.
Dwyer, D.J.
1967 The Southeast Asian City. London: Bell and Son.
Dye, Wayne
1982 Three Types of Cultural System. Unpublished paper. Fuller Theological Seminary.
Eames, Edwin and Judith Graniche Goode
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Ellison, Craig and Maynard, Edward
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Ellul, Jacques
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Foster, George
1973 Traditional Societies and Technological Change. Harper and Row.
Freire, Paulo
1986 Pedagogy of the Oppressed. tr. Myra Bergman Ramos. New York:Continuum.
Galbraith, John Kenneth
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Harrington, Micheal
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1979 "Urban Squatters: Unconventional Housing in Peninsular Malaysia." In Journal of Tropical Geography, Vol. 49, Dec. 1979.
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1983 Approaches to Financing of Unconventional Housing, Informal Systems of Financing. Regional Seminar on Financing of Low Income Housing, Asian Development Bank, Manila.
Lausanne Occasional Papers
1980 Christian Witness to the Urban Poor #22. Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, PO Box 1100, Wheaton, Illinois 60187, USA.
Lewis Oscar
1959 Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty. N.Y: Basic Books.
1961 The Children of Sanchez, Autobiography of a Mexican Family. N.Y.: Random House.
1965 La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty. San Juan and New York: Vintage Books.
1966 "The Culture of Poverty." Scientific American Vol. 215, No 4:3-9, October 1966.
1973 "The Possessions of the Poor." In Cities, Their Origin,Growth and Human Impact, Readings from Scientific American. W. H. Freeman and Co: San Francisco
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1991 Facing the Powers, MARC. (A summary and integrative analysis of the major theologies of spiritual powers and how we are to respond to them).
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1980 Understanding Church Growth. Eerdmans (This earlier edition of the classic has three chapters inter-relating the issues of poverty and church growth).
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1968 Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of the Nations. Twentieth Century Fund (abridged edition by Vintage Books in 1971)
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1988 The Shepherd's Guidebook. Torch Outreach Ministries, Inc., P.O. Box 19888, Houston, Texas 77224.
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1981 The Urban World. McGraw-Hill Book Co.
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c1979 Reaching the Unreached. Fuller School of World Missions thesis, Pasadena.
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1976 The Myth of Marginality, Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janiero. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
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1984 House-Renters in Bangkok Slum and Squatter Settlements with Reference to 480 Existing Settlements. Building Together Association.
1985 1020 Bangkok Slums:Evidence, Analysis, Critics. School of Urban Community Research and Actions, 688/56 Jaransanitwong 68, Bangplad, Bangkok Noi, Bangkok 10700, Thailand. Available from World Vision.
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1967 The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy. Cambridge, Ma: M.I.T. Press.
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1969(54) "The Cultural Role of Cities." In Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities. N.Y: Meredith.
1969(47) "The Folk Society." In Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities. N.Y: Meredith.
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1986 Tugurizacion en Lima Metropolitana. Centro de Estudios y Promocion del Deserollo. Av. Salaverry 1945 Lima 14.
Santos, Milton
1979 The Shared Space. tr. from Portuguese edition (1975) by Chris Gerry. Methuen:London and New York. 266 pp.
1979 Pobreza Urbana. Estudos Urbanos. Editora Brasiliense: S.P.
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1969 "Life in the Slums of Calcutta." Economic and Political Weekly, Dec l3, l969 pp.l9l7-l92l.
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1938 "Urbanism as a Way of Life," American Journal of Sociology, 44:1-24, July 1938.
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