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Thursday October 25, 2007

President of the UENIC assures that there is a future for a liberation theology from Nicaragua

President of the UENIC assures that there is a future for a liberation theology from Nicaragua

Trinidad Vásquez and ALC/CLAI, MANAGUA, Nicaragua, July 24, 2007

When asked if there is a future for a liberation theology, Benjamín Cortes, President of Taxi Heathrow Airport the Evangelical Nicaraguan University (UENIC in Spanish), replied: “I am not at all certain. A lot depends on what we are doing today. It also depends on the re-readings of our history, on the criticism of the present situation, on the visionary perspectives of our communities.”

Cortes’ statement was made during the forum held as part of the SANDINO VIVE (SANDINO LIVES) theological gathering that ended on July 18 in the Central American University (UCA in Spanish).

Theologian Benjamín Cortes proposed, a church-people in a process of continuing renovation; a biblical movement whose hermeneutics embeds itself in the praxis of the faith; a theological, biblical and pastoral formation of the people of God in dialogue with the humanistic sciences, with the natural sciences, and having a critical position with regard to transnational capitalism, with a commitment to human rights and ecology. That process also involves a theological formation that is in harmony with the arts and nature: a theological formation in community, in other words, an ecumenical spirit.

Cortes also spoke of the need for a prophetic preaching whose force in the Spirit will remove the causes of the social and structural violence against women and children; that will remove the causes of poverty and corruption that are deeply rooted in our system. A prophetic preaching is needed that will remove authoritarianism in the family, in the school, in the church, in the political parties, and the egoism that fosters the accumulating of economic wealth.

Cortes called for a women’s movement that will reform the church and bring matters pushing toward new frontiers into theology and preaching. There is a need for a women’s movement that will reform education, the economy, and also pose challenges for politics which arise out of the society itself. Thinking of the youth, Cortes emphasized the urgency for there being young people with an ethical formation, with a humanist outlook, in the arts, in the alternative sciences and technologies, so as to be able to face the challenges before their people. The youth need a formation that fosters a spirit of investigation, in love.

The Evangelical university president also imagined a peasant movement that will bring about new economic relationships and alternative systems of organic production. This peasant movement needs to defend and articulate its agrarian rights. It needs to rebuild the rural world surrounding the city so as to give life, water and oxygen without polluting agents.

In the face of such a mammoth task, Cortes assured that something is being done, even though only in a modest way. “It could be said that there is a future for a liberating theology, a theology for life, a theology that is emancipating for God’s people in the land of Rubén, of Alfonso, of Sandino, of us all. A sustainable future does not arise out of a sociological vacuum, but rather from sustainable processes that are lightweight in their foundation.” He continued by affirming that: “A liberating theology is built in that future that is ours in the heat of the struggle, in fasting, in the tirelessness of labor, in the social organisation, in the profoundly articulated Word of God that is Christ, with Holy Scripture and tradition as criteria of a popular ecclesiastical orthodoxy.”