The word brings many images to mind: protesters waving placards, asylum seekers in the backs of lorries, children rescued from lifestyles of abuse, emaciated refugees carrying their loads across borders, students with Che Guevara emblazoned on their chests, civil rights marches, gay pride ... the list could go on and on.
Liberation
It has been cited many times as a major theme of the Old Testament, leading to the development of entire schools of theology and the justification of many events in modern history. It has created controversies, caused division and diverged into a vast array of ideologies and praxis.
Liberation
What exactly is it?
There is perhaps a danger of over-spiritualising the liberation events in the Old Testament. Conversely, there is also the danger of seeing the liberation events as normative and prescriptive without fully understanding the context within which these events took place. There appears to be the need to strike a balance or rather, embrace a full and whole understanding of liberation past and applying it to the present.
Jon Leveson describes this struggle as being the choice between expounding the, “counter-revolutionary Bible or the hypothetical revolutionary history that lies at the heart of the Israelite tradition.” (130) Citing liberationist Jorge Pixley, Leveson explains the challenge of remaining in the text and not reconstructing events to reflect traditions. To remain ‘in the text’ is not often easy, as Leveson expands, as it presents difficulties that may well contradict modern ideas of liberation. The challenge then, as we pursue (albeit briefly) the theme of liberation in the Old Testament, is to put away presuppositions, to stop searching for justifications for our own socio-political persuasions, and to seek out the intended meaning of the text for its ancient audience.
However once this (as far as it can be) is achieved, further challenge is offered in our evangelical belief that the Bible has relevance and validity for its modern audience, an audience in diverse situations and with contrasting liberation needs. How easy it would be to offer sugar coated applications to middle-class Christians dwelling comfortably in the suburbs and speak of liberation in a purely spiritual sense. How easy it would be to ignore the needs of those trapped in circumstances of very real and physical oppression. It is, however difficult it may be, essential that a thematic study of liberation leads to an understanding of how this can be applied both to those seeking to free others from oppression and those that are imprisoned within this very oppression.
With this in mind, the task of understanding the liberation events and passages of the Old Testament becomes a very serious one indeed.
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