This is a recently updated excerpt from a response I wrote (here is the original) to Mark L. Taylor’s powerful and creative paper on the subject of mass-incarceration, “Sing it Hard,” (see a more recent edition of the paper here) for a forthcoming publication with Orbis Books based on the Claremont Graduate University conference, “What are the Most Compelling Theological Issues Today?” held in April of 2012, edited and compiled by Anselm K. Min.  What I’ve included below is only a drafted portion of my response — and not my review of the essay itself, which has also been significantly revised — that considers the differences between and adequacy of a traditional theology of “transcendence” and Taylor’s appropriation of Jean-Luc Nany’s ontology of “trans-immanence,” respectively.  For context then, it may be helpful for those interested to familiarize themselves with the links above.  Basically though, to put it in very crude terms, I think the difference comes down to whether one has faith in a real God that is active in the world and evokes worship — i.e., A God who is transcendent and “personal” — or not (transimmanence).

The notion of transimmanence denies that the “unlocking of the world’s continual unfolding of itself to itself,” or opposition to “those structures that would lock it down [in its] place” need reference a transcendent God. But then transimmanence, as Nancy has it, is necessarily an open immanence, not a closed one.[i] In fact, it is resistance to closure, and as such constructive and surely a viable concept for thinking resistance. Transimmanence for Nancy is conceived as “ex-positional through the arts, works to clear passage ways, moving deftly, creatively, to make place(s) and space(s) of world.”[ii] It “names within Nancy’s project the dynamic, ceaselessly flowing sense of the world, liberating world continually into itself, evolving and revolving into even more textured and artfully ex-posited complexity . . . a ‘revolt of bodies’ toward ‘freedom.’”[iii]  Nancy’s transimmanence is “not simply a matter of having done with both . . . Nancy, instead, strikes a neither/nor to transcendence/immanence, recasting both in the discursive milieu of transimmanence,” with art as its supreme expression.[iv]

Transimmanence further connotes a dialectic with transcendence, though the latter is not a necessary precondition for thinking the former. At this point one may be left wondering what ontological role, exactly, transcendence really has, other than as that which, while referenced, is refused and declared a failure.  Like Laclau, “Nancy’s refusal is a deliberate working amid the ruins of transcendence.”[v] Transimmanence, then, is a crossing, but only to another world “within.”  While the intention in transimmanence is not to accent pure immanence, or to think “world” as opposed to “God,” the account may leave some less than persuaded of this. A synonymous concept to transimmanence might be “non-reductive immanence,” but this hardly equals “neither immanence nor transcendence.” [vi] For transimmanence remains immanent, and transcendence is still repudiated. Thus, a question arises for me here: Once on a totally immanent plane, despite being able to traverse, slide, or pass through it, does one not suffer from having to choose between saying either too little or too much – too little because human efforts to achieve their ideals are futile, and too much because, when means for striving to achieve these ideals are absolutized, the cost to human life is often immense?

In his book, Critica de la Razon Utopica, Franz Hinkelammert makes a distinction between transcendental imagination and transcendental concepts that may be instructive. Transcendental concepts, for Hinkelammert,

“begin with the objective social relations between subjects and take them to the limits of concepts of institutional perfection. Transcendental imagination, in contrast, begins with the effectively experienced mutual recognition between subjects, [and] transcendentalizes them in a situation of perfection. In the face of the rigidity of the perfect institutions there appears the fluidity of great joy.”[vii]

Transcendental concepts are conservative by nature, always working from within the limits of the present political apparatus for the transformation of society. The transcendental imagination, however, is critical of the prevailing structure, because it “places human subjectivity at the core of what is possible, which, in turn, relativizes institutions.”[viii] Consequently, utopian imagination is like a transcendence from below, which believes that the world can be different, and “emerges from alternative concrete experiences, bring[ing] with it what the biblical tradition calls a revelation.”[ix]

The notion of transimmanence may seem near to the idea of transcendence from below at first glance, but whereas transimmanence denies divine transcendence, I find in God’s otherness tremendous recourse to both criticism of oppression and energy for opposing it.  Until now, though, this analysis risks conflating the political and theological. While inseparable, for clarity purposes I propose a distinction between political transcendence on the one hand and God’s transcendence on the other. Concerning political transcendence, the employment of transimmanence may both resonate with and be enhanced by what Rieger, Miguez and Sung argue in their work, Beyond Empire – namely, that transcendence should be humanized, but not immanentized. For Sung in particular, the question is less about whether transcendence, but which, and how much such transcendence says human beings can achieve for themselves – that is, how realizable their utopia is for a given transcendental horizon. Eschatologically and politically, Sung understands transcendence, as utopia, to be an essential dimension to all human belief and life. According to Sung, that

“we cannot think and live without a utopian horizon that provides meaning for our journey and measure and norms for interpreting and judging reality and also the recognition that our utopia, however desirable it may be, is not realizable in its fullness, are fundamental conditions for our reasoning not to be lost in confusion and not to be carried along by the perversions and sacrifices imposed and demanded in the name of a the full realization of utopia.”[x]

For theorists Hardt and Negri, as with Nancy, “Empire” itself is described as thoroughly immanent. Empire is the nature of the “soft” power of capital in contrast to the overt dominance or “transcendence” of the nation-state, according to Hardt and Negri. Sung retorts, however, that Hardt and Negri have misdiagnosed Empire, and it’s possible Taylor has done the same with the carceral state. In other words, maybe the specter of systems of domination and exploitation are too pervasive and ideologically “transcendent” itself – albeit a false transcendence – to be offset with mere transimmanence. Maybe a robust and imaginative eschatology could make the specter less haunting and expose its futility. But this is still to speak of political transcendence – the historical or horizontal, as it were. I now turn to theological transcendence.

For Nestor Miguez:

If Jesus the Nazarene is, somehow, the presence of the transcendent in the everyday world, of the universal God who is expressed in peculiarity, of the absolute incarnate in the temporary and limited – that is to say, shown as the material – and, moreover, the creator of the human exhibited on the cross as the dehumanized of the system, this marks one complete break between glory and human wisdom (which reaches its culmination in Empire) and glory and divine knowledge. But this break is not in the distinction between the transcendent and the immanent, between faith and politics, because the transcendent is included in the immanent, but in its most oppressed way – he became a slave… (italics added).[xi]

Appreciating the historical, political and social dimension of Jesus’s ministry and death is essential for stirring a counter-carceral Christian theology.[xii] The danger of ideological abstraction from the concrete significance of Jesus’s death cannot be overstated. It is no exaggeration in my estimation to assert that, without embodying Jesus’s own adversarial resistance to dominative structures, the gospel message itself will be misconstrued. Furthermore, the mere establishment of a liberal community of difference and tolerance would also miss the mark.

Having said this, is it not also true that the greatest power of Jesus’s life as a critique of the political and religious establishment is principally derived from the early Philippians hymn about the incarnation of divine transcendence in the immanence of a human being? To be sure, as Miguez maintains, the transcendent must make itself accessible to the immanent and from the immanent. This is why I have employed the terminology of transcendence from below. But the immanent would cease to be immanent if it could transcend itself, which is what seems to be proposed in the idea of transimmanence.

If, traditionally, transcendence and immanence only have a binary relationship, and if the objective of credentialed theology is primarily directed toward organizing doctrine, the church, and human life in reference to the transcendent Other, then I join others who wish to abandon the enterprise. If transcendence inhibits creative, artistic expression and its coming forth from the liminal realm of agonistic politics – that is, from the subalterns who experience and bear most intensely the weight of the world and the full force of socially imposed suffering[xiii] – then I too want little to do with it. As I see it, though, a notion of transcendence restricted to the immanent plane is not inadequate, but less adequate, by comparison, to infuse and ultimately sustain the energy and vitality of counter-hegemonic movements. This is true for the victimized and their communities, but even more so for those benefiting from privilege who would be hailed (Dussel) to participate in the trials and liberating struggles of those haunted by the specter of the penal state.

As already suggested, rather than making a tired evaluation of eloquent and promising politio-historical readings of the gospel, which I applaud as subversive, incisive, and inspired, I simply hold that a transcendent reference may remain even more potent for kindling critical movements of resistance. Discard the perverse forms of transcendence, yes, but not what is so central and enlivening to the tradition that has incited great resistance throughout history, even if it has also been co-opted and abused. Genuine transcendence is not the cause of Christendom, colonialism, neoliberalism and the like. On the contrary, it may be the best source for challenging these things.

Most appropriate, then, I submit, is neither the rejection of divine transcendence nor an immanentization of it, but a critique of its distorted expressions – those that reinforce or ossify the status quo of power relations and neo-colonialism, most notably in the form of mass incarceration. This includes both conservative neoliberal (anti-)utopias and religious ideologies that cease to be liberative. The fundamental problem with such ontologies, I would urge, is not that they appeal to transcendence, but that they are closed off, totalized and risk-averse. Transcendence doesn’t have to mean “outside.” A critical transcendence, from the “below” of the crucified, does find its hope in the divine “beyond,” but not because this divine is guaranteed to save us from our social apathy or material irresponsibility. Nor is the beyond an invisible hand that reckons necessary sacrifices (capitalism’s “creative destruction”) of other people’s well-being and bodies disposable to serve the interests of the elite few. The “from beyond” of transcendence is precisely what guards against the common human mistake of putting too much stock in what can be accomplished “from here,” and by our own power, within history. At the same time, the paradox of faith and politics is that radical love and liberating justice for “the wretched of the earth”’ (Fanon) must be courageously sought in the midst of tragedy and in the face of an uncertain future.

For Christians, the depth dimension of this mission flows from God through Christ, as a power beyond history, experienced in history, in solidarity with history, making a critique of history, and giving hope for history. Hence, what should be opposed, theologically speaking, is not divine transcendence, but conservative, neoliberal utopias, which is the type of transcendence that has indeed failed and come to ruins. Is God’s attribute of transcendence an inherent and inalienable part of revealed Christian doctrine? I think it probably is.  So yes, even if it were a bad idea, it would be difficult to challenge.  But on the other hand, is the God of the poor and the oppressed a failed transcendental signifier? Maybe so; one can only answer in faith, and admittedly, simple, traditional rejoinders will not do.  At the same time, I am not sure that the right criteria for Christian theology is a straightforward calculus of political feasibility.  I can say this though as one who still trust that Christians can live into their faith in such a God as cause for renewed hope and strength to rise up and “sing it hard.” For this God, Christians profess, whose character was revealed in a poor, self-sacrificing, executed Hebrew Nazarene, judges the proud and gives grace to the humble.

It was a resurrection eschatology that at least partly empowered Paul and other early Jesus followers to live so boldly for their faith, and with such a counter-narrative to the “lockdown” anti-utopian spirit of Rome. The story of the risen Jesus instilled courage for confrontation with death and suffering. Once more, it seems to me that the problem is not with transcendence per se, but what kind. There are hegemonic and counter-hegemonic theologies of transcendence. Whatever else resurrection means, it is the promise of a future in God for victims. In Sung’s concluding words, “where the reduction of immanence is avoided, there appears the potency of the eschatological claim, of the meaning of justice (Phil. 2. 5-11). To renounce the transcendent is to be left with no standpoint for the radical critique of history.”[xiv]

To stress once more, the claim here is not that transimmanence is an inept concept as far as it goes.  Thus, there may well be defensible grounds for a transimmanent ontology, but insofar as these grounds depend on the conspicuous advantage of transimmanence over a critical and christologically-rooted transcendence from below, I would consider it a hasty dismissal of what the Christian theological tradition has to offer.

[i]B. C Hutchens, Jean-Luc Nancy and the Future of Philosophy (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), 167.

[ii]http://marklewistaylor.net/blog/philosophical-note-on-jean-luc-nancys-transimmanence

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

[vi]Mark L Taylor, The Theological and the Political: On the Weight of the World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), 184.

[vii]Franz J Hinkelammert and Juan Antonio Senent de Frutos, Critica de la razon utopica (Bilbao, Spain: Desclee de Brouwer, 2002), 343.

[viii]Néstor Oscar Míguez, Joerg Rieger, and Jung Mo Sung, Beyond the Spirit of Empire: Theology and Politics in a New Key (London: SCM press, 2009), 122.

[ix]Ibid., 123.

[x]Ibid., 118.

[xi]Ibid., 196-7.

[xii]Mark L Taylor, The Executed God: the Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2001).

[xiii]Taylor, The Theological and the Political, 7.

[xiv]Míguez, Rieger, and Sung, Beyond the Spirit of Empire., 200.

INTRODUCTION

Christian ethicist and realist Reinhold Niebuhr unfortunately did not live long enough to have the chance to engage the various liberationist voices from the Southern Hemisphere.  Niebuhr espoused a social view of the world known as Christian realism, which according to Ronald Stone’s definition is “descriptive of socially engaged, reformist Christians who are economically left of the center of the Democratic Party.”[i]  To the extent that Niebuhr appears to be reacting in his writing to a particular political program sponsored by the church, the preceding Social Gospel movement at the turn of the twentieth century must be taken into consideration.  In spite of the harsh words he sometimes reserves for the trends of that period, Niebuhr himself supported a certain kind of socialism.  He was also critical of the Vietnam War, though poor health prevented him from being especially active and outspoken about this

Liberation theology, on the other hand, arose as movement during a period of disappointment after premature optimism in Latin America regarding development and progress – just at the end of Niebuhr’s life.  The historical context surrounding the rise of liberation thought was arguably one characterized predominately by politico-economic despair and destitution.  The chief distinctive of liberation theology is its material social analysis that led to the formulation of a doctrine known as “God’s preferential option for the poor.”[ii]  That is, theology itself was said to begin at the level of praxis rather than theory, and must first take into account the horizon and interests of the disinherited.  For the purposes of this paper, I have selected the early work of Leonardo Boff to be representative of liberation theology.[iii]

At a superficial level, liberation theology has been dismissed as merely a “soft utopianism” (Alves), while Christian realism has been seen been written off as simply an ideology of the establishment (Sanders).[iv]  Sometimes the two systems of thought clash, while in other instances they reinforce each other.[v]  Both function in some respects as Christian public theologies or Christian social philosophies.[vi]  What I hope to show is that Christian realism and liberation theology are not necessarily mutually exclusive, though antagonism between them has persisted.  Secondly, I will provide a brief reflection on both and attempt to point toward a third option.

Raimundo Barreto has contended that there is sufficient evidence to suspect that Niebuhr would have been more sympathetic to liberation theology than many of his followers have been.[vii]  Barreto argues that liberation theology can be seen as a kind of Christian realism despite the clear differences.  Both schools are concerned about social justice and maintain a structural understanding of the nature of sin.  And rather than beginning with abstract speculation or timeless philosophical principles, they also have in common a strong pragmatism and serious reading of reality as their starting point.[viii]

The primarily differences between liberation theology and Christian realism according to Barreto are the following: 1) the socio-historical situations in which they speak, 2) their views toward power, and 3) their expectations about the possibilities for human beings in history (i.e., their anthropological and eschatological perspectives).[ix] A synthesis might not be possible, but dialogue and alliance is desirable.  Such is the purpose of the comparison to follow.

A GLIMPSE OF NIEBUHR’S CHRISTIAN REALISM

Niebuhr criticizes “orthodox” churches for “compounding dogmatisms from another day” and liberal churches for hiding “their light under the bushel of the culture and modernity.”[x]  For Niebuhr, Christian morality can be neither mere clothing of natural philosophy nor “outmoded authoritarian moral codes.”[xi] Niebuhr’s Christian realism is captured by the notion that the “ideal of love is real in the will and nature of God”, even though there is no time or place in history where the ideal has been realized in its pure form.[xii]  Niebuhr opposes the tendency of churches toward institutional preservation, which often happens by means of literally interpreted myths and bad science.  By the same token, he is suspicious of uncritical cultural assimilation and accommodation.  Niebuhr is confident that the Kingdom of God cannot come about by political means.  As Niebuhr sees it, “both liberalism and Marxism are secularized and naturalized versions of the Hebrew prophetic movement and the Christian religion.”[xiii]  He is convinced that utopianism inevitably leads to disillusionment.[xiv]  Niebuhr calls for a moral life between the dialectical tension of the ideal and the real, of optimism and pessimism.  The church must not deviate from prophetic religion by falling into sacramental complacency on the one hand or mystic otherworldliness on the other.[xv]

Niebuhr understands the ethic of Jesus to be the ideal of love.  Essentially he says that it consists in loving our enemies, abandoning self-love, embracing self-sacrificing service, and unconditional forgiving.  Such an ethic opposes natural morality and the general flow of societal behavior.  As such, Niebuhr concludes that “[i]t is, therefore, impossible to construct a socio-moral policy from the religio-moral insight of Jesus.”[xvi] A Christian social ethic must take seriously the nature of sin and the destructiveness of egoism.  In sum, Niebuhr submits that the peace of the ‘city of God’ can use and transmute the lesser and insecure peace of the ‘city of the world’, but this can only be done if the two are not confused.

According to Niebuhr, one of the critical points overlooked by Christian liberalism is the extent to which coercion exists in every economic and political system.  For Niebuhr, there is no such thing as un-coerced cooperation.  Similarly, moralistic utopianism ignores the sin and corruption of the individual.  For the modern Church and its romantic presuppositions, it seemed that the mere statement of the ideal of love was a guarantee of its ultimate realization.[xvii]  In short, Niebuhr judges that “liberal solutions of the social problem never take the permanent difference between [humanity’s] collective behavior and the moral ideals of an individual life into consideration.”[xviii]  This difference necessitates that collective behavior be monitored and enforced politically – that is, by force, whilst individuals ought to be disciplined by ethical standards because they are more likely to abide by them.[xix]  Hope in mechanisms of social control to create pure justice is always futile, but when it comes to structuring the state, Niebuhr argues that “basic justice in any society depends upon the right organization of [humanity’s] common labor, the equalization of their social power, regulation of their common interests, and adequate restraint upon the inevitable conflict of competing interests.”[xx]  Niebuhr knows that there is no objective or disinterested viewpoint, so he asserts that a system with the most checks and balances on power is the best one.[xxi]

ASPECTS OF BOFF’S LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Like Niebuhr, liberation theologians such as Boff do not believe that the church should necessarily be the prominent conduit for justice in society, though it of course has the highest obligation to contribute and set an example.  There exists a certain ecclesiological skepticism in both systems of thought.  Though the church has preached Christ as liberator, but in Boff’s estimation, the church has not generally been supportive of liberating movements for those on the periphery.  Additionally, Niebuhr and Boff together stress that every theology is socially situated.[xxii]

Whereas European and colonial theologies often look to the past to retrieve their instruction, this history, constituted by the subjugation of the poor, is rejected from the liberationist point of view.  It is instead the future that becomes the energizing force for liberation theology – a future that breaks with the sinful structures of oppression.  And if a utopia is being envisioned, it is not to be understood as a synonym for illusion or flight from the present.[xxiii]  Instead it is born from hope and serves as a model for perfecting reality and protects against stagnation.  Somewhat counter-intuitively, speaking of utopia is thought to keep the social process open and prevent ideologically absolutization. For Boff, it inspires ever-increasing transformation.[xxiv]

In Latin America, immense portions of the population have been marginalized.  Systemic evils transcend individual ones and have far greater consequences.  It is not just that collective groups must be analyzed and regulated differently from individuals, as Niebuhr suggests, but that they must be analyzed regulated first and more urgently.  This is the precise situation that Boff believes the gospel is addressing – namely, that of unjust forms of government and economy.  Hence one finds in liberation theology the central motif of Jesus’s teachings about the kingdom of God – not as some unrealizable, distant end, but as a growing, immanent condition that manifests itself in accordance with our cooperation with God to loose the chains of injustice here and now.  Boff understands this kingdom as a global, institutional and political revolution, though he is careful not to reduce it to any one dimension, be it economic, cultural, or political.[xxv]

Thus, all christology is united with ethics.  Boff cites several passages of Scripture: “He who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way which he walked” (1 John 2:6);  “It is not those who say to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matt. 7:21-23).[xxvi]  For Boff, the historical Jesus takes precedence over the creedal Christ (though the latter is by no means excluded or eradicated): “According to the parable concerning anonymous Christians in Matt. 25:31-46, the eternal Judge will not ask people about the canons of dogma, nor whether they made any explicit reference to the mystery of Christ while they lived.  He will ask if we have done anything to help those in need.  Here all is decided.”[xxvii] The appeal for change in the prophetic tradition and the language of exodus from bondage are other key sources of biblical authority for liberation theology.  Not to participate in this process of emancipation is to directly reject Christ and disobey God.

Poverty is concretely characterized by malnutrition; a high infant mortality rate; endemic diseases; low income; unemployment; lack of social security; lack of health care, hospitals, schools, and housing facilities.  As such, it is regarded by Boff as fundamentally inhumane, offensive, and inimical to the will of God.  The roots of these problems are not first and foremost identified in individuals but in the ruling class of society, its method and establishment of governance, and a “First World” culture of consumption.  The issue is not one of aid but of justice.  Consequently, the faith of the Western world in progress, science and technology is called into question.  This elitist vision assumes that benefits will trickle down fro the top layers to those at the bottom.[xxviii]  The chasm between this group and this dominated peoples is the major obstacle to development from Boff’s point of view.  The material problem is such that some nations are dependent on others.[xxix]  As a result, a shift in power is in order – one in which more is desired than just revision or reform.  This outlook is further supported by the observation that Jesus himself challenged the existing powers and authorities of repression in his day, which in part led to his death: “The cross demonstrates the conflict-ridden nature of every process of liberation undertaken when the structure of injustice has gained the upper hand.”[xxx]  At the same time, Boff also acknowledges Jesus’s resistance to the temptation of political messianism.[xxxi]  In sum, the way of Jesus is a journey of eschatological hope that goes by way of, but is not limited to political hopes.

A WAY FORWARD WITH BOTH?

One can appreciate the cautioning insight of Niebuhr’s realism to avoid expecting too much success in social reform, drifting into moralism, the potential dangers of utopianism, and the overly direct theologizing of politics without adequate attention to concrete reality.  At the same time, the contributions by liberation theologians of “passion for social reform, the arguments for the acceptability of revolution as a strategy for social change, and the necessity of moral critique as part of the social struggle” can easily be missed.[xxxii]  Furthermore, those like Boff and others like him (Bonino and Gutierriez for instance) treat utopia not as a fully realizable ideal but as a “hopeful social projection distinguishable from both the Kingdom of God and from the realizable program of existing political parties.”[xxxiii]  A primary liberationist critique of Christian realism would thus object to its pragmatic acceptance of the status quo and its full rejection of utopianism.[xxxiv]

No doubt Christian realism was originally Euroamerican-centric in its view of the world.[xxxv]  But Niebuhr recognized that, regardless of its intentions, the presence of the U.S. in Latin America was often regarded as exploitative.  For Niebuhr, U.S. intervention was generally a block against democratic development – though he affirms that it had made some contribution to achieving liberal democracy in Latin America.[xxxvi]  From the viewpoint of liberation theology, “Niebuhr may have overdone his critique of utopianism in the social gospel and in communism, but certainly both programs had in them grand illusions.”[xxxvii]  What is more, “Niebuhr also critiques the pretensions of laissez-faire capitalism and the utopian fantasies of contemporary American presidents.”[xxxviii]

It could be contested that liberation theology is too totalizing in its denouncement of the market system and all possibilities of reforming capitalism.[xxxix]  Similarly, some have voiced that it has been incapable of transforming base communities into active political forces.  But alternative paths have nevertheless been sought between ‘restrictive exploitative and foreign dominate capitalism’ and ‘inefficient socialism.’[xl] Stone argues that liberation theology has always been more than a theology of revolution and that is more like a form of practical theology for society.[xli]  For this reason, he deems the accusation that liberation theology is completely dependent upon Marxist analysis as wide of the mark.

In his description liberation theology, Robert McAfee Brown uses the maxim, “to know God is to do justice.” In the first place, however, liberation theology presents a theory of injustice.[xlii]  Liberation theologians defines justice as the acts of God in history which free the oppressed from institutionalized violence.[xliii]  Thus, there is really no separation between love and justice in liberation theology.  For Niebuhr on the other hand, “[t]here can be no justice without love, because true justice in the establishment of right relationships, and that cannot happen apart from love.”[xliv]  In addition, Niebuhr warns that love must strive for something purer than justice if it is to attain justice.[xlv]  While it is important to remember that Niebuhr attributed the irrelevancy of orthodox churches to their divorcing of justice and love, Niebuhr nonetheless sees love’s function as one that regulates justice; in other words, he does not apply the terms interchangeably.[xlvi]

Moreover, whereas Niebuhr is skeptical of all accumulation of power, liberation theologians want to harness power and give it back to the powerless victims.  Boff is more hopeful about the level of justice that humanity can achieve than Niebuhr.  This is largely because of desperate nature of circumstances in which so many live in Latin America.  More hope is needed to empower the masses living in misery.  So again, the biggest difference between liberation theology and Christian realism seems to be social location.[xlvii]  Their respective approaches are not necessarily incompatible but rather reflect the different circumstances in which they were written.  Christian realism does not begin from a place of the majority of humanity and their cries for justice.  Its setting, however sensitive to social grievances, is typically from the vantage point of privilege.  In view of this, perhaps one could conclude that each system is “right” for its own context and that the difference between the two is determined more by a matter of degree than kind.

Insofar as recent changes in liberation theology are requiring that its proponents enter into discussion about democracy, there might exist a collaborative future between these two groups.  The impact of world-economic structures on weak economies, however, continues to be missing from the rhetoric of Christian realism today.  The gap in terms of language about economic policies and power politics remains. [xlviii] The fact that both perspectives are “in the church” is not enough to unite the two.  So while it may have been demonstrated that Niebuhr and Boff’s are not in competition, they are not in harmony either. Therefore, another assessment is in order.

William Cavanaugh has avowed that “[t]he Christian is called not to replace one universal system with another, but to attempt to ‘realize’ the universal body of Christ in every particular exchange.”[xlix]  This observation illustrates not the competitive or harmonious relationship between liberation theology and Christian realism, but the cooperative nature of the their relationship.  They are cooperative and complimentary exactly insofar as each does indeed do this – realize the body of Christ in its own context.  As Barreto suggests, liberation theology can benefit from Niebuhr’s reflection on original sin.  Niebuhr’s interpretation of Christian ethics enables one to operate at a level of indifference to political outcomes – not indifference to political action itself.  On the other hand, Christian realism could stand to gain from some of liberation theology’s optimism.[l]  Along with this optimism, liberation theology demands what Brown has identified as the move by citizens in the dominant stratum of society to recognize one’s complicity in oppression, become “traitors” to one’s own privileged class, and broaden one’s base or worldview to include the concerns of the disenfranchised.[li] These three criterion prevent anyone with Niebuhr’s politic from ceasing to protest corruption and injustice or to strive for solidarity with the poor marginalized. With the two systems held in tension, apathy is never tolerated, yet hope for and ultimate dependence on God’s intervention is retained.

Finally, Argentine theologian Gerardo Viviers has noticed that liberation theology is in a process of change and judges that both liberation theology and Christian realism have been too captured by the rational categories of the Enlightenment: “The future theologies of Latin America will be more open to myth, symbol, story, and the experiences of indigenous religious expressions.”[lii]  In this light – beyond what has already been concluded – the way forward might also involve a slightly higher degree of distancing by the church from direct trust in or reliance on political avenues for the achievement of a more just society, both for Christian realism and liberation theology. Such an attitude toward government is likely to foster a more realistic perception of the limits of our capacity to make “accurate prospective judgments about the results of enacting one political proposal rather than another, [more so] than that of those whose thinking hews to the ordinary consequentialist line.”[liii]  Further, this guards the church from getting caught up in debates about just war for instance as Niebuhr was with the Cold War.[liv]  On the other hand, it would protect Christians from becoming somewhat reductionist in the Marxist sense by seeing justice strictly in terms of economics – often to the exclusion of culture and ethnic heritage.  In both cases, however, involvement in politics remains mandated.  Ultimately, this subtle critique should probably be seen as no more than a mild 21^st Century modification at best of two enduring contributions to Christian social thought in our time.

INTRODUCTION

A new wave of theological exploration has emerged in the last thirty years coming from the Latino/a religious culture of the United States.  The religious identity of this people group, however, has its birth in traditions as old as any other belonging to the vast majority Anglo-American citizens.  The tidy, fixed labels that are used to characterize and categorize U.S. religions are sometimes necessary and in certain instances helpful, but when in surveying the Hispanic religious experience and culture in North America, traditional boundaries are instantly broken down.  Protestantism, Catholicism, Pentecostalism, and indigenous religiosity have collided to form an altogether new hybrid between Mexican-American or Latino/a migrant and Euro-american religious identities – one that is also sometimes considered a “borderland,” chicano/a (Mexican born in the U.S.), or Mestizo/a identity.  What is  more, there are no rigid borders in terms of geography that define or limit the landscape of this diverse ethnic-religious group.  In order to begin describing how such a mestizo/a religion was formed, the high points of an old and complex “Latin” history must be at least briefly traced.

SOME HISTORY

“Until recently, a Euroamercan male hand has written their history, defined their theology, and shaped their identity.  Yet as Hispanics grow in number, they have begun to write their own stories, a process that consequently makes their perspectives subversive to the dominant theological discourse” – Miguel A. De La Torre

Three broad streams have generally shaped U.S. Latino/a religion: the European, the Native American, and the African.  The European heritage has primarily been Spanish, though not exclusively, and to speak of Spain is also to recognize the shared history with Jews (and conversos, or Jewish-Christian converts) and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula dating back to before the Spanish Inquisition and American Conquest. 

Spain was invaded and conquered by the Moors in 711.  Thereafter is called the period of convivencia (living together) in which some wars were still fought, but rarely for religious reasons.[i] Overall, this was a time of relative peace between the three Abrahamic faith traditions.  It consisted of great cultural exchange along with racial and ethnic blending.  Not surprisingly, this Late Medieval Era continues to fascinate scholars today.

After nearly a millennium of Islamic rule in Andalusia, Granada fell to the armies of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile’s “Reconquest” in 1492.  Nearly 200,000 Jews were required to leave the country, and tens years later all Moors were also expulsed.  The Spanish were convinced that God had given them this task of re-conquering the country on behalf of the Christian faith.[ii]  Regarding the reconquista, Rusto Gonzales notes the interesting datum that many of the families of Moors and Jews who were forced to convert or evacuate had lived in Spain much longer than any English-speaking people have lived in the United States.[iii] 

Upon confronting the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Spanish “explorers” would give a document called a Requerimiento to the leaders of native tribes, which would explain that Jesus Christ was the ruler of the world, and that God had given the power of this rule to the Pope and the crown of Spain.  This authority was said to be passed down to these crusaders themselves, legitimizing their invasion and lordship over the land.  If there was any resistance – even though there was obviously no way for the two groups to understand each other – the locals would then be regarded as rebels and could be treated as such.  Encomiendas, on the other hand, were selected numbers of indigenous representatives who were trained and taught in the way of Spanish Christendom to then preside over other local inhabitants on behalf of Spanish “nobles.”  Though this latter practice had greater potential for civility, both methods were frequently abused.

The details of such abuse and the atrocities committed by the Spanish against the indigenous during these years after Columbus’s voyages are well known and documented, so a short overview can suffice here:

The quest for gold in Hispaniola was a disaster for the island’s indigenous people and subsequently, for the inhabitants of the whole continent.  When the goldfields failed to materialize, the Spanish turned on the local inhabitants and forced them to supply a quota of gold every three months.  Every man, woman, and child was liable for this quota; the Spanish cut a hand off those who failed and hanged or burned any who resisted.  After only two years, an estimated half of the population had died or been killed – an estimated 125,000 to 5000,000 people.  Those who survived Spanish cruelty were vulnerable to European diseases for which they had no immunity.  When it was clear that little gold available was exhausted, the conquistadores forced the inhabitants to work the land for them instead.[iv]

The legacy of violence tied up in the quest for a New Catholic Spain, “coupled with avarice and religious intolerance, were the necessary ingredients that would lead to the bloody conquest, subjugation, and rape of the native people . . . Some saw the conquest as a means of evangelization.  Many conquistadors, like Cortes, saw themselves as instruments of God and bearers of the gospel, foreshadowing what the U.S. would later use to justify their occupation of Spanish and Mexican territories.”[v]  Using Aristotilean categories, theologians like Jose de Acosta saw the natives as barbarians devoid of reason in order to justify their enslavement and abuse.  Unfortunately, despite the bright like shown by them in a very dark hour, the few challenges toward and condemnations of the heinous Conquistador crimes voiced by those like Bartolome de Las Casas and Antonio de Montesinos achieved very little in terms of improving the treatment of the natives.

Despite the break in the coexistence of the three monotheistic traditions in Spain, the plurality of religious practices from this period was passed on in part through the commercial exploitation and “discovery” of America by the conquistadorian arm of Ferdinand and Isabella.  In the same way that Spain was not monolithic, neither were the so-called “Indians” that Columbus and the conquistadors came across following his landing in the Americas.[vi]  The various people groups and societies ranged widely in terms of their social-political systems and worldviews, depending on whether it was the Taino, Aztecs, Mayans, Zapotecs or others.  Some of these civilizations were extraordinarily sophisticated.  Ultimately, however, their weaponry and lack of immunity to disease rendered their defenses incapable of deterring the Spanish invasion.  The Aztecs surrendered to Hernan Cortez in 1521. The Inca Empire and Quechua religion, located in Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, was crushed between 1532 and 1572.

African traditional religions, especially from the Western region of the continent, were brought by force during the slave trade, and have permeated certain areas of Latin America in varying degrees – perhaps most notably in Cuba.  This has led to some continuity with and infiltration in U.S. Hispanic religiosity.  Africa dance, music, and view of the spirit-world in particular have left a significant impression.[vii]  The common history of subjugation and racism served to further amalgamate certain aspects within each of these strands of symbols and rituals in all of their multiplicity.  

In the midst of tragedy, despair and indefensible evildoings, something remarkable happened.  As the story goes, On Mount Tepeyac outside of Mexico City on December 9^th, 1531, the Virgin of Guadalupe (also known as “Our Lady Guadalupe”, assumed to be the Virgin Mary, appeared to a poor mestizo named Juan Diego.  Although the truth of the account is disputed, as some suggest it was actually a tool of the Spanish Catholic church to evangelize the natives, the Virgin of Guadalupe has nevertheless remained a powerful and transformative symbol for the Mexican people.  This power is no doubt partly due to the degree to which it runs counter to the violent history of the Spanish conquest and the patriarchal hierarchy of the Catholic ecclesial structures.  Most obviously, the Virgin appeared to a peasant worker of humble beginnings and with a bicultural heritage, rather than to the Spaniards or to any church officials.  Secondly, the Virgin herself is thought to have appeared as a mestiza.  And perhaps most interestingly, she came to a place that was sacred to the indigenous and that had been dedicated to an Aztec goddess.  Small wonder then why “the Virgin of Guadalupe represents a cultural and religious union, a mestizaje, that has not only evoked religious fervor in the people, but also has come to symbolize the mestizo/a identity of the people.”[viii]

Skipping forward several hundred years, most Latin American countries gained independence from Europe in the early Nineteenth Century.  For 15 million dollars the United States would “purchase” from Mexico a territory in 1848 that included New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, Nevada and part of Colorado.  In the same treaty, Mexico agreed to accept the annexation of Texas.[ix]  John Quincy Adams and Ulysses S. Grant themselves saw the war against Mexico and the treaty itself as unjust.[x]  Orlando E. Costas contends that “[t]he Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo may have created a political border but could not impose a cultural one.  Mexican families live today on both sides of the Rio Bravo.  They have a historical and cultural claim to the Southwest.  This religion belongs as much to them as it does to Ango-Americans.”[xi]

The reasons for migration across the Rio Grande ever since have largely been determined by economic factors.  It times of depression, less work is available in the U.S., and people tend to blame Mexicans for taking U.S. jobs.  When business is booming, however, a demand for cheap labor increases, and somehow political steps always seem to be taken in order to open immigration doors (such as the Bracero Program) and call upon the Mexican “reserve army.”

Additionally, many Central Americans from the various nations have come to this country because of the civil wars supported by the United States in their homelands, as was the case with the U.S. Contra war in Nicaragua during the Reagan administration.  Likewise, “[t]erritorial invasions and the exploitation of natural resources by U.S. corporations like the United Fruit Company contributed to Latin America’s underdevelopment and internal unrest.”[xii] Now the U.S. is the fourth largest Spanish-speaking country in the Western hemisphere, and making up 25 percent of the U.S. population, Hispanics are the largest minority group in the country.[xiii]

U.S. LATINO/A RELIGION, CULTURE AND IDENTITY

Hispanic Americans belong to two worlds and yet they are not bona fide members of either . . . the future of Hispanics in the Americas lies neither in assimilation nor isolation, but rather in the recovery and affirmation of their double identity.[xiv] – Orland E. Costas

In U.S. Latino/a religion, one finds deep sense of the interrelatedness of all things in an “ever-expanding, extensive continuum that goes beyond our immediate present and place in history.”[xv]  Living as a minority in this context is to live in a space between a variety of cultures, races, languages and beliefs that often clash together quite violently.  The myth of a “melting pot” society becomes most evident in these clashes.  In places where people experience their existence as underprivileged in comparison to the dominant Anglo culture, highlighting ethnic and cultural identity is a means of survival, and God becomes a sources of strength for resistance against oppressive forces.

U.S. Latinos/as are sometimes assumed to merely be Latin Americans or Latin American immigrants in the United States.  While this is true, the majority of U.S. Latinos/as have regional roots that go far back before the independence of the United States or the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848.  In light of the divergence in culture between North America and Latin America, however, Latino/a life in the United States is constituted by a daily struggle to achieve wholeness. Latinos/as are a people separated from the land that previously defined them. The fragmentary nature of this identity lends itself to being understood precisely as Mestizo/a.

By adopting the label mestizaje (Elizondo) with its origins in the word mestizo, which was used described those whose parents were from both Spanish and indigenous descent, the U.S. government’s attempt to hide or erase cultural heritage (whether intentionally or unintentionally) is resisted.[xvi]  Nevertheless, any attempt to encapsulate such a heterogeneous group of people by using one descriptor is necessarily to risk reinscribing notions of exclusion and to potentially occlude important internal tensions and differences.[xvii]  Mestizaje is not a neutral term, and one must counter any effort by scholars or politicians to veil the violent past that this socio-ethic nomination is meant to evoke.

The stigmas associated with being Hispanic in the U.S. are many ranging from being seen as lazy to just plane impure or “dirty”. The legacy of Manifest Destiny, American exceptionalism, and Spanish “Providentialism” (as guardians of Catholicism) has contributed to these denigrating stereotypes.  Mestizaje has more to do with how one looks or sounds than where he or she lives.  Judgments made about Latinos/as based on their funny accents and darker have been accumulated to create their deep sense of Otherness.  Conversely, honorary “whiteness” awaits those with clear English and lighter skin color. [xviii]

This alienation is part of the reason why the formation and preservation of communidad is so central to Hispanic-American religious life.[xix]  With between two hundred and three hundred thousand undocumented Mexicans arriving each year in the U.S., Latinos/as are rightly thought by some to be the resident alien populace par excellence: “Children and infants who hold no memories of their (former) homeland are condemned to live within the memories constructed for them by their parents.  [As] exiles, aliens, and outsiders [they] feel unable to escape an inner struggle that defines their ethnicity, an ethnicity that frustrates their ability to reconcile their identity with their presence in the United States.”[xx]

Furthermore, The urban settings or “barrios” where many Latinos/as are concentrated has produced an environment in which much of the Hispanic community suffers under residential segregation, discrimination in employment, and political isolation.[xxi]  An increasing number are beginning to discover the power of their vote, however.  Nonetheless, while Hispanics spend around $300 billion a year into the U.S. economy, 40 percent of their children still live in poverty, which is the highest rate for any ethnic group ever recorded in the U.S.[xxii] They are also the most disproportionately uneducated racial group in the U.S. population.

The prominence of machismo or sexism in Latino/a culture relegates the woman’s role to the private sphere, the home, while men take on the public work.  It is considered macho to provide for one’s family.  Moreover, women are less likely to “get into trouble” if they stay in the house.  Men are very protective, but in a paternalistic fashion.  Their job is to keep women away from other men.  The aggressive and liberal sexual behavior of men on the other hand is rarely questioned.  In fact, infidelity itself is thought to increase their machismo.  Men provide the avenue through which honor comes to the family, while women are considered more susceptible to bringing shame.[xxiii]  The irony with Euroamericans talking condescendingly about “machismo” culture, however, is that it can be used to mask the chauvinistic structures of their own society as well.[xxiv]

Though it would be wrong to think of all Latinos/as as Catholics, most do have shared cultural roots in the communidad of Catholicism.  At the same time, it is estimated that somewhere between 25-40 percent of Hispanics are affiliated with Protestantism somehow – and that number is growing.[xxv]  But the Hispanics who have left Roman Catholicism for Protestantism are not necessarily evangelicals or fundamentalists.  And as was alluded above, popular religiosity in the wake of maintained Native American and African traditional practices and spiritualities undergird the heart of daily Hispanic spiritual life.  In this environment emphasis is placed on the importance of home devotional practices, like home altars, prayers to saints, promesas (vows), quinceaneras (fifteenth-birthday celebrations), vigilias (vigils), estribillos or coritos (choruses).[xxvi]  The spirituality or devotional piety of popular Hispanic religion is dynamic and grassroots-based in nature.  Worship is like a “sacred fiesta,” consisting of enthusiastic singing, freely expressed praise, Santa Cena (the Lord’s Supper), confession of sin, and the confession of faith in the One who forgives sin.[xxvii]

Descending from a context where government and economy are often less than dependable (sometimes due in significant measure to negligence on the part of its Northern neighbor), it is no accident that familia is so importance and central to Latino/a life.  It is the perhaps the most basic and social institution of Hispanic culture, spanning far wider than just to immediate relatives.  The social and familial character of Latino/a culture correlates closely with the stress placed on justice as the fundamental value in society.  In Spanish, for example, the English word ‘righteousness’ does not have an equivalent, and is instead translated as “justicia” or justice in the Bible.  To illustrate, whereas the English version of Luke 23:47 might read, “Certainly this man was righteous,” the Spanish follows thusly: “Realmente, este hombre era justo,” justo meaning just.[xxviii]  And with the emphasis on family, justice in turn is first and foremost seen as a communal matter rather than an individual one.  There is very little room or thought given to the idea of a “private” life.  Justice is chiefly a collective concern.

The complex intermingling of native and Christian religious symbols and rituals have caused problems for Latinos/as, as Protestants claim to have a truer, purer form of Christianity.  In other words, anything not found in the Bible is rejected, or so goes the theory.  Candles, robes, incense, and crucifixes have been seen as unacceptable.  So has at times the practice of wearing black for mourning or of novenas for the dead – the custom of meeting for nine days after someone’s death to remember them and to pray for them.  Pianos, pews, and Christmas trees have always been accepted though – these elements are the valid exceptions.

Pentecostalism has become the second largest religious group in the U.S. of Hispanics after Roman Catholicism.  Countless small independent churches have been formed across the Southwest since the Azusa Street Revival.  Rituals in these immigrant communities often include times for testimonials, healings, prayer to the Holy Spirit and fasting.  In Hispanic worship in general – not just in Pentecostalism specifically – the body is just as important as the soul and the mind.  But because so many ethnic and racial veins run through the blood of Mestizaje identity (indigenous, European, Arabian and even some Asian), the most important elements common to and uniting all Hispanic religion continue to be the Spanish language and cultural tradition itself.

U.S. LATINO/A THEOLOGY

Miguel A. De La Torre and Edwin David Aponte provide a summary of the chief aims for the Hispanic theologian:

Latino/a theology becomes a distinct type of God-talk whose function is (1) to understand the Divine from within the Hispanic cultural location; (2) to seek God’s liberative will in the face of both cultural and economic oppression; (3) to search for a common voice that proclaims salvation, liberation, and reconciliation to the most diverse segments of Latino/a culture; (4) to create theological harmony between the U.S. Hispanic condition and the scriptural narratives; (5) to struggle against the way Latinos/as are perceived and conceived by the dominant culture; and (6) to provide a prophetic voice that unmasks the racism, classism, and sexism implicit in the theology of the dominant white culture.[xxix]

While it may be generally accepted in theory that all theology is done from a particular setting in time and point of view, Latino/a theology, largely in agreement and confluence with liberation theology, fosters a heightened acknowledgement of this reality.  As such, abstract philosophical reflection, though not absent, is definitely reduced or at minimum given a secondary role in the theological methodology.  Embedded within the Hispanic theological outlook is Juan Luis Segundo’s principle of the hermeneutic circle – however implicitly or explicitly – which is partly borrowed from Marxist thought and emphasizes a praxis-based approach to interpreting doctrine and religious ideology.  In this logic known as dialectical materialism, doing theology always starts from a concrete place within a given social stratum fundamentally determined by class.  Moreover, interpretation is considered an on-going process.  Claims to centeredness and objectivity are usually suspect – even if theology in general tends toward this.  One’s subjective position is never wholly transcended.

Whereas mainline Protestantism or European Catholicism might tend to see the role of tradition as one that is implicitly conservative – “harking us back to the church fathers, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and so on” – Hispanics will typically have an increased awareness of “socio-historical realities of the originators of the revered tradition.”[xxx]  Accordingly, tradition from the U.S. Latino/a perspective is one in which the need for constant reformulation and reconstruction is emphasized.  This is taken seriously enough for Luis Pedraja to make the following claim:  “To deny that theology is a product of its cultural context is tantamount to denying the Incarnation and the historicity of Scripture.”[xxxi]

Concerning Scripture itself, Justo Gonzalez has spoken of “Reading the Bible in Spanish” as an especially political and subversive act for Latinos/as.[xxxii]  Using the vernacular automatically hands a certain amount of power over to those on the periphery by giving them the ability to participate.  In particular, however, this extends access to those who typically excluded from biblical scholarship, which is a crucial step.  The exercise of listening to what the voiceless learn from the text henceforth becomes a principle avenue for acquiring new theological insight.

Deeply indebted to Latin American liberation theology, U.S. Latina/o theologians understood theology as “the critical reflection on the praxis” of the people – a praxis that would need to reflect the different sociopolitical, cultural, and historical contexts both explicitly and systematically in U.S. Latino/a communities.[xxxiii]  Consistent with the liberationist heritage then, U.S. Latino/a theology seeks to be a theological task of people – the reality for whom is often one of oppression and marginalization.  If there is a privileged center, it must therefore be one through which the reality of disinheritance can be resisted.[xxxiv]

According to liberation theologians themselves, one finds in the Bible God’s preferential option for poor.  What is more, salvation itself is not something to be seen as solely realized in the future or in the afterlife.  Nor is it restricted to the spiritual realm. Rather salvation is a living and historical reality to be achieved in a community’s present material circumstances.  Relying on Hegelian and Marxist dialectical reading of history, sin is primarily viewed as structural and as having infected the systems and institutions that govern humanity.  Sin conceived of as an impediment for liberation here and now just as much as a hindrance to salvation after death.  Hence, poverty itself must be understood as a scandalous condition and as offensive to God.[xxxv]  Communion with God is breached as long as injustice prevails.  In response, the responsibility of the Church and Christians everywhere must be to work for solidarity with those who are suffering from oppressive systems.  Jesus’s proclamation of the impending Kingdom of God as a reign of justice that brings freedom and good news to the poor, the captives, the blind and lame becomes the hope that energizes a theology of liberation; it is the promise empowers the disenfranchised to be victorious against the slave-driving Pharaoh’s of this world.[xxxvi]

In liberation theology, the starting point is the historical Jesus more so than the christological creeds – though this is not to suggest that the latter is necessarily absent.[xxxvii]  Much of liberation theology has been critical of the established ecclesial orders.[xxxviii]  Juan Luis Segundo voiced his criticism of the church on the grounds that it sought theological unity and the salvation of individual souls over and against any significant effort for socio-economic-political justice.[xxxix]  Archbishop Romero himself echoes this concern: “The church exists to act in solidarity with the hopes and joys, the anxieties and sorrows, of men and women.”[xl]  And as Leonardo Boff argues, “[a]ccording to the parable concerning anonymous Christians in Matt. 25:31-46, the eternal Judge will not ask people about the canons of dogma, nor whether they made any explicit reference to the mystery of Christ while they lived.  He will ask if we have done anything to help those in need.  Here all is decided.”[xli]

Thus there has indeed been an extensive influence exerted upon U.S. Latino/a theology and religion by Latin American Liberation Theology.  Nonetheless, the two cannot be confused.  Hispanics generally have more conservative cultural roots than many of the influential thinkers in the liberation movement.  Social and cultural marginalization for Latinos/as in the U.S. is as significant as poverty and oppression. Hispanic/Latino/a theology has actually forced Latin American Liberation Theology to re-examine itself and confront some of its own lacunas.  For instance, the limited focus on politics and economics excludes cultural, aesthetic, and racial dimensions of society.  It also fails to explore popular religion.  Sexism is also not really addressed.  Pedraja claims for example that using culture and ethnic identity “brings about changes beyond the scope of Latin American Liberation theology with its emphasis on politics and economics.”[xlii]  At the same time, the preference for Latino/a culture in Hispanic theology does not imply an idealization of that identity.[xliii]  Rather, since all cultures and identities are human constructions and as such are imperfect, the selection of one particular community’s perspective makes explicit what is already true of theological projects from any point of view.

Despite the critical distinction made between Latin American liberation theology per se and U.S. Latino/a theologies, Maria Pilar Aquino has tried her hand at combining the two:

The very existence of mestiza theology and economics – liberation, even with its unresolved challenges, comes to demonstrate a collective discomfort with respect to modern white, male, Euro-American culture.  When the current American system declares any alternative dead, thereby destroying any possibility of reaching those alternatives, the Latina communities in the midst of their oppression continue to envision a world in which we all can live.  As long as Latino theology continues to demonstrate its ability to coherently articulate that which we can be, convinced of its possibility, then our task finds its worth and meaning.[xliv]

Aquino envisions the God of the barrio, the God of Jesus the mestizo, and the God of manana

precisely as the God of liberation for Hispanic peoples.  To remember that Jesus too had difficulty finding a place, and that he was born away from home, and that thereafter he was an exile in Egypt is to do theology in the Latino/a way.  For Aquino, Hispanics theologize on behalf of life and liberation and on the side of the poor and oppressed. The on-going reformulation of their very identity depends on this. Social location determines the hermeneutics for interpreting Scripture, and only in view of a qualified reading of history can this be done for Latinos/as. Theirs is a spirituality of hope in the struggle for liberation, and the relationship between theology and pastoral action is direct.  And finally, if there is to be any ecumenism, it starts from the ground up.[xlv]

THE WAY FORWARD IS MESTIZAJE: BEYOND THE FRONTIER MYTH

“All my life I have been driven by one dream, one goal, one vision: To overthrow a labor system that treats farm workers as I they are not important human beings”[xlvi] – Caesar Chavez

In the minds of many U.S. citizens, active memory of both the North and Central American conquests by European ancestors is conspicuously absent.  A disconnect is present between the historical reality of “what land belongs to whom” and “why.”  The manor in which the American historical identity has been transmitted and constructed is forgetful and fanciful – so much so that, as far as many U.S. citizens are concerned, there is only one “America.”[xlvii]  Closely connected with the frontier myth therefore is the myth of an innocent history.  The reason why the United States has refused to hear the truth of its own history is articulated well by Justo Gonzales:

[A]s long as it is innocent of such truth, it does not have to deal with the injustices that lie at the heart of its power and its social order . . . In our country, such guilty innocence is the handmaiden of injustice.  Injustice thrives on the myth that the present order is somehow the result of pure intentions and guiltless history . . . Perhaps once we are agreed that we are all ladrones [thieves], it will be easier for all of us to see much more clearly into issues of justice.[xlviii]

Tying this in with the border issue, Goizueta builds on Gonzalez’s thought as follows:

[L]ate modernity is a world of borders; but, given our history, the profound fear of immigrants reflected in recent legislation suggests that U.S. society continues to view these borders through the lenses of a frontier myth, open to economic expansion but closed to human immigration.  The consequent distortion has devastating consequences, among them the inability to acknowledge historical ambiguity.  Conversely, the Latina/o experience is one that . . . allows for ambiguity and reflects an understanding of the border as a true meeting place, where different cultures interact.[xlix]

Indeed, for many Latinos and Latinas, the border is much more than a place where they live.  The border becomes who they are, as a people whose identity and reality is in between.[l]  To be a border is to live between the rapist and the violated woman and to experience the pain of that tension.[li]

Goizueta is careful to argue, however, that the reason for exposing the lie of an innocent history is not to “ascribe blame to some while exonerating others;” rather it is because by doing so, we will “be able to more effectively bring our future reality into harmony with our national deals.”[lii]  The goal is mutual enrichment.  The borderland cultivates an acknowledgement of all our impurities (against the grain of supposed racial purity).  This is welcomed by Latinos/as, because they know that none of us is pure.[liii]

Virgilio Elizondo shares his own testimony and speaks of the period of time when the person of Jesus the Lord was eclipsed by theory, doctrine, philosophical formulation and theological abstraction.  For Mestizos/as, Jesus is instead a “living person – a friend, an older brother, the “master” who – unlike the masters of this world who abused, exploited, and insulted us – was always solicitous for our welfare and would always be around to help us and comfort us on our way.”[liv]

In the history of Latino/a ecclesial life in the United States, Elizondo observes that the “Euro-American ways of the established church were not he ways of [his] people.  The clergy, religious, and theologians were still foreigners and strangers to our way of life and to our expressions of faith.”[lv]  Elizondo gives account of the deep loneliness that often came with not understanding and not being understood as non-English speaker growing up.  What gives hope to the Mestizo/a situation in particular for Elizondo is a close examination of the socio-cultural person of Jesus himself – one whose earthly identity was as a poor man who showed favor to the lowly and disinherited.  God became a historically, culturally, and racially conditioned human being.[lvi]  As a Jew and a Galilean, Jesus resided in a borderland himself, not unlike the Southwestern United States – almost like being a Mexican-American in Texas.[lvii]  His language and accent probably sounded different from the dominant Latin and Roman Imperial context.    Jesus saw a world where native women were conquered and violated by soldiers.  The scandal of the virgin birth takes on new meaning in light of this.  Elizondo resonates with the migration and social distance that would be the core of Jesus’s daily life.[lviii]  Jesus was an outcast in his own homeland which parallels the experiences of Latinos/as who have been “considered too Mexican by mainline U.S. society, and too ‘gringo’ by families and friends in Mexico.”[lix]  In short, appreciating the fullness of the incarnation enables one to recognize the extent to which Jesus suffered the injustices of our world in much the same respect that many Latinos/as do.

Paul writes of how God was pleased to choose the nothings and foolish things of the world to shame the wise and the strong.  In the same way, Jesus proclaims the Kingdom of God and “dares to live what others fear: the joy of common table fellowship with everyone.  By freely eating with everyone, he breaks and challenges all the social taboos that keep people apart.”[lx]  Did this not a major reason for why he was sent him to the cross?

Elizondo understands the liberation that Jesus brings as existential rather than as a strictly universal concept.  It is a tangible liberation that gives inspiration to the hope for what can be: “that the human family might be one, rich in the great diversity of the various nationalities of the world, but no longer divided into enemies, free enough of racial and cultural prejudices of the past to be able to love one another as each is, free enough to learn from one another, free enough to value and respect one another.”[lxi]

Mainstream U.S. culture and political identity seeks to pollute the beauty of Mestizaje, however, with the blinding glamour of abundance.[lxii] Furthermore, a Latino/a theology of liberation would argue that international markets are a far greater destructive force to local identities than immigration could ever be.  In truth, “Americanization” has gained sway in a much more devastating fashion among the youth of Mexico who find the popular cultural and consumerist way of life very appealing.  Regional groups can confront this totalizing, homogenizing energy. The mestizo/a of today provides exactly this oppositional strength when it shows how racial and cultural mixture does not have to work against national identity but can actually enrich it.[lxiii]

U.S. citizens often do not recognize that if it weren’t for the dire material circumstances in which many immigrants find themselves at home – the conditions of which are often a direct result of U.S. corporate and consumer behavior in the first place – the overwhelming percentage of these same immigrants would prefer to stay where they are.  Survival is at stake.  Moreover, the Western version of the path to development, which is regularly imposed upon Latin America through free trade agreements like NAFTA in accordance with the interests of the North, has had all kinds of unintended negative consequences.  The advice of Harold J. Recinos is instructive on this point:

As Latino/a theologians become more focused on the theological analysis of popular piety, it is my hope that they will turn their attention to systematic analysis of the multiple ways in which popular religion for people in structurally and culturally disadvantaged positions use belief systems to construct everyday forms of resistance to political, economic, and theological elites.  This line of research will demonstrate that U.S. Latinos/as are not passive political and religious actors but self-conscious subjects who imagine an alternative social reality, organized with more justice, dignity, freedom, and happiness.[lxiv]

And so it does seem that this would be a worthy job for the Latino/a theologian of the 21^st Century.  In return, it also seems only fair and necessary – in order to make a better future – to call upon others to lend an attentive ear.  The popular religion of the Anglo-U.S. population has practically always been both silent and death when it comes to matters of urgent concern for justice.  Whether it’s with regard to the crises of overpopulation of Hispanics in state and federal prisons for non-violent crimes or the exponentially growing death toll in Mexico as a result of the drug trade driven by U.S. demand and consumption – or the many other acute issues facing U.S. Latinos/as in this age – evangelicals, Protestants and Catholics alike are far behind in their organization and activism on behalf of God’s care for the immigrant and minority communities in this country.

The depth, beauty and richness of Latino/a religious and theological identity has only been minimally highlighted here.  To say with Hispanics that the future is truly Mestizaje, a greater appreciation for and solidarity with this people of eclectic culture and a religious mosaic but be cultivated in the minds and hearts of Americans everywhere.  Latino/a scholars of religion continue to do their part, as can be seen here, but the divide between the dominant Euroamerican culture and Mestizo/a American people is still great.  Giving encouragement to other Hispanics in hopes of a brighter tomorrow, Loida I. Martell-Otero offers this word: “There is a particularity of our spirituality which enlivens our life of faith, and therefore our theology.  We have many names for this: our passion, our joy, our deep love for the Lord.  Non-Hispanics are often nonplussed by it . . . Our challenge is to keep the fire of our passion from dying out.  We must continue to think with our hearts and feel with our brains.”[lxv]  May it be as she says.

INTRODUCTION

Friedrich Nietzsche is without question infamous for, among many other things, how much he despised Christianity.  Especially significant, as many also know, is Nietzsche’s portrayal of Jesus in contrast to the Pauline version of the faith that energized and proliferated the widespread religion of Christianity that Nietzsche knew and that people still see today.  The villain for Nietzsche is not Jesus but Paul of course.  No doubt Nietzsche’s view of both Christianity and Jesus has been substantially called into question,[i] but it simultaneously has served to correct some less than praiseworthy attributes of the Church in some cases, and to hold the faithful accountable in others.[ii]  In addition, significant attention has been given to Nietzsche’s analysis of Buddhism as compared to Christianity.  While Nietzsche’s clearly regards the former to be more realistic, he still considers both to be nihilistic and decadent.  Others have also wondered about the degree to which Nietzsche’s depiction of Buddhism is consistent with authentic Buddhism – it may depend on which Buddhist tradition is being considered.  This is partly of what will be considered in this essay.

What is discussed less often, however, is the extent to which Nietzsche’s selective picture of Jesus parallels his (mis?)characterization of the Buddhist worldview.  Hence, what will be conducted here is an overview of how Nietzsche construes Jesus of Nazareth, placed alongside of a synopsis of his appreciation and understanding of Buddhism.  A short assessment and response will follow.  Less background in Buddhism than Christianity is assumed on the reader’s part, so a very basic and pithy overview of the features of Buddhism that are related to Nietzsche’s treatment of it will be supplied in necessarily broad strokes before drawing any conclusions.  Beforehand though, it will be useful to give a short account of what Nietzsche says about two of the other great world religions.

NIETZSCHE ON HINDUISM AND ISLAM

The Law of Manu is considered to be words of Brahma recorded in the Dharmasastra tradition of Hinduism.  As such, for many it has an authoritative tone.  The Bible, as we have already seen, can only be used for bad purposes according to Nietzsche: “negation of life, hatred of the body, the degradation and self-violation of humans through the concept of sin,” but Nietzsche gets the opposite feeling when he reads the law book of Manu (AC 56).[iii]  For this reason, Nietzsche regards it as a far superior work.  The main reason for this is because it permits the noble classes to embrace and defend their privilege.  In other words, it preserves the natural order – the order that Christianity corrupts.

Via an approximate application of the cast system, Nietzsche maintains that three main levels of society should exist.  The highest class consists of those who are the most “spiritual” and therefore the “strongest,” which is essentially to say that they are the most knowledgeable (AC 57).[iv]  This group is small.  The second class is also strong, but more so in the physical sense.  This level includes the vanguards of the law – those like the king, the judges, soldiers, and anyone who works to ensure protection and security of the political order.  These actors behave in accordance with the interests of the first class – the nobility.  Lastly there is the mediocre caste, which makes up the vast majority.  It might be acceptable to name these people the laborers.  They are the farmers, traders, factory workers, and even many of the artists.  To summarize what Nietzsche means here, “Everyone finds his [or her] privilege in his [or her] own type of being . . . [m]ediocrity is needed before there can be exceptions: it is the condition for a high culture.”[v]  Said another way, rights are only privileges.  Thus, injustice – as opposed to Christianity’s notion of injustice – only arises when rights are demanded as warranting equality for all, which disrupts the necessary social ladder.  This happens, for instance, when “chandala-apostles” – those promoting Christian values (chandala refers to the lowest caste rung in some Indian societies) – challenge the otherwise happy and modest sentiments of the mediocre class by encouraging them to expect equality and act with ressentiment, or revenge and envy.

Though this might sound politically incorrect at best or like outright discrimination and prejudice to many modern readers at worst, it would perhaps be too simplistic to completely dismiss Nietzsche’s argument without further consideration.  The word “mediocre” is not meant to have the same derogatory connotation that people today typically associate with it.  It is rather simply describing the way life is for Nietzsche as he observes it.  The description coheres with what Nietzsche believes is instinctive and natural.  Religion as reflected in books like the Law of Manu merely serves to authorize or normalize what has already been true throughout human history.  It is not mean to necessarily be explicitly evaluative.  What Nietzsche judges to be misleading, however, is the extent to which such teachings are presented as having been inspired by a higher power once and for all rather than developed and superimposed after much reflection and experimentation on the part of rulers, priests, and other elites.

So while Nietzsche appreciates the more realistic philosophical underpinnings of the Indian traditions he knew, they still posed a threat to the good of European society because of what Nietzsche determined to be a renunciation of the world in their thought:  “Knowing him, the Atman, Brahmans relinquish the desire for posterity, the desire for possessions, the desire for worldly prosperity, and go forth as medicants.”[vi] According to Richard Brown, Nietzsche “falsely regarded Hinduism (Brahmanism, Vedanta), like Schopenhauer, as singularly life-denying.”[vii]  Indian philosophy in general was seen by Nietzsche as essentially pessimistic, supporting the ascetic denial of the will.  Because Nietzsche read Shopenhauer, it is likely that that he understood the text of the Bhagavad Gita as a predominately non-dualistic or Advaitic variety following Sankara.[viii]  As such, Nietzsche equates the concept of maya with the unreal and illusion in general, which is textually inaccurate.[ix]  Ironically, as what will be highlighted below concerning Buddhism, it has been suggested that maya resembles something similar to Nietzsche’s will to power.

In a similar vein, Nietzsche believes Islam to be a “lesser evil” compared to Christianity, and for analogous reasons.  Muslims assert noble values through masculine instincts, for example, and say “Yes” to life in this way (AC 60).[x]  More specifically, Nietzsche expresses admiration for Islamic culture, which Europe lost when the Moors and the Jews were expulsed from Spain.  Christians were sure to take their riches, which empowered their propagation in Europe and beyond (to the “new” world) even more than Nietzsche acknowledges.  Lastly, Nietzsche complains about how this money was used by the Church to buy German aristocratic support over the centuries.

NIETZSCHE’S JESUS

            The first issue Nietzsche addresses in this second portion of The Anti-Christ is the notion of the “psychology of the redeemer.”  Particularly problematic for Nietzsche is Renan’s concept of Jesus’ type as a “genius” or “hero,” which Nietzsche calls  “unevangelical.”  Jesus’ teachings negate struggle and immoralize the “capacity for resistance” according to Nietzsche (AC 29).[xi]  Thus the world that matters is completely internalized.  The eternal kingdom lives inside each of us.  Consequently, Nietzsche says Jesus promotes 1) a hatred for every kind of reality, and 2) an understanding of natural instincts like reluctance, aversion to pain, and self-preservation as inherently harmful.  These two principles lay the groundwork for the doctrine of redemption, which Nietzsche also describes as a “refined development of hedonism,” and somewhat related to Epicureanism (AC 30).[xii]  Pleasure or bliss then, as Nietzsche reads Jesus, can only comes by adopting love for all, even enemies.  This is the religion of love that inevitably develops as a result of the fear of pain.

In this way, Nietzsche challenges Renan’s depiction of Jesus as a “fanatic of aggression” and as a “mortal enemy” to the priests and the theologians of the day (AC 31).[xiii]  Instead, Nietzsche insists that the redeemer psychology is a “childlike” faith – not a “hard-won faith” (AC 32).[xiv]  And this respect it seems, Nietzsche associates Jesus more closely with the teachings of Buddhism, which as we’ve seen he holds in slightly higher esteem.  Hence, Nietzsche sees Jesus committing to a faith that is not formulaic, and certainly not combative.  Jesus is an anti-realist, so the Last Super, or language about the “Son of Man,” or the “Kingdom of God” for instance, only functions allegorically and is limited by the Jewish religious context.  In Nietzsche’s reading, everything Jesus believes as “true” is just an inner light – nothing solid.  He is a “free spirit.”  Thus, dogma is only symbolism, in spite of every crude ecclesiastical temptation to suggest otherwise.  Indeed, Nietzsche calls Jesus “the great symbolist” (AC 34),[xv] implying that the outer, material world is just that – a symbol, nothing more.  It’s a symbol that can tell us something about the world that truly matters, which is the inner world.

Doctrines like the Trinity, or even the personhood of God, are complete inventions and without base in “the redeemer,” according to Nietzsche.  Furthermore, Jesus’ knowledge is “stupidity” concerning worldly systems and structures like religion, culture, or the state.  Guilt, punishment, sin and hope for reward are apparently absent from the mind of the “evangel” (AC 33).[xvi]  The blessedness of the “glad tidings” announced by Jesus is not conditional by Nietzsche’s rendering – meaning, not a promise.  It’s a fully realized way of relating to the world in the present – of practicing and acting, not believing (e.g., having no enemies, not showing favoritism, letting one’s “yes be yes,” and not getting angry).  This kind of life would make a person feel divine, eternal, and perfect.  This is what Jesus means when he promises “paradise” for the thief on the cross.  To take an example, Nietzsche claims that the word “father” expresses this feeling itself, and the word “son” represents the “entrance” into that feeling (AC 34).[xvii]  Furthermore:

“Atonement and praying for forgiveness are not the way to God: only the evangelical practice leads to God, in fact it is ‘God’ – What the evangel did away with was the Judaism of the concepts of ‘sin’, ‘forgiveness of sin’, ‘faith’, ‘redemption through faith’ – the whole Jewish church doctrine was rejected in the ‘glad tidings’” (AC 33).[xviii]

In sum, the psychological reality of redemption consists solely in material and interior rather than otherworldly terms.  Jesus promises nothing about afterlife in Nietzsche’s view.  It is this life that matters – a new life, not a new faith, which is everywhere and nowhere as an experience of the heart (AC 34).[xix]  John Charles Evans has shed light on Nietzsche’s Jesus in very positive terms: “The abolition of sin in deference to conceptions of living and acting is a dramatic and critical interpretation.  It connects Nietzsche’s Jesus, not only with life affirmation, but also Nietzsche’s concept of ‘beyond good and evil.’  Nietzsche ascribes to Jesus the concept of value creation through living rather through the pursuit of a higher moral code.”[xx]  The suggestion that Nietzsche understands Jesus as life affirming might be somewhat a misinterpretation here.  It is fair on the other hand to highlight Nietzsche’s appreciation of Jesus’ value creation.  Jesus just doesn’t create the values that Nietzsche is convinced are best for people, but Nietzsche is willing to admit that Jesus’ spiritual program is a viable option.

A Christian might immediately object and reply that Jesus at least appears to directly and intentionally oppose the political powers and religious leaders of his day, but Nietzsche doubts whether Jesus was even conscience of or concerned about this at all, leaving some readers to suspicious of Nietzsche’s hermeneutical key.  It is not the concern of this essay to analyze at any length the exegetical problems posed by Nietzsche’s rendering of Jesus. Nietzsche was surely aware of the discrepancies between his construal and that found in Gospels; he just thought that the psychology of the disciples and the first followers would reconcile the differences.

NIETZSCHE AND BUDDHISM

A Very Brief Philosophical Background

“It was Nietzsche who first explicitly suggested that we drop the whole idea of ‘knowing the truth.’” – Richard Rorty[xxi]

Nietzsche rejects Hegel’s dialectical unfolding of historical progress with hierarchical stages in the world (though Nietzsche does seem to maintain that there is an inner logic at work in history, a process and a dynamism, as Hegel did).[xxii]  But his revaluation of values can be expressed in positively Hegelian terms insofar as he negates a negation, for he considers Christianity as the ‘revaluation of all the values of antiquity.’”[xxiii]  And this double negation does not lead back to the same place, but beyond – beyond pessimism and optimism, and even theism and atheism.

Nietzsche is far more concerned about the individual, however, and takes a psychological approach in his work more than that of an attempt to conduct a totalizing synthesis of history.  As Gianni Vattimo has put it, Nietzsche is convinced that “seeking metaphysical consolation in essences and the rational structure of the universe was characteristic of an enfeebled and decadent culture.”[xxiv]  In this manner, Heidegger paints a stark picture of Nietzsche:  “The suprasensory world is without effective power.  It bestows no life.  Metaphysics, i.e., for Nietzsche, Western philosophy understood as Platonism, is at an end.  Nietzsche understands his own philosophy as the countermovement to metaphysics, and that means for him a movement in opposition to Platonism.”[xxv]  Consequently, Nietzsche rejects the root idea that morality is in place with its source in something transcendent.  And even if some metaphysical reality existed, and one could somehow know it, such knowledge would be useless for Nietzsche.[xxvi]

Nietzsche criticizes Kant for drawing what Nietzsche thinks is an epistemological boundary line, but Nietzsche misunderstands Kant on this point, as Kant only means to make a limit distinction.  So Nietzsche really accepts Kant’s view of the empirical limitations of knowledge in a certain sense, but vehemently disallows for any kind of faith – a position at which Kant never arrived – as faith for Nietzsche would only reflect human misguided desire instead of anything about truth.

The trouble with the enlightened thinkers then, irreligious as they may be, is that they still conceive of reality in a two-world framework.  The Socratic pursuit of knowledge about reality is their chief objective and is presumed to lead to happiness.  Like Hume before him, Nietzsche understands reason to be a slave of the passions.[xxvii]   Bearing this in mind, once one has detected the “human, all too human” foundation of metaphysical systems, there is nothing remaining on which to stand.  Nietzsche has perhaps moved the farthest away from Descartes at this point.  And to a significant degree, Nietzsche has followed Leibniz’s awareness that human perceptions and beliefs are not always conscious, and certainly that they are not static; nor is reality dependent upon these thoughts, though on the other hand we are constantly being shaped by them.  Nietzsche “thus helps us take seriously the possibility that there is no central faculty, no central self, called ‘reason.’”[xxviii]

Nietzsche adheres to Feuerbach’s admonition that Gods are the result of a projection of unconscious human qualities,[xxix] by assuming that “religions are created by humanity according to perceived spiritual needs.”[xxx]  Nietzsche goes further than Feuerbach though, because Feuerbach is still conceiving of a common humanity.  As soon as humanity is universalized, Nietzsche is appalled.  Instead Nietzsche inverts Feuerbach by individualizing this truth.  God can no longer be the idealized objectification of the best possible human being because, not only is there no such agreed-upon human being, but the Christian God would be antithetical to the kind of God Nietzsche would idealize.  The only common nature is that some are strong and others are weak.  Epistemologically then, it begins to become clear why Nietzsche shares more with Buddhism or Hinduism than Christianity.

Nietzsche on Buddhism

Buddhism presupposes a very mild climate, extremely gentle and liberal customs, the complete absence of militarism, and the existence of higher, scholarly classes to give focus to the movement.  The highest goals are cheerfulness, quiet, and an absence of desire, and these goals are achieved.  Buddhism is not a religion where people only aspire to perfection: perfection is the norm (AC 21).[xxxi]

As mentioned above, Nietzsche does judge Buddhism to be superior to Christianity, as it is situated beyond good and evil, departs from morality and has no conception salvation from sin or sin itself for that matter: “This is the main distinction Nietzsche makes between the two nihilistic religions: Buddhism has no ground in ressentiment against life whereas Christianity – or, as we might say, Christendom – is a product of it.”[xxxii]  By confronting the reality of suffering, Buddhism is at least for Nietzsche not dishonest.  It doesn’t manipulate suffering or purport to overcome it in a Christian fashion by conjuring up a masochistic redemption or heavenly reward story a result of innocent death and sacrifice.  It has no ‘idea’ of God, and as such is phenomenological and positivistic rather than metaphysical (AC 20).[xxxiii]  Prayer, asceticism, and compulsion are absent.  Buddhists do not hope for any eschatological or judgmental triumph – unlike Christianity, whose values are otherworldly.  They concern themselves instead with living the present life.

Nietzsche cites the Buddhist maxim, ‘enmity will not bring an end to enmity,’ which illustrates well the difference between Buddhism and Nietzsche’s experience with Christian ressentiment.  On the other hand, this notion discloses some of Buddhism’s anti-instinctive tendencies in Nietzsche’s view, like the suppression of the self and the ego. Nietzsche wants to overcome resistance more so than self (AC 2).[xxxiv]  Preventing trouble by not acting – what a terrible way to live, Nietzsche might charge. It is withdrawal for Nietzsche, fatigue of civilization having grown too sensitive to pain.  Furthermore, Nietzsche is troubled by the aversion to suffering demonstrated by both religions.  Suffering for Nietzsche is not to be feared or escaped, nor sought, but utilized.  It is an opportunity (BGE 201).[xxxv]  Nietzsche gives his diagnosis of Buddhism and its perspective on suffering as follows:

Buddhism has two physiological facts that it has always kept in mind: first, an excessively acute sensitivity that is expressed as are refined susceptibility to pain, and second, having lived all too long with concepts and logical procedures, an over-spiritualization that has had the effect of promoting the ‘impersonal’ at the expense of the personal ones. These physiological conditions give rise to depression (AC 20).[xxxvi]

“According to Nietzsche, both Christianity and Buddhism define redemption as the absence of suffering.”[xxxvii] What is problematic for Nietzsche is that, like Christianity – even though it does so in a more natural way – Buddhism gives itself the disease for which it claims to be the cure.  It is too weak, Nietzsche would say, to truly welcome suffering as that which life entails.  Buddhists rightly see that the condition of suffering itself must be accepted.  But that is precisely where they stop and turn to seek Nirvana, which for Nietzsche is the life of enlightened self-interest – just not in a noble way.[xxxviii]  Nobles are not afraid.  Accordingly, the Buddha has to come up with all kinds of tricks:

The Buddha took hygienic measures against this [depression], including: living out in the open, the wandering life, moderation and a careful diet; caution as far as liquor is concerned; caution when it comes to all affects that create bile or raise the blood temperature; no worrying about either yourself or other people.  He insists on ideas that produce either calm or amusement – he comes up with methods for phasing out all the others.  He sees goodness and kindness as healthy (AC 20).[xxxix]

Nietzsche is convinced that the same process he sees happening in Europe already occurred with the Buddha five centuries before “the European calendar.” The age of idealism had reached an end there as well, leading to the depression described above.  Nietzsche is proposing an alternative solution – one that does not end with the move from “Christian conscience” to “scientific conscience,” the latter of which interpreted history with “divine reason” (GM iii. 27 – he quotes The Gay Science here).[xl]  Instead, because “all great things destroy themselves by an act of self-cancellation” – a reference to the Hegelian dialectic – the “will to truth” itself has become aware of its own problem (GM iii. 27).[xli]  And with this Nietzsche is able to conclude the following about suffering: “Man, the bravest animal, the one most accustomed to suffering, does not deny suffering in itself.  He desire it, he seeks it out in person, provided that people show him a meaning for it, the purpose of suffering.  The curse that earlier spread itself over men was not suffering, but the senselessness of suffering – and the ascetic ideal offered him a meaning!”  Thus, Buddhism for Nietzsche is exactly what he has predicted for Europe: “man will sooner will nothingness than not will . . .” (GM iii. 27).[xlii]  None of this will do for Nietzsche, since humanity is better off with “I will” rather than “thou shalt” (Zarathustra, 60-64):[xliii] “The world seen from within, the world described according to its ‘intelligible character’ – it would be ‘will to power’ and nothing else” (BGE 36).[xliv]

Nietzsche’s Alternative

Insofar as will to power relates to freedom, it is not freedom from [suffering, for instance, out of fear] but freedom to – freedom to act and realize oneself.[xlv]  This is what Nietzsche does not find in Buddhism.  Though they both have an ambition for a kind of self-overcoming, their respective motivation and means are incongruent.  And while an extensive excursus on the will to power cannot be done here, it should at minimum be clarified that the idea does not denote a superficial, corrupt idea of power that leads to ruthless evildoing, for example.  It is rather an “enobling” of the mind for Nietzsche.[xlvi]  The truly powerful as he sees it would never intentionally harm, as that would be a display of weakness.  Harm could happen, but only as a byproduct of creative enactment.[xlvii]  This is why some artists and philosophers can be considered by Nietzsche to be the most valuable, powerful people, while barbarians for him are some of the weakest, most uncultured, and least valuable.[xlviii] At the same time, the will to power is more than a “struggle for existence” as Darwin has it; it is what drives enhancement, growth, and the generation of life.[xlix]

No less important is the idea of the will itself as a type of desire for improvement and not just the fulfillment of any fleeting impulse.[l]  As Rorty has argued in his interpretation of Nietzsche, “The drama of an individual human life, or of the history of humanity as a whole, is not one in which a preexistent goal is triumphantly reached or tragically not reached.”  Self-overcoming in Nietzsche’s mind therefore is something definitely divergent from Christian redemption and Buddhist enlightenment.

BUDDHISM: ANOTHER LOOK

Whereas orthodox Indian religions claim that every person has an eternal soul (atman) as part of the metaphysical absolute of Brahman, the Buddha denied the existence of any such eternal or immutable spiritual essence.  The principle end for Buddhism is the cessation of suffering and rebirth, which is defined negatively, but the path is construed positively, aiming to fulfill humanity’s potential for goodness and happiness.  The final and highest goal is the summum bonum of Nirvana, which literally translates to “quenching” or “blowing out,”[li] but Nirvana does not have an unambiguous, fixed meaning.[lii]  Though the means by which one reaches Nirvana is often assumed to be by way of virtuosity, living morally as such is considered by some Buddhist scholars to actually be a hindrance. [liii]  This is because it reproduces karma, which binds one to the cycle of rebirth. Hence it can be explained instead that virtue and wisdom – a profound philosophical understanding of the human condition – are fused together in Buddhist thought.  The latter, however, seems to takes precedence.

Concerning wisdom, what must first be acknowledged and embraced is the truth of suffering (Dukkha).  There are different levels of suffering though ranging from sickness, pain, and grief to not getting what one wants and discovering a lack of control of one’s environment.  It’s not that pleasures and fleeting enjoyments are ignored in Buddhism, or even unappreciated, but the futility of pleasant moments is definitely underlined.  Addiction to the desire for these moments and experiences is what causes reincarnation.  Even a pain-free life can be incredibly unsatisfying.  The teaching here is not implying that all desire is bad.  It is “bad” only when excessive or perverted, described as Tanha (greed, hatred, delusion – not unlike ressentiment). Buddhist sources also speak of desire in more positive terms as chanda.[liv]  This understanding of desire, however – which evokes the idea of wanting to reach a particular goal, for instance, like Nirvana itself – departs from Nietzsche’s rendering of the primal instincts.

Cravings and thirsts are inevitable, but what must be remembered in the Buddhist universe is cyclic change, whereby everything that exists is characterized by unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), impermanence (annica), and the absence of self-essence (anata).[lv]  Thus the burning flame of these cravings and thirsts must be put out.  It should not be inferred that Buddhism is a suicidal route to annihilation, however – though one can see why this might be deduced by Nietzsche or anyone else opposed to nihilism.[lvi]

The eightfold path, which is the fourth noble truth, is intended to exhibit how a Buddhist would live, and how one would eventually become like the Buddha and reach irreversible liberation from worldly existence, or samsara.  It is comprised of three kinds of practices and categories that steer between indulgence and austerity: morality, mediation, and wisdom. Beginning with wisdom, one develops the right understanding and resolve.  In morality, right speech, action, and livelihood are cultivated.  This is achieved by right effort, mindfulness, and meditation.[lvii]

The word Mahayana specifically means the “Great Vehicle.”  It is the universal way to salvation.[lviii]  This immediately poses a problem for comparison to Nietzsche, since he would be bothered, if not scandalized by the audacity of universal and salvific claim.  As will be noted below, however, Nietzsche was primarily exposed to Theravada Buddhism and apparently was not as familiar with the role of a bodhisattva.

ASSESSING NIETZSCHE’S VIEW OF BUDDHISM

It has been argued by Jay Garfield that through the Mahayana tradition, one can see Nirvana not as an escape from the world but as an enlightened and awakened engagement with it.[lix]  Correspondingly, Garfield finds resemblance between joyful participation in the world seen as divine play in Mahayana Buddhism and the will to power.  If this is the approach one wishes to take is evaluating Nietzsche’s interpretation of Buddhism, however, the same could be said of various types of Christianity – one in which followers orient themselves around the kingdom of God as a reality to be realized here and now, for instance, rather than a personalistic focus on individual salvation for the life hereafter or evacuation to heaven.  Zen Buddhism especially, because it so stresses monism, has some equivalence with “beyond good and evil.”  Even Zen presents difficulties though, with its quasi-Kantian understanding of language itself as dualistic.  Nietzsche does not have the same confidence in a referent.  What appears is all there is.[lx]

It has been concluded that Nietzsche probably studied primarily texts from the Theravada tradition rather than the Mahayana, because the former tend to be more focused on the phenomena of Buddhism’s historical origin, which was Nietzsche’s interest, and he had access to sources for both.[lxi]  Moreover, we know that Nietzsche read Hermann Oldenberg’s book Buddha, which provides further corroboration for this theory.

In his comments noted above about Buddhism, it could be inferred that Nietzsche is submitting something like the following: “For those not strong enough to respond to this challenge of the open sea, the appeal of a cheerful and refined nihilistic and non-theistic religion like Buddhism might be irresistible.”[lxii]  It is evident from a personal letter to his friend, Carl von Gersdorff, that Nietzsche himself was perhaps tempted by and struggled with the lure of obtaining tranquility in life through the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom as the very drive for the will to live, as this ideal is comparable to Nietzsche’s comprehension of Nirvana.[lxiii]

Buddhism is a particular renounced form of nihilism for Nietzsche – a passive nihilism in fact.[lxiv]  Nietzsche thought this nihilism could be overcome.  While this overcoming eliminates the categorical imperative, utilitarianism, or any universal justice, Nietzsche was only a nihilist himself insofar as this is taken to mean that he intended to abolish the old “lies” in order to make room for creating something new and an “increased power of the spirit” (WP 22).[lxv]  The Buddha in some sense for Nietzsche may have done a noble act by coming up with the Dhamma teaching to help others not necessarily overcome their psychological despair, but relate differently to their recognition of life’s meaninglessness in such a way that cheerfulness rather than depression constitutes one’s attitude toward this perceived emptiness.  It can be and has certainly been argued that Buddhism is one feasible way of responding to existential Angst.  It serves to overcome insecurity and “incompleteness” by equipping persons to cheerfully welcome their annihilation after death.[lxvi]  Indeed, some have even posited that if Nietzsche would have had access to more profound elaborations on the depths and varieties of Buddhism, and particular its notion of citta-bhavana, which is rooted in humanity’s psychological makeup, he might have even considered the Buddha himself to be an Ubermensch.  As the argument goes, Buddha, unlike some of his followers, advocated a practical, spiritual path of which the purpose was to “become such as can see things as they really are.”  From this point of view, there is admittedly some analogy to Nietzsche’s project.  What Robert Morrison has put forth, for instance, is the explanation that transcending consciousness leads precisely to a new level instinctual being, or something like the governing nature to which Nietzsche says we must be true.

Is not this instinctual existence, however, of which Morrison speaks, more akin to what results after the Christian concept of the sanctification process has begun, whereby a person “puts on” the character of Christ and is conformed to “God’s image”?  Though with difficulty at first, a person is eventually thought to develop his or her own identity more fully, confidently, and determinately, as it should be.  And while this is obviously a different notion than that of Nietzsche’s primordial, animal nature that must be retrieved and embraced, it is not as drastically counter to Nietzsche’s idea of self-overcoming as he lets on.  But ultimately, whereas Buddhists are striving on the whole and in general to overcome selfhood, ambition, desire – that is, disentanglement from natural or default instincts (i.e., Nietzsche’s view of instinct) – doesn’t Nietzsche’s unequivocally digress from this, if not directly opposes it?  It is true that both Nietzsche and Buddhists can speak of mastering desire or instinct to a certain degree, and perhaps this is where they share some inhabitance.

The Buddhist, however, is not to be concerned with or “fettered” by the “wrong views” of other religions (or miccha-ditthis).[lxvii] Nietzsche, on the other hand, is transparently disturbed by Christianity’s “wrong views.”  In other words, one could submit that Nietzsche is much more “evangelistic” than any good Buddhist ever could be.  In the additional ending to the AntiChrist, Nietzsche even advises very coercive, legal measures that should be taken against the practice of Christianity for the greater good of society.[lxviii]

If Nietzsche had a genuine precursor in Spinoza, why not wonder whether he defended a new Dionysian, pantheistic religion much like what Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani said was similar to the standpoint of Meister Eckhart, who speaks of ‘living without why, within the Godless desert of divinity’?”[lxix]  This might seem like a stretch, but Graham Parkes makes the case that Nietzsche comes close to Mayana Buddhism, which he didn’t know as well, with ideas like amor fati and the Dionysian as the overcoming of nihilism.[lxx]  Later on in his career, however, under the influence of Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche (Nashitani studied with Heidegger), Nashitani himself was much more critical of Nietzsche’s philosophy, and in particular of the will to power, thereby problematizing Parkes’ theory.    

A bodhisattva is one who refuses to enter Nirvana until all beings have become enlightened.  This sounds remarkably like Zarathustra at the beginning of the Nietzsche’s book.  But while Zarathustra proclaims his love for humanity, he is not striving for the realization of self-emptiness through interrelatedness with all things – regardless of how naturally his existence gives way to an overflowing “generosity and re-engagement with the world.”[lxxi] In a limited respect, Nietzsche does order an outlook of the world as divine, but whether this makes him a Mahayana Buddhist is another question:

For Zarathustra, as long as human beings feel themselves subordinated to transcendent forces in the form of divinities, they will lack confidence in their own will to create.  But if they are able to face up to the impermanence of ‘becoming’ and fully engage the cycles of death and rebirth and destruction and creation that characterize the world of a deity like Dionysus, such self-overcoming will allow the force of the creative will to work at play – perhaps even dance – through them . . . atheism is merely a provisional stage in the transformations of the human spirit.[lxxii]

This argument citing Zarathustra provides perhaps the best support for identifying any parallels between Nietzsche and Buddhism.  Both Nietzsche and figures like the Daoist sage or the Zen master are unified to an extent in their alignment against anthropomorphism, in saying “Yes” to cosmic life, in underscoring the tremendous contingency of human existence, and in their affinity with the Buddhist teaching of ‘dependent arising’ (pratitya-samutpada), which emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things and the consequent ‘emptiness’ of any ‘self-nature’ to them.”[lxxiii] Furthermore, as was noted before about Nietzsche’s appreciation for the caste, the modern, secularized Christian idea of human “rights” and equality before God is absent in these philosophies.

Andre van der Braak has framed Nietzsche’s revaluation of values as a reinvention of a soteriological scheme, albeit after for a post-theistic age, in place of the perverted Christian one.[lxxiv]  The need for redemption is a sign of decadence for Nietzsche, as has been noted already.  But what if “being healed from a spirit of revenge and resentment is how Nietzsche envisions redemption, where all life is considered to be justified and worthy of ecstatic affirmation . . . embracing passionately the horrifying reality of eternal recurrence”?[lxxv]  In this light, redemption is seen as neither a static state nor endpoint but a process of functioning without the friction of the conscious ‘I’:[lxxvi]

The crucified innocent one (EH) is a condemnation of life for the sake of redemption in the afterworld.  The suffering of Dionysus on the other hand, is a natural and ecstatic expression of the fullness and richness of life, not an objection to life but its celebration.  Therefore there is no need to give it a meaning beyond itself.  It is part of life, and does not need any further justification . . . The tragic man affirms even the harshest suffering: he is sufficiently strong, rich and capable of deifying to do so.[lxxvii]

Thus van der Braak too tries to assimilate Nietzsche to another take on Buddhism, or visa versa.  At the same time, he points to several major weaknesses, only in this case he does so via the Christian tradition, remarking and confirming once more that Nietzsche does in fact take insist on a different outlook toward suffering.  In several places, it is apparent that van der Braak can’t help but recognize the difficult truth that Nietzsche is unable to sufficiently deal with the horror of suffering, specifically in the Nazi death camps.  Van der Braak cites an implicit reference to a theology of the cross analogous to Moltmann’s crucified God as the best Christian response.

THE ANTICHRIST: REDEMPTION, ENLIGHTENMENT OR SOMETHING ELSE?

Nietzsche is adamant about the importance and centrality of being governed by natural instincts in a way that much Eastern thought would shun.  But in the same way that Nietzsche grossly misrepresents the nature of Christianity and Jesus’ teachings on occasion, so too is there little reason to doubt that he does the same with Buddhism, and drawing attention to these mischaracterizations is a constructive and necessary exercise.  It is also probable that Buddhism and Christianity are made into straw men for Nietzsche at times.  In certain light, it can be shown that far less conflict exists between these various ideologies than Nietzsche is inclined to concede.  Is it not reasonable to suspect that Nietzsche partially fed off of this antagonism?  This notwithstanding, and while I profess no expertise on Buddhism, it is nevertheless quite speculative in my view to recommend that Nietzsche himself be understood as having elicited anything remotely congruent to the kernel of historical Buddhism or Christianity in his concepts like the will to power, eternal recurrence,[1] or the Ubermensch[2] – as vast and diverse as the Christian and Buddhist streams are.

What can be asserted, however, is something to which has already been alluded – namely, that Jesus and Buddhism mirror each other substantially in Nietzsche’s study.  It is they who are the worthy competitors with the AntiChrist, and who present plausible redemption plans.  This is a sign of respect.  Christianity on the other hand, is straightforwardly condemnable.[lxxviii]  One could summarize by delineating things thusly: About Christianity, Nietzsche abhors both its form and content, though that content as Nietzsche saw it was not spelled out in any detail here.  Regarding Jesus and Buddhism, however, it is content rather than form that troubles Nietzsche.  The form is that of which Nietzsche approves.  The reason is that both Jesus and the Buddha were more interested in incarnating practices than dogmatizing systems of belief, and concerning this very limited formulation – without saying anything more – it is perhaps safe to concede that Nietzsche is right.

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