BREAK THE CHAINS OF OPPRESION AND THE YOKE OF ...

The question has to be raised whether this close relationship between Christian
faith and the project of Western modernity does not lead to the loss of the meaning
of Christian faith it self. Or, to put it more bluntly: does this relationship not
shape Christian faith into merely an ideology?
Opposing voices
HopE
The approach towards history from an universal Christological perspective led to
criticism from theologians in the Global South. One of the results of this criticism
was the foundation of EATWOT in Dar-es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1976.
Christians from the Global South had become aware that the ‘universal’ theology
they had inherited from the West was not pertinent to their context of poverty
and marginalization; traditional theology had to be reformulated become
meaningful to peoples struggling for a more just and egalitarian world. 10
At the one hand the objective of the appeal that came from theologians from the
Global South was the context of (economic) injustice. At the other hand, the focus
was a hermeneutical one. Western concepts of ‘universality’ tend to look upon
other values and cultures as realities which have to be reshaped. This becomes
even more apparent in approaches that look upon secularization as an inherent
result of the global spread of the Gospel (and of modernization). In his book The
Secular City, published in 1965, that came with the subtitle “Secularization and
Urbanization in Theological Perspective”, Harvey Cox argues that secularization
is itself a result of biblical faith and that secularization sets the agenda which
gives meaning to the church's mission. According to Cox the biblical commandment
‘no other gods’ led historically to the ‘disenchantment’ of nature and the
relativization of politics � �and values. � Therefore the �church � must learn to ‘speak in
a secular fashion of God,’ as the liberating power operative in nature and history
that is discerned through the model of the Exodus.
Ultimately this point of view does not only lead to the loss of the identity of
Christian faith, it also proclaims a kind of universalism that is rather narrowminded:
it only takes into account the Western context which further is seen as
absolute and universal.
9 ‘Die quasi naturhaft gedachte, christologische Gesamtqualifikation der westlichen
Fortschrittsge schichte führt damit (...) zu der Tendenz, dass das Credo des Glaubens
und das Credo des westlichen Fort schritts eigentümlich miteinander Verschmelzen
oder jedenfalls bisweilen ununterscheidbar anei nanderzurücken scheinen.’ Dietrich
Werner in his research on the missionary approach within the World Council of
Churches, Mission für das Leben - Mission im Kontext, Ökumeni sche Perspektiven missionarischer
Präsenz in der Dis kussion des ÖRK 1961-1991, Rothenburg, 1993, 99, 83-
120, 149.
10 http://www.eatwot.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&
Itemid=26
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– THEOLOGY OF HOPE IN TIMES OF GLOBALIZATION – 61