The central argument of Paul Sigmund’s book is that since its birth, Latin American liberation theology has developed two main political positions, a democratic and an undemocratic one; and that it must now choose between them. From its inception in the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Sigmund argues, liberation theology was marked by uncritical devotion to socialism and revolution, and hence was inherently undemocratic. In contrast, since the mid-1970s, in response to moderate critics, some liberation theologians have come to emphasize “grassroots populism, associated with the Christian Base Communities, which Sigmund applauds as inherently democratic. Despite this growing emphasis, however, liberationists’ continued unwillingness to denounce revolution (as in Nicaragua), and the presence of unreconstructed socialists in their ranks, press on them the urgent choice of “democracy or revolution.”
Sigmund’s point that liberation theology’s emphasis has shifted is valuable: since the late 1970s the theology has clearly become more concerned with spiritual, pastoral, and even liturgical matters, and discussion of the Christian Base Communities has grown increasingly central (although Sigmund overlooks the ever-spiraling competition with the Protestants as a factor in this shift). His claim that the shift represents the emergence of a more “democratic” theological option as opposed to an older “undemocratic” one, however, is highly questionable. To accept this argument, the reader must assume that a commitment to socialism is inherently undemocratic (in which case the book preaches to the converted), or at least must be willing to accept Sigmund’s claim that liberation theologians who see the main problem as capitalism and the main solution as socialism are therefore unconcerned with democracy.
This claim rests on a superficial reading of the theology. Gustavo Gutiérrez has long seen socialism as creating the context in which the poor will gain “an effective share in the exercise of political power” and thus forge “a truly democratic society” (The Power of the Poor, 1983, p. 49). Meanwhile, Sigmund’s narrow conception of democracy—apparently any country with a constitution qualifies—places Duarte’s El Salvador in the family of democratic nations. Sigmund makes much of Juan Luis Segundo’s declaration that revolutionary violence “does not frighten me” (quoted, p. 62), and concludes that this view is tantamount to “a blithe dismissal of a concern for human rights” (p. 77). Yet the currently official (not just liberationist) teaching of the church is that violence is justified in the case of extreme and prolonged tyranny; and in any event the vast majority of liberationist writing calls for the restructuring of society without violent means (see Arthur F. McGovern, Liberation Theology and Its Critics [1989], p. 187). Overlooking this kind of complexity, Sigmund’s study becomes, unfortunately, yet another in the line of antiliberationist polemics that fail to do justice to the object of their criticism.
