{"id":2435,"date":"2012-05-07T19:03:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T02:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=2435"},"modified":"2012-05-07T19:03:55","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T02:03:55","slug":"de-la-torre-genesis-and-liberation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2012\/05\/07\/de-la-torre-genesis-and-liberation\/","title":{"rendered":"De La Torre: Genesis and Liberation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Here’s a clip from liberation theologian Miguel De La Torre’s<\/a> “Belief” Commentary<\/a> on Genesis.\u00a0 I’m not a liberation theologian, but I appreciate many of the insights liberation theology brings to the table, even if at times liberationists seem to wander off the ranch.\u00a0 I think it’s important to read theology diversely and widely, particularly the theologies of folks who look and think differently than myself.<\/p>\n

In any event, I think De La Torre strikes an important chord here:<\/p>\n

In spite of the sensational 1925 Scopes trial, the attempt to make the teaching of creationism normative continues to this day.\u00a0 Those advocating a fundamentalist agenda want to reconcile the Bible with science in order to create a harmonious worldview, an endeavor undertaken by a small minority of scholars within academia.\u00a0 For them the earth, contrary to the fossil evidence, is only six to ten thousand years old.\u00a0 To render the biblical text as a science book is problematic, for in the final analysis it leads to bad science, bad theology, and bad hermeneutics….\u00a0 Frankly, those on the margins of society do not seem to care.<\/p>\n

The dominant culture usually looks for answers to questions that are simply unimportant to the social location of those living under oppressive structures.\u00a0 It is rare to find any biblical and theological scholars of color participating in the creationism debate.\u00a0 When people live under repressive structures, they turn to the Bible for the strength to survive another day, not to figure how long a day lasted in Genesis….\u00a0 Debates over the scientific validity of the Bible become a luxurious privilege for those who do not endure discriminatory structures.\u00a0 For many in the dominant culture the objective in reading the Bible is to answer such questions, usually simplistically….<\/p>\n

‘Does God exist?’ becomes the overall quest of those residing within the dominant culture.\u00a0 In contrast, from the margins of society the question becomes, ‘What is the character of this God who we claim exists?’\u00a0 While the evangelistic mission of many Euro-Americans is to convince the nonbeliever to believe, those who reside on the underside of society see their evangelistic venture to be that of convincing the undervalued (nonperson) of his or her humanity based on the image of God that dwells within all humans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a clip from liberation theologian Miguel De La Torre’s “Belief” Commentary on Genesis.\u00a0 I’m not a liberation theologian, but I appreciate many of the insights liberation theology brings to the table, even if at times liberationists seem to wander off the ranch.\u00a0 I think it’s important to read theology diversely and widely, particularly the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[72,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scripture","category-theological-hermeneutics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-Dh","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}