A Liberation Theology Hymn for Epiphany

January 18, 2016 in hymns, Politics No Comments Tags: Bartolome de las Casas, Hail to the Lord's Anointed, James Montgomery, liberation theology, Martin Luther King, Psalm 72, Willaim Wilberforce

A liberation-theology Epiphany hymn? Surely you jest! Maybe not, as we shall see by looking at the hymn Hail to the Lord’s Anointed, and Psalm 72, on which it is based.

Hail to the Lord’s Anointed,
great David’s greater Son!
Hail, in the time appointed,
his reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression,
to set the captive free,
to take away transgression,
and rule in equity.

He comes, with succour speedy,
to those who suffer wrong;
to help the poor and needy,
and bid the weak be strong;
to give them songs for sighing,
their darkness turn to light,
whose souls, condemned and dying,
were precious in his sight.
He shall come down like showers
Upon the fruitful earth;
And love, joy, hope, like flowers,
Spring in His path to birth:
Before Him on the mountains
Shall peace, the herald, go;
And righteousness, in fountains,
From hill to valley flow.
Kings shall fall down before him,
and gold and incense bring;
all nations shall adore him,
his praise all people sing;
to him shall prayer unceasing
and daily vows ascend,
his kingdom still increasing,
a kingdom without end.

O’er every foe victorious,
he on his throne shall rest;
from age to age more glorious,
all-blessing and all-blest.
the tide of time shall never
his covenant remove;
his name shall stand for ever,
his changeless Name of love.

Psalm 72

1{A Psalm for Solomon.} Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son.

2He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.

3The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness.

4He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.

5They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.

6He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.

7In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.

8He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

9They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.

10The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.

11Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.

12For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.

13He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy.

14He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.

15And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised.

16There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.

17His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.

18Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.

19And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.

20The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

The King James translation indicates that this is song written by David for his son Solomon. The song addresses Solomon in exaggerated terms that could be fulfilled only by the Messiah, but Solomon in his wisdom and peacefulness foreshadows the Messiah: “One greater than Solomon is here.”

David proclaims in hope that his son, Solomon, shall reign to the ends of the earth, that kings from afar will bring him gifts, that all nations shall serve him. Solomon’s wisdom will be in service of justice, especially justice for the poor and oppressed, whom he will redeem. Therefore all nations will call him blessed. Such hopes no merely human king could fulfill, and therefore Coffman’s Commentary lists the ways in which Solomon is a type of Christ.

Just as the First Israel had its most glorious extent under Solomon; so shall the Second Israel, the Church of God though Christ attain to eternal glory in Christ.
Solomon was a son of David; Jesus Christ is The Son of David.
Solomon reigned over the earth from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea; but Christ’s dominion is “to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
Solomon’s wisdom was known all over the world; but “In Christ all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.”
Solomon’s reign was one of peace; and Christ our Lord is the Prince of Peace, “And of the increase of his government and of peace, there shall be no end.”
Solomon sat upon the literal throne of David in Jerusalem; but Christ, risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Majesty on High, is seated upon the Throne of David in heaven (Acts 2:30-31).
Kings and rulers of all the world of Solomon’s day honored him and brought presents to him. In Christ’s kingdom, “The kings of the earth bring their glory into Christ’s kingdom” (Revelation 21:24); and even in the manger at Bethlehem the kings of the earth brought unto Christ gifts of gold, and frankincense and myrrh.

But Coffman does not consider the several passages in the psalm about the judgment that shall save the poor and needy.

James Montgomery

James Montgomery (1771-1854), the English author of the hymn Hail to the Lord’s Anointed noticed these passages. For thirty years he edited a radical paper; in the fears that swept England after the French Revolution he was twice jailed because of his advocacy of social justice. He was an advocate for the end of the slave trade and of the exploitation of child chimney sweeps. During his time in jail he wrote poetry, including probably this hymn. It was first sung on Christmas Day, 1821, at a Moravian gathering

Montgomery proclaims, following the Psalm that the Messiah, great David’s greater son, comes

to those who suffer wrong;
to help the poor and needy,
and bid the weak be strong;
to give them songs for sighing,
their darkness turn to light,
whose souls, condemned and dying,
were precious in his sight.

The Messiah comes, not with violence, but like

showers
Upon the fruitful earth;
And love, joy, hope, like flowers,
Spring in His path to birth:
Before Him on the mountains
Shall peace, the herald, go.

On this Martin Luther King Day we remember one who defended the oppressed without violence but with peaceful means based on Christian love. Violence, even in a just cause, tends to beget violence in an endless downward cycle. For Montgomery, the world had been struggling long and hard with sin and oppression, a world that could (and can) be redeemed only by the One whose name is Love. Christian societies are often guilty of oppression, but unlike other historical societies, they contain a dynamic that calls for the oppressed to be freed, whether it was Martin Luther King or William Wilberforce who led the campaign to abolish the slave trade or Bartholmé de las Casas who sought to protect the natives of the Americas against the conquistadors. Christians have been oppressors, but other Christians have championed the oppressed and sought the liberation of both the sinful oppressor from his sin and the poor from oppression.

(The hymn abbreviates the original poem, and there is one significant change. In the original poem the last line was His name to us is love. The hymnal change this to his changeless Name of love. I think this is an improvement; it fits in better with the emphasis in the final lines about the enduringness of the covenant, and the “to us” is a little odd. Who are the “us”? Are there those to whom His name is not love? I think the change an improvement.

The last line also echoes the last lines of Charles Wesley’s hymn Come, O Thou Traveler unknown:

I leap for joy, pursue my way,
And, as a bounding hart, I run,
Through all eternity to prove
Thy nature and Thy name is Love.

For in the end beyond all ends, there is One whose name is Love, and in Him “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”)

Conversion and Repentance

September 24, 2013 in Catholic Church, clergy sex abuse scandal, Pope Francis, Protestantism 8 Comments Tags: Cardinal Mueller, conversion, Latin America, liberation theology, Pope Francis, Protestantism, repentance

I have never been in pastoral work and have only visited South America. But in researching the role of men in the churches in Latin America, I have noticed the consensus among anthropologists that Evangelicals have more success is reach men, especially young men involved in drugs and gangs, than Catholics do.

Evangelicals do this by a simultaneous proclamation of repentance and conversion to Jesus. Francis seems to be envisioning first conversion, and then, sometime later, repentance.

Rod Dreher has had discussions on Pope Francis’ interview, and one South American does not like the interview.

Mr. Dreher, I’m Latin American (Brazilian) and, let me tell you, this explanation is bunk.

The “very juridical and hierarchical and morality-focused Catholic Church of Latin America” has not existed for fifty years. It was replaced by exactly the Church that Pope Francis seems to want. The results have not been impressive, to say the least. There’s no reason to think that more of the same will give different results.

The section that describes the new Evangelical Protestants as not putting the culture war agenda in the foreground is, again, precisely backwards. They do precisely that which Mr Chapp says they don’t. They are very, very morally strict, which is why they grow so fast in the poorest areas: they give order to the disordered lives of the very poor, who come from generations of poverty and broken homes and have never known anything better. They take a huge portion of the poor’s meagre income in tithes and “gifts”… and even then the poor are better off in these churches, because the order the church gives, much like a military boot camp, helps them to plan for the future, educate themselves, not fall into drugs, not have multiple children out of wedlock, etc.

And this is not just inwards. The politicians elected by the Evangelicals are at the forefront of the resistance to homosexual “marriage”, to abortion, and most of the left’s culture war agenda. In my own country, abortion would have been legalized a few years ago if not for the resistance organized by the Evangelical politician-preachers across almost all parties – a fight in which, by the way, the Catholic hierarchy was entirely silent. If the Church retreats from these issues, the pull of the Evangelical Protestant churches will only INCREASE throughout Latin America.

To sum up, as we say here, when “the Church chose the poor, the poor chose the Protestants”.

This is also what neutral anthropologists have found.

Francis, like many of us as we grow older, may be fighting the battles of his youth, although history has moved on. The dead textbook Thomism he laments disappeared over a generation ago. Traditionalist restorationism is a tiny, tiny fringe movement in the Church. Strict moralism has disappeared, and laxity reigns.

It is true that a few bishops seem to delight in enforcing petty rules (even as they have let sexual abusers continue in ministry). Cardinal Müller, when he was bishop of Regensburg, severely disciplined priests for participating in an ecumenical wedding and for receiving communion at a Lutheran service. But Müller assigned a convicted abuse to a parish, where the priest molested numerous children. When parents complained, Muller threatened to sue them for criticizing him. In Baltimroe a priest was removed for letting an Episcopal priest, a woman, read the Epistle at a funeral mass for a relative of hers. But I was at a funeral of a friend of mine at the Cathedral in which all, even the unbaptized, were urged to receive communion. Bishops seem to be very arbitrary in their exercise of discipline, and strain out the smallest flies while swallowing obese camels.

Hugo Chavez as Henry VIII

June 30, 2008 in Uncategorized No Comments Tags: Catholic Church, César Chavez, liberation theology, Venezuela

I doubt that this will go anywhere, but it should provide some entertainment for a while.

The Miami Herald reports:

A church modeled in part after one in Miami but with a ”revolutionary” spirit that praises Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is now at the center of a religious and social controversy in Venezuela.

Although it has adopted many of the symbols and rites of Roman Catholicism, the new Reform Catholic Venezuelan Church departs from traditional belief in some key ways.

For example, reformists consider that ”homosexuality and bisexuality are not sins in and of themselves.” Divorce is allowed and priests do not take vows of chastity.

The new church uses the language of liberation theology:

According to its leaders, the reformist church seeks to establish an institution that is “inclusive, participatory and with a strong Bolivarian spirit that recognizes Jesus Christ as the Lord of History. He is present in the revolutionary process that is occurring in Venezuela.”

This is not the first time politicians in Venezuela have tried this trick:

Attempts to establish churches with political motivations are nothing new to Venezuela. In the mid 1940s several government leaders who had declared themselves anti-clerical decided to establish a Catholic Apostolic Church of Venezuela, by forging the ordainment of a bishop.

I wonder how Catholics who agree with the new Church’s agenda will react?