the formation of Liberation Theology, the direct link between God and believer
and the believer’s right of organization, was emphasised during the Protestant Ref-
ormation. At that time Luther offered the believers unmediated channels to God,
bypassing the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. This connection, also accentuated
by heretic movements before the Reformation, placed almost a moral imperative
on participation where a good Protestant should engage in reading the scriptures,
participating in the liturgy, and even governing the Church. Throughout the Prot-
estant Church participation became central tool for salvation. Out from this seed
came also the later non-conformist and secular organization on mass scale of the
European working class. (Henkel & Stirrat 2001: 174)
The Marxist discourse of the materialist conception of history with social existence
determining the consciousness of people does not leave much room for the Chris-
tian soul. Even so, historical materialism has been a natural part of the theology of
liberation since its birth. Instead, the theology of liberation has blended Marxism
with a religious notion of struggle, intimately connecting material and spiritual
aspects of liberation. Instead of regarding religion as an “opium for the people”, an
illusion that has to be overcome before real social change can begin, Liberation
theology instead sees faith as an active tool and path for both political and religious
liberation. The struggle can be said to be about “using” the opium to wrench it
from control of the pushers and their political allies. It is a line of practice that
turns away from dogma, both Roman Catholic and Marxist, to emphasize activist
methodology and celebrate religious belief, illusion or not. People use faith as a
vehicle to fight to regain their captive freedom, powered by the intensities of ritual
myth produced throughout the larger Catholic system.
However, it should be noted, the Liberation theologists do not diminish the divine
role of Christ, but stress his double agency; not only being the Redeemer but also
the Liberator of the oppressed. Thus belief does not only take the form of an inner
struggle for salvation, but also a tool for promoting social justice, the practical ap-
plication of the social message of Jesus, influenced by the timeless revolutionary
struggle of the poor (Smith 1991).
&
What is often pronounced in the liberation struggle, for example by the Domini-
can theologian Edward Schillebeeckx (2004), is the grassroots’ opposition of the
church as a hierarchical machine. In Schillebeeckx there is a predominant perspec-
tive from below, from the suppressed, and an emphasis on religious practice to
help them. Yet the organization of the Church makes this hard. Just as in the Ref-
ormation, the grassroots object to a church too occupied with the material and
organizational side of faith. For Schillebeeckx, the Church as a hierarchical system
has frozen into a stratified exoskeleton that mainly manifests the corporeality of
Jesus. For him the Church is a materialization of the text, and not of the spirit in
the gospels. But historically, the breaking of hierarchical rules within the church
has also been supported from canonical theologists well read by the Vatican. For
example, already Thomas Aquinas supported independent action to oppose the
pope when it was necessary, even at risk of being excommunicated, if this was in
line with the gospel and human conscience (Schillebeeckx 2004).^
This form of opposition has always echoed to question and revitalize the Church’s
hierarchy. Also Francis and Dominic were critical of the hierarchy and institution-
alization of the Church and raised voices of reforms, something later taken further