Fallow No More

This blog has lain fallow for some time. 

In this case the fallow field was not for rejuvenation. My life in Liberia has been hectic and, at times, frantic. The challenges have been more than I imagined. But, the good news is that I have prevailed (so far). 

In February I made the decision to focus upon Friends and Supporters of the Liberian Baptist Theological Seminary. There were international news accounts of “crisis” in Liberian Baptist life, with the epicenter at the Seminary. The accounts were false in many cases and, where there were kernels of truth, the stories were exaggerated.

At the time I chose to focus upon an audience that was more nearly keyed to those dynamics, as opposed to a larger, more generic audience of folks interested in Liberia and my adventures.

My particular—and the particulars of Liberian Baptists—prevented me from investing much energy in universals.

The Lone Star

Perhaps there are readers who would like to be included in the specific reports of my life in Liberia. If so, please let me know at richard.f.wilson@gmail.com and I will add you to my list (and include you in the back issues of memos sent).

Now I hope to return to a broader audience

As an academic, primarily, I am aware of the so-called “post-colonial” perspective that has emerged in recent decades. The perspective is a natural progression from the various liberation movements that first emerged in the late 1960s. In the initial criticisms (please read that term constructively) of the liberationists there was an important re-ordering of sources for social, political, economic, philosophical, and theological reflection and construction. 

In a word, the shift of perspective drew attention to the great chasm that was opening between theory and practice. In every discipline, scholars and practitioners were observing a gap between received traditions and experience. Liberationists were bold enough to employ the term praxis as a new way to think about systems, their successes, and their failures. It was a bold choice because praxis had come to be associated with Marxist theory.

Liberation theologies continue to bend under the weight of misunderstandings of praxis. It should be seen as an analytical tool rather than an ideological perspective.

Juan Luίs Segundo, a Catholic theologian in Uruguay, caught my attention. He noted that reading scripture and tradition from experience rather than from doctrine was a path of “the liberation of theology” from its cultural captivity, by which he meant the West and the North (as in western Europe and North America).

Segundo’s trenchant analysis provided a template for others to employ in the 1960s and 1970s. I confess that I am among the community of the challenged and transformed.

At first there was a spate of distinct “liberation theologies” that seized the insight of Segundo in narrow particularity. Thus there emerged a variety of “theologies of liberation” that looked at ethnic groups, gender, economic groups, and the like.

Gradually there was a move toward a more global (please read that term in light of geography and computer sciences) perspective.

Another confession: I wince under the apparent return to a universal perspective (which is what some versions of post-colonialism offers) because it threatens to smooth over the particularities of cultures that define the universal.

James Hal Cone said it clearly in the early 1970s: “There is no universal without a particular.”

Nonetheless, we are awash in post-colonialism.

I embrace the historical contexts of colonialism. More so, I embrace the particular contexts of post-colonialism and the distinct responses to it in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and, even, North America.

Be advised and forewarned: My search for Edward Wilmot Blyden may, soon, take a turn.

Day by day I am reminded of the particulars of colonialism in Liberia and West Africa that were challenges faced by Blyden and his contemporaries. Day by day I am keenly aware that Liberia entered the post-colonial era by way of violence and decline that finally erupted in civil wars that spanned fourteen hard years. Day by day I encounter the deep-seated lingering effects of colonialism. Some days I despair that the stain is indelible. 

Other days . . . I hope.