Appalachia was on the radar of participants of the Theology in the Americas conference in Detroit — a gathering of Latin American and North American liberation theologians — in the summer of 1975, just months after the promulgation of the Appalachian pastoral letter This Land is Home to Me, and was included in those discussions as one of many particularized theologies in the U.S. that need to be in dialogue with one another. And while impressive grassroots activity was inspired by the pastoral letter, in recent years the excitement and sense of Appalachian identity has dwindled, and with few exceptions, very little theology has been done from an Appalachian perspective. A theology which takes Appalachia seriously would pose a challenge for theology in the United States, even for U.S. liberation theologians, as well as the Church in general.
Theology in the U.S. largely remains locked in a particular Western mode which is detached from reality.[1] One bit of personal evidence for this is the fact that some fellow theology students were puzzled that I would bother attending a conference like the Appalachian Studies Association conference which met this past month. Much work is left to be done to encourage theologies that are incarnate, that make the “option for reality” in Leonardo Boff’s terms.[2] In particular, attention to Appalachia would challenge conceptions of Catholic social teaching which rely on abstract principles such as the “common good,” which have been used to justify destructive practices like mountaintop removal mining and assumptions about the role of the state as the “keeper of the common good.” William Cavanaugh has critiqued the way Catholics think about the nation-state, arguing that its main function is not the promotion of the common good, but for the benefit of elites.[3] Eve Weinbaum’s ethnographic research on Appalachian politics in the book To Move a Mountain: Fighting the Global Economy in Appalachia confirms this is the case.[4]
Attention to Appalachia also poses a challenge to U.S. theologies of liberation and other progressive movements in society and in the Church which are still often quick to dismiss Appalachians, or the South, more generally (as in the case of the website FuckTheSouth.com), or rural people as backward, racist, sexist, caught in regressive traditions — in short, the enemy. Liberation theologian Andrea Smith has criticized the way in which liberationists tend to focus on socially-acceptable victims in our communities rather than the “non-persons” who are marginalized even within our marginalized communities.[5] Focus is placed on those persons who are more likely to generate support for the community from the wider public. Countless liberation movements exist in the United States, sometimes supported by progressive churches. “Redneck” or “Hillbilly liberation” does not seem to be on the agenda, or if it is, it is subsumed into descriptions of a “theology of the poor,” perhaps for the reasons to which Smith points. Appalachian experience, like so many other oppressed communities, is complex and includes severe forms of non-personhood and marginalization, often including embarrassing and dysfunctional characteristics such as alcoholism and domestic violence. These qualities must be owned up to as part of the liberation struggle in the U.S., and not glossed over or rejected in favor of less problematic or embarrassing communities.
Attention to Appalachia will always be a challenge for the Church in general, as it involves a continual conversion in becoming a Church of the poor. This Land is Home to Me showed an ecclesiological model that, above all, is significant in its recognition of the epistemological privilege of the poor. That document, in its words and in the process of its writing, proclaimed that the poor speak with authority and that the role of Church leaders, in particular bishops, is primarily to listen and to serve. Thirty years later, the energy and excitement that animated the Appalachian Catholic community has waned considerably, and the vision and exercise of authority in the Church has retreated from the vision of the Appalachian pastorals into a retrenching of centralized power, with the Appalachian church conceived as a Vatican branch office in the mountains. Interestingly, this has occurred at a time when extreme forms of imperial capitalism have continued to intensify. Now is a key point for examining these connections, re-evaluating the history and mission of the church in Appalachia, and encouraging new forms of authentic inculturation.
Authentic inculturation can be encouraged, among other ways, through a sincere engagement with the Appalachian studies community. This will involve surmounting the ever-present hurdle in Catholicism which continues to deny that non-Church entities might have something to teach the Church. Attention to Appalachian studies, however, must not simply mean studying the important texts in the Appalachian studies canon, though they are important. The Church should in some way learn from and participate in the community and network of Appalachian scholars, activists, and everyday people, reaching across ecumenical divides of suspicion in humility. By doing so, the Church might just contribute to and become a site of resistance and renegotiation of Appalachian identity.
One ongoing problem the Church will have to deal with is its tendency toward paternalism. As postcolonial analysis has shown, the reality of missionary and “social uplift” work and its connection to colonialism often takes the form of paternalism. Debra Vansau McCauley has criticized the social documents of the mainline churches, including the Catholic ones, of retaining a spirit of paternalism in its language, as well as in the churches’ inability to take mountain religion, the dominant Christian tradition of the poor, seriously.[6] Even a thirty-year anniversary celebration of This Land is Home to Me in 2005 featured speeches, viewable online, which spoke of the need to have compassion for the “little people” of Appalachia. There is still a need to purge our ecclesial language of all forms of paternalism that reduce the people of Appalachia to mere objects pity with no dignity of their own.
Finally, attention to Appalachia brings us to and challenges some of the deepest questions about God, God’s relationship to humanity, and our understanding of human agency in its creative power as well as its destructive capabilities. The Appalachian experience of colonization of land and people strikes at the very heart of these issues. In light of the experience of mountaintop removal, consider the words of Isaiah, frequently heard during the Advent season:
A voice cries out: …prepare the way of the LORD!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low;
The rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley.
(Isaiah 40:3-4)
The destructive power unleashed in Appalachia throughout its history up to and including today’s most extreme forms of destruction transform these words from good news into an eerie condemnation of human arrogance. A condemnation, indeed, for the god whose way is being prepared in many places in Appalachia is an idol, as This Land is Home to Me suggests in no uncertain terms. Throughout scripture, the mountaintops are the place where God is encountered. The permanent obliteration of what some consider the oldest mountain range in the world becomes a sacrament of the idolatry that the pastoral letter speaks about.
But scripture speaks another image involving mountains: that of the new heavens and a new earth, of which Isaiah says, “There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD, as water covers the sea” (Is. 11:9). Within that new heaven and new earth, there will be — and must be — a new Appalachia. Not the new Appalachia of “development” and “economic progress,” but a new Appalachia where Appalachians speak for themselves and become the agents of their own liberation. Where, as the pastoral says, “justice speaks loudly, where in the wilderness of idolatrous destruction the great voice of God still cries out for Life.” Appalachian scholars, activists, and citizens are engaging in efforts to bring that new Appalachia more and more into reality. It’s time theologians and the Church joined them.
[An excerpt from a draft of a paper tentatively titled "New Voices from Appalachia: Appalachian Studies, Postcolonialism, and Liberation Theology."]
May 7, 2008 at 9:50 am
I have done a lot of community organizing in the Coal Fields of Appalachia and when dealing Catholics, it was nice to be able to share with them their own written history of concerns for this region. As a matter of fact, some of the leaders that I had were Catholics.
May 7, 2008 at 11:32 am
I think that your theorizing is interesting.
I would like to see your reflections extended on what your ideal society would look like, and, perhaps more importantly, how we would get there, especially in light of the Biblical injunction to respect the powers that be.
May 7, 2008 at 2:39 pm
“…in light of the Biblical injunction to respect the powers that be.”
these words are a shaky foundation at best. we can’t forget that jesus was killed by those powers for a reason. and not because he just loved and respected everyone so much.
i know the traditional (or liberal?) reading of “render unto caesar” or romans 13, but i know michael’s writing well enough to know that he is coming at this from another angle. the church too often is looking down on society, while i think michael (and yoder, ellul, cavanugh, etc.) are approaching theology from the bottom up.
the sermon on the mount becomes less sentimental, less cozy when your land and food are threatened by the occupying powers.
May 7, 2008 at 3:43 pm
j. edwards,
what do you mean?
“the church too often is looking down on society”?
what does it mean to “approach theolgoy from the bottum up?”
who has ever said that the sermon on the mount is sentimental or cozy?
May 7, 2008 at 5:22 pm
theology from the bottom up is a theology of liberation, a theology of people who are too often or altogether over looked by traditional, hierarchical, Western theology.
last year, during Advent, i visited my parents’ church and was shocked to hear a message that talked about jesus as the prince of [inner]peace as opposed to jesus the prince of peace[making]. i think, especially within the context of the isaiah passage, this is a sentimentalizing of the gospel. jesus is made a safe, cozy, gure-style, spiritual healer as opposed to the threat to the beast that he was killed for being.
are you familiar with a theology of liberation? guitterez? bonhoeffer?
May 7, 2008 at 5:43 pm
No, I confess I have not read the authors you mention. I am familiar with the reasons aspects of it were condemned by the Vatican.
Theology is the study of God, so to me an expression like “theology of people” doesn’t mean much. Same with “theology of liberation,” unless you mean something like the theology of God who liberates us from the eternal consequence of sin, i.e. death. I can’t make much of the expression otherwise, and so I can’t make sense of how traditional theology ignores any class of people because by definition it is not about human beings – it is about God.
Your reflections on your experience in your parents’ church are interesting. I wholeheartedly sympathize with experiences of preachers sentimentalizing the Gospel – something that is indeed a problem in the Church today. And I agree with you about Jesus being the prince of peacemaking, but perhaps the part of life that needs peacemaking the most or in the first place is the interior life. I’m reminded of G.K. Chesterton’s 1 word essay on the question “what’s wrong with the world?” – His word? “me.”
May 7, 2008 at 5:56 pm
regarding your second paragraph…
consider the magnificat. the god of jesus christ is a god who favors the poor and the oppressed.
and to say that traditional (Western) theology is strictly about god, and not [the views and prejudices of] human beings is inaccurate in my mind. it is still human thought about god.
theologies of liberation give voice to the “least of these” and their experiences of God and scripture.
May 7, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Yes, theology is human thought about God. It’s different than human thought about science, or human thought about literature, or human thought about animals, or human thought about other human beings.
And of course, Jesus Christ fundamentally changes the way human beings think about other human beings. But when we are thinking about other human beings, we are not thinking about God. The distinction between Creator and Creature is still relevant even today.
We have been given a revelation, a revelation that is not of our own making. That is what theology studies. You seem to be speaking of something like a meta-theology – thinking about our thinking about theology.
If I err in my definition I’m certainly open to correction. But in order to talk about something we have to know what we are talking about.
I mean, what does it mean to “give voice” to experiences of God and scripture? This sounds like a gateway to the very sentimentalism you bemoan.
May 7, 2008 at 8:09 pm
how are approaches to theology different than approaches to literature and science?
there are trends. there are paradigms. there are those whose power gives them a voice and those whose minority status leaves them voiceless.
tell james cone, jon sobrino, rosemary ruether, (…etc.) that the place of suffering they speak from is only sentimentalism.
i cant comprehend how you think that we can just look at the revelation objectively and study it like a rat in a laboratory.
any help here?
May 7, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I didn’t mean to imply there is not a subjective element to our understanding or that personal experience of God is not important – sorry if that came across.
I just meant to say that revelation Himself is objective and that He is who theology aims to know. Not what we think about Him.
May 8, 2008 at 10:34 am
Wish I could join in but I’m on my way out the door for the weekend. A couple of points though:
Theology is not simply the study of God. Did Thomas Aquinas ONLY write about God? No, of course not.
Theology is both like and unlike other disciplines. It also is not simply isolated from other disciplines as if it could stand on its own.
Liberation theology was not wholly condemned by the Vatican. In fact, it could be argued that liberation theology was mostly embraced by the Vatican with a rejection only of certain minor elements which were (and are) not central aspects to liberation theology anyway.
May 8, 2008 at 10:56 am
z-
as a christian, the lens you look at god through is jesus christ, the icon of god.
& that lens is one of liberation for the poor and suffering. that is where jesus is found, says he.
May 8, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Hi Michael,
Thomas Aquinas wasn’t just a theologian, he was also a philosopher, and he made those types of distinctions in his thought. I also think theology could stand on its own, because it proceeds from its own first principle – faith.
I hate to nitpick because I know you wrote that in haste, but I didn’t say that liberation theology was totally condemned, I wrote that aspects of it were. But I would probably disagree with you in that I think the aspects of it that were condemned were essential to its message.
J. Edwards,
Jesus Christ is not the icon of God, Jesus Christ is God.
God certainly has a special concern for the poor, but Jesus’ message – the Gospel – is about the salvation from sin, not the salvation from material poverty. Again, to be explicit, this is not to say we should not work to help the materially poor. But it does order things in a certain priority.
May 8, 2008 at 1:38 pm
colossians says that jesus is the image of the invisible god, which is what i meant by icon. speaking of nitpicking…
and i think
“Jesus’ message – the Gospel – is about the salvation from sin, not the salvation from material poverty”
is where we disagree completely. jesus declared the year of jubilee which, to a 1st century jew, is a literal re-distribution of wealth & justice. liberation theologies would not see sin as so personalized (although there is certainly room for that) but more structural, ingrained in the fabric of a prejudiced and/or capitalist society.
i think this might be where you need to do some reading. i suggest yoder’s “politics of jesus”, especially in relation to sin, salvation, and jubilee. but i would not call it “liberation theology” although there are certainly elementsof LT in it.
May 8, 2008 at 1:53 pm
p.s. i do believe that jesus also came to free us from the self, ourselves. i do believe that i have acted selfishly, violently, pervertedly, etc.
but an overlooked part of that self is the greedy, violent, perverted society that humans have created. it neglects the poor and preys on the meek.
and i think this aspect is overlooked by christians because of mis/over-used readings of romans 13, which john howard yoder questions wonderfully in “politics of jesus.”
May 8, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I’m open to reading whatever, within reason.
I gotta say though,
Jesus did not come to create the classless society. He did not come with social programs and a plan for organizing the state. He did not come to overthrow the King and the unjust society He lived under. He came to save sinners. Sinners are individuals. Of course sin affects all of our existence, including our social arrangements. Sin is ingrained in the fabric of society because sin is ingrained in the fabric of human nature. I’m reminded of G.K. Chesterton’s one word essay on the question, “what’s wrong with the world today?” His response? “Me.” Individuals sin – societies do not sin, because societies are not persons. The word society is an abstraction. Societies are just groups of individuals making choices about how they ought to live together. Quite frankly, this is where I part ways entirely with liberation theology because it makes no sense.
May 8, 2008 at 5:32 pm
i think you are dismissing a lot of your bible, beginning with the prophets.
not to mention catholic social teaching.
and please dont think that i have summed up liberation theology in any way. i am no expert. i havent even read the staple texts of the movement. just a few shorter works, essays and summaries.
i think you are applying an individualism to the gospel that is (1) overshadowed by Christ’s teachings on community, hospitality, charity & friendship and (2) dangerously capitalist and american.
try stanley hauerwas’ book “unleashing the scriptures: freeing the bible from captivity to america.” amazing!
May 8, 2008 at 5:36 pm
note: hauerwas is a big critic of LT.
michael- sorry if this takes away from your piece on appalaicha. i think its wonderful.
May 8, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Well I want to stand with Tradition, Scripture and Magisterial Teaching. That’s all.
May 10, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Zach – You could probably say whatever you want about liberation theology, but chances are you’d be incorrect.
Thomas was, of course, more than a theologian. But his theology does indeed deal with more than just God.
Quibble with me on this if you like, but I think the odds of me knowing what theology is are pretty good, since I have been studying it for over a decade.
I’ll have fun responding to the rest of this thread when I am no longer on the road.
May 10, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Michael I. What book do you recomend as an introduction to liberation theolgy? I love Dorothy Day and look forward to reading some of her soon to be released diaries.
But I really cannot define liberation theology. Thanks for the Appalachia stuff.
May 11, 2008 at 10:13 am
David – The late Robert McAfee Brown wrote a few short books on liberation theology that are good intros. One is just called “Liberation Theology” I think, and there is another good one called “Spirituality and Liiberation.” Might also try Sobrino’s recent books “Where is God?” and “No Salvation Outside the Poor,” or Guiterrez’ “We Drink From Our Own Wells.” Guiterrez’s “Theology of Liberation” is the classic text.
May 11, 2008 at 12:54 pm
But I would probably disagree with you in that I think the aspects of it that were condemned were essential to its message.
What was condemned was Marxism as an ideology, which is of marginal concern to liberation theologians. Some use “Marxist” tools for analyzing and critiquing capitalism, but who doesn’t? The Vatican did not condemn selective use of certain elements of Marxist thought. Many liberation theologians do not use Marxism as a frame of reference at all.
May 11, 2008 at 4:50 pm
“The Violence of Love”, a collection of words from Oscar Romero’s sermons & writings, is a nice LT primer.
May 11, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Michael,
In that sentence I was trying to demonstrate my agreement with you.
May 11, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I just purchased a book by Fr. James Schall, S.J. titled “Liberation Theology”. I hope to learn a bunch so that I could increase my chances of being correct when I speak about LT.
May 11, 2008 at 9:40 pm
J. Edwards–
Do you really believe that Christ’s primary mission was salvation from material poverty over salvation from sin? Can you provide a source for that? I actually have begun to appreciate much of liberation theology, but social issues definately appear to derive from the primary issues of individual sin and salvation.
Can you provide any writings that head on says that the real issue of sin is social sin as opposed to individual sins (i.e. ones you would confess)?
I have read Yoder, and I don’t find everything he wrote about the Jubilee year persuasive. It seems to take a novel interpretation of the teaching of the “year of the lord” at the synagogue, and then base a whole lot of writing on that interpretation. However, even if Jesus was proclaiming a Jubilee year, I don’t see why this doesn’t mean that this is part of what he did in the context of the larger issue of saving from sin.
May 11, 2008 at 10:40 pm
michael e.:
i did not say anything about christ’s “primary mission.” i did say-
“i do believe that jesus also came to free us from the self, ourselves. i do believe that i have acted selfishly, violently, pervertedly, etc.
but an overlooked part of that self is the greedy, violent, perverted society that humans have created. it neglects the poor and preys on the meek. ”
as one of my favorite professors said, at an evangelical university mind you: lets all just put jesus in our hearts where he never has to touch anyone.
what about the language of the lord’s prayer? OUR father…give US this day….forgive US OUR debts. i think any writings, biblical or otherwise, about one Body, one Bride, one Church would be appropriate.
YES! we each need to confess sins. But corporate sin is so over-looked in this contemporary age. I was watching a Richard Rohr dvd on the prophets a few days ago and he noted that the only time a prophet in the bible mentions individual sin it is to the king or military leaders. Otherwise, the prophets confront corporate sins of the nation.
that role of the prophet is too often the church’s missed opportunity today. non-prophet organization, indeed.
May 12, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Zach – Why don’t you try reading some liberation theology instead of Schall’s book? I mean, by all means, read Schall’s book and let us know how it is. But read some liberation theology to understand liberation theology. Not Schall.
Not sure what you mean about the sentence you are referencing above.
May 14, 2008 at 6:39 pm
The sentence that I wrote that I was referring to that you criticized was:
“… I didn’t say that liberation theology was totally condemned, I wrote that aspects of it were”
You wrote: “Liberation theology was not wholly condemned by the Vatican. ”
Hence, we agree.
And per your suggestion, I will read Guitterez’ “Theology of Liberation” along with Father Schall.
May 15, 2008 at 11:03 am
I was more concerned with this part:
But I would probably disagree with you in that I think the aspects of it that were condemned were essential to its message.
As I understand it, when the Vatican initially critiqued liberation theology for its supposed embrace of ideological marxism, most liberation theologians did not recognize the version of l.t. that the Vatican described. Which is why I say that the aspects that were condemned were not essential to the central concerns of liberation theology.
February 21, 2009 at 3:28 am
…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me… Brothers and Sisters, are we missing the forest for the trees? Are we really debating from the lap of luxury, posting on our bits of technology while our family starves and suffers? You and I know what must be done…is the Kingdom a reality or not? Do we live in the liberating Truth of Christ or not? I know who I am. I know my answer. I hope you will too. Together we can set this world on fire…