Albert Nolan

The Experience of Those

Sinned Against

A Theology for South Africa

• “Father of Liberation Theology” in S.A.

• Born 1934

Being Sinned Against

• Term for suffering under structures of sin

• A serious analytical category

• Ethical reflection on politics & economics

Seeking Good News

• Seeking God’s action & will in the situation

• To find good news for those sinned against which“has definite moral implications. It is the kind of news that challenges us to act. But good news is concerned with something more than morality or ethics. The good news is about the meaning of our times, about the significance of what is happening in our country, about what God is doing.”

Naming the Sin – Suffering with Christ

• Biblically, a transgression of love

• Causing suffering, as apartheid in S.A.

• Experience of suffering “makes God visible as the one who is being sinned against,” indeed crucified

• Not measured by knowledge, but by pain inflicted

Naming the Sinner - Apartheid

• Sinful structures emerge from generations of personal sinners – going back to original sin

• In apartheid, going back to colonialism

• Expressed in social systems, nations, law, – which teach us to treat each other as objects

• Structures do not cause sin, but tempt:– not opposing is entering into the structure

Naming those Sinned Against - God of the Poor

• Sufferers involved in the struggle are subjects, the sinned against

• Sufferers who do not resist are sinners, who do not oppose the system:

“neutrality with regard to the conflict that is raging in South Africa today is an illusion. The gospel we preach will not be a Gospel of Jesus Christ unless it takes sides with those who are being sinned against – the poor and the oppressed.”

Faith in the Gospel

• Theology grounded in faith experience of those sinned against

• Theologians must share experience of suffering– not universalise as western theologians tended to, in

the monastery or university

• Paradigm shift to God acting in a particular time and place:– Giving “the Gospel of Jesus Christ back to the poor

and oppressed.”– Trusting experience and concrete reality

Structures of Grace

• Faith questions of those sinned against:– “how is God saving in and through Jesus Christ in this particular

experience?”– biblical text gives the shape, experience gives the content of the

Good News, these interact• Jesus before Christianity: Jesus faced structural sins of

his time:“rose up against the Jewish system of that time as itself a system of oppression which caused intolerable suffering. He wanted to replace it with something he called the rule of God.”

• Structures of grace – enable us to experience God’s saving power– are a combination of God’s gift and people’s struggle for

liberation

Salvation will Come

• Chronos: western, measured concept of time, – giving a chronological date for the day of the Lord

• Kairos: qualitative, the kind of time we are in, – reading the signs of the times, – seeking God’s actions – important for liberation struggle

• Eschaton: the end of a series of events in history, a calendar date; – seems distant and thus irrelevant for those suffering– Resurrection not final victory but a sign and promise

of victories over evil yet to come– Thus the day of the Lord is imminent

God’s Time of Liberation

“When we introduce God into the picture, or rather we discover God already there in our world, it takes our breath away. When we begin

to see God as the one who is sinned against and crucified in

South Africa, it makes us shudder. We are struck with the full impact of the crisis, the conflict and the

struggle and the day of liberation, when we see them as the

wonderful works of God. We appreciate what is happening more

fully, when we experience it as grace.”