social work as theology’s challenging other

Teologie

a socialm prace

dvacet let

dialogu

Editor: Michal Kaplanek

4

Obsah

Dvacet let dialogu? 5

I Teologie a sluzba cloveku Teologie a diakonie 15 Teologie a socialni prace 21 Socialni prace jako znameni casu 29 Teologie a socialni prace: spolecne na ceste 39 "(Something Inside) So Strong". Positive Psychology as a Bridge

xr between Social Sciences and Theology 49 onograhe byla financng podporena Ministerstvem 1 J . ' . S o c i a l W o r k « Theology's Challenging Other 61

7 r a m c i f e s e neho projektu Ins t i tudonalnZr ' 'T ^ 3 ^ W c h o v y 8 7 * 8

ke fakulty Univerzity Karlovy v Praze v roce 20 P E v angelicke teologic- 1 1 Spolecna temata teologie, pedagogiky a socialni prace Telo jako podstatne rozlisujici ktiterium pastorace a socialni price? 75 Vyznam prozivani vlastniho tela pfi utvafeni identity mladych lidi 81 Lidska prava na rozhrani socialni prace a teologickoetickych aspektu 87 Vychova jako projev vztahu k nedisponovatelnemu 97 Priivodce pfechodem do dospelosti 103

I I I Eticke vyzvy teologii a socialni praci Regulacesocialnipra.ee 109

Recenzovali: Nfzkoprahovost a jeji naroky na ptacovniky 113 doc. PhDr. Mireia Rylkova Th D A New Consetvative Development Policy 121

°c. Ing. Mgr. Ales Opatrny, Th.D. IV Dvacet let vzdelavani socialnich pracovniku na Jaboku - Vyssi /g\ r . odborne skole socialne pedagogicke a teologicke

Umverzita Karlova, Evangelicka teologicka fakulta Kofeny a plody jaboku 127

ISBN 978-80 904681 1 Utvafeni studia socialni prace na teologicke skole 133 Teologie jako inspiraeni a motivacni zdroj pro socialni praci 139 Prakticke vyuziti biblicke metody „videt - slyset - jednat" v socialni praci 143 Vztah mezi socialni pedagogikou a socialni praci v Nemecku 151

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TEOLOGIE A SLUZBA CLOVEKU

We can justly consider that the future of humanity lies in the hands of those who are strong enough to provide coming generations with reasons for living and hoping."8

This surely describes a theological task for social work in this post modern era. This virtues-based approach can link personal experience with a deep sense of common humanity. It can link the secular and religious worlds in a way that was not possible in the past. It can provide a common theological ground for the search for meaning and help to uncover that something inside so strong which alone can hold human community together.

118 Pastoral Constitution On The Church In The Modern World- Gaudium etSpes. Vatican City, 1965, 31, but also notice that key concepts have emerged from the theological reflection of the Catholic Church such as subsidiarity, the common good, solidarity as well as documents such as Populorum Progressio, Rerum Novarum and many, many others.

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Social Work asTheology's Challenging Other

Tim Noble

There are many possible definitions of theology, and of the faith which it seeks to articulate."9 However, most would agree that faith - cettainly in the sense of fides qua, the faith by and in which we live, move and have our being120 - is a response to a gift given by God out of love. Thus theology is also a response to the innate human need and desite to enter more deeply into this gift,121 to understand it more fully, to live it more meaningfully. In what follows, I want to narrow down this idea of theology as response in two particular aspects. I will look the way in which liberation theology has sought to respond to the social sciences in general, and in this patticular instance to social work, and at what social work can contribute as theology's challenging other.

A good accessible example of this multiplicity of definitions is in Hans Frei, Types of Christian Theology, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Anselm's understanding of theology as "faith seeking understanding" (fides quaerens intellectum - the phrase is from the Preface of the Proslogion) is one that, if properly understood, seems to me to be a good starting point for understanding the task of theology. Cf. Acts 17:25. Perhaps the most sustained reflection on the nature of gift in contemporary philosophy / theology is by Jean-Luc Marion. For the philosophical working out of this, see Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002, and for a more theological version, id., God Without Being, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 161-182. See also Robyn Horner, Jean-Luc Marion: A Iheo-logical Introduction, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, 71-74 and 111-113. In fact, Marion moves from the idea of "gift" in his early work, to "givenness" in the later works, since this avoids having to implicitly include the giver (and hence) being as the necessary pre-condition for the gift.

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TEOLOGIE A SLUZBA ClOVEKU

The Contribution of Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1996)

I do this informed by the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas,122 who wished to move philosophy from a concenttation on metaphysics to seeing ethics as what he called "first philosophy".123 There is neither time nor space to enter in much detail into Levinas' contribution here,124 but a brief word of introduction is needed. Levinas spent most of his wotking life as directot of the most impottant institution of Jewish highet education in Ftance, and he was therefore steeped in the world of Judaism, in the tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures.125 Thus, although he sometimes sought to distinguish his philosophy and his works on Judaism, the two are in fact deeply intertwined,126 and for this reason also his contribution to theology has been important. Out of this Jewish insistence on the debt of setvice which Israel owed to "the widow, the sttanger, the orphan"127 and out of his readings of Heidegger and Hus-serl (under both of whom he studied), gtew his realisation that philosophy had to start not with the metaphysical or epistemological question of the " I " , but with the confrontation with the "other", the one who always refuses to let me be the centre of the universe.

This othet is the one who, in Levinas' words, commands me, and even, holds me hostage.128 The strongly communitarian ethics of Judaism means that Levinas does not leave it simply at that, though, since then all sorts of even worse crimes would be possible. There is always my equal debt of service to the neighbour of my neighbour, and the command of the othet can never intend harm to this "Third". 1 2 9 But nevertheless, this other-centredness, this focus on the other as the starting point for

1 2 2 For a biography of Levinas, see Salomon Malka, Emmanuel Levinas: His Life and Legacy Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2006 and for a reflection on Levinas' contribution to theology, see Michael Purcell, Levinas and Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

1 2 3 Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1987, 2'). 1 2 4 See for more on Levinas, Tim Noble, The Poor in Liberation Theology: Pathway to God or

Ideological Construct?, Sheffield: Equinox, 2013, 74-83. 1 2 5 Levinas published a number of works in this area, too. See, for example, Emmanuel Levi

nas, Nine Talmudic Readings, Bloomington - Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990 1 2 6 See on this Nilo Ribeiro Junior, Sabedoria da Paz: Etica e teo-logica em Emmanuel Leviihis.

(The Wisdom of Peace: Ethics and Theo-logic in Emmanuel Levinas). Sao Paulo: Loyol.i. 2008, 1 5 and 111-265. See also Purcell, Levinas and Theology, 34-36.

1 2 7 See Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 215: "The Other who dominates me in his transcendcrn i is thus the stranger, the widow, the orphan to whom I am obligated". Cf. also 78 and 2S I As to scriptural references, see, for example, Exodus 22:21-22, Malachi 3:5.

1 2 8 Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence, Pittsburgh: Duquesne Univel sky Press, 1998, 112.

1 2 9 See, for example, Emmanuel Levinas, "The I and The Totality", in Entre Nous: Thinking oj the-Other, London - New York: Continuum, 2006, 11-33. See also Emmanuel Leviiuv

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SOCIAL WORK AS THEOLOGY'S CHALLENGING OTHER

my reflection and action, remains crucial. From this perspective, theology ceases to be a kind of large store, to which people ate welcome, sure that they will find on the shelves an answet to their problems and questions, ready-made and fit for all. Rather, theology is a response to the command of the othet, to the questions which the other asks of me, or of us, as theologians and as a Christian community.

TheTheological Perspective of Liberation Theology

So, my question, following this methodology, is what challenges does social wotk pose to theology, and how might theology set about answering those questions. I write as a theologian, trying to articulate what I undetstand these questions to be. Of coutse, the very natute of this methodology presumes that I allow social work to correct my questions, to push me further, but that is social work's response and one I , as a theologian, cannot make.

The specific theological perspective I am working from is liberation theology, and it m a y be of help to say a few introductory words about that. Liberation theology began some fifty years ago, in Latin America.130 It arose out of an encounter between predominantly Roman Catholic theologians - nearly all of whom were priests - who had generally studied in Europe and had become awate of the new theological questions being asked there and which would have such a profound affect on the Second Vatican Council. The call, so eloquently expressed in the famous opening words of (laudium et Spes, to listen to the "joys and hopes, the grief and anguish"131 of con-Icmporary humanity was one they heatd and sought to respond to. The context of I .atin Ametica at that time was one of poverty, of violence, much of it state-inflicted, ul injustice, exclusion, of what might ultimately be described as death. In one of his works , the man who coined the phrase 'theology of liberation', Gustavo Gutierrez,, distinguishes European and Latin American theology of this period. He says lli.it whilst European theology seeks to do theology after Auschwitz, Latin American theology seeks to do theology in the context of the killing fields of Peru, where the military dictatorship would dump its victims.132

I>r Dieu qui vient a T idee, Paris: Vrin, 1982, 134 and Ribeiro Junior, Sabedoria da Paz, 'H-94.

I pot a history of liberation theology, see David Tombs, Latin American Liberation Theology, I elden - Boston: Brill, 2002.

" The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes" in Auviin Flannery O.P. (ed.), Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen Documents, Northport: I !ostcllo Publishing Company - Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1995, 163 (= Gaudium I I Spes 1). | M (iustavo Gutierrez, Hablar de Dios desde el sufrimiento del inocente: Una reflexion sobre .Ihbrodejob, Salamanca: Sigueme, 21988, 184-185.

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The question that liberation theology asked was a simple one - what does God have to say to this situation? It may be somewhat deceptively simple, because thete are of course a large number of presuppositions behind the question, all of which need teasing out in order to be able to answer it. But the utgency of the situation meant that to ask where God was resonated with both theologians and otdinary Christians, as did the tesponse that God listened to the cry of his people and would come and liberate them. This liberation, as Gustavo Gutierrez also noted in his book A Theology of Liberation, is at the most profound level from sin, 1 3 3 but it is also a genuine libetation from the effects of sin, which is what injustice, poverty, hunger, etc., are. In other words, as anothet libetation theologian puts it, poverty is not some sort of innate characteristic of humanity, but people ate made poof by the actions of others.134

Thus liberation theology sought to help people to respond to the challenges they faced. Its primary language and reference has always been the Bible and the Christian tradition. However, as it developed in a context where the ptedominant form of government was right-wing nationalist and capitalist dictatotships, in order to talk about the nature of social injustice, it often used Marxist language. For the theology of liberation, this language was insttumental - that is to say, it was a tool. 1 3 5 In a context whete neatly evetyone believes in God, it was almost inconceivable even in theoty, let alone in practice, that the use of Matxist language and analysis might ei-thet include or lead to a loss of faith in God. However, seen from a European context that felt itself thteatened by socialism in its so-called "real" form in countries under

1 3 3 See Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, (Revised Edition) Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988, 25 and also the preface to this revised edition, xxxviii.

" 4 Clodovis, Boff, "A Igreja, o Poder e o Povo", Revista Eclesidstica Brasileira 40:157 (1980), 11-47, here 37: "The poor are not like 'natural' things, but like artificial products... The poor are made poor... In the light of faith, the poor are those to whom injustice is done". See also Jose Maria Vigil, "Que queda de la opcion por los pobres?", available online at http://www.servicioskoinonia.org/relat/006.htm (accessed 14'1' March 2013).

1 3 5 See for example Clodovis Boff, "O Uso do 'Marxismo' em Teologia", (The Use of 'Marxism' in Theology) Comunicacoes do 1SER 3:8 (1984), 11-18, or Clodovis Boff, Leonardo Boff, "Cinco Observagoes de fundo a intervencao do Cardeal Ratzinger acerca da Teologia da Liberta^ao de corte marxista", ("Five Observations on Cardinal Ratzinger's Intervention on Marxist-oriented Theology of Liberation"), Revista Eclesidstica Brasileira 44:173 (1984), 115-120, and Clodovis Boff, "Epistemologfa y Metodo de la Teologia de la Liberation", ("The Epistemology and Method of Theology of Liberation") in Jon Sobrino and Igna-cio Ellacuria (eds.), Mysterium Liberationis Vol. 1, San Salvador: UCA Editores, 21992, 79-113, here 106 (in English, "Methodology in Liberation Theology", in Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuria (eds.), Systematic Theology: Perspectives from Liberation Theology, London: SCM, 1996, 1-21, here 13.

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the domination of the Soviet Union, this aspect of its methodology was criticised by the Vatican especially,136 but also by othet groups, mostly (and in this unlike the Vatican) supportive of capitalism.

Liberation theology's method had its roots in the Pastoral Cycle developed by the Young Christian Worker movement, founded in Belgium in the aftermath of the First World War by Father (later Cardinal) Joseph Cardijn (1882-1967). Cardijn's very simple method of See-Judge - Act 1 3 7 was applied with increasing sophistication by liberation theology. Its first moment - the seeing - is an analysis of the situation. This is, strictly speaking, a pre-theological step, and as such it is here that social work will contribute to and challenge theology. This is whete the tools of othet disciplines are used to gain an accurate pictute of reality. Having done this, theology uses its own tools (Scripture and ttadition) to interpret this reality critically (judging can of coutse be positive or negative). Out of this intetptetive endeavour, practical tesponses (actions) will develop and these are then put into ptactice. These, of course, then change the situation, and the process is in some sense thetefore always ongoing. The aim of these actions for liberation theology is perhaps not surprisingly liberation, in a real and present sense as well as in a more eschatological sense.

The Method of LiberationTheology:Theologyand Social Work as Autonomous Disciplines

I now want to turn to what and in what sense theology can learn from social work. Or, to put it in tetms of liberation theology's methodology, how can social work help theology to understand the world in which we live? In order to do this, I need to stop and look in somewhat more detail at the methodology. I will do this through the

Chiefly in the Instruction on Certain Aspects of the 'Theology of Liberation'", issued in August 1984. See Alfred Hennelly (ed.), Liberation Theology. A Documentary History, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1990, 393-414 or www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/ documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_l 9840806_theology-liberation_en.html (accessed 14* March 2013). On this and its relation to liberation theology, see, for example, Agenor Brighenti, Raizes da epistemologia e do metodo da teologia da libertacdo: o metodo ver-julgar-agir da acdo catdlica e as mediacoes da teologia latino-americana. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Universite Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, 1993. A summary of the findings is published more accessibly as Agenor Brighenti, "Raices de la Epistemologia y del Metodo de la Teologia La-tinoamericana", Medellin 78 (1994), 207-254 or Clodovis Boff, Teologia e Prdtica: Teologia do Politico e suas Mediacoes. Petropolis: Vozes,21982, 27= English Translation: Theology and Praxis: Epistemological Foundations, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987, xxv. See also Anne Peterson and Manuel Vasquez, "The New Evangelization in Latin American Perspective", Cross Cur-rents, 48/3 (1998), 311-330.

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work of Clodovis Boff, a Brazilian theologian, brother of the probably better known Leonardo. Clodovis Boff is probably the leading writer on the methodology of libera-tion theology, and indeed the person who more than anyone else codified and gave it an academic language. BofFs elaboration of liberation theology's method, as very simply, if not simplistically, outlined above, contains an enormous wealth of material, and a great deal of explication, and nuancing of positions.138 There is not time, nor is there really need, to go into all these now. But I want to dtaw in particular on one of the many distinctions which Boff makes in his treatment of what he calls the socio-analytic mediation, equivalent to the "seeing" element of the pastoral cycle.

BofFs first majot methodological wotk, Theology and Praxis, seeks to set up the telationship between theology and the social sciences. Fot the purposes of my discussion, I will assume that social work is a branch of the social sciences, at least as an academic discipline. Boff says that any academic discipline is both autonomous and what he calls dependent, or we may say, interdependent.139 The autonomy of an academic discipline consists in its tight to set its own rules of discourse, and to be able to judge what is of relevance to it. For Boff, most of the disagteements and criticisms of one branch of academic learning by another stem from a failure to recognise this. Levinas might well say that this refusal to allow the autonomy of the othet is due to the desite for totality, to create the other in the image of the " I " .

In the telationship between theology and social wotk, this autonomy is, obviously, double-sided. Theology cannot dictate to social wotk what it should and should not do in its own field, nor can social work dictate to theology what it should do in its own field. As we shall see shortly, the qualifying remark "in its own field" is crucial here, but first a few more comments on the natute of the autonomy. This will require a brief reflection on the nature of an academic discipline and its relation to practice.

The title of BofFs book - Theology and Praxis — indicates that his interest lies precisely in this relationship / distinction.140 In what way can a theoretical discipline, which any academic discipline necessarily is, be related to praxis? This does not relate solely to theology or the humanities. Indeed, at the heatt of most science is the practical testing of theory or the theoretical extrapolation of practical expetimental results. To put it vety simply, we could say that eithet a discipline says, here is an idea, and practitioners see if it wotks, or, alternatively, practitioners can say, this is what we do, ot what we have found in our practice, what does it mean and does it have any more genetal significance? Although Boff came later to modify his understanding ol theology (and consequently of the theologian), this distinction between the work ol

1 3 8 I draw here on Boff, Teologia e Prdtica, which is the most sophisticated presentation of th< methodology. See on this also Noble, The Poor in Liberation Theology, 102-118, for a more detailed presentation of the methodology.

1 3 9 Boff, Teologia e Prdtica, 57-61. (English Translation, 14-16). 1 4 0 This is at the heart of the thitd major part of the book, on the dialectical mediation.

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the theologian as theologian, and the wofk of the committed Chfistian engaged in the life of the community is a helpful one.141

The direct contribution, then, that social wofk will make to theology will come about at the level of theory. It is the task of social wofk, again as an academic discipline, to reflect on its practice and to communicate that practice, according to its own discoutse. In this instance, it is the task of the theologian to listen attentively to this discourse. What does the experience of social workets as reflected by the academic discipline of social work have to say about the world in which we live? For liberation theology, the question is mote ptecise still. What does it tell us about the situation of the matginalised and excluded of society, those with whom social work-ers pethaps most often engage? And what concretely would liberation mean for such people? Theologians can of coutse give a theological answer to this last question, but they cannot simply give a practical answer. They also need social work to tell them precisely what is going on.

O f course, a theologian can give an impressionistic picture of what is wrong. Many theologians are either priests or religious, or increasingly, lay people heavily involved in the life of their churches. That means that they have pastotal encounters, and they listen to people telling theit stories, and they cannot help but gain some idea of the struggles people undergo. But the anecdotal, whilst very helpful as a motivation, cannot ultimately be transformative, since deafly one anecdote can be negated by another. Just as politicians choose their statistics selectively, they also choose their anecdotes equally selectively, as if one instance really can sum up and justify a complex series of choices. A clear-sighted theology will not allow itself this false luxury.

But in order to gain a clear picture of the way in which certain groups in society are systemically disadvantaged and excluded, theology will have to turn to social wofk. More than simply turning to social work, though, in listening to the report of social work, theology will find itself challenged. Several authors have described how the theology of libetation was born from a sense of ethical indignation142 - "this is

1 4 1 This is developed more in the book Clodovis wrote with his brother Leonardo. See Clodovis Boff and Leonardo Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology, Tunbridge Wells: Burns and Oates, 1987, 22-23, and Clodovis Boff, "Epistemologia y Metodo", 97-98 and 100. See also Clodovis Boff, Feet-on-the-Ground Theology A Brazilian Journey, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987, Preface, and 63 on the role of the intellectual and theologian.

"•' See, for example, Maria Clara Luchetti Bingemer, "Teologia da Libertagao: Uma Opcao pelos Pobres", Revista Eclesidstica Brasileira 52:208 (1992), 917-927, here 919 "Liberation theology was born of an ethical indignation, counterbalanced by a revelation. The revelation of the face of the Lord himself which shines forth and manifests itself with the force of an epiphany, in the face of the poorest, of the one in whom life finds itself most under threat, attacked and diminished." See, too, Andre Corten, Os Pobres e o Espirito Santo. O Pentecostalismo no Brasil, Petropolis: Vozes, 1996, 13 who notes that this ethical indignation was one of the reasons for the development of liberation theology in the 1960s

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TEOLOGIE A SLUZBA CLOVF.KU

happening and it is simply not right". Social work challenges theology precisely at the level of this ethical indignation, pointing to the gap between the claims we make for our society, in terms of democracy, inclusion, acceptance, care for those who need it, and so on, and the teality of poverty, exclusion, lack of suitable care. This challenge comes not only from individual narratives, but from reflections on the nature of the problems people face and the ways in which society can tespond to them.

Theology must listen to the challenge of social workers, channelled through the reflection of social work. This is-not simply a methodological point, but comes out of one of theology's own autonomous "tules of discoutse". To see God as creator of the world is to accept that anything which is good or at least seeks the good is somehow of God. 1 4 3 It is also to believe that God has given us the powet of teason, of thought, of reflection and discernment, and that we must use this. So, social wofk is, from theology's point of view, God-given, a way in which God can speak to his people, can challenge them to tespond to the cry of the excluded, the marginalised, the unfree.

The Method of LiberationTheology:Theology and Social Work

as Dependent Disciplines

The other side of the distinction which Boff makes in discussing academic disciplines is that, as well as being autonomous, they are also dependent. That is to say, in itself, any academic discipline is limited, inadequate and related to other disciplines. To give an example, take driving a car. To drive a car I do not need to know how the internal combustion engine functions, but I do need to know the rules of the road. This latter is the autonomous aspect. It is not up to an engineer as engineer to tell me what side of the road I should drive on, or what colour traffic light I should stop at. But in ofder to drive safely, I must inhabit the univetse of those rules. However, it is rather obvious that I also need the engineer. A theotetical knowledge of the fulcs of the road will not enable me to dfive. I need someone to have consttucted a working car, and moreover the safer and more reliable it is, which will be down to the

or Jung Mo Sung, "Sujeito e defesa da vida das vitimas" in Luiz Carlos Susin (ed.), Term Prometida: Movimento Social, Engajamento Cristdo e Teoldgica, Petropolis: Vozes / SOTEK, 2001, 225-247, here 229-232, where he argues that there can only be ethical indignation when the other is recognized as subject. Although Levinas is not referred to directly in thU text, the background is unmistakable.

1 4 3 This is one way of understanding the theology of someone like Justin Martyr, with his in sistence of the presence of the logos spermatikos, the seed of the Word, the presence of God in the world. It can be seen more recently in the theology of someone like Karl Rahner, and his concept of the supernatural existential, the idea that God is already at work in (Inhuman being in order that the human being may be able to respond to God.

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engineer, the mote easily and fully I will be able to comply with the rules of driving. This is the dependent telationship.

At this level, theology and social wotk need each other First of all, accotding to Boff, theory can only directly draw on theory as the basis for its reflection.144 Thus, theology cannot reflect in an unmediated fashion on the experience of social workers. This may seem rather strange, since it relies on a particulat undetstanding of the nature of theory. But what Boff means here is that theology cannot have access, as theology, to the experience of the social wotker. And as soon as that experience is articulated, it becomes, through the language it uses, a part of a theory, of a way of constructing the world which is proper to social work. 1 4 5 We can often dismiss this as jatgon, and complain that people ate not speaking cleatly, but of coutse within theit own wotld they ate speaking with peifect clarity, and those who speak that language understand them better than if they were to use vaguet terminology. Theology has access to this atticulated experience, and the very act of articulation implies, even necessitates, reflection and ordering.

It is this reflected and ordered articulation of experience that social work offers to theology for its deliberation. Using a model developed by the French Marxist Louis Althusser,146 Bofflikens this process to the transformation of raw material into something new. To choose a simple example, in ofder to make a cake, you need certain ingredients, flour, eggs, fat, sugar, etc. These are the raw materials of a cake, but of course they ate already heavily worked raw matetials. We do not get a sheaf of wheat, a cow, a hen and a bit of sugar cane to make a cake, but we get wheat that has been milled, packed, sold in a shop, we get buttet, sugar in some prepared form, and even the eggs have mostly been sorted, cleaned, stamped, put in a box, and so on. Social wotk will do all this for theology, preparing its materials, giving theology what it needs to be able to do its own wotk, which is the second step of Althusser's method.

This is what we might call the transformation of the taw material, the way in which the ingredients ate mixed up in the fight proportions to produce the kind of mixture I need for the cake I am making. This is why theology can be inspired by

1 4 4 See Boff, Teologia e Prdtica, 372-373 (English translation, 218). Although BofFs methodology might at times seem unnecessarily complicated, what he is trying to do is to make the necessary heuristic divisions in order to be able to discuss clearly the contribution of both theology and the social sciences, without confusing them, or driving too strong a wedge between them. Thus he often makes divisions which are to some extent, as he himself will acknowledge, practically unsustainable, but conceptually fruitful. Such is perhaps the case here. Of course, a theologian can talk to a social worker and learn I torn them, but BofFs point is that that conversation is always carried out at a very important level on a theoretical basis.

1 See on this, Boff, Teologia e Prdtica, 145-150 (English translation, 70-73).

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social work, but not ultimately directed by it , 1 4 7 since the task of theology is to take the taw matetial it has been ptesented with and to rework it into something theological. There are limits based on the natute of the raw material, and theology cannot simply abuse what it has received, just as I cannot make a cake from a used car, or indeed a safe functioning car from cake ingredients.

It is this transformative moment which is the ptopetly theological tesponse to the challenge which is raised. What does the Bible or the tradition of the chutch have to say about the way in which society is structuted? Liberation theology will point to certain key concepts, to God's love and cate fot his people and fot his cteation, to God's self-revelation through the prophets and fully in Jesus Christ, as a God of justice, a God of loving mercy, a God who opts preferentially for the poor It will show how core Christian beliefs, in the Ttiune God, in the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, in the salvific activity of the Fathet in the Son through the Spirit, and so on, speak also of a responsibility to the those in society to whom injustice is done, to those who are excluded from participation in God's world, on account of gendet, race, sexuality, social status, ot whatevet othet justification is used.

Out of this work on the raw material presented by social work, a response will come. For liberation theology, this will be to do with the need to establish a world based on justice,148 in which the poof, however they ate undetstood, are placed at the centre, so that God's will may be done. The nature of autonomy and dependency mean that this call to action can be transmitted either to social work as a theoretical arriculation (perhaps along the lines of suggestions of what values should be present in social wofk) or as a suggestion to Christians as to how they should become involved in social work as Christians. At that level, Christian social workers can communicate with theit colleagues who are not Christian, and the task of social work as

1 4 7 Here again, the autonomy and dependency are key. As dependent theology needs the raw materials supplied by social work, as autonomous, it will then work on them in its own way.

1 4 8 The commitment to justice is perhaps the strongest characteristic of liberation theology. Jose Maria Vigil, a Spanish-born priest who has lived for many years in various parts of Central America, has even argued that it would be more accurate to replace the idea of the preferential option for the poor (or simply the option for the poor) by God's option for justice and against injustice. See "A opcao pelos pobres e opcao pela justica, e nao e preferential. Para um reenquadramento teologico-sistematico da opcao pelos pobres", [The option for the poor is an option for justice and not preferential. For a new theological-systematic framework for the option for the poor], Perspectiva Teoldgica 36 (2004), 241-252; available online at http://www.servicioskoinonia.org/relat/ 371p.htm (in English = http://www. servicioskoinonia.org/relat/371 e.htm (accessed 14,h March 2013 See also Tim Noble, "Liberation Theology Today - Challenges and Changes" in Michal Cab, Roman Micka, Marek Pelech (eds.), Mezindrodni symposium o teologii osvobozeni, Ceske Budejovice: Teologicka fakulta Jihoceske univerzity, 2007, 22-36.

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an academic discipline will be to reflect on the challenges posed to it by the practice of Christian social wotk, and see whethei this fits in with its own discoutse or not.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I want to address two points. The first is to look at the specific contribution that the theology of liberation - and more specifically its methodology - can make in determining how social work can be given its rightful place as a challenging other. The second is to sketch vety briefly some of the challenges that I see as being brought to theology by social wotk.

The methodology of the theology of liberation as outlined by Clodovis BofFis not, of coutse, without criticism, some of it more serious than others."" The chief and perhaps most pertinent criticism of the distinction between autonomy and dependency, the aspect I have chiefly picked up on here, is that in ptactice it is very hard to see how the "raw material" can be chosen without some criteria being adopted for the choice, which in some sense or another are already in this case theological criteria. I am not sure just how telling this criticism finally is, though. When I make a cake, I am already limited in terms of what I can choose - I can decide to some extent on the sott of flour, whether to use buttef, margarine or oil, brown or white sugar, but these are circumscribed choices. Similarly, as a theologian wishing to do theology, I will choose the raw material that is susceptible of being worked on theologically. I think that ultimately this will be material that enables a value judgement to be made, or one might say discernment over the degree to which something is good or bad, right or wrong, according to the scriptures and the tradition of the church.

This is precisely what BofFs methodology enables us to do best. It rejects impressionistic theology, the kind of thing that Boff sees as a type of sloganeering.150 There is a good and rightful place for demonstrations, for publicly expressing disagreement with government decisions and policies, especially those which cleatly militate against the well-being of the matginalised and excluded of our society and act in favour of the tich and powerful. Indeed, theologians, as Christians, should be always involved in these protests. But theology has anothet task. It has to show why these measures are wrong, why they damage the human being created in the image and likeness of God. In damaging the human being, they become a form of blasphemy, because they seek to do harm to the creature already touched by the divine, and thus to the divine. This is sin.

This is dealt with in much more detail in Noble, The Poor in Liberation Theology, 118-125. In fairness, it should be said that Boff himself would now be critical of some of his earlier ideas. Cf. Boff, Teologia e Prdtica, 22-23 (English Translation, xxii).

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In order to unmask the "powers and principalities",151 theology must be confident in its ability to read the signs of the times, and it needs the challenges posed by disciplines such as social work in order to do this. It will take this material - not all of it, but what is germane to its own capacities - and reflect on it with a view to trans-fotmation, to proclaiming a message of metanoia, of conversion, of turning from the way of sin to the way of Christ. That way, though, is always a conctete path to be taken, among many othet possible routes, and theology needs social wotk and allied disciplines to give it a clear map. It will then read that map and propose a route that it sees as leading to God and it will suggest what is needed in order that the journey be successfully undertaken. It will then go on listening to the practitioners, to othet Christians, and through them to social workers and others, who will let them know if the path proposed is the right one or not, and the process will go on.

Finally, then, what are the challenges that social wotk puts to theology? I think there are two aspects to this, one of which is broadly confirming of liberation theology's position but nonetheless challenging. The other is perhaps more critical of liberation theology's starting point. I start with this lattet aspect. The ptecise natute of this challenge will, of course, depend to some extent on the particular social realities of a given countty or even a given region within that country. But I think that hete in the Czech Republic social work may give food for reflection to libetation theology or those who favour some version of it that could be practised here, in settings very different to Latin America.

Perhaps the chief challenge is to ask whether it is always systemic problems - what liberation theology has called structutal sin 1 5 2 - that ate tesponsible for the problems in society. It would be father unfair to suggest that liberation theology has denied any individual responsibility, but faced with theologies that tended to over-emphasise individual guilt at the expense of the more profound restructuring of society that was needed, it has tended to downplay that aspect. But social wofk may want sometimes to say that chaotic lifestyles emefge out of choices that people made and into which they wete not simply forced. Social workers will also - at theit best - refuse to reduce people to theit problems or needs, something which is always at least a theotetical danger for liberation theology.153 As long as they keep ptesenting theology with such

1 5 1 Cf. Colossians 1:16 or Ephesians 6:12. 1 5 2 See, for example, Jose Ignacio Gonzalez Faus, "Pecado", in Sobrino, Ellacuria (eds.), Mys-

terium Liberationis, Vol. 2, 93-106, especially here 98-102 (in English: "Sin", in Sobrino and Ellacuria (eds.), Systematic Theology, 194-204, here especially 197-200).

1 5 3 Some years ago, Clodovis Boff was engaged in a fairly sharp debate with his brother Leonardo and other liberation theologians, because he made this kind of criticism of liberation theology. By concentrating on the poor and excluded, it was, he argued, in essence ignoring God, and thus failing to help liberate. See Clodovis Boff, "Teologia da Liberta^ao e volta ao fundamento", Revista Eclesidstica Brasileira 67:268 (2007), 1001-1022 and Leonardo Boff, "Pelos pobres, contra a estreiteza do metodo", Revista Eclesidstica Brasileira 68:271,

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a holistic view of the human person they will remind it that it too proclaims the person as one before God.

More than challenging libetation theology's view, though, I think that social work will confirm it in its intuitions, but in doing so, challenge it to speak out to the church and the world of the need for change. Social work can present to theology the reality of social exclusion, the way in which society is structured in so many ways to matginalise certain groups, and to problematise them. It also, as I suggested above, brings to theology the needs of specific groups of people, each of whom for someone has a name and a face.154 This reminds theology that these people, each single one of them, are children of God, and that as our brothers and sisters we must listen to them and speak, if necessaty for them, but always with them. Social work asks, in its own way, where theology is when our sister or brother is hungry, thirsty, in prison, in hospital, without clothes.155 It challenges us to bring a word of hope, of liberation, of joy as well as to accept the words of hope, liberation and joy that are offered in different ways by each. It can also, and pethaps most impottantly, help keep theology humble. Boff says that because theology talks about the Absolute, it has a disturbing tendency to think its own pronouncements are absolute.156 But social work will bring before theology far more important matters, because it will bring people, and it will not allow theology to speak out as if it had all the answers. For ultimately, as with Peter and John, all theology has to offer is its faith in the transforming power of Christ Jesus,157

the one who was put to death and on the third day was raised to final definitive life and who invites us, through service to all our sisters and brothets, especially those most on the matgins of society, to partake in that life, full of joy and hope.

701-710, and for commentary on the debate, Noble, The Poor in Liberation Theology, 139-146.

1 The idea of face takes us back to Levinas, and also to the Third General Conference of Latin American Bishops ar Puebla in 1979, where this is a powerful image. Levinas speaks frequently of the challenge of the face of the other - see, for example, Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 50: "The way in which the other presents himself, exceeding the idea of the other in me, we here name face". Puebla speaks of the faces of the poor in paragraphs 31-39 of its concluding document, which can be found in Spanish at http://servicioskoinonia.org/ biblioteca/bibliodatosl.html?CELAM (accessed 14* March 2013).

5 5 Cf. Matthew 25:31-46 : Cf. Boff, Teologia e Prdtica, 102-107 (English Translation: 44-47). 7 Cf. Acts 3:1-10.

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