Published in: Cultural Encounters 3/2 (2007), 9-25
Leonardo Boff – a Protestant CatholicRudolfvon Sinner*
I have been asked by the editor of a volume on Leonardo Boff’s thinking, and by Boff himself, to reflect on the relations of his thinking with Protestant theology, which I accepted with great honour and pleasure.1 In this way I can show my thankfulness for the great learning that Boff’s theology has granted me, and I can also try to go deeper into it from a Protestant Evangelical perspective, more precisely from an Evangelical-Lutheran perspective. This is because it is in the Evangelical-Lutheran tradition that I carry out my ministry today.2 Another reason is that Boff treasured Luther’s contribution in a special way as is evident in the following quote: “He [ Luther] is one of the fathers of the modern emancipatory spirit and one of the doctors Christianity has in common. In him there is undeniably a liberating aura and a courage for protesting that relates directly to the Latin American theology of liberation.”3
In the title I called Leonardo Boff a “protestant Catholic” in the sense of being a theologian with a very broad vision, “catholic”, in the broadest meaning possible, truly cosmic. At the same time he has shown himself to be “protestant” in the sense of confronting, with courage, the ecclesiastical power and the dogmatic “steam roller” so to speak, of some influential theologians so as to elaborate his theology based on the Gospel and on the challenges of the concrete context. It is,
*Rudolf von Sinner, from Switzerland, was ordained in the Swiss Reformed Church (1994) and obtained his doctorate in Theology from the University of Basel/Switzerland (2001). After working during two years for the Ecumenical Coordination of Service (CESE) in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, he was installed as professor in the chair of Systematic Theology, Ecumenism and Inter-Religious Dialog at the Escola Superior de Teologia, in São Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and admitted into the ministry of the The Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB) The original version of this text was published as “Leonardo Boff – um católico protestante”, in Estudos Teológicos 46/1, 2006, 152-173. Heartfelt thanks go to Marie Ann Wangen Krahn and Allan Krahn for providing the translation. Quotes not available to us in English were translated by Marie from the Portuguese.
1 See my doctoral dissertation Reden vom dreieinigen Gott in Brasilien un Indien: Grundzüge einer ökumenischen Hermeneutik im Dialog mit Leonardo Boff und Raimon Panikkar (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 59-195; also “Ecumenical Hermeneutics for a Plural Christianity: Reflections on Contextuality and Catholicity” Bangalore Theological Forum 34, 2, 2002, 89-115 (available online on http://www.religion-online.org/ showarticle.asp?title=2455 since May, 2003).
2 It is remarkable that, in the last 20 years, a variety of works have been published by Protestant authors, many of them Lutheran: Luís Marcos Sander, Jesus, o libertador: a cristologia da libertação de Leonardo Boff [1983] (São Leopoldo: Sinodal, 1986); Kjell Nordstokke, Council and Context in Leonardo Boff’s Ecclesiology: The Rebirth of the Church among the Poor [1990] (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996); Rudolf von Sinner, Der dreieinige Gott als Gemeinschaft: Beobachtungen an Leonardo Boffs sozialer Trinitätslehre [1993] (unpublished Thesis for the Licentiate in Theology, University of Basel: Faculty of Theology, 1994); Silfredo Bernardo Dalferth, Die Zweireichelehre Martin Luthers im Dialog mit der Befreiungstheologie Leonardo Boffs: ein ökumenischer Beitrag zum Verhältnis von christlichem Glauben und gesellschaftlicher Verantwortung (Frankfurt a. Main: Lang, 1996); Euler Renato Westphal, O Deus cristão: Um estudo sobre a teologia trinitária de Leonardo Boff [1997] (São Leopoldo: Sinodal, 2003); Valério Guilherme Schaper, A experiência de Deus como transparência do mundo: o pensar sacramental em Leonardo Boff entre história e cosmologia (unpublished doctoral dissertation in Theology; São Leopoldo: Escola Superior de Teologia, 1998); Claus Schwambach, Rechtfertigungsgeschehen und Befreiungsprozess: die Eschatologien vom Martin Luther und Leonardo Boff im kritischen Gespräch [2001] (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004). There is still the study by Baptist theologian Antonio Carlos de Melo Magalhães, Christologie und Nachfolge: Eine systematisch-ökumenische Untersuchung zur Befreiungschristologie bei Leonardo Boff und Jon Sobrino (Ammersbek: Verlag an der Lottbek, 1991). These works of major academic depth are those I currently know of in German and Portuguese.
3 In his preface to the book by Walter Altmann, Lutero e Libertação. Releitura de Lutero em perspectiva latinoamericana (São Paulo: Ática, 1994), 7 [English translation: Luther and Liberation, a Latin American Perspective, Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2000, without Boff’s preface]; cf. also the chapter: Lutero e a libertação dos oprimidos, recently reedited in: Leonardo Boff, Ética e eco-espiritualidade (Campinas: Versus Editora, 2003), 132-147. There, Boff highlights three elements that he believes to be very important in Protestantism: the Protestant principle (Paul Tillich), always critical of idols and the sacred power; the recovery of the liberating potential of the Gospel and the faith that puts works of liberation into motion, being that God is the one who takes the initiative; ibid., 146f.
therefore, a theology that seeks to be truly evangelical, having as its foundation a contemporary rereading of the Gospel as an instrument of critical evaluation – this being the reason that, similar to the Reformation in the 16th century, it became protestant against the ecclesiastical establishment and its political allies – and an ecumenical theology, directed to the whole world (oikoumene). Let me add that I shall be using “evangelical” in this sense of referring to the Gospel, and as the common expression for the Protestants in Germany since the time of the Reformation, when they were called ”Evangelische”.4 It does not, therefore, imply a particular theology and faith pratice as in the sense the term adquired within Anglican and American evangelicalism. I am using “protestant” and “catholic” in terms of a particular attitude and theological concept, whereas “Protestant” and “Catholic” denote the person’s confessional belonging.
Already at the beginning of my theological studies, in the middle of the eighties of the last century, it caught my attention that Leonardo Boff’s books were to be found in the area of dogmatics in our seminary library in Basel (Switzerland). This was different from the other theologies elaborated in the so-called Third World which were placed in the area of missiology or ecumenism. I remember my elder brother, also a theologian, reading Boff’s book on Grace with great interest.5 This was the textbook of the course in that semester. On the one hand I believe it was chosen because of its central and, at the same time, polemical theme among Catholics and Evangelicals. Boff was already acclaimed as a theologian of broad academic scope, having left a piece of work, after five years of research in Munich, that to this day serves as a reference for postVatican Council ecclesiological and sacramental theology. Unfortunately, it was never translated in its entirety.6 During his studies, he felt enriched by various Protestant professors with whom he was able to study, especially the Bible scholar Gerhard von Rad (1901-1971). His first thesis project dealt with the theology of secularization of the Protestant theologian Friedrich Gogarten (18871967), showing the great interest that he demonstrated for the world and its autonomy.7 On the other hand, what was like a refreshing rain amidst the somewhat dried out and rigid dogmatic pillars, was the connection that Boff established with the reality of life on the Latin American continent during the period of political repression. This proximity to life, theology seeking to have “its feet firmly rooted in reality,” resounded strongly within European theological circles (and well beyond these) in the seventies and eighties of the last century, and Boff`s books were received as the main driving force of the Theology of Liberation. They are also the only ones of this theological line that, up to the present time, are regularly translated into other languages and maintain their level of sales on the market.
I would like to approach the subject from four focal points: The Church (ecclesiology), the Cosmos (cosmology), The Triune God (doctrine of the Trinity) and Praise to God (doxology). I do this without any pretension of full coverage. Without a doubt, and with great value to the debate, other themes could be discussed, such as Christology, the doctrine of Grace and Mariology. But the ones I cited are those which most instigated me to go deeper into this ecumenical-theological dialogue.
4 Until recently, in many places, IECLB members where simply known as “evangélicos” (“evangelicals”), whereas “Lutherans” where those of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil (IELB), related to the Missouri Synod. As nowadays “evangélicos” is generally used as referring to Pentecostals, IECLB members tend to use “luterano” (“Lutheran”) or “evangélico luterano” (“Evangelical-Lutheran”).
5 Leonardo Boff, Erfahrung von Gnade: Entwurf einer Gnadenlehre [1976] (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1978) [English translation: Liberating Grace. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1979].
6 Leonardo Boff, Kirche als Sakrament im Horizont der Welterfahrung: Versuch einer Legitimation und einer strukturfunktionalistischen Grundlegung der Kirche im Anschluss an das II. Vatikanische Konzil (Paderborn: Bonifatius, 1972).
7 Valério G. Schaper, Aexperiência de Deus como transparência do mundo, op. cit. is right in detecting an affinity with the thought of the Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer with regards to “a non religious Christianity for a world that has become adult”, p. 384 and passim; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (New York: Touchstone, 1997), especially the letters of 5/5/44 and 6/8/44.
1. The Church – Ecclesiology
The doctrine of the Church, ecclesiology, is certainly one of the most central subjects in Boff's theology and is also, without a doubt, the most polemical. The famous book Church, Charism and Power is a critical reading of an ecclesiology that is centered on the institution with its pathologies.8 The book brought upon him a strong reaction from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, culminating in his condemnation to a year of “obedient silence” (1985/1986).9 It is interesting to note that one of the criticisms were precisely his protestant leanings and the quoting of Protestant authors which the Vatican identified in the book:
[...] Cardenal [Ratzinger]'s criticism was based on the following: 'Your book is Protestant, it is the Protestants who talk like that, they are not like the Catholics.’ I say: 'Absolutely, it is the evangelical side of protestantism, and we have much to learn with Luther. So, I do not accept that it is the Protestant side; it is the healthy side of theology that perceives the excess, the abuse of power by the Church, its arrogance, and it is up to theology to have a critical word about this'.10
In fact, the ecclesiology elaborated by Boff resounds very positively as a protestant theology, or rather, an evangelical theology, since it insists on the people of God as a reference for the Church, as well as on the characteristic of the hierarchy being, above all, of service.11 He used the II Vatican Council (1962-65) as the basis for his thought, where it relativizes the traditional identification between the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ and the [Roman] Catholic Church. The constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, says that the former “subsists in” [subsistit in] the latter, rather than using “is”.12 In Boff's reading, this means that the Church of
8 Leonardo Boff, Igreja, carisma e poder [1981], revised ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2005), which includes documents of the Vatican’s case, a critical evaluation after twenty years and a “letter to the companions on the journey” where he explains his decision to leave the order and the priesthood [English translation from an earlier version of the book: Church, Charism and Power – Liberation Theology and the Institutional Church, New York: Crossroad, 1988].
9 See Harvey Cox, The Silencing of Leonardo Boff. The Vatican and the Future of World Christianity (Oak Park: Meyer-Stone Books, 1988).
10 Leonardo Boff “A Igreja mente, é corrupta, cruel e sem piedade” Interview [1998], Caros Amigos: As grandes entrevistas, Dec. 2000, 34. The large presence of Protestant authors already occurs in Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time [1972], (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1978), as Hermann Brandt points out in his Gottes Gegenwart in Lateinamerika: Inkarnation als Leitmotiv der Befreiungstheologie (Hamburg: Steinmann und Steinmann, 1992), 57, where he names exegetes and systematic theologians quoted by Boff. In fact, it is already here that Boff shows himself to be a protestant Catholic, since his interpretation of the theological meaning of the historical Jesus serves as a confrontation with the authoritarian ecclesiastical system, according to Brandt (ibid., 56), as he adopts its origins as a criteria for the current reality of the Church, more specifically in the life of Jesus. That is what all the reformers did.
11 This in spite of the fact that in early publications Boff had affirmed that: “The Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, through its tight and uninterrupted connection with Jesus Christ whom it preaches, preserves and lives out in its sacraments and ministries, and by whom it permits itself to be continually criticized, can and should be considered as the most excellent institutional articulation of Christianity [...].This, however, is not to deny the religious and salvific value of other religions. It is only that, in confrontation with the Church, they appear to be deficient.” Leonardo Boff, Jesus Cristo Libertador: ensaio de Cristologia Crítica para o nosso Tempo [1972], 13th ed. (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1991), 190f. [English translation: Jesus Christ Liberator, op. cit.]; cf. Hermann Brandt, Gottes Gegenwart in Lateinamerika, op. cit., 46 ff. It needs to be added that what today sounds conservative, was, at that time, quite progressive, since it does not identify the Roman Catholic Church with the Church in all its aspects and recognizes, explicitly, the religious value of the other churches and religions.
12 Dogmatic Constitution “Lumen Gentium”, nº 8: Haec est unica Christi Ecclesia, quam in Symbolo unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam profitemur[...] Haec Ecclesia, in hoc mundo ut societas constituta et ordinata, subsistit in Ecclesia catholica, a successore Petri et Episcopis in eius communione gubernata, licet extra eius compaginem elementa plura sanctificationis et veritatis inveniantur, quae ut dona Ecclesiae Christi propria, ad unitatem catholicam impellunt. [This is the unique Church of Christ, which we confess in the Creed as One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic [...] This Church, constituted and ordered in this world as a society, is realized in the Catholic Church which is governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him, although there are to be found elements of sanctification and truth, which, as gifts proper to the Church of Christ, strive towards catholic unity.] Naturally there is great divergence on the interpretation of the meaning of subsistit in. I will only bring to memory that Karl Rahner described the Trinity as a God in three different “ways of subsistence” (Subsistenzweisen); therefore, if the same God
4 Christ can subsist in other churches as well.13 This affirmation earned him a footnote in a document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which declared the exclusive reading to be the correct one: “The interpretation of those who would derive from the formula subsistit in the thesis that the one Church of Christ could subsist also in non-Catholic Churches and ecclesial communities is therefore contrary to the authentic meaning of Lumen gentium.“14 In an “ecumenical manifesto” published, Boff reacted in an extensive manner to the referred document Dominus Iesus (“Lord Jesus”), which, with good reason, received the title Domina Ecclesia (“Lady church”) from the German Lutheran theologian Eberhard Jüngel, which Leonardo Boff would most certainly agree with. In the manifesto, Boff affirms, among other things, that:
If the Vatican insists on its position, excluding all the others [churches], ecumenism among the Christians will go rather through Geneva than through Rome, that is, through the headquarters of the World Council of Churches. Because it is in Geneva that we can perceive some of the legacy of Christ, which is open to the dimension of the Spirit that fills the face of the earth and warms the hearts of the peoples and of the human beings. Ecumenism needs to base itself on the Gospel and not on the church.15
Continuing the rationale, Boff's ecclesiology is an ecclesiology “from below”, from the people – in Protestant terminology, from the priesthood of all believers (cf. 1 Pet 2:9) –, a participative ecclesiology, rooted in faith and in the Gospel. It is an ecclesiology of community and of communion (communio), which has gained some prominence within more open theological circles, including ecumenical debates, but has also received a critical evaluation by the Vatican.16 It is not only an ecclesiology of the people, i.e. the lay (laos), but it is also a people based ecclesiology in the sense of Liberation Theology, being built up by and from the poor. It is an ecclesiology aimed at the concrete context of life, mainly that of the poor; therefore, Boff speaks of an “ecclesio-genesis” through the self-organization of this people of God, especially in the Ecclesial Base Communities (CEBs).17 He does not only defend “a new way of being Church” [um novo modo de ser Igreja] but also “a new way for the whole Church to be” [um novo modo de toda Igreja ser].
It is also an ecclesiology that is open to other ecclesiastical experiences, outside of the range of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church. In this sense Boff is more catholic (universal) than Catholic and Roman. If Hugo Assmann criticized Liberation Theology for being too “catholicocentric”, because he was from the “more ecclesiocentric sector” of Liberation Theology, it was precisely Boff's ecclesiology that permitted a wide and inclusive perspective, beyond Roman Catholicism, even to a cosmic catholicism. Still according to Assmann: “I can imagine that many
can subsist in three different ways, without this constituting tritheism (three gods), it is not totally unthinkable that the same Church can subsist in different churches. Karl Rahner, “Der dreifaltige Gott als transzendenter Urgrund der Heilsgeschichte”, in Mysterium Salutis, eds. Johannes Feiner and Magnus Löhrer, vol. 2 (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1967), 317-401.
13 “But it is also not [the Church of Christ] because one cannot assume to identify it exclusively with the Church of Christ since this Church (the Church of Christ) can subsist in other Christian churches as well.” Leonardo Boff, Igreja: carisma e poder,op. cit., 163; cf. also 455-457.
14 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration “Dominus Iesus” on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church [2000] note 56; Acta Apostolicae Sedis 92, 2000, 742-765, also available at http:// www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html (11th May, 2006). It repeats, shortly after, the criticisms already expressed in ID. Notification about the volume 'Igreja: carisma e poder' by Leonardo Boff. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 77, 1985, 756-762. See Boff's answer in Manifest für die Ökumene: Ein Streit mit Kardinal Ratzinger, Düsseldorf: Patmos, 2001, 89-113.
15 Leonardo Boff, Manifest für die Ökumene, op. cit., p. 85.
16 Avery Dulles, “Communion”, in Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, eds. Nicholas Lossky et alii, 2nd ed. (Geneva: WCC, 2002), p. 229-232; Jean-Marie R. Tillard, Church of Churches: The Ecclesiology of Communion (Collegeville, M.N.: Liturgical Press, 1992); Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on some aspects of the Church understood as communion – Communionis notio, of 28th May, 1992, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 85, 1993, 838-850, also available at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/ documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_28051992_communionis-notio_en.html, (11th May, 2006).
17 Cf. Leonardo Boff, Eclesiogenesis: The Base Communities Re-invent the Church [1977] (Maryknoll, Dublin: Orbis, Collins, 1986).
Protestant theologians of Latin America strongly perceived the distortions due to the emphasis on problems that were typical of the Catholic Church.”18 In fact there was a concentration on the Roman Catholic Church, probably many times unperceived by the referred authors, who, in general, were and are personally open to ecumenism. This is not surprising given that the great majority of well-known theologians were (and are) Catholics. However, it is not here that the major problem, as I see it, is to be found. It is that the interconfessional dialogue and the existence of the historical Protestant churches19 have been – and continue to be – largely unrecognized. There is a tendency, from which Boff himself does not escape, to jump from the Roman Catholic Church (with its inherent universalism) directly to a type of “macro-ecumenism” of the different religions.20 The range of the “catholic”, in this perspective, does not proceed part by part, but goes from the relatively narrow to the maximum reachable, the cosmic, including all religions. Here I see a great danger in not considering the otherness through an inclusiveness that is not always desired by the “other.”21 What is needed, in this case, is a “hermeneutics of difference”, to be able to first see the other as “other”, before declaring that all are equal, having the same God, and being part of the same unity and diversity inherent in the cosmos, etc.22
2. The Cosmos – Cosmology
The cosmic dimension of Boff's theology has grown stronger throughout his trajectory. For Boff, catholicity had a cosmic dimension right from the start of his theological thinking. It is often forgotten that his first book was not the famous Jesus Christ Liberator, but a study on the The Cosmic Christ, reflecting the thought of Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin.23 The Franciscan tradition also contributed to this view.24 Therefore it is not surprising that Boff published various texts on ecology in the nineties, around the event of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the “Rio 92”. During this same period he was facing a series of censorships from the Vatican, to the point of being prohibited to speak during the Rio 92, which culminated in his decision and letter of resignation from the Franciscan order and from the official priesthood.25
18 Hugo Assmann, Teologia da Solidariedade e da Cidadania. Ou seja: continuando a Teologia da Libertação, in Crítica à lógica da exclusão:ensaios sobre Economia e Teologia, (São Paulo: Paulus, 1994), 8.
19 These include in common terminology Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians, as well as Anglicans and Baptists, although these two do not accept to be called “protestants”.
20 “Macro-ecumenism” is a term which has become common in Latin America since the “Assembly of the People of God” held in Quito, Ecuador in 1992, meaning that (Christian) ecumenism is transcended and extended to people of other religions. In this line, Boff’s position could be called “hyper-catholic”. However, both terms are not very helpful as the term “ecumenism” already means the whole world (despite its contemporary use for the unity of Christian churches), as does “catholic” in its original sense. Inter-religious dialogue seems to be a more sound terminology.
21 I tried to develop this point further in relation to inter-religious dialogue in “Inter-Religious Dialogue: From ‚Anonymous Christians’ to the Theologies of Religions“, in The God of All Grace. Essays in Honour of Origen Vasantha Jathanna, ed. Joseph George (Bangalore: United Theological College/Asian Trading Corporation, 2005), 186201.
22 The same criticism is made by indigenous and black circles, as they fear that the otherness will not be respected, and instead a false harmony constructed; cf. Aiban Wagua, “Indianische Theologien?”, in Befreiungstheologie: Kritischer Rückblick und Perspektiven für die Zukunft, ed. Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, vol. 2 (Mainz: Grünewald, 1997), 259-276; Andreas Hofbauer, Afro-Brasilien: Vom 'weissen' Konzept zur 'schwarzen' Realität: Historische, politische, anthropologische Gesichtspunkte (Wien: Promedia, 1995), 191 and 262 (note 236).
23 Leonardo Boff, O evangelho do Cristo cósmico: o mito de uma realidade e a realidade de um mito (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1971).
24 Cf. the beautiful book: Leonardo Boff, São Francisco de Assis: ternura e vigor [1981]. 5th ed. (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1991) [English translation: Saint Francis. A Model for Human Liberation, London/Quezon City, SCM Press/Claretan Publications, 1984].
25 Cf. Leonardo Boff, Igreja, carisma e poder,op. cit., 467-472.
In my understanding, based mainly on his trinitarian theology, Boff constructs two types of God's relationship with the world26: an ontological and an analogical relation. In the ontological relation, every being, the world, the cosmos has its origin in God through the creation and will be received into the trinitarian communion of life at the end of times. On the one hand, therefore, this creation is already a vestigium trinitatis, it is already impregnated with the image of God-Trinity. Every being, in this perspective, “is a messenger of God, God's representative and sacrament.”27 The relationship between God and the world is understood as “pan-en-theist”, that is, God is in everything, but this everything is not identical with God (which would be pan-theism: God is everything, everything is God).28 On the other hand, creation will become vestigium trinitatis, and has as its destiny to become like God, who is a communion of love, and functions, thus, as a model for society. I call this relation analogical, which is the base for the trinitarian and communitarian theology which Boff developed (cf. also infra, 3.). In so being, the ethical character of Boff's theology, which seeks its consequences in human action, inspiring itself on the divine model (analogical relation), is incorporated in a wider, cosmic perspective (ontological relation).
I also perceive throughout the development of Leonardo`s thought, what seems to me to be a change of focus, or rather of prism. A central theme for him has been sacrament, understood as a place where the transcendent becomes transparent to the world, the invisible becomes visible.29 The main sacrament of God's presence in the world is the Church, according to what Boff developed in his doctoral dissertation. There, he described the Church as the privileged space of God's presence in the world, therefore, the sacrament. The Church has a “double role [...] that of being at the same time, representative of God and representative of humanity; she has a role of expressing (from humanity's side) and the role of being a sign (from God's part); she is an instrument and a sign: therefore a sacrament.”30 In more recent writings, it becomes evident that this relationship of God with the world has, perhaps, its privileged prism in the Church, but it is soon extended to humanity and to the cosmos: “The communion of the Church needs to understand itself as part of humanity's communion - and this communion as part of the communion of the cosmos. And all of these together as part of the trinitarian communion of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
31 In more recent treatises, especially after leaving the priesthood, I have the impression that the Church is giving up this place to the cosmos. In the more ecological writings, the Church is not mentioned, certainly not in its institutional form and much less related to the hierarchy. “Mysticism,” “spirituality,” “religion,” “Christianity,” “theology” are dealt with but not the Church, unless it be in its grassroots form of the CEB's. Thus we can risk the hypothesis that in Boff's more recent theology, the cosmos itself with its religious interpretation serves as the prism for God's presence in the world, and no longer the Church.32
Nonetheless, Boff is republishing older texts about the Church, based on the notion of the Church as the people of God, a grassroots Church and the Theology of Liberation connected with it,
26 It is important to highlight that “the world” is understood in a very positive way in Boff's thinking, including the “totality of creation,” “the cosmos, Man and all of history,” see Valério Guilherme Schaper, A experiência de Deus como transparência do mundo, op. cit., 378, n. 2.
27 Leonardo Boff, Ecologia, mundialização, espiritualidade, a emergência de um novo paradigma (São Paulo: Ática, 1993), 48 [English translation: Ecology and Liberation – a New Paradigm, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1995].
28 Leonardo Boff. Ecologia, mundialização, espiritualidade, op.cit., 45 ff.; “Tudo em Deus, Deus em tudo: a Teosfera,” in Ecologia: grito da terra, grito dos pobres (São Paulo: Ática, 1995), 217-242 [English translation: Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor, Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997].
29 Leonardo Boff, Mínima Sacramentalia: os sacramentos da vida e a vida dos sacramentos: ensaio de teologia narrativa [1975], 17th ed. (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1995) [English translation: Sacraments of Life – Life of the Sacraments, Hassaro: Pastoral Press, 1987]. His interpretation of his father’s “cigarette stub” that he received together with the announcement of his father`s death has become famous: “It was the last cigarette he had smoked moments before a heart attack which liberated him definitively from this tired existence [...] From that hour on, the cigarette stub is no longer a cigarette stub. It is a sacrament. It is alive and speaks of life.” Ibid., 22.
30 Leonardo Boff, Kirche als Sakrament imHorizont der Welterfahrung, op. cit., 36; cf. also 28-37.
31 Leonardo Boff, Eine neue Erde in einer neuen Zeit: Plädoyer für eine planetarische Kultur (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1994), 53.
32 Cf. Rudolf von Sinner, Reden vomdreieinigen Gott in Brasilien und Indien, op. cit., 168-182.
thus reaffirming what he defended in 70's and 80's about the Church. A recent book does not contain an explicative preface, but has the title Novas fronteiras da Igreja: o futuro de um povo a caminho [New frontiers of the Church: the future of a people on the way], which reaffirms the line he had assumed before.33 Boff always defended that the more recent books, on ecology, cosmology, spirituality, etc. that can be found on the “self-help” shelves of almost all the bookstores, including at airports, do not mean the abandonment of the a liberating theology. In this way, he includes, for instance, the poor within the ecological thought.34
Boff`s insistence on ecology demonstrates, once more, his pioneering thought. He has popularized a theme then seldom debated, in spite of the megaprojects that were seriously damaging the ecological balance of the Amazon forest and other areas. He has even introduced the theme into theological reflection, where, lamentably, it continues to be ephemeral.35 Therefore, Boff deserves all praise and recognition. What a Protestant theologian would like to discuss here is that the Boffian cosmology is of a very positive and harmonious perspective without sufficiently considering the also cosmic power of sin. The dimension of sin with regards to nature is an ancient polemical theme between Catholics and Protestants. While the first tend to underestimate sin in its cosmic dimension and, therefore, cultivate an intrinsically good image of the cosmos, the latter tend to minimize the role of nature itself, concentrating theology on the issue of justification (of the individual!) by grace and faith.36 I see Boff’s cosmic theology as a healthy challenge to a theology that tends to be overly rational and individualistic, however, at the same time it is important to maintain a distinction between God and the world so as not to fall into an overly harmonious view that would not do justice to the ambiguity of human existence. The distinction between God and the world is also a presupposition for a human dignity that is not founded on some natural element of the human being, nor on his/her qualities, since it is independent of any individual specificity. To the contrary, it is attributed by God in whose image and likeness the human being was created. The same would be true for non-human nature, which humans were called to care for.
3. God-Trinity
Another field of fundamental importance is Leonardo Boff`’s trinitarian theology, as mentioned before. His book Trinity and Society was written during the year in which he was carrying out his sentence of “obedient silence” to which he had been condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith of the Roman Curia.37 The book is, in large part, quite an orthodox treatise on the trinitarian concepts of the Christian tradition. However it is highly critical of the hierarchical power, and this criticism is also, obviously, directed at the Vatican.
“The Trinity is our true social programme” forms the main line of argument in Leonardo Boff’s elaboration of the Trinity. He is heir, among others, to Russian thinker Nikolai Feodorov
33 Leonardo Boff, Novas fronteiras da Igreja: O futuro de um povo a caminho (Campinas: Verus, 2004). According to the page of acknowledgements, the book brings together texts published before in Do lugar do pobre (1984), and E a Igreja se fezpovo (1986), reviewed and amplified by the author
34 Leonardo Boff, Ecologia: grito da terra, grito dos pobres, op. cit., p. 163-178. Schaper’s thesis confirms that the concepts of history (understood through the liberation perspective) and of the cosmos in Boff, understood by critics as being contradictory, find their logical nexus precisely in the Boffian sacramental way of thinking: A experiência de Deus como transparência do mundo, op. cit.
35 Cf. however Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1993); as well as the ecofeminist writings, for example Ivone Gebara, Teologia ecofeminista: ensaio para repensar o conhecimento e a religião (São Paulo: Olho d’Agua, 1997).
36 See, for example, Euler R. Westphal’s criticism, O Deus cristão, op. cit., 295 ff.; on the positive challenge that Boffian theology presents to Protestant theology see Valério G. Schaper, A experiência de Deus como sacramento do mundo, op. cit., 432: “In synthesis, it can be said that the need to recapture nature as the place of epiphany, as the creation of God, places itself for Protestant theology not only as an urgency or an external appeal, but, according to Tillich, as an internal necessity in the sense of implementing a consequential sacramental practice.”
37 Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society [1986] (Tunbridge Wells: Burns and Oates, 1988). In the first part of this section, I am using text from my chapter: “Trinity, Church and Society in Brazil”, in: Peter J. Casarella, Paul L. Metzger and William F. Storrar (eds.), Trinity, Church and Civil Society: Ecumenical and Global Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006, forthcoming).
8 (1828-1903), already quoted by Jürgen Moltmann in his similar approach to trinitarian theology in relation to society.38 Boff’s position becomes clear by exploring what he is opposing and what he seeks to construct by trinitarian doctrine.
Boff is clearly opposed to an image of God that denotes a celestial monarch who would reflect directly in a worldly monarch: One God, One Empire, One King. He takes up the strong criticism German theologian Erik Peterson had expressed against this kind of political theology.39 Although a historical thesis, it was intended to be a contemporary criticism against the rising Nazi Reich and the ideological support it received from thinkers like Carl Schmitt, who held that “all decisive [prägnanten] concepts of modern state doctrine are secularized theological concepts.”40 Peterson concluded that the full implementation of trinitarian theology by the Cappadocian Fathers in the 4th century broke radically with any “political theology” which would misuse Christian proclamation to legitimize a political regime or system. There are, according to Peterson, no vestigia trinitatis in human society. It is important to add that what both Peterson and his followers point to is, in fact, less a critique of “monotheism” than of a “monarchical” image of God, as a similar kind of theological critique can easily be identified in Israelite monotheism.41 What they do want to emphasize is that God is a communitarian being-in-relation rather than a monarchicalhierarchical ruler.42
More specifically, Boff identifies three forms of monarchical misinterpretations of the Trinity in Latin America. In colonial and rural (feudal) society, he identifies a “religion of the Father alone” centralized in the boss (patrão) who holds absolute power. In a more democratic environment, the charismatic leader and warrior comes to the fore, where Jesus would be seen as “our brother” or “our chief and master”, constituting the “religion of the Son alone”. Finally, where subjectivity and creativity prevail, as in charismatic groups, interiority is stressed and can, in its extreme, lead to fanatism and anarchism. This latter form would be the “religion of the Spirit alone”.43 Boff stresses that all three aspects are important, seen as relationships to the “above” (origin), to the “sides” (our fellow human beings), and to the “inside” (our own self). The two perspectives are valid, taken separately, but it is difficult to understand how concrete examples with a high degree of negativity could be transformed into abstract aspects, now positive and even essential to human existence, without saying how these latter would be reflected concretely, then, in society.
44
38 Nikolai F. Feodorov, The Restoration of Kinship Among Mankind, in Alexander Schmemann (ed.), Ultimate Questions: An Anthology of Modern Russian Religious Thought (London and Oxford, 1977), 175-223; Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God (London: SCM, 1981); see also, from an Indian Orthodox perspective, Geevarghese Mar Osthathios, Theologyofa Classless Society (Tiruvalla 1979).
39 Erik Peterson, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen Theologie im Imperium Romanum [1935], in Theologische Traktate, Ausgewählte Schriften vol. 1 (Würzburg: Echter, 1994), 23-81.
40 Carl Schmitt, Politische Theologie [1922], 6th ed. (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot), 1993, 43.
41 Cf. Jan Assmann, Herrschaft und Heil. Politische Theologie in Altägypten, Israel und Europa (München, Wien: Hanser, 2000).
42 On God as communion, more from an philosophical-ontological than political-societal angle, see the work of John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, (New York, 1985).
43 Boff, Trinity and Society, op. cit., 13-16. Boff draws heavily on Dominique Barbé’s earlier work: Grace and Power. Base Communities and Nonviolence in Brazil [1982] (Maryknoll, Orbis, 1987), 41-61. However, he modifies it to be a critique only against the “right”, not the “left” side of the political spectrum; thus, any possible self-critique of, for instance, base communities and their internal power structures – which could, according to Barbé, sometimes be like the “religion of the Son alone”, organizing themselves around a charismatic leader – is being left aside.
44 Something similar happens in Boff’s reading of the feminine, based on the notion of archetypes from Carl Gustav Jung’s Depth Psychology, attributing the feminine at the same time to a person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, “pneumatified” in Mary (that is, incarnate in a way similar to the Son, incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth), and to all persons, of the Trinity and also of humans, being at the same time feminine (animae) and masculine (animi), in such a way that criticism and construction, assymmetry and balance would walk perfectly together, something that to me does not seem plausible: Leonardo Boff, The maternal face of God: The Feminine and its Religious Expressions [1979] (New York: Harper and Row, 1987); Rudolf von Sinner, Reden vom dreieinigen Gott in Brasilien und Indien, op. cit., 154-168. Recently, Boff has highlighted Saint Joseph as a type of incarnation (“personification”) of the Father, completing the Trinity Father-Son-Holy Spirit and its personification-incarnation-pneumatification in Joseph-JesusMary: Leonardo Boff, São José: a personificação do Pai (Campinas: Versus Editora, 2005). – A similar attempt at
In his farewell letter on resigning from the priesthood, Boff refers to the same line of trinitarian thought, aimed now at a criticism of the church (as he has done already in his book):
Frequently, I have made the following reflection, which I repeat here: What is a mistake in the doctrine of the Trinity, cannot be true in the doctrine of the Church. In the Trinity it is taught that there can be no hierarchy. All subordinationism there is heretical. The divine persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are of equal dignity, of equal goodness and of equal power. The intimate nature of the Trinity is not solitude but communion. [...] But one speaks of the Church as being essentially hierarchical. And that the division among the clergy and the lay people is divinely instituted.45
Therefore, Boff postulates an analogy between God-Trinity, the church and society: Just as God is a communion of love, but respects the differences, in the same way the church and society should be a unity in diversity, a democratic structure and one of service and not of power. He bases himself on the trinitarian concept of perichoresis (mutual interpenetration), in which each lives within the other and vice-versa, in a relation of equals. Even though this description of God has its beauty in metaphorical terms and can, certainly, serve as “criticism and inspiration” (Boff) for the church and society, it hardly can be operationalized to become concrete. Boff, on the one hand, tends toward an excess of concreteness, since he formulates the trinitarian communion in human terms, in spite of repeating that it is metaphorical and doxological talk (cf. infra, 4). It is not totally unfounded that Feuerbach would associate precisely the Trinity with the family, seeking in this way to prove the highly anthropomorphic character of God which would be a projection of elements from human life onto the (supposed) transcendent.46 God cannot be considered a community in the human sense of the term, lest it would follow that there are three gods and not just one. The Trinity, in a way unique to God, aims at maintaining exactly that tension between the three dimensions of the divine and its unity, being one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and also of Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, concreteness is lacking in the transformation of the divine perichoresis for the human world – that is if it can be or should be transformed into a model for human convivência (communal interaction). It would be expecting too much from this model if we thought that human beings would live in a perichoresis, in interpenetration in the same way that the Triune God does. If it were this way, as I see it, it would annihilate the differences between the individuals, each of which is unique, because, differently from God, we persist as different beings. We are not one, as God is tri-une. Therefore, if one wishes to speak of a human perichoresis it would be not only a metaphorical talk but a doubly metaphorical talk, speaking metaphorically of God, for one, and using this metaphor metaphorically as a model for human society and for the Church.
But, returning to the issue of concreteness: everything indicates that Boff imagined the Ecclesial Base Communities (CEB's) as nuclei of the life experience of such a community inspired by the God-Trinity. Nothing impedes this, as long as the doubly metaphorical character of this affirmation is preserved. However, Boff does not reflect on how this model could be applied to society as a whole. If, as I see it, on the one hand it is important not to obscure the fundamental difference between God and the human being, it is necessary, on the other hand, to transfer ethical values of human convivência, originating from the Christian faith, so that a concrete society can take place. For this it is necessary to make use of cultural studies as well as law and political sciences, aspects that have received little attention in Boffian literature.47 In a text which I wrote for
trying to harmonize something contradictory can be found in the metaphor of the eagle and the chicken, which, according to Boff, would be (the two) indispensable aspects of human nature, but which maintain a clear assymmetry, since the eagle which fell among the chickens needs to liberate itself as an eagle and take to the skies, something certainly superior to the chicken’s terrestrial being; cf. Leonardo Boff, Aáguia e a galinha: uma metafora da condição humana. 9th ed. (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997). Up to the present time the book has reached its 37th ed.
45 Leonardo Boff, Igreja, carisma e poder, op.cit., 468.
46 Cf. Ludwig. Feuerbach, Das Wesen des Christenthums [1841, 4th ed. 1883]. Ed. W. Bolin. 2nd ed. (Stuttgart 1960), 79-90, 279-283 [English translation: The Essence of Christianity, Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1989].
47 If I perceive correctly, the cultural issue received major attention only in the opuscule written precisely to highlight Brazilian values (such as the jeitinho [the little way around], although this is highly ambiguous): Leonardo Boff, Depois
a collective work, North American but with international participation, on trinitarian theology, church and civil society, I tried to outline this concreteness not based on the category of the relation/relationship itself (or “inter-retro-relationship”, as Boff tends to say) but based on the characteristics of such a relation/relationship, which I summarized as otherness, participation, trust and coherence.48 Faced with the restriction of space for this article, I can only give an overview of the implications of these aspects. It is necessary to have a hermeneutics that is sensitive to the other in order to preserve the uniqueness of each person and his/her right to be different, also religiously different. It preserves the mystery and seeks comprehension, as happens in theology when it seeks, at the same time, to reveal and respect the mystery of God as tri-une, unity within difference (otherness). The concept of participation is central to the discourse on civil society and citizenship. The churches, as part of civil society, have a very important role in encouraging citizen participation serving, ideally, as schools for democracy, since they train people within their structures, promote collaboration with the State on equal level with regards to children and adolescents and nutritional security, for example, and contribute to the discourse in a constructivecritical way.49 Trust (that is, faith, pistis) in God seen as tri-une can give good reasons to invest trust in democracy even when the latter has multiple failures.50 God guarantees continuity in largely ambiguous historical situations, where God manifests Godself, in a most central way on the cross of Golgotha, and empowers people to live their lives seeking justice, knowing that they are, at the same time, sinners. The notion of ambiguity is central to Lutheran theology even though it does not always use the term, since the faithful person is, at the same time and inescapably, just and sinner (simul iustus et peccator). It is important to maintain this aspect faced with the growing dominance of a theology of prosperity, mainly in the Neopentecostal churches, which intends to exclude failure in human existence and only preaches success. Whoever is not successful, according to this comprehension, does not have sufficient faith. This is how religious neuroses are created, by blaming and shaming those who in fact fail for a variety of reasons, many or even most not of their own making. Finally, there is coherence, inspired by the Triune God who manifests Godself in the world throughout history in different ways – as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, being the three manifestations (traditionally called “persons”) of a single God. This reminds us of the need of having a project for the good of the whole of society as well as for the environment. This position is contrary to what is being preached in many churches today called “evangelical” in Brazil, where, for example, only the Holy Spirit is highlighted or where what counts is an “individualism of salvation,” without any project for humanity, nor for the cosmos in its wholeness.
4. Praise to God – doxology
In the prior section we indicated that theological language is, in great part, metaphorical, especially when dealing with God.51 After all, before being a scientific and reflexive treatment, the first language used in relation to God (theo-logia, “talk of God” or “about God”) was one of praise and prayer, it was doxo–logia (“talk of praise”). Boff points this out in various instances, not least de 500 anos: que Brasil queremos? (Petrópolis: Vozes, 2000); cf. also the beautiful collection of indigenous tales: Leonardo Boff, O casamento entre o céu a terra: contos dos povos indígenas do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Salamandra, 2001).
48 “Trinity, Church and Society in Brazil”, op. cit.; see also my inaugural lecture presented at the Escola Superior de Teologia, in São Leopoldo: “Trust and convivência. Contributions to a Hermeneutics of Trust in Communal Interaction”, The Ecumenical Review 57, 3, 2005, 322-341. These subsidies are explorations from a research project on the contribution of the churches to cidadania (citizenship) in Brazil, which is supported by a Fellowship from the Swiss National Foudation for Science (www.snf.ch).
49 Cf. my “Healing Relationships in Society. The Struggle for Citizenship in Brazil”, The International Review of Mission 93, 369, 2004, 238-254.
50 According to research by the organization Latinobarómetro (www.latinobarometro.org), interpersonal trust in Brazil is the lowest of all the nations researched, where only 3% of those interviewed affirmed that in general, they trust other people; cf. Rudolf von Sinner, Trust and convivência, op. cit.
51 Cf. Sally McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987); ID. “Imaging God and a ‘Different World’”, Concilium 5, 2004, 42-50.
in his book on the Trinity, where he structures chapters VIII to XV according to the liturgical doxology: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and forever, forever and ever, Amen” which is repeatedly used in Roman Catholic and many Protestant worship services, especially in the so-called historical churches. However, using or not using the formula, theology in itself is doxological, it offers its language to God, begins with a prayer and ends with prayer, humbly realizing its own inherent restriction, constantly talking about something it cannot put into words. Although there are also Protestant authors that emphasize this aspect52 it is a great merit of Boff’s to remind academic theology of this. It is here also that one recognizes in a especially evident way his great charism: I witnessed in the Gigantinho gymnasium in Porto Alegre, during the 2003 World Social Forum, how Leonardo Boff prayed the Saint Francis’ Peace Prayer with thousands of people, Christians, Afro-Brazilians, Atheists, Agnostics, adherents of other beliefs and philosophies or of none – all praying, silent and concentrated.
5. Concluding remarks
I find Boff’s thought very stimulating in terms of a contextual and, at the same time, catholic, i.e. universal theology, one which interacts with a concrete situation as well as with the broader Christian tradition.53 In line with Liberation Theology in general, he has tended to emphasize social aspects of the Brazilian and Latin American context, and made an instrumental use of it, remaining clearly within theological language. On dealing with gender questions, he did interact with C. G. Jung’s deep psychology. As he ventured into ecological issues, he took up dialogue with those scientists open for transcendence, adopting or, rather, re-adopting a wide cosmic perspective. As his audience changed from a more in-church to a wider public, and as he did no longer have to teach seminary students, his language became less directly theological and more spiritual, finding echo in people with intellectual and religious interests, but not necessarily church bound. This is visible even in the photographs published on his books: The fierce Franciscan father that stood up to the Vatican in his brown habit and heavy glasses in a severe frame of the 80s has given way to an elderly wise man with white hair and beard in the 90s.
From what has been said, and despite his above mentioned publication of indigenous tales, which shows Boff’s sensitivity towards indigenous peoples and their mythology, we can conclude that what he is doing is not cultural studies in a more profound way, nor properly speaking a dialogue between theology and culture. Rather, his works are harvesting insights from contextual and, thus, cultural expressions into a cosmological, trinitarian, relational theology. Boff has become, more and more, a speaker and writer, whose strenght is to serve as an articulator for issues and aspects that resonate with Brazilian, Latin American, indeed with globalized culture. As he is synthetic in his writings, he naturally tends to become more abstract and general. What he is gaining in amplitude, he loses in precise focus. Still, his reflections are strong enough to offer grounds for further theological thinking, and they are certainly helpful for the churches’ dialogue with culture, beyond Roman Catholic and Protestant divisons. He is, thus, an important voice, not least in a time when the Brazilian religious market is becoming more and more competitive, fuelling a totally exclusivist discourse.
I offer these reflections for the debate with my teacher, brother, and friend Leonardo Boff, and to those who interact with his thought, from whom I have learned much for theology and for life and with whom debating has always been a personal and intellectual pleasure. The Catholic theologian Boff is also protestant, as we saw; the author of these lines, a Protestant, understands
52 Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, A Trindade doxológica, in Trindade e Reino de Deus, op. cit., 161ff.; Dietrich Ritschl, Zur Logik der Theologie (München: Kaiser, 1984), 336ff. [English translation: The Logic of Theology, London/Philadelphia: SCM/Fortress, 1987]; Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology: A Systematic Theology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine and Life. 2nd ed. (London: Lutterworth, 1982).
53 Cf. Robert J. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1986); Commission on Faith and Order, A Treasure in Earthen Vessels: An Instrument for an Ecumenical Reflection on Hermeneutics (Geneva: WCC, 1998); Rudolf von Sinner, Ecumenical Hermeneutics, op. cit..
himself to also be catholic (in its broad sense, although with caution, confronted with the amplitude of the catholic in its comprehension of Boff) and both of us would certainly affirm that we are in first place, evangelical in its original sense, having the Gospel as the main guide on our journey.