Liberation Theology and Land Reform
 
Lesson 4

Readings covered in this lesson: From Wasteland to Promised Land, Chapters 4 and 5, and Biblical Economics, Chapter 2.

Your Name:

1. Why did the prophets warn the Jews against their desire to have "a king like other nations"?



2. a) What evidence does Rev. Torrey present to show that the land and sabbatical laws were actually practiced?



b)What were some of the prophesied consequences of turning away from God's economic laws?



3. Jesus's angry expulsion of the "moneychangers" from Jerusalem's Temple has been used to teach markedly different lessons. Traditionally, it has usually been regarded as an affirmation of the sanctity of the temple -- a place where business activities, even honest ones, should not be undertaken: "It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer..." Liberation theologians, however, have rallied around the rest of Jesus's quotation of the prophet Jeremiah, "...but ye have made it a den of thieves," and seen this story as a symbol of Christian activism. What sort of thievery were Jeremiah and Jesus referring to?




4. How did the affirmation of "Baalist" land tenure by the Christian churches contribute to widespread poverty and international instability?



5. From Psalm 15:

Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart....
He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. 
He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

Discuss interpretation of this passage

(a) politically, as a command to be followed to ensure social harmony;



b) psychologically, as a key to inner peace in a temptation- filled world;



c) as a text of liberation theology, expressing a synthesis of a and b.



6. "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!" (Matt. 19:23) Many passages in the Bible seem to indicate God's predilection for the poor and helpless. Why do you think that would be so?



7. Liberation theologians caution against romanticizing the poor, reminding us that "involuntary poverty is scarcely any guarantee of faith." Why, then, are God's chosen people "the refuse of society"?



8. Comment on the following verse from Lao Tzu:

The highest good is like water. 
Water well-benefits all things and does not strive.
It rests in places men despise and so is like the Tao.