Title: Chapter 7: See-Act-Judge: Theological Reflections on the Reading of the IR-VICOBA Groups
Abstract: Chapter 7: See-Act-Judge: Theological Reflections on the Reading of the IR-VICOBA GroupsIn the preceding chapter, I discussed the IR-VICOBA members' meeting in their contextual Bible study.I noted that, when they meet together, they reflect on issues they carry out in their daily activities.That is their societal praxis, the reflection and practice of their hardship in life being poor people.Moreover, I discussed how they relate with other poor people within the society who 'have little.' In their contextual Bible study, the IR-VICOBA members do theology.The question is: Are they doing theology from below, like the Ujamaa tradition?Or are they doing the so-called theology of nonperson, as Gutierrez called it?For Gutierrez, this is a theological reflection on the first act. 1 McAfee Brown writes about Gutierrez that, "Gustavo[Gutierrez] seems to suggest that theology is a 'critical reflection' on 'reflection and action' … theology is a second reflection, so to speak, about what has already been going on -that is, the commitments we have made and the reflections we have engaged in about them." 2 This is what I analyzed and interpreted in the preceding chapter.In this chapter, I go one step further and analyze the interpretive practices in the IR-VICOBA, to obtain the point of the view of the second act in the tradition of Gutierrez.The interesting perspective in such an interpretation will be whether the second act is less connected to the first act of interpretation.One might think that the second act takes up a less contextualized theology.However, in the following, it becomes clear that the second act is also contextualized: Is it also based on actions and practices from their socioeconomic reality.This means that their practices and reflections strongly influence the second act of empowering their path out of the poverty they live in.Together with their pastors, the IR-VICOBA members read the Bible and work together with other poor people so that they can at least achieve a sense of resilience, which they have achieved now, although they have not totally exited poverty.In 1 Gutiérrez, The Power of the Poor in History: Selected Writings, p. 60.Gutierrez describes theology as "a reflection in and on, faith as liberation praxis.It will be an understanding of faith from an option and commitment.It will be an understanding of faith from the point of departure in real.Effective solidarity with the exploited classes, oppressed, ethnic groups ad despised cultures of Latin America and from within their world." In the same way, the IR-VICOBA groups fight this situation from the exploiting bodies in their society and implicitly in the world.They make a theological reflection in their Bible studies.