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Once considered exotic and fanciful, liberation theologies now have a good chance of becoming the way ahead for theology in the next century — if only they can manage to be true both to the aspirations of the oppressed and to the reality of the beyond in their midst [“Third World Theology, Fourth World Liberation,” …
Continue reading “Birth Pangs: Liberation Theology in North America”
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(This essay is thirteenth in a series on New Turns in Religious Thought.) We live in a time in which the entire human situation must be explored, a time in which our perspective must move from the particular to the universal. Universalism is abstract; particularity is concrete. This move implies a serious encounter with ethnic …
Continue reading “Contextual Theology: Liberation and Indigenization”
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I must confess that the question of how my mind has changed is one that has never exercised me much. The reason may perhaps be that, like most theologians from the so-called Third World, I have never set out to develop a theological program or to articulate an all-encompassing system. Rather I have spoken or …
Continue reading “For Life and Against Death: A Theology That Takes Sides”
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An underlying liberation philosophy to validate Latin American theologies of liberation has yet to be extracted from the popular culture. In time, some scholar will no doubt reconstruct it academically Until then, the fiction of José María Arguedas provides some of the most vivid portraits of that culture available, as well as penetrating reflections upon …
Continue reading “Jose Maria Arguedas: Godfather of Liberationism”
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In the latter decades of the twentieth century, the phrase liberation theology often has been used synonymously with Latin American liberation theology. This reflects the Immense influence that Latin American theologians have had on the global Christian community. Can Latin American theologies, too, be part of the emerging consensus that life in its totality, and …
Continue reading “Latin America and the Need for a Life-Liberating Theology”
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An exploration of the emergence of mujerista theology — which brings together elements of feminist theology, Latin American liberation theology and cultural theology. Text: To be able to name oneself is one of the most powerful abilities a person can have. A name is not just a word by which one is identified. A name …
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Third world liberation theology has grown rapidly in the past decade – a phenomenon which most of us associate with Latin America and the prominent names of Gutiérrez, Segundo, Boff, Miguez Bonino, Miranda and others. We often overlook the fact that Africa and Asia are producing an impressive cadre of liberation theologians who deserve an …
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The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology. Edited by Christopher Rowland, Cambridge University Press, 260pp. $19.95 paperback. In San Salvador in the in the early morning hours of November 16, 1989, soldiers of the elite, U.S.-trained and equipped Atlacatl batta1ion crept onto the campus of the University of Central America and assassinated six Jesuits, including the …
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In the following essay the Korean theologian long-Sun Noh provides a telling analysis of injustice and suffering — human and nonhuman — in Korea. Writing from the perspective of Minjung theology — a school of liberation theology specifically centered on the oppressed peoples of Korea — Noh reports inductively on the sorts of oppression that …
Continue reading “The Effects on Korea of Un-Ecological Theology”
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What has the gospel of God to do with the weak and helpless and their struggle for freedom in human society? This question, the most critical issue that has shaped my theological consciousness, first achieved its importance in the particularity of the black religious experience during my early childhood in Bearden, Arkansas. Although the formulation …
Continue reading “The Gospel and the Liberation of the Poor”
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Not long ago a retired pastor and theologian who had lived and taught in Buenos Aires in the early 1970s came back to visit. He had some pressing questions: What does liberation theology mean to you people today? What authors do you read in your seminary classes? What aspects of liberation theology still seem relevant …
Continue reading “Whatever Happened to Liberation Theology?”
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Book Reviews: Liberation Theology and Its Critics: Toward an Assessment, by Arthur F. McGovern. Orbis, 281, pp., $14.95 paperback. Liberation Theology at the Crossroads: Democracy or Revolution? by Paul E. Sigmund. Oxford University Press, 257, pp., $29.95. The coming of perestroika to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989-90 has not simply provided occasion …
