Liberation Theology

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Liberation theology is religious phenomenon which bursts on the scene in the 1960’s. A consciousness for injustice was always prevalent in the Church, but the “theologies of liberation, particularly the classical Latin American variety, evolved in protest against the inability in Western church and missionary circles, both Catholic and Protestant, to grapple with the problems of systemic injustice.” (Boch 443) To truly understand the critiques of missiology which have been articulated by Latin American liberation theologies and Asian theologies, one must first understand liberation. What is liberation and what place does it have in the Christian mission? Liberation theology attempts to put a face on the poor, it is no longer just a generalized indictor implying we are all poor in spirit, but it truly illustrates poor. Liberation theology interprets the poor as being the “marginalized, those who lack every active or even passive participation in society.” (Boch 447) Poor are categorized as people who are left with the sense of helplessness and hopelessness because they have been subjected to “subhuman conditions” of life. In mission work there must be a cry for justice and not just a cry of conformity. Trying to simply confirm the religious sectors to look like the Western world is not liberation. There are many who believe if Third World countries had access to the technology of the West that would help to remedy the problem. Until the mindset of the masses is transformed this would only be putting a band aid on a broken bone; nothing would be done to try to set the bone back into place. The system of equality must be put back into place. Leveling the playing field and no longer subjecting persons to the degradation an...

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...t for a lifetime you teach him how to fish. Missionaries have to begin breaking the chains of social injustices by first breaking the silence. No longer can Christians sit idly by proclaiming the good news without first invoking a sense of justice in the land.

Works Cited

Bosch, David J. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991.

Phan, Peter C. "World Christianity and Christian Mission: Are They Compatible? Insights from the Asian Churches. (Cover story)." International Bulletin Of Missionary Research 32, no. 4 (October 2008): 193-200. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 14, 2013).

Romero, Oscar. “The Political Dimesnion of the Fiath from the Perspective of the Option for the Poor,” Voice of the Voiceless: the Four Pastoral Letters and Other Statements. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985

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