During the late 1960s and early 1970s a new and important trend in Christian theology developed. Known as liberation theology, this perspective arose in a number of different contexts but all forms were united by a common interest in using Christian principles to “liberate” people oppressed by things like racism and poverty.
Clifford Green offers seven points characterizing liberation theologies, especially in Latin-American and African-American contexts:
- 1. It is concerned with changing societies so that they will be more just and humane to people who are oppressed by poverty and racial discrimination. It is not concerned with modernizing traditional religious ideas to make them more meaningful to educated, middle-class people.
2. It is partisan, not academic. One premise is that all theologies reflect the interests of given social groups.
3. A second premise is that theology based on the Bible must identify with the poor, the marginalized, and the victims of society.
4. The Bible is the primary norm of theological reflection, not traditional doctrine as expounded by the institutional guardians of orthodoxy, not the paradigm of a particular philosopher such as Aristotle or Kant.
5. The locus of theological reflection and biblical interpretation is in the midst of action for social justice, not in the seminar room.
6. Consequently, theological reflection requires social analysis, and, for this purpose, categories and insights derived from Marx are sometimes employed.
7. A critique of capitalism and an advocacy of socialism is common in liberation theology...
We should note how Liberation Theology compares with many of the dominant theological perspectives in either North America or Europe today. On the one hand it shares with more conservative and orthodox theologians the idea that Christianity shouldn’t be “modernized” and made “more meaningful to educated, middle-class people.” On the other hand, conservative and orthodox theologians demonstrate little interest in socialism or identifying with the poor of society.
Liberation Theology shares with evangelical Christians the general rejection of limiting theology to academic, abstract enterprises — Christianity is something that must be lived and requires an engagement with the world. At the same time, though, Liberation Theology rejects the common evangelical focus on religion alone. Liberation Theology seeks radical changes in the structures of society first and foremost.
More on individual theologies of liberation:
