A THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION History, Politics, and Salvation

Abstract

This book is an attempt at reflection, based on the gospel and the experiences of men and women committed to the process of liberation in the oppressed and exploited land of Latin America. It is a theological reflection born of the experience of shared efforts to abolish the current unjust situation and to build a different society, freer and more human. Many in Latin America have started along the path of a commitment to liberation, and among them is a growing number of Christians; whatever the validity of these pages, it is due to their experiences and reflections. My greatest desire is not to betray their experiences and efforts to elucidate the meaning of their solidarity with the oppressed. My purpose is not to elaborate an ideology to justify postures already taken, or to undertake a feverish search for security in the face of the radical challenges that confront the faith, or to fashion a theology from which political action is “deduced.” It is rather to let ourselves be judged by the word of the Lord, to think through our faith, to strengthen our love, and to give reason for our hope from within a commitment that seeks to become more radical, total, and efficacious. It is to reconsider the great themes of the Christian life within this radically changed perspective and with regard to the new ques tions posed by this commitment. This is the goal of the so-called theology of liberation.1 Many significant efforts along these lines are being made in Latin America. Insofar as I know about them, they have been kept in mind and have contrib uted to this study. I wish to avoid, however, the kind of reflection that— legitimately concerned with preventing the mechanical transfer of an approach foreign to our historical and social coordinates—neglects the contribution of the universal Christian community. It seems better, moreover, to acknowledge explicitly this contribution than to introduce surreptitiously and uncritically The present for study a is based on a paper presented at the Encuentro National del Movimiento Sacerdotal ONIS, July 1968, in Chimbote, Peru, published by the MIEC Documentation Service in Montevideo (1969) with the title Hacia una teologia de la liberation. The original lecture was updated presentation SODEPAX, November 1969, at in the Cartigny, Consultation Switzerland, of and Theology published and as Development “Notes on organized a Theology by of Liberation,” in In Search of a Theology of Development: A Sodepax Report (Lausanne, 1970).