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Can Liberation Theology Survive 1989?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Duncan B. Forrester
Duncan B. Forrester
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh New CollegeMound Place Edinburgh EH 12LX
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Extract

There was a widespread assumption in the 1980s that liberation theology had come of age. The early passionate manifestos of those such as Hugo Assmann had been replaced by a deluge of substantial theological works which entered the theological debate bearing the wounds of oppression and injustice in Latin America, and also the clear marks of the European academy. Liberation theology remained highly controversial, but it had to be taken seriously. It suggested a new way of doing theology which was at one and the same time a recovery of older understandings of the nature of theology and rooted in Latin American reality. It plundered and turned on their original possessors the weapons of post-Enlightenment and post-Vatican II theologising, and it was viewed with deep suspicion by most of the authorities in church and state. The movement found resonances and allies in many countries of the Third World, and spread from systematics into biblical studies, ethics and pastoral theology.

Type
Article Review
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , May 1994 , pp. 245 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1994

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References

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11 In their very different styles, E. R. Norman (Christianity and World Order, 1979) and Milbank, John (Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, Oxford, Blackwell, 1990)Google Scholar both dispute the possibility of an equal and productive relationship.