Liberation Theology

Kristendommen er i rask endring og kommer til uttrykk på nye måter både sosialt og politisk. På få tiår er tyngdepunktet flyttet fra det globale nord til det globale sør. I Vest-Europa blir kirker nedlagt eller solgt. Samtidig fylles megakirker i kristendommens nye bastioner utenfor Europa. Kirkene i Midtøsten taper medlemmer når kristne forlater regionen, mens den ortodokse kirken i Russland knytter seg tettere til staten. Den største veksten av kristne skjer i Afrika. Men også i Kina og flere andre asiatiske land vokser antallet kristne, og i USA spiller kristen tro fortsatt en viktig rolle i politikken. Samtidig er katolisismen i Latin-Amerika under press fra en raskt voksende pinsebevegelse som forsterker forskyvningen av kristendommens tyngdepunkt fra nord til sør, så vel som fra de gamle etablerte kirkene til nye menigheter. Med hovedvekt på de mest folkerike landene på hvert kontinent viser forfatterne av «Global kristendom. En samtidshistorie» fram de siste tiårs endringer og diskuterer hvordan kristendom i dag kommer til uttrykk i nye politiske og sosiale sammenhenger.
Medforfattere: Vebjørn Horsfjord, Sven Thore Kloster og Gina Lende.

Contemporary political theology often defines itself against Lutheran social ethics, which is portrayed as politically disengaged and overly deferential to state power. At the same time, contemporary political theology often embraces the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer as an exemplary political theologian. This incongruity is generally resolved by distancing Bonhoeffer from his tradition, at least on matters of political theology. But Bonhoeffer's political theology was thoroughly Lutheran. Throughout the years of his political-theological engagement, from the Nazi rise to power in 1932-33 to the drafting of Ethics and related writing in 1940-43, he participated in ongoing conversations within Lutheran social ethics on the issues of, among others, the two kingdoms and the orders. In the process, he critically appropriated these elements of Lutheran thinking into an especially dynamic and christocentric framework that in turn informed his positions on various issues such as the church's proclamation against the Nazi state and the ecumenical church's witness for peace. Bonhoeffer is an example of Lutheran political theology, one that suggests the need to revise at least the more sweeping judgments about Lutheran theology as inherently incompatible with political engagement.

This was a research paper for a course entitled Feminist and Multicultural Theologies. I unpack what gender complementarianism is, examine its history, and compare it to how Scripture and earlier Christian Tradition understood gender. This allows me to establish that gender complementarianism is a recent innovation in secular and Christian thinking about gender, and that it can be described as a "trajectory" from Scripture and Tradition on gender, influenced by social, ideological, and intellectual developments in secular societies. I then pursue a critique of gender complementarianism, arguing that it is an "unsatisfactory trajectory" because it has troubling implications for orthodox theology, is not borne out by empirical experience and observation, and has harmful effects on human beings and societies and on ethical development.

Palestine is known as the birthplace of Christianity. However the Christian population of this land is relatively insignificant today, despite the continuing institutional legacy that the 19th century Western missionary focus on the region created. Palestinian Christians are often forced to employ politically astute as well as theologically radical means in their efforts to appear relevant within an increasingly Islamist-oriented society. My thesis focuses on two ecumenical Christian organisations within Palestine, the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem (headed by the Anglican cleric Naim Stifan Ateek) and Dar Annadwa Addawliyya (the International Centre of Bethlehem-ICB, directed by the Lutheran theologian Mitri Raheb). Based on my field work (consisting of an in-depth  familiarisation with the two organisations in Palestine and interviews with their directors, office-staff and supporters worldwide, as well as data analyses based on an extensive literature review), I argue that the grassroots-oriented educational, humanitarian, cultural and contextual theological approach favoured by the ICB in Bethlehem is more relevant to the Palestinian situation, than the more sectarian and Western-oriented approach of the Sabeel Centre. These two groups are analysed primarily according to their theological-political approaches. One, (Sabeel), has sought to develop a critical Christian response to the Palestine-Israel conflict using the politico-theological tool of liberation theology, albeit with a strongly ecumenical Western-oriented focus, while the other (ICB), insists that its theological orientation draws primarily from the Levantine Christian (and in their particular case, the Palestinian Lutheran) context in which Christians in Israel-Palestine are placed. Raheb of the ICB has tried to develop a contextual theology that seeks to root the political and cultural development of the Palestinian people within their own Eastern Christian context and in light of their peculiarly restricted life under an Israeli occupation regime of over 40 years. In the process, I argue that the ICB has sought to be much more situationally relevant to the needs of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, given the employment, socio-cultural and humanitarian-health opportunities opened up by the practical-institution building efforts of this organisation in Bethlehem.

This work is concerned with some basic problems which historical criticism poses to biblical interpretation. The first chapter deals with historical criticism in relation to problems of the text’s historical distance and contemporary significance. Certain key figures from the field of philosophical hermeneutics are briefly introduced (Schleiermacher, Gadamer, Hirsch, Ricoeur), but attention is also paid to the ways how historical criticism was actually practiced (Wellhausen, Mowinckel). It is maintained that historical criticism is a tool in interpretation and does not impede possible appropriation of the text by those who read it with deep affection.

The second chapter faces historical criticism as a theological problem, which has become most apparent in the inerrantist milieu and which was more or less successfully answered by canonical approaches. A special attention is given to the canonical approach of Brevard Childs, which is understood against the backdrop of Barth’s doctrine of the Word of God and Frei’s view of biblical narratives. A special attention is given to distinction between approaches of Brevard Childs and James Sanders. It is maintained that Sanders’ canonical criticism provides better interpretive platform, because it wants to address the needs of contemporary interpretive communities through a self-aware historical critical enterprise.

The third chapter takes up the problem of violence in the book of Joshua and the problem of theological meaning of the exodus story. Biblical theological insights of James Sanders, James Barr, and Walter Brueggemann are applied. An eye is kept also on Pixley-Levenson debate and it is maintained that traditions of the exodus and conquest must be understood together as literary devices which invite communities of faith to freedom. As a result of the present research, historical criticism is presented as a hermeneutical tool which can help to rescue text’s significance for the contemporary communities of believers.

This article submits that the confluence of language and power proliferate social strata and exacts violence on subaltern bodies in a punitive age of mass incarceration. I explore racialized social hierarchies in Judeo- Christian sacred texts and its relationship to secular texts that mark subaltern bodies for punishment. I argue that hegemonic scriptural economies perpetuate discursive violence that is evident in the imperial use of jurisprudence to warehouse black bodies in a prison industrial complex. In response, proclamations of protest become the voice of victors to self-name, overcome silence and rewrite histories as authors of subaltern narratives of resistance.

"The purpose of this analysis is to provide an overview of the North Korean situation in order to design effective mission strategies among the North Korean people.  This analysis will provide a summary overview of the current North Korean culture, current missionary work, and possible strategies for the future.  Due to the intense suspicion of foreigners and extreme resistance to religious activity, missionaries will have to rely heavily on political, social, and humanitarian methods in order to evangelize the North Korean people" (taken from the introduction).

Essentially, this paper is a proposal for the reaffirmation of Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen’ Spirit Christologies approach. In his first volume entitled, Christ and Reconciliation: A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World (2013), Kärkkäinen argues that Spirit Christologies provides an integrative approach between Christology from below and Christology from above paradigms.  According to him, [T]he emergence of various types of Spirit Christologies has helped theology to appreciate the mutual conditioning of the From Below and From Above approaches.  Looking closely at the specific context, however, the challenges are more complex. In the Philippine theological landscape, take for example, the terms “Christology from below” and “Christology from above” are used as symbolic labels for liberal and conservative Christians among Filipino theologians. Nevertheless, many contemporary Filipino theologians argue, it is only through rich and detailed understandings of local contexts and individual experience that the challenges Westernized Christology can be fully appreciated. As a result, Filipino theologians vary greatly in their response. For instance, Filipino liberation Christologies have been preoccupied with social and political changes. On the other hand, Filipino conservative Pentecostals have been place a greater emphasis on Jesus’s divinity or Christology from above. Nonetheless, the need for an integrative Christological model becomes more urgent. And to overcome this theological paralysis, the researcher will attempt to reconstruct a Filipino Spirit Christologies beyond liberation and pentecostal theologies, using Kärkkäinen integrative approach of Spirit Christologies. This is to elucidate core issues in the Philippine theological landscape which we regard as key to further developments in the constructive Filipino Christologies.     

Keywords: Christology from above, Christology from below, Integrative paradigm, Liberation theologies, Pentecostalism, Spirit Christologies

In the light of the gap between constitutional vision and social realities in South Africa and a perceived disconnect between religious and human rights discourses, this article suggests that embodying a liberating theological hermeneutic for human rights within Christianity remains urgent. This is critical if churches are to respond constructively to the post-apartheid call by theologians to play an active role in building a human rights culture for all who remain right-less. This article explores Jürgen Moltmann's Trinitarian approach to the imago dei which contributed to a global shift on human rights by churches in the 1970s. It traces its creative appropriation by South African feminist theologians Denise Ackermann and Miranda Pillay to underpin a subversive vision of a social order that points to relational ways of " becoming human " that can serve those that are often seen as less than fully human. It concludes that a liberating theology for human rights needs concrete embodiment and enactment in church mission and identity in South Africa today and ends with brief examples from the life of Rondebosch United Church in Cape Town where the author is a lay leader.

This article explores how the "Masters of Suspicion" can be used for understanding discipleship. From this, it queries into expanding this canon of masters to include decolonial thinkers. Resultantly, this article explores potential contributions to the life of faith from thinkers such as Achille Mbembe and Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. To situate its argument, the article engages Merold Westphal, who articulates a form of Christian discipleship through a hermeneutics of suspicion which he calls 'Atheism for Lent.' This article first explores how Westphal provides religious persons with a structure to engage postmodern critique, which entails a brief exploration of Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche's potential contribution to discipleship. The article will then engage Westphal's framework within an African context, extending his appropriation of suspicious critique to engage decolonial thought. This article concludes by proposing an expansion of the canonical Masters of Suspicion to include the likes of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and Achille Mbembe, amongst others. The upshot of this is threefold: first, it valorizes the notion that a suspicious critique of religion can aid discipleship; second, it provides more pathways for decolonization to enter into religious discourses; finally, it pushes Westphal's concept of "Atheism for Lent" beyond a Western context and into one that embraces new forms of suspicion. R e s u m o O artigo explora como os "Mestres da Suspeita" podem ser usados para compreender o discipulado e, a partir daí, procura expandir esse cânone de mestres para incluir pensadores decoloniais. Consequentemente, são abordados potenciais contribuições para a vida de fé de pensadores, como Achille Mbembe e Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. Para situar o seu argumento, o artigo envolve Merold Westphal, que articula uma forma de discipulado cristão por meio de uma hermenêutica de suspeita, a qual ele chama de 'Ateísmo para a Quaresma'. Primeiramente, analisa-se como Westphal fornece às pessoas religiosas uma estrutura para se envolverem na crítica pós-moderna, o que implica uma breve exploração da potencial contribuição de Freud, de Marx, e de Nietzsche para o discipulado. Depois, a estrutura de Westphal é engajada num contexto africano, alargando a sua apropriação da crítica da suspeita para envolver o pensamento decolonial. Na conclusão, é proposta uma expansão dos mestres canônicos da Suspeita para incluir pessoas como Ngugi Wa Thiong'o e Achille Mbembe, entre outros. O resultado disso é triplo: primeiro, valorizar a noção de que a crítica da suspeita sobre a religião pode ajudar ao discipulado; segundo, proporcionar mais percursos analíticos de decolonização a serem introduzidos nos discursos religiosos; finalmente, projetar o conceito de Westphal de "Ateísmo para a Quaresma" para além de um contexto ocidental e para um que abrace novas formas de suspeita. Palavras-chave: Decolonização. Teologia da libertação. Merold Westphal. Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. Teologia pastoral. Filosofia da religião.

The following article is the first English translation of an article written by Bishop Proano of Ecuador on the Role of Christianity in the Process of Development.  It was published in El Salvador in 1975.  I publish it here as a resource for anyone who wishes to use it.

The following is an analysis of an excerpt titled “Thoughts on the Baptism of D.W.R.” derived of German Theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s "Letters and Papers from Prison." Unfortunately, no argument will be rendered, rather it will be a historical-theological analysis trying to make sense of a particular excerpt from a particular historical era written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Concerning Bonhoeffer, his life was cut short due to the Fascist rule of Nazi Germany as the young theologian was fully involved in a resistance party plot attempting in the assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer, was imprisoned and lynched by the Nazi-Germanic-State in 1945. “Thoughts on the Baptism of D.W.R.” is largely in the form of a letter to Bonhoeffer's great-nephew celebrating his baptism as he renders counsel, while Bonhoeffer simultaneously sheds his insight on his own theological situatedness during the year of 1944 amidst the plight of a World War against totalitarian government where Bonhoeffer exposes some of his novel theological developments in his prison writings. The following focuses on the aforementioned.

What makes Christian punk “Christian”? And what makes it “punk”? Drawing on his previously published work on punk and religion, and engaging his own experiences as a musician and theologian, Iafrate’s chapter offers a theological engagement with and critique of Christian punk that interrogates the adequacy of both terms as they are typically used to describe this genre. Neither “Christianity” nor “punk rock” is monolithic, and each contains very different and even opposing ideas and practices. As a liberation theologian, Iafrate interprets both Christianity and punk relative to their ability to generate liberating communities, movements, and ways of life which are congruent with their original liberationist impulses. On these grounds, Iafrate questions the extent to which self-identified Christian punk is Christian and/or punk. Despite its laudable intention to find church outside of church walls, Christian punk’s predominantly Evangelical focus on converting the “unwashed” from the perspective of the normative “already converted” individual Christian tends to reproduce the assumption of a settled, conservative Christian identity. Iafrate finds certain expressions of secular punk, namely the political “do-it-yourself” DIY punk perhaps best exemplified in the 1990s punk scene of Washington D.C., more punk, more Christian, and more theologically satisfying. Rather than proselytizing an already settled Christian message, the liberating impulse of punk tends to go beyond a style of music toward an entire way of life lived through liberationist praxis, a continual process of conversion grasping toward “integral liberation” from “all servitudes,” including political, ethical, and religious liberations. Iafrate argues that these expressions of punk contain elements of a liberationist “gospel” and arguably could be considered more deeply “Christian.” Such a view seems counterintuitive when evaluating a genre with a propensity towards irreverence and blasphemy, yet Iafrate asserts that Christian communities have not adequately grappled with the fact that their adherents worship a divine person who was executed, in part, for the crime of religious and political blasphemy. In particular, the religious liberations provoked by punk and by liberationist Christianity may in fact rely on blasphemy as a theologically relevant category. Likewise, Christian punk, if it is to be true to both Christianity and punk, must include a wider understanding of conversion and liberation, one that may even include blasphemy as a possible “sacrament” of religious and ethical liberation.

Full text of this chapter available at http://hdl.handle.net/10523/12864.
Publisher's web page for book https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/religion-and-sexuality-9781474281843/

David Tombs, ‘Machismo and Marianismo: Sexuality and Liberation Theology’, in M.A. Hayes, W. Porter and D. Tombs (eds.), Religion and Sexuality (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 438 pp. ISBN 9781474281843.

Deposited in OUR archive with permission from publisher.

Note
This chapter was initially presented at the conference  'Religion and Sexuality',  at Roehampton Institute London on 18 and 19 October 1997, sponsored by Roehampton Institute's Faculty of Arts and Humanities, the Roehampton Chaplaincy, and the Centre for Advanced Theological Research.

Abstract
This chapter examines the models of ‘machista men’ and ‘marianista women’ to typify stereotypical expectations of gender and sexuality. These ascribe to all women the traditional Christian emphasis on Mary as asexual virgin and self-sacrificing mother. It then argues that these widely accepted cultural attitudes have had disastrous consequences from the time of conquest to the present day. The second part of the chapter explores contributions by Latin American women theologians to more creative and liberating understandings of sexuality. Liberative images of Mary are presented as important challenges to more traditional ‘marianista’ attitudes and a reading of Mary as a ‘Mother of the Disappeared’ is suggested as one example of this liberating process.

Interdisciplinary dialogues find researchers seeking better understandings of theories and concepts, such colonialism and capitalism, and the means through which these concepts impact both local and global cultures. The results of explorations such as these raise the question of how to translate the theories that are created by these dialogues into practice. Moreover, they ask where we can take these conversations, how can we focus them toward specific aims, and how can we effectively enact them as one collective group. This article introduces and proposes Joseph Cardinal Cardijn's See–Judge–Act method as a possible framework to better enable these discussions to move from theory to praxis. It proposes that such a theory may also allow the theoretical portions of these interdisciplinary dialogues to happen without any discipline ceding or 'shaving away' the core principles that respectively identify each discipline. The article begins by exploring Cardinal Cardijn's original articulation of the method. Then, it describes how the liberation theologians Leonardo Boff and Clodovis Boff employed the method in their development of a theological framework. Finally, this article explores how the See–Judge–Act method might be useful for other disciplines, such as African thought and philosophy, and critical theory. The issues of economic, social, and political inequality clearly span across writing genres and academic discourses. This is seen throughout this special issue, and especially in its subtitle: 'African Thought, Critical Theory, and Liberation Theology in Dialogue'. Indeed, each of these disciplines approach the concept of inequality from specific and important angles: African thought/philosophy employs a critical deconstruction that decolonizes prevailing socioeconomic systems that persist in controlling how Africans should think and live. Critical theory's socioeconomic analysis likewise attempts to uncover the presumed structures of society that promote and legitimize the hegemonies targeted by African thought's decolonizing efforts. Liberation theology, in turn, takes these critiques and analyses, and employs them through a praxis-based theology in pursuit of not just material liberation, but a spiritual one as well. The scope of this special issue is to bring these disciplines together to create an encounter from which future discussions may arise. This encounter was premised by the notion that each discipline focuses upon oppression and possible liberation: oppression resulting from a myriad of events that become conceptualized through colonialism, capitalism, and social hegemony. Furthermore, it was also premised by the idea that we need to bring together these disciplines because these issues cannot be solved by a lone theory or discourse; we need to band together ideas and concepts from various discourses to address these mammoth problems. Yet this banding together, as it were, raises a new problem: how should we proceed as an interdisciplinary group without talking past each other? Where can we take these conversations, how

In this paper, I interrogate Christian interpretations of punishment through atonement theories from the early church in the West and turn to the Eastern concept of theosis as a possible correction to retributive punitive philosophies. This larger discussion frames a narrower conversation on the continuities and discontinuities of systems of sacrifice from slavery to our modern prison industrial complex. More trenchantly, I examine the relationship between the cross and carcerality through Jesus' proximity to criminality. I argue that by entering into history through a criminalized body, Jesus' life, ministry and death demonstrates his proximity to and solidarity with those who are criminalized - including the first Christian community who had a 'criminal element,' Jesus' ministerial purpose to "set the captives free," his instructions for discipleship to visit the 'least of these' who are imprisoned, to extending reconciliation to a 'penitent thief' and being surveilled and persecuted by a State sanctioned execution. In the end, by tracing a kind of christological three-day event of criminality, I argue that Jesus died a criminal but did not wake up one. On the cross Jesus transcends criminality through the resurrection, which gives hope for liberation over and against carceral systems of sacrifice.

in New Theology Review vol. 18 (2005) 82-85.

Founded on Fidelity to Reality and Conversion to God's Reign, Liberation spirituality (and theology) grow on five pillars.
1) Contemplative Vision
2) Preferential Option for Poverty
3) Universal Brotherhood/Sisterhood
4) Eucharistic Communion
5) The Sign of the Cross

This work analyzes the influence of Marxism in two theological projects of liberation: Liberation theology. Perspectives (1971) by Gustavo Gutiérrez and The ideological weapons of death (1977) by Franz Hinkelammert. The work is divided into three sections. The first two sections are intended to analyze, respectively, the texts of Gutiérrez and Hinkelammert. Emphasis is placed here on the reception and particular appropriation of Marxism made by each author. The third section, finally, compares the peculiar readings of Marxism of these two authors as well as their theological projects

Drawing on feminist liberation theology, this essay argues for an expansion of generic formulations of prophetic rhetoric to explicitly include the discursive practices of female rhetors who exhibit the substantive and stylistic characteristics of prophecy codified in James Darsey’s (1997) The Prophetic Tradition and Radical Rhetoric in America. Contrary to Darsey’s view that the prophetic tradition is inherently patriarchal, this essay advances the position that the Hebrew Bible’s "prophetic-liberating principle" provides a foundation from which to re-evaluate the a priori exclusion of female radicals from the prophetic genre. Thus, this essay openly resists any suggestion that the prophetic tradition, rooted in the books of the Hebrew Bible, is centered exclusively—or even primarily—around white male elites. In marking out a place for female radicals within the rhetorical canon as exemplars of this distinct tradition, this essay reinforces the generic requirement that candidates for inclusion within the prophetic genre have a legitimate claim to outsider status within their own social and/or political context.

I'm including in this bibliography monographs and edited volumes explicitly engaged with (predominantly) Christian religion and theology (with some nods to biblical studies and pastoral care) since about 2000 (with a couple important exceptions). It is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather takes in a limited vista. This list engages significant queer spaces, voices and queer theologies in such a way that opens to even more. Go for those lines of flight. Bibliographies should be queerly mysterious and performative too, no? Think of this list as an invitation to a conversation rather than the final word. Some voices will take queer liberationist lenses. Others more traditionalist. Also, consider: to be folded into these conversations are a number of important modern/contemporary queer theorists who impact on theology though wouldn't be considered theologians:

What kind of decolonial possibilities exist in today’s world? Exploring the rise of Islamic activism in Lebanon and the Middle East, and drawing transnational parallels with other revolutionary religious struggles in Latin America and South Africa, Sarah Marusek offers a timely analysis of the social and political evolution of Islamic movements.The growing popularity of Islamic movements means that many groups, which emerged in opposition to Western imperialism, are now also gaining increasing economic and political powers. Based on more than two and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork in Lebanon, Marusek paints a picture of how resistance is lived and reproduced in daily lives, tracing the evolution of the ideas and practices of the charities affiliated with Hizbullah and the wider Islamic resistance movement. Adopting a dialectical approach, Faith and Resistance discusses the possibility for resistance groups to reconcile acquiring power with their decolonial aspirations. In doing so, the book acts as a guide for liberation struggles and those engaged in resistance the world over.

Latin America is experiencing a new era of the myth of development based on a model of extractivism. The most dramatic face of extractivism in the region has been, on the one hand, the growing presence of transnational mining corporations supported by national governments as well as regional and international finance and development institutions, and, on the other hand, the intense resistance against this development by social movements. In this paper we present the case of Andalgalá (a small town in the Province of Catamarca in Argentina) and the people’s struggle
against transnational mining corporations and their allies. Following the tradition of the Philosophy of Liberation and Dussel’s ana-dialectic method, we have closely engaged with, what have been called, the “Argentinean communities of NO”, expressing their opposition to neocolonial forms of development and management. In this paper we are specifically interested in understanding how the two main managerial devices used by mining companies, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and governance pacts, impacted the people’s struggle. Overall, this paper provides a snapshot of the battles at the frontlines of extractivism. It hopes to give voice to those people who are normally not heard, providing a space for their views of a different kind of development.

La teologia della liberazione dei poveri

«Il deserto diventerà un giardino e il giardino sarà considerato una selva. Nel deserto prenderà dimora il diritto e la giustizia regnerà nel giardino. Praticate la giustizia darà pace, onorare la giustizia darà tranquillità e sicurezza per sempre» Is. 32, 15-17

Lezione del 20 febbraio 2020, Istituto Superiore di Scienze Religiose Torino