Liberation theology is back in business. After decades of official censure (including from the present pope, in earlier guise), the big narrative of Christian theology is once again one of liberation for the poor and the oppressed. Salvation is not some private transaction between the individual and God, it is a public story in which the oppressed find freedom in the here and now.
Theology, so liberation theologians insist, is a practical business and not an intellectual exercise. This is Jesus as half Marx and half Moses. Forget academic theory, angels dancing on pins, sterile arguments about God’s existence, the church’s obsession with clothes and buildings. Instead, think praxis: good news to the poor, freedom to the captive, sight to the blind. Doing is believing. And from the favelas of São Paulo to the shantytowns of Johannesburg, it rejuvenated Christianity by returning to its revolutionary roots.
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