A counter-tradition of emancipation
In stark contrast to the top-down, identitarian project of the religious right stands liberation theology. Born in the slums and base communities of Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, it represented a radical rereading of the Christian gospel through the eyes of the poor.
Its foundational text was lived experience; its method was a “hermeneutic of suspicion” that questioned how traditional theology had been used to justify the status quo. It required a reading of the Bible from the perspective of a “preferential option for the poor”.
Liberation theology insisted that salvation was a holistic process of liberation from all that dehumanises – including structural sin embodied in poverty, oppression and violence. It drew heavily on Marxist social analysis to understand the mechanisms of economic exploitation, arguing that to love one’s neighbour required a fundamental transformation of unjust social structures.
Liberation theology’s power lay in its grassroots, emancipatory praxis. It was a theology not just to be studied, but to be lived and acted upon.
It empowered laypeople, fostered base ecclesial communities where the poor could read and interpret scripture for themselves, and inspired countless priests and nuns to stand in solidarity with marginalised communities, often at the cost of their lives.