The task and content of liberation theology

Abstract

The urgency and the richness of the commitment that many Christians in Latin America and the Caribbean began to feel in the 1960s as part of the struggle for justice and solidarity with the poor raised new questions, as well as pointing to fertile new pathways in the discourse about faith. These circumstances helped convert such reflection into a theology of liberation; that is, a way to understand the grace and salvation of Jesus in the context of the present and from the situation of the poor. From the start, therefore, this theological perspective is bound up with the life of grassroots Christian communities and their commitment, as well as with the evangelising mission of the Church. This is the reason for its great impact, also from the outset, in the magisterium of the Church. Medellin and other Latin American Bishops’ conferences, as well as many other texts, bear witness to this fact The theology of liberation, like any theology is about God. God and God’s love are, ultimately, its only theme. But since for Christian revelation (the starting point for any theology) the love of God is a mystery, the immediate question is how to talk of a mystery? The humble and respectful advice of Thomas Aquinas remains valid: ‘we cannot know what God is, only what he is not’ (ST I.9.3 introd.). It is in this context that, nearly thirty years ago, we asked ourselves what path the theological task ought to take in the context of Latin America.