ABSTRACT Despite social work’s foundational roots in faith-based initiatives and moral philanthropy, the secularization of the field has led to the privatization of religious beliefs. This study explored the extent to which Christian faith is seen as a legitimate dimension of social workers’ identity. Local authority Christian social workers in England were interviewed. Thematic analysis showed that social workers view their practice as aligned with liberation theology but experience reticence to articulate their faith at work, such reticence being influenced by professional norms grounded in individualism, implicit bias toward other faiths and none, and how their churches view their profession. Our research challenges the presumed dichotomy between personal faith and public professionalism, contending that faith-informed practice can enrich relationships between colleagues and the people they serve.

ABSTRACT In the early 1980s, feminists established peace camps in response to the escalating threat of global nuclear war. In this essay, I demonstrate the shared political thought of feminist peace activists at Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, Britain, and Pine Gap Women's Peace Camp, Australia. I discuss how space and time were understood at these camps. I first discuss space, considering how feminism was forged as global in three different ways. Socialist feminist networks understood women’s action against nuclearity as part of a global struggle against US imperialism, radical feminism understood patriarchy as global, the primary oppression women faced across the world, and spiritual feminism operated at a mystic, cosmic planetary level. I then investigate temporalities shared by feminists at Greenham and Pine Gap. I consider how the threat of nuclear war increased protestors’ sense of urgency. I discuss the temporalities of spiritual feminism, including matriarchal pre-history and the frequent representation of First Nations women as ‘traditional’ and ‘ancient’, situated in the past. This sense of time was upended when First Nations women from the Pacific, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand visited Greenham Common, having survived nuclear testing they disrupted the temporality of spiritual feminism and spoke not from the past, but from the nuclear future.

ABSTRACT This article begins an Anarchist-Communist Theology of Liberation, with a special emphasis on Marxist legal theory intended to show law's role in extending and disguising the violence of primitive accumulation.

ABSTRACT This conceptual paper examines the intersections of decolonial political theology and the decolonization of higher education, arguing that Enrique Dussel’s liberation theology and pedagogics provide a critical framework for productively addressing the tensions arising from essentialist binaries and rigid secular framings in decolonial discourse. Specifically, the paper explores how theological and spiritual imaginaries – particularly liberation theology and Indigenous spiritual epistemologies – shape struggles against coloniality. Drawing on Dussel’s critique of Eurocentric political theology, the paper highlights how his work reconfigures decoloniality as an ethical and political process grounded in solidarity and the lived experiences of the oppressed. The paper contends that discussions on the decolonization of higher education can benefit from engaging with the tensions and contradictions embedded in different understandings of decolonization. By drawing on insights from Dussel’s liberation theology and pedagogics, the paper contributes to a more nuanced and expansive conceptualization of decolonization in higher education.

This paper examines how the ‘empowerment spiral’ of early US media literacy – rooted in Freirean critical pedagogy and South American liberation theology – was rebranded as the ‘Pastoral Circle’ for Catholic educators in the early 1990s. Through discourse analysis of the Catholic Connections to Media Literacy (1992) curriculum kit, the article explores how theological and pedagogical concepts were selectively rearticulated to align with Catholic institutional authority. While preserving critical pedagogical practices such as dialogical reflection, the rebranding simultaneously served hegemonic purposes by subordinating media literacy to papal doctrine and avoiding references to radical social movements. Findings recover the direct roles of Catholic liberation theology and its Catholic labour movement antecedents in the history of critical media literacy. Discussion re-centers discourses of the Global South in the history of critical pedagogy in North America and globally, suggesting further research to explore how political, institutional, and cultural forces silenced and obscured the prominent roles of South American liberation theology in critical media literacy specifically, and critical pedagogy broadly. This historical analysis offers insight on contemporary issues in critical media literacy and critical pedagogy amidst current political actions to limit the study of diversity, equity, inclusion and so-called ‘controversial topics’ in schools and universities.

ABSTRACT This article uses Black Theology of Liberation (BTL) as a theoretical framework to revisit Desmond Tutu's romanticisation of Willie Jonker's speech and confession of apartheid as sin at the Rustenburg Conference in 1991. I argue that Tutu's offer of forgiveness to Jonker and the then-Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) marked the emergence of a post-1994 South Africa characterised by a troubling, illogical emphasis on reconciliation without justice. Devoid of justice, Jonker's confession wiped the sins of the then-DRC and white South Africans setting into motion the need for unity and reconciliation without justice, thus foreclosing any possibilities for a justice-centred political and theological trajectory after 1994. Against this background, this paper argues that Tutu's forgiveness and Jonker's confession legitimised white hegemony in democratic South Africa, enabling the lives of white South Africans to continue to occupy a central and privileged position in the nation's processes of being and becoming thirty years after democratic dispensation.

This article seeks to understand the role of the Catholic Church in the mobilization of peasant women for participation in an MST occupation. Drawing on Oral History, we analyze how the Church, guided by Liberation Theology, played a fundamental role in the ideological formation of rural women workers, providing elements for the conception of agrarian reform as the realization of divine justice. We argue that, from the mobilization initiated within the Church, these women assumed positions of protagonism in the struggle for land, thus challenging traditional gender norms and forging paths for the re-signification of the relationship between faith, gender, and politics.

The Lifeworld of the Oppressed: A Phenomenological Grounding for Liberation Theology

This research paper examines Sri Aurobindo’s dramatic works through a feminist-spiritual lens, focusing on how womanhood becomes a medium for expressing his metaphysical philosophy and evolutionary psychology. Through plays such as Vasavadutta, Rodogune, Perseus the Deliverer, and Eric, Sri Aurobindo presents women not as passive characters but as embodiments of Shakti, the dynamic divine power guiding human transformation. This study integrates textual analysis, philosophical interpretation, and comparative perspectives to show how Sri Aurobindo’s dramaturgy anticipates modern spiritual feminism.

This article offers a systematic and contextual theological interpretation of Beyond Doctrine: A Critical-Liberative Theology of Faith and Emancipation [1]. Combining close textual analysis with semi-structured interviews conducted with the author between 2022 and 2026, the study reconstructs Asongu’s theological project as an integrated method uniting (i) liberation theology’s praxis-oriented criterion of truth, (ii) Newmanian doctrinal development as a grammar of reform without rupture, (iii) consciencecentered moral reasoning as the interior forum of responsible discernment, and (iv) a critical epistemology grounded in Asongu’s philosophical framework of Critical Synthetic Realism (CSR). The article argues that Critical-Liberative Theology (CLT) is best understood as a realist-liberationist method in which conscience mediates between doctrine’s historical development and the Church’s pastoral credibility, and that its canonical significance lies in a teleological construal of authority ordered to the salus animarum (c. 1752 CIC) and accountable to justice. The study situates CLT within debates on ecclesial authority, clericalism, institutional sin, and reform, emphasizing that Asongu’s critique of the Church arises from ecclesial loyalty and sacramental commitment rather than hostility. Finally, the article shows how CLT expands liberation theology beyond classical socio-economic horizons to include ecological devastation, gender and sexuality, technological domination, migration, and epistemic liberation— illustrated concretely in Asongu’s CSR-based argument that witchcraft is metaphysically incoherent and theologically unsound, and that superstition persists even among the educated as a form of epistemic captivity [2,3]

This article analyzes the intersection of race, Catholic morality, and pastoral work in comics, focusing on the figure of Saint Peter Claver and his representation by the Jesuit order in Cartagena de Indias. It examines the work of Ángel Valtierra (1911–1982), a specialist in communications media, and the comic Pedro Claver, un hombre que se hizo esclavo (1974), within the context of liberation theology. Through a qualitative analysis of historical documents and Colombian visual materials, the study explores how the religious comic represents race and saintly figures associated with Black communities, highlighting tensions in pastoral morality regarding sanctity, the body, and power, as well as limitations in its approach to racial equality and human rights.

ABSTRACT The article examines the intersections of Pentecostalism, gender, and leadership amongst West Africa Pentecostals, focusing on how women in Nigerian Pentecostal churches have negotiated religious and cultural patriarchal structures. Although Pentecostal theology tends to be based on biblical literalism and authoritative men, it also provides a spiritual and social platform, which can empower women. Based on the idea that Pentecostalism and its expression represents an ‘imaginary social space with practical ramification,’ the article explores how, on one hand, this symbolic realm can reproduce patriarchy, and on the other, allow women to assume new leadership positions. We argue that breaking down institutional and theological boundaries is not merely a question of fairness but a key issue in the Spirit-led redefinition of African Pentecostal leadership. Based on an ethnographic case study of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Lagos and London, the article highlights how African Pentecostal women employ spiritual capital, prophetic authority, and maternal representation to seek legitimacy in patriarchal systems. Using an interdisciplinary methodology that combines feminist theology, social feminism, and structural functionalism, the article highlights the creative negotiation of authority by women through transnational networks, missionary, and philanthropic activities.

This paper undertakes a comprehensive exploration of two seminal theological movements that emerged from Latin America in the twentieth century: Liberation Theology and Integral Mission. It delineates their distinct historical origins, core theological tenets, and methodological approaches to social transformation. The analysis proceeds to a comparative investigation, by charting the significant points of convergence and divergence between Liberation Theology’s emphasis on structural critique and systemic change, and Integral Mission’s holistic paradigm integrating evangelism with social responsibility. The central argument of this work posits that while these movements possess unique theological similarities, their profound influence on South African theological discourse and social activism reveals a shared capacity for contextual adaptation and a common commitment to human dignity and justice. The paper examines how these Latin American frameworks were received, reinterpreted, and contextualized within apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, giving rise to potent local expressions such as Black Theology of Liberation. By assessing their combined impact and ongoing relevance, this article illuminates the nuanced ways in which these theological paradigms have challenged ecclesiastical norms, fostered advocacy for the marginalised, and continue to inform the quest for social justice in contexts marked by profound historical and contemporary inequality. The paper concludes by considering the future trajectory for a contextualised public theology in South Africa, one that synthesises the strengths of both traditions to address the persistent challenges of the post-apartheid era.

ABSTRACT This essay develops a distinction between “major” and “minor” revolution through Amaryah Armstrong’s interventions in Black theology and Saidiya Hartman's intervention in the Black radical tradition. Major revolution—exemplified by Marxist historical materialism and liberation theology—imagines emancipation as a promised cataclysmic event. Such models, however, inadequately address racial and sexual subalternity. This is either because of their allegorical/analogical construction, or due to the selectiveness and incompleteness of God's redemptive gestures. Indeed, Armstrong’s wayward reading of Hagar reframes her as a limit figure who exposes the contradictions of redemption and allegorical universality. Hagar’s ambivalent naming of God underlines the violence of freedom-as-promise. An isomorphic ambivalence lies in Saidiya Hartman’s notion of “revolution in minor key," which recasts revolution as nonevental, fugitive, and recurrent. This is a minor revolution that foregrounds survival in brutal conditions, where structural liberation remains unrealized but a freedom as otherwise material conditions is discernible.

ABSTRACT Using the decolonial interpretation of the Bible, liberation theology, and the indigenous knowledge system, this paper examines how the church in Zimbabwe can address the ongoing decline of the economy. Qualitatively, the study brings together the triad of Sen’s capability theory, liberation theology, and Zunde raMambo, a gap absent from scholarship. There is urgency to combine postcolonial critiques with practical solutions to deal with African economic challenges. The results show the need for church-NGO partnership in areas of projects and financial literacy. The study concludes by underlining that space to target the underprivileged women through microfinance and deal with systemic exclusions from leadership roles. The study recommends that the church in Zimbabwe should exceed its roles as a political agent and spiritual comfort giver. Through indigenous ethics and support of communal land rights, the church can restore her prophetic role as well as her moral role, reaffirming social relevance.

This article proposes a biblical-theological rereading of the Book of Job from a queer/cuir/marica perspective, articulated through the notion of becoming-worm as a critical operator. Through a vermicular mode of theologizing, the study destabilizes hegemonic doctrinal frameworks, challenges logics of ontological, moral, and epistemological purity, and reinscribes suffering within contemporary geographies of exclusion, illness, and violence. The analysis integrates contributions from critical hermeneutics, liberation theologies, and aesthetic studies, demonstrating how ambiguity, obscenity, and decomposition configure alternative theological practices oriented toward resistance, survival, and the reimagining of the divine.

ABSTRACT This article examines how Salatiel Ailonga and other Namibians affiliated with the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) read the Bible in 1960s and early 1970s Tanzania. The text first presents the circumstances in which Ailonga and other Namibians joined SWAPO in exile in Tanzania during the early 1960s. It then turns to a Bible study that Ailonga and other SWAPO leaders attended in Dar es Salaam with the American Lutheran missionary Lloyd Swantz and the significance of that space in shaping Ailonga’s later engagement with scripture and SWAPO. Finally, the article considers Ailonga’s selection to attend Makumira Theological Seminary and the theological views that he expressed during and immediately after his studies there (1968–1973). As I argue, while reading the Bible in Tanzania, Ailonga articulated a prophetic Christianity focused on how ‘the world of Christ’ must orient itself to prepare humanity for a postcolonial, post-apartheid future. In so doing, he not only echoed liberation theologies formulated elsewhere at this time but also problematised expressions of these ideas that did not transcend nationalism through devotion to Christ. Through Ailonga’s Bible, the article further suggests what is at stake in taking the personal religious convictions of liberation movement members seriously.

Fisherwomen in the Moluccas (Maluku, Indonesia) frequently faced discrimination within a patriarchal culture that regarded the sea as a masculine and taboo space, especially during menstruation. This perception not only erased women’s social and economic contributions, but also constructed the sea as a dangerous realm governed by patriarchal norms. This study reread two Exodus texts, the rescue of Moses in the Nile (Ex 2:1–10) and Miriam’s song at the Sea of Reeds (Ex 15:19–21), through the lived experiences of fisherwomen in the Moluccas. The research was based on fieldwork conducted in the villages of Leahari, Seri, Wab and Lermatang. Using intercontextual feminist hermeneutics, which integrated historical-literary analysis with ethnographic insights, the study highlighted how women emerged as agents of liberation within watery spaces. The findings showed that rivers and the sea were not merely sites of danger but theophanic spaces where God manifested life through women’s courage, faith and solidarity. The sea was understood as a womb of life, a medium of both liberation and revelation, that opened space for a feminist sea theology connecting body, spirituality and women’s experience within patriarchal contexts. This study offered a new perspective to Exodus scholarship, contextual theology and feminist hermeneutics, particularly within Indonesia’s coastal communities. Contribution: This article contributes to the development of feminist biblical interpretation by introducing a contextual hermeneutic rooted in the lived experiences of fisherwomen in the Moluccas. It expands Exodus scholarship by reading the sea as a theophanic and liberating space rather than a site of danger. The study also advances contextual and feminist theologies by articulating a ‘feminist sea theology’ that connects embodiment, faith and women’s agency within patriarchal maritime cultures.

Indonesia’s environmental crisis demands a church response that is not merely practical but grounded in systematic and contextual theological reflection. Although many churches have demonstrated concern for environmental issues, such responses often remain fragmented and insufficiently integrated into a coherent ecological theological framework. This article aims to analyze the urgency of developing ecological theology as a theological foundation for Indonesian churches in addressing environmental crises sustainably.This study employs a qualitative theological literature analysis through critical dialogue with the paradigms of missio Dei, ecological justice within liberation theology, and integral ecotheology. The analysis focuses on Indonesia’s environmental crisis, ecclesial practices, and the challenges and opportunities for developing ecological theology in the Indonesian church context. The findings indicate that ecclesial responses have not yet been fully supported by systematic theological reflection, limiting their long-term transformative impact. This article contributes a contextual ecological theological framework that bridges theological reflection and ecclesial praxis in Indonesia, emphasizing the integration of faith, social justice, and ecological responsibility as an essential dimension of the church’s mission.

This research identifies the most innovative aspects within the new post-Cold War and post-apartheid context of African theology, suggesting that theology plays a vital role in recognising, valuing, interpreting, and empowering the agency of African Christians as they confront cultural, religious, and economic challenges in their everyday lives. This is in light of Africa’s contribution to Christianity through the theological schools and churches of Alexandria, Carthage and Ethiopia, through a pivotal role they played in theological perspectives that became instrumental in developing a foundational doctrine “One Faith” in Nicaea, 325 AD. Focusing on the renewed acknowledgement of African agency, African theologians strive to develop a more harmonious and less conflicted connection between Africa and Christianity, as well as between Africans and their difficult Christian/church history through liberative theology and decoloniality. The role of a liberative paradigm is an impetus not only to global solidarity but also to church solidarity and unity. The Nicene creed has tenets of unity, theological convictions and peace, and the question this research will pose is whether Western theology, considering its past in the Third World share the same Christian convictions of unity beyond theological theory but as praxis in Africa?