What is Liberation Theology?

I'd like to share with you parts of my first essay exam for my Liberation Theology course. I kept out most of the academic stuff and brought out my own analysis and definitions. Hopefully it will give you some understanding of the LT movement. If you're looking for an update of what I've been doing, it'll come in a later post (hopefully tomorrow), but liberation theology has been the backbone of all I've been learning and doing--it is what I have been studying, living, and breathing for the past two weeks.

I have developed my own definition [of liberation theology], which includes the following:

Everyone needs to know they are beloved.  Jesus told his disciples that the greatest commandment is to love.  In order to be empowered yourself, you need to know that you have worth.  I think this should be the first and foremost goal of liberation theology, or any theology in that case.  This goal is not accomplished by imposing beliefs or trying to persuade someone to adapt a new culture.  It is done through relationship and compassion.

We must work from the bottom up.  Liberation will not happen unless the recipients are the ones in control.  Liberation theology is the first way of doing theology that starts with the people, and then becomes an analysis of their reality. 

Reality comes first.  Rather than developing a theology and believing this theology must be applied, the roles are flipped, and the theology becomes affected by reality and changes as reality changes.  It is the “voice of the voiceless.”  Change will not come about by imposing my theology upon a people, rather experiencing where the people are and asking them if my gifts can be used to assist their search for their voice.  

Where is the God of life? When examining reality, it is important to keep in mind how we are defining God, or why we are calling it theology.  How are these people being kept from living fully?  Are they experiencing life or oppression?  God for me is life and mystery.  In our actions, how am I allowing this beautiful mystery work itself out?

The call is for transformation.  Liberation theology is not just about change.  It is about a transformed mind, transformed belief, and transformed hearts.  Without internal transformation, it becomes a fleeting method, which includes a hand-out here or there, but never really a full empowerment of the oppressed. 

Liberation needs to happen now.  Too much focus has been put on what will come after this life, when we will finally see “Jesus face-to-face.”  Even scripture has been interpreted to say that it is okay to be poor now because when we reach that life-after-death, there will be no more suffering.  As a believer in a living God who is fully present and active in the world here and now, I see our call for liberation as present and urgent.

Liberation theology lies within the parent who will tell their gay child “I love you” rather than “There’s something wrong with you.”  It lies within the woman who can finally speak about her experience of being raped.  It lies within the scarred student who can finally go to school without the fear of being bullied.  It lies within the Lakota woman who sees her people as more than just alcoholics.  It lies within the youth pastor who helps a lonely teenager realize that he is not alone.  It lies within the child who after years of going to bed hungry, finally falls asleep without a rumbling belly.  It lies within the churches that not only hold an “all are welcome” motto, but actually live it out. 

Liberation theology is stirring.  It is not something that we anticipate to happen; it is happening and must happen now.  As Boff said, there is urgency. Until the oppression is gone and until justice prevails, liberation theology will always be relevant, and it will always be changing. ...

Hope is a heavy word.  But I believe we cannot talk about the future of liberation theology without using this term.  To believe that liberation will come about is to have some hope—not only in the method of theology, but in people.  I keep thinking about what our guide at the Romero Center told us.  The deaths of the Jesuit martyrs were not in vain; they serve as “sources of hope.”  So much violence and so much death have not resulted in just a mourning country, but a morning country.  A dawn is coming, hope is present.  Hope is not just a goal of liberation theology; it is a driving force and an active participant.  There is hope that repression, violence, and cruelty will cease.  There is hope that the God of life will finally be revealed in all of God’s children. 

In short, liberation theology is a new way of not only doing theology, but a new way of thinking and living.  Especially for believers, it asks questions about who exactly is God and how we are allowing God to be revealed.  It is a theological method not like any others because it opens itself up to constantly being refined and changed as reality emerges.  Liberation theology provides hope for the marginalized not just because it fights against oppression but because it allows all people to see themselves as capable of empowering themselves and being fully alive humans.