Liberation Theology

Definition and Meaning

Liberation theology is a theological movement that takes the reality of poverty and oppression as its starting point. Its central claim is the "preferential option for the poor," the conviction that God cares first for the poor. It does not limit salvation to the salvation of the individual soul but understands it to include deliverance from unjust social structures. It places great emphasis on the practice of faith (praxis, an ongoing cycle of action and reflection). Another distinguishing feature is its use of social-scientific theories, such as Marxist class analysis, to interpret social reality.

Biblical and Historical Background

Liberation theologians read the Exodus as the paradigmatic event of liberation, in which God delivered an enslaved people from oppression. They also draw heavily on the proclamation of social justice by the prophets, Amos among them. They frequently cite the scene in which Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:1-3 and proclaims good news to the poor and deliverance to the captives (Luke 4:18-19), as well as the parable of the sheep and the goats.

Historically, the movement was catalyzed by the 1968 General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate in Medellín, Colombia. The Peruvian Catholic priest Gustavo Gutiérrez popularized the name with his 1971 book A Theology of Liberation. Others, such as Leonardo Boff of Brazil, followed, and among Protestants the Argentine Methodist theologian José Míguez Bonino and others took part. In the Catholic Church, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued two instructions on the subject, in 1984 and 1986. While acknowledging concern for the poor, these instructions criticized the tendency to adopt Marxist analysis uncritically.

Practice in the Korean Church

In Korea during the 1970s, under military rule, Suh Nam-dong, Ahn Byung-mu, and others developed minjung theology out of their experience of industrial mission and the democratization movement. Minjung theology emerged at roughly the same time as liberation theology and shared similar concerns. It is nevertheless regarded as an independent movement rooted in the history and suffering of the Korean minjung (common people). Progressive churches and theologians associated with the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea, Hanshin University, and the National Council of Churches in Korea were comparatively sympathetic to this current of thought, and some drew on it as a theological basis for participating in the democratization movement.

Conservative Presbyterian theologians and many evangelical theologians have criticized liberation theology. Their chief objections are that it narrows salvation to political and economic liberation, recasts the problems of sin and atonement as problems of social structure, and imports Marxism into theology. Proponents of liberation theology respond that they do not deny individual salvation but seek to recover the social dimension of salvation as taught in the Bible. In the Korean church today, liberation theology is discussed mainly in seminary courses and academic circles and is rarely employed directly in the worship or Christian education of local congregations.