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An essay on liberation theology
An essay on liberation theology
An essay on liberation theology
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The Emergence of Liberation Theology in Latin America and Africa Liberation theology originated in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s in South Africa. Liberation theology started because poor people of South Africa were being subjected to harsh treatments by those of higher authority, because the poor were oppressed they decided that it was finally time for them stand up for themselves and voice their opinion for themselves. The oppressed poor people were forced to deal with the lack of food supply, the lack of shelters, the lack of education and medical care.
Liberation theology is a form of Christianity that embraces the viewpoints of the Marxism-Leninism worldview. Marxism-Leninism is a viewpoint developed by combining both Marxism,
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Liberation Theology aims to fix the injustice of society and rid the sin within it. Sin not only affects us personally but affects our society as well. For example the child labor used in Africa to mine cobalt for smartphones and computers who work twelve hours a day for as low as one or two dollars. Society remains blind to the fact that this is occurring and does nothing to change it, because of this Liberation Theology was created to focus on this injustices, and societal sin, and this is what Liberation Theology attempts to …show more content…
It allows for a rereading of the gospel in perspective of the poor and it begins with material morality meaning in order to grow you must start from the bottom up. Liberation theology raises questions as to Where is God is violence, suffering and physical harm? God is with the oppressed, poor and marginalized. ” (Professor Rivera Lecture on Liberation Theology 4/15/16).
In a book “A Liberation Theology” writer Gustavo Gutierrez, Gustavo Gutierrez argues that salvation of both political and spiritual liberation, and that Christianity requires a preferential option for the poor. Also Gutierrez says that Liberation theology argues justification on the image of Jesus. Jesus is called “Christ the Liberator” because he was obedient to the father and attempted to end world suffering and was willing to die for his friends.
The principles of Liberation Theology recognizes suffering to be a contradictory to God’s will and forces those to reflect on their actions behaviors and practices as a whole. Liberation theology must strive to make understanding of theological concepts and reform those that are unjust. Liberation theology must recognize human as social creatures and their sins to be a part of the social aspect in unity. In all liberation theology hopes and works for the initiation of the kingdom of
Calvinism taught the doctrine of determinism — that God holds absolute sovereignty over passive men; in contrast, Arminianism rejected this and presented a doctrine of free will that gave the individual personal responsibility for his or her salvation. People believed that sin was voluntary and could be rooted out of society, once acknowledged; as a result, people began to take personal responsibility for their actions and recognize their responsibility to improve society. Desire for personal redemption from sin arose from Arminianism, which taught that moral depravity was the choice of
"God of the Oppressed" is brilliantly organized into ten chapters. These chapters serve as the building blocks to the true understanding of Cone’s Black Theology. This progressive movement begins with an introduction of both him and his viewpoint. He explains that his childhood in Bearden, Arkansas and his membership to Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E) has taught him about the black Church experience and the sociopolitical significance of white people. “My point is that one’s social and historical context decides not only the questions we address to God but also the mode of form of the answers given to the questions.” (14) The idea of “speaking the truth” is added at this point because to go any further the reader must understand the reason and goal for Black Theology. Through the two sources in that shape theology, experience and scripture, white theology concludes that the black situation is not a main point of focus. Cone explains the cause for this ignorance, “Theology is not a universal language; it is interested language and thus is always a reflection of the goals and aspirations of a particular people in a definite social setting.” (36) This implies that one’s social context shapes their theology and white’s do not know the life and history of blacks. As the reader completes the detailed analysis of society’s role in shaping experiences, Cone adds to the second source, scripture.
Independently, as one grows in age, their actions should make a daily reflection to God. In “A Theology of Liberation,” Gutierrez avers that, "The present life is considered to be a test: one’s actions are judged and assessed in relation to the transcendent end. The perspective here is moralistic, and the spirituality is one of flight from this world...
James H. Cone is the Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Dr. Cone probably is best known for his book, A Black Theology of Liberation, though he has authored several other books. Dr. Cone wrote that the lack of relevant and “risky” theology suggests that theologians are not able to free themselves from being oppressive structures of society and suggested an alternative. He believes it is evident that the main difficulty most whites have with Black Power and its compatible relationship to the Christian gospel stemmed from their own inability to translate non-traditional theology into the history of black people. The black man’s response to God’s act in Christ must be different from the whites because his life experiences are different, Dr. Cone believes. In the “black experience,” the author suggested that a powerful message of biblical theology is liberation from oppression.
The problem of reconciling an omnipotent, perfectly just, perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued believers since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and, therefore, that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent, perfectly just God with the presence of evil and suffering in the world. In fact, the word “theodicy” consists of the Greek words “theos,” or God, and “dike,” or justice (Knox 1981, 1). Thus, theodicy seeks to find a sense of divine justice in a world filled with suffering.
The revivalist contradicted Calvinism to encourage people who listens to investigate the evangelical preaching which the behavior would help the God’s saving grace. Evangelical preaching experiences a petitioner through a despair to understand the divine of grace. People had to fake their sense of security in a good behavior to recognize the helplessness without God. The radicals thought that the churches brought heaven to earth while dissolving the sense of all social distinctions and the moderates hadn’t bargain an unleashed poor educated prisoner to find out their own radical churches while the radical guarded the revivals as their incredible work of God but they regretted their incidental side effects. The radical appeal to free choices of separations and itinerants they were miles away from celebrating individualism.
“Liberation theologians refer to this as praxis, not their focal points in teachings but also as their point of
Black Liberation Theology can be defined as the relationship that blacks have with God in their struggle to end oppression. It sees God as a god of history and the liberator of the oppressed from bondage. Black Liberation theology views God and Christianity as a gospel relevant to blacks who struggle daily under the oppression of whites. Because of slavery, blacks concept of God was totally different from the masters who enslaved them. White Christians saw God as more of a spiritual savior, the reflection of God for blacks who came in the struggle for freedom.
As time progresses technology increases and improves. However, this progression could pose as a serious problem for generations to come, and New York University department chair of communication arts Neil Postman expresses this concern in his 1992 book, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. In the opening of Postman’s book he expresses that technology is indeed our friend because technology provides our society with fast and easy convenience and accessibility. As with most other things, there are always two sides to everything and Postman notes, that “of course, there is a dark side to this friend” referring to technology (Postman, 1992). Many people do not address the negative sides to technology and just turn a blind eye to them so it is refreshing to have someone point them out and discuss the issues technology possess on our society.
A German, Dominican, and theologian Meister Eckhart’s philosophy is strongly based on Dominican and Religious values. Eckhart’s thinking involves aspects of both Neo-Platonism and Christianity, in which he regards God and ‘the One’ as the same, however acknowledging the Trinity. Though the Trinity appears as three separate entities, they are in fact one in the same, only God remains fertile in which he appears as the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Sermon 22 focuses on Matt 5.3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” His main point discusses poverty and furthermore this provoking statement: “Therefore we ask God to free us from “God.”
In Western Christianity, the “theology” of Dispensationalism is achieving unheard of popularity. However with examination one can see the many cultural and biblical problems this theology has. Ultimately this theology isn’t just unbiblical, it is dangerous.
As the developments in Eastern Christianity were happening independent of Western Christianity, the differences in approaches grew to a serious estrangement between the two (Ware 23-24). As Ware suggests, some of the more prominent differences between the eastern and western Christianity are in the approach of religious truth, the perception of sin and salvation, and the view of the Holy Spirit. For Orthodox Christians, truth must be experienced personally (Ware 132). There is thus less focus on the exact definition of religious truth and more on the practical and personal experience of truth in the life of the individual and the church. This emphasis on personal experience of truth flows into the actual definition of the word Orthodox, which essentially means the correct theological observance of religion (“orthodox”). In the Western churches sin and salvation are seen primarily in legal terms. God gave humans freedom, and if they misuse it and brake God's commandments, they deserve punishment. God's grace results in forgiveness of the transgression and freedom from bondage and punishment. The Eastern churches see the matter in a different way. For Orthodox theologians, humans were created in the image of God and made to participate fully in the divine life. The full communion with God that Adam and Eve enjoyed meant complete freedom and true humanity, because humans are most human when they are completely united with God.
Calvinism is a simple way of life in which you are to do good for others. The way into heaven was to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The. Work is done not for one’s own personal gain, but for the sake of God.
The central assertion of Calvinism canons is that God is able to save from the tyranny of sin, from guilt and the fear of death, every one of those upon whom he is willing to have mercy. God is not frustrated by the unrighteousness or the inability of men because it is the unrighteous and the helpless that he intends to save. In Calvinism man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that, which is good and well pleasing to God; but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it. This concept of free choice makes Calvinism to stand supreme among all the religious systems of the world. The great men of our country often were members of Calvinist Church. We had the number of Presbyterian presidents, legislators, jurists, authors, editors, teachers and businessmen. The revolutionary principles of republican liberty and self-government, taught and embodied in ...
Calvinism is the belief system promoted by John Calvin. These beliefs are widely accepted as the doctrine of salvation (Rose). The idea of total depravity in the Calvinistic view is that man in his natural state is not capable to do anything to please or gain merit before God (Piper). In other words, mans free will would never choose the will of God for our lives. It has to do with original sin. Due to the fall, man himself is not able to regard the gospel or what it says. R.C. Sproul said “We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.” Mankind is and always will be born with a sin nature. We do not have a choice of whether or not to sin. By nature we are born spiritually dead. Colossians 2:13 states,”And you, being dead in your trespasses… He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” We are all born with the desire to do wrong. That being said, a desire to sin does not mean that every person is the worst that they could be (Hezekiah). We are not incapable of doing good, but without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit we cannot ourselves chose to do spiritual good (Rose).