Latin American Liberation Theology Summary

Liberation theology is defined as a movement that seeks to deduce Scripture with the conditions of the poor as a primary focus. Liberation theology originated around the 1950s and 1960s as a development in the Catholic Church in Latin America. The term was first used in 1973 by Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian theologian as well as a Dominican priest who is considered to be the first to come about with the concept of liberation theology [1]. Other theologians who have contributed to the model of liberation theology include Jon Sobrino, Juan Luis Segundo, and Leonardo Buff [2]. I believe that Christian Smith says it best in his book The emergence of liberation theology: Radical religion and social movement theory when speaking about liberation

The first factor is a post-Enlightenment theological movement whose advocates includes G. Gutiérrez, Juan Segundo and Jose Miranda. Their movement had influences on the perspective of Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and much more. The second factor is European political theology in the perspectives of J. B. Metz, Jurgen Moltmann, and Harvey Cox. They have criticized the qualities that make up the nature of existential theology. The third factor is the theological movement of the Roman Catholic

According to a New York Times article, Pope Francis and Gustavo Gutiérrez have met within the Vatican. Many find this interaction between the two to be ground breaking, especially considering the fact that people believed Gutiérrez to be a Marxist and approached him with a hostile attitude. The meeting between the two was “[…] just as quickly interpreted as a defining shift in the Roman Catholic Church”. Since Pope Francis is the first pope to be from a developing country, his need to put the poor at the center of his papacy is understandable. A professor from Fordham University was able to pitch in his opinion about the subject. Michael E. Lee commented that “It is not liberation theology that is being rehabilitated [...] It is the church that is being rehabilitated” [2]. I agree with Lee in the idea that the church is starting to become a more liberal place of worship; many people comment that they are able to visit this kind of community without feeling the judgement and hostility they would have experienced years