Liberation Theology

Liberation theology is an interpretation of Christian theology which emphasises a concern for the liberation of the oppressed.

The best-known examples of liberation theology come from the Catholic Church in Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s among individuals such as Gustavo Gutiérrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of Brazil, Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay and Jon Sobrino of Spain, who would popularize the phrase the "preferential option for the poor". The Latin American context would also produce Evangelicals such as C. René Padilla of Ecuador, Samuel Escobar of Peru, and Orlando E. Costas of Puerto Rico in the 1970s, who called for integral mission, emphasizing both evangelism and social responsibility. A recent anthropological study describes how indigenous women and men mobilized via liberation theology to successfully impede a planned Panama Canal expansion project.

Theologies of liberation have developed in other parts of the world such as Black theology in the United States and South Africa, Palestinian liberation theology, Dalit theology in India, and Minjung theology in South Korea.