Latin America and the Roots of Liberation Theology

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Latin America and Liberation Theology
Introduction
Liberation theology in Latin America began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Liberation theology is arguably one of the major theological developments in the last century. It refers to a body of thoughts mainly written by theologians in Latin America that sought to provide a new role of religious experience among religious organizations and practitioners (Grover 1991, 186). The political and religious culture of Latin America, whose background is characterized by Portuguese and Spanish past, produced liberation theology. Liberation theology is a field that has attracted considerable attention in the recent past, and it is thus the subject of many scholarly works. According to Berryman (1987, 7), for one to understand Latin America, it is important that they learn about liberation theory. This paper seeks to examine the Latin American liberation theology. The paper begins by discussing the roots of the movement and goes on to document the key theologians associated with it, giving special attention to Gustavo Gutierrez. The paper also addresses the movement’s key features, criticisms, and opposition, as well as its decline.
Roots of the Liberation Theology
The failures of the post-WWII self-sustaining models of economic development constitute the roots of the liberation theology. It was predicted that Latin America would grow fairly if it followed the examples of Western Europe and USA (Grover 1991, 186). It was the belief of the intellectuals in Latin America that the models would eliminate existing social problems such as illiteracy, land tenure inequities, and poor housing. As a result of the failure, the intellectuals began criticizing the models and consequently searching for reasons of their failure. As informed by Grover (1991, 187), the intellectuals questioned the capitalist model and realized that there was a dependency between the economies of Latin American countries and industrialized nations. They realized that instead of the gap between industrialized nations and Latin economies declining, it was expanding. They also showed that the economic system of the world promoted a cycle of exports of raw materials and import of finished from industrialized nations. As such, they noticed that the economic model that was supported by industrial nations did not help solve the social problems of the region. This awareness coincided with a major problem in the Catholic Church.
With an inadequate number of priests, the Catholic Church could not combat secular and Protestant groups from making strides among members of the Catholic Church. When the Catholic Church increased the number of priests to solve the problem, a majority of them began working with the poor (Grover 1991, 187). They felt that there was a big gap between the church and the poor and they thus began a looking for a theology that would help them address the problems they were facing. As informed by Grover (1991, 187), the combination of the intellectual atmosphere at the time and educational backgrounds helped the young priests perceive the societal challenges and solutions from Marxist and leftist lenses. Therefore, it became apparent...