THE LIBERATION OF THEOLOGY

by Juan Luis Segundo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 11, 1976

Of late, liberation theology in its various guises--black, feminist, Latin--has swept through the seminaries with Temple-cleansing fury, challenging Christians to put up or shut up, to take up the cause of the oppressed or admit to be being the devil's disciples. For Juan Segundo, a leading--but irritatingly inarticulate--exponent of revolutionary Christianity in Latin America, the issue is less the Church's pusillanimity in implementing its own social ideals than its complicity in oppression: the whole context and thrust of theology and church life must be tranformed. Since human liberation is what the gospel is all about, it must become the theme and aim of all Christian theory and praxis. Scripture, symbols, and rituals have to be interpreted in ways that meet concrete human needs and promote an equitable system of democratic socialism. Much of the book involves a laborious resolution of the difficulties attendant on such militant theologizing, ""more interested in being liberative than in talking about liberation."" Unfortunately, Segundo, like some absorbed professor filling blackboards with interlocking theorems, gets so imprisoned in the labyrinthine turns of his argument that he fails to score any point with liberating clarity and force, and even the most sympathetic of armchair revolutionaries might well nod off.

Pub Date: Sept. 11, 1976

ISBN: 1592440967

Page Count: -

Publisher: Orbis Books

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION