Description: Liberation theology originated in Catholic Latin America at the end of the 1960s in response to prevalent conditions of poverty and oppression. Its basic tenet was that it is the primary duty of the church to seek to promote social and economic justice. Since that time it has grown in influence, spreading to other areas of the Third World, along with bitter controversy about its ties to Marxist ideology and violent revolution. Drawing on both English and Spanish sources, this critical study examines the history, method, and doctrines of liberation theology. Sigmund considers the movement's origins in political circumstances in Latin America and provides case studies of its role in such events as the revolution and counter-revolution in Chile, and in the revolutionary movements in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Examining the thought of major liberation theologians, as well as the critical responses of the Vatican, Sigmund shows that liberation theology is a complex phenomenon, comprising a variety of kinds and degrees of radicalism. He discerns a general trend away from the Marxist rhetoric that has often characterized the movement in the past and towards the kind of grassroots populist reform typified by the Basic Christian Communities Movement.
Description: This book provides a concise, accurate introduction to the theology of Juan Luis Segundo. It is comprehensive in its brevity. After presenting Segundo in terms of the historical development of his work, the author explains the main influences on his thought, the principal categories and distinctions that distinguish his language, and the elements of method that structures the genesis of his theology. She draws from the whole corpus of his writing and by comparative analysis is able to shed light on many of Segundo's basic distinctions that befuddle many. Clarifies the fundamental categories that recur again and again in Segundo's thinking. Beyond re-presenting Segundo's theology, Lowe Ching provides a coherent and plausible interpretation of it. In each successive chapter she builds the argument that the theme of efficacious love holds the various dimensions of Segundo's theory together. Its commanding influence is reflected in his appropriation of his sources and in the structure of his method. Not only of interest for students of liberation theology and readers of Juan Luis Segundo but all those interested in the meaning of Christianity itself.
