Liberation theology essay

The process of struggle for liberation was highly associated with God as the one who was involved in and virtually identified with the process. The tradition theology emphasis on divine transcendence is where God was considered as a distinct being from and supreme over the world (Gutierrez, np). However, the theological shift paved a way to divine immanence where God is seen and known to be active in setting the oppressed free. Liberation theology, therefore, is the interconnectedness of different structures of oppression and domination which involves social, political, economic, sexual, race and ethnic aspects. The paper will explore the three expressions of liberation theology which includes Latin American liberation theology, Black and feminist liberation theology. Democracy was adapted as a peaceful form of liberation by which poor people given voice in decision making.

Although people were fighting towards their path of liberation, church officials went on and convinced them that all resources and riches owned by individuals was endowment from God that was offered to them at the right time. People were also convinced that poverty to some extent was a way by which they became closer to God and even stronger solidarity among them (Silber, 179). That meant that being poor is a way of avoiding sins such as greedy and selfless which was the greatest sin of the time where individuals had only self-interest of acquiring more wealth. On the other hand, western theologians had different beliefs as they struggled for liberal paucity as a way of dedication to God. Within American society, black has been associated with evil and therefore, black liberation theology aimed at shedding the light of the struggle of black people in America from multiple racial and oppression.

Through relating the black experiences in the hands of whites, Black liberation intended to assist black people to learn to love themselves by relating these experiences to the gospel. After many years of slavery, blacks were considered inferior, and their presence in society was deemed unproductive. Thus, this theology wanted to show that blacks were made in God’s image and that since Jesus was born among the Jewish community under oppressive systems of Roman occupation, he was one of the Blacks. Cone (391) asserts that the birth of Jesus Christ its self was part of God’s work to set free all the captives. Also, it involved people from both gender as men also participated alongside women to defend the position of women in Christianity.

The other side of feminist theology is that there are some verses in the bible that limits the capacity of this theology from influencing women to position in the church. For instance, in the Bible, both God and Jesus are referred to as ‘He’ which makes a justifiable claim that since they were men, men are superior to women. Conclusion In conclusion, Liberation theology is a paradigm that worked towards the improvement of the lives of oppressed people from different contextual aspects. Mainly, there were three expressions of liberation theology that erupted during the 1960s and 1970s that took different forms and involved different people with diverse motivations. "Black theology as liberation theology. " Down by the Riverside: Readings in African American Religion.