Liberation Theology: The Essential Facts About the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America and Beyond

by Phillip Berryman

Overview

Liberation theology has become an essential component of almost every major debate over Latin America today.  It has changed the face of political life in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Haiti; contributed to the rise of “people power” in the Philippines; even played a role in the growing discontent of debt-plagued Brazil.

Now, using the plainspoken approach that made his Inside Central America the indispensable book on current affairs in the region, Phillip Berryman traces the origins, spread, and impact of liberation theology.  He shows how its proponents have radically reinterpreted basic Biblical themes (such as the Creation and the Exodus) from the perspective of the poor and isenfranchised.  By not asking “What must I believe?” but rather “What is to be done?” they make a direct connection between religious beliefs and political life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307831606
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/20/2013
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Phillip Berryman was a pastoral worker in a barrio in Panama during 1965-73, the years in which the new liberation theology and pastoral practice in Latin America were taking shape.  From 1976 to 1980, as Central American representative for the American Friends Service Committee, he was in a privileged position to observe the deepening crisis in the region.  In 1980, he returned from Guatemala to the United States and now lives in Philadelphia with his wife and three daughters, continuing to do research and writing.  He is the author of The Religious Roots of Rebellion and Liberation Theology, and has published numerous reviews and articles in such journals as Commonweal, America, and The National Catholic Reporter.