What do you think?
Rate this book
Cambridge Companions to Religion
The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology
Liberation theology is widely referred to in discussions of politics and religion but not always adequately understood. This Companion offers an introduction to the history and characteristics of liberation theology in its various forms in different parts of the world. Through a sequence of eleven chapters readers are given a comprehensive description and evaluation of the different facets of this important theological and social movement, and there is a clear Introduction. The book will be of interest to students of theology as well as to sociologists, political theorists and historians.
Paperback
First published March 31, 1995
12 people are currently reading
160 people want to read
About the author
Christopher C. Rowland
37 books6 followersThe Rev. Professor Christopher Rowland is an English Anglican priest and theologian. He was Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford from 1991 to 2014.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 7, 2025
2,5 // basically an okay introduction if you want to learn something about liberation theology beyond the memes. The quality of the chapters varies. None of them are unforgettable but the Denys Turner one is probably the best.
I was surprised that several of the authors are so directly connected to the subject and dwell on it in such a pastoral manner. Maybe it's to be expected that a book with "theology" in the title takes on a theological voice, but some chapters could've used more austere overtones, seeing as it also has "Cambridge companion" in the title.
Liberation theology is a great illustration of the fact that religiosity, in and of itself, doesn't automatically lead to one specific set of politics, but can be taken in wildly different directions. This is already visible in the variety of social insights LT contains. For instance, aside from its well-known support for revolutionary movements in Latin America, it is also highly critical of the oppressed position of women in the Catholic Church and in society at large.
Even more fascinating is this: the similarity between LT and Marxism is not only their social commitment, but also their "materialist" way of thinking. The premise of LT is that all knowledge is constructed from a specific perspective embedded in a specific context, and neither preachers nor even the Bible itself are exempt from this rule.
So, when LT identifies with the underclass, this doesn't only translate into an ethical stance - which wouldn't be too different from the mainstream Church's rhetoric on poverty - but also grants "epistemological privilege" (p. 131) to that underclass, thus sharing its understanding of reality through the lense of social struggle.
This book also made me aware that LT is, at the end of the day, a theology. Its exponents manifest a sincere "belief that the God of history is at work in the Latin American social revolution" (p. 155). This piety is regularly downplayed by Western observers, who reduce LT to a movement of activists who happen to be Christians in their spare time. I guess I found out about this the hard way: by struggling through a book that consists in large part of theological parlance.
From an atheist perspective like my own, it inevitably remains a bit vague what exactly a religious approach adds to social struggles. I hardly learned that here. To put it bluntly, this book often doesn't read like the authors are explaining theology to leftists, but like they're selling leftism to theologians. In doing this they also repeat themselves (and eachother) quite a bit.
Yet while I may not "get" LT in any organic sense, I surely sympathize from a distance. If religion is the opium of the people, Latin America is one hell of an opium den. In such a continent organized religion is a powerful vehicle for mobilizing deprived communities. LT was a fascinating Cold War-era product trying to do just that. And while its theory may have been on shaky grounds - caught up in its schizophrenic doubt between transcendent and immanent ways of knowing - that never stopped it from acting as an effective organizing principle.
Depressingly, a few decades down the road, LT's historical core countries have become fertile grounds for the arch-reactionaries of Pentecostalism. Undoubtedly the Vatican's offensive to discipline the liberationists under John Paul II and Benedict XVI (coupled with the rightward shift in society at large) has not done anything to slow down this evolution.
Yet LT did not just disappear without a trace. The conclusion of this book makes a good case that it has lived on: not only in grassroots practices in countries like Brazil, but also through the global influence of its two "basic tenets, the attention to context, and the peculiar perspective of the marginalised" (p. 249). Now it's probably time for clerics to step up their ecclesial game and bring back the struggling. 🙏
I was surprised that several of the authors are so directly connected to the subject and dwell on it in such a pastoral manner. Maybe it's to be expected that a book with "theology" in the title takes on a theological voice, but some chapters could've used more austere overtones, seeing as it also has "Cambridge companion" in the title.
Liberation theology is a great illustration of the fact that religiosity, in and of itself, doesn't automatically lead to one specific set of politics, but can be taken in wildly different directions. This is already visible in the variety of social insights LT contains. For instance, aside from its well-known support for revolutionary movements in Latin America, it is also highly critical of the oppressed position of women in the Catholic Church and in society at large.
Even more fascinating is this: the similarity between LT and Marxism is not only their social commitment, but also their "materialist" way of thinking. The premise of LT is that all knowledge is constructed from a specific perspective embedded in a specific context, and neither preachers nor even the Bible itself are exempt from this rule.
So, when LT identifies with the underclass, this doesn't only translate into an ethical stance - which wouldn't be too different from the mainstream Church's rhetoric on poverty - but also grants "epistemological privilege" (p. 131) to that underclass, thus sharing its understanding of reality through the lense of social struggle.
This book also made me aware that LT is, at the end of the day, a theology. Its exponents manifest a sincere "belief that the God of history is at work in the Latin American social revolution" (p. 155). This piety is regularly downplayed by Western observers, who reduce LT to a movement of activists who happen to be Christians in their spare time. I guess I found out about this the hard way: by struggling through a book that consists in large part of theological parlance.
From an atheist perspective like my own, it inevitably remains a bit vague what exactly a religious approach adds to social struggles. I hardly learned that here. To put it bluntly, this book often doesn't read like the authors are explaining theology to leftists, but like they're selling leftism to theologians. In doing this they also repeat themselves (and eachother) quite a bit.
Yet while I may not "get" LT in any organic sense, I surely sympathize from a distance. If religion is the opium of the people, Latin America is one hell of an opium den. In such a continent organized religion is a powerful vehicle for mobilizing deprived communities. LT was a fascinating Cold War-era product trying to do just that. And while its theory may have been on shaky grounds - caught up in its schizophrenic doubt between transcendent and immanent ways of knowing - that never stopped it from acting as an effective organizing principle.
Depressingly, a few decades down the road, LT's historical core countries have become fertile grounds for the arch-reactionaries of Pentecostalism. Undoubtedly the Vatican's offensive to discipline the liberationists under John Paul II and Benedict XVI (coupled with the rightward shift in society at large) has not done anything to slow down this evolution.
Yet LT did not just disappear without a trace. The conclusion of this book makes a good case that it has lived on: not only in grassroots practices in countries like Brazil, but also through the global influence of its two "basic tenets, the attention to context, and the peculiar perspective of the marginalised" (p. 249). Now it's probably time for clerics to step up their ecclesial game and bring back the struggling. 🙏
January 27, 2015
First-rate intro to Liberation Theology in all of its stripes (Black, Latino or Feminist; the unholy matrimony of Jesus Christ and Karl Marx.
October 12, 2017
A mixed bag. The Denys Turner chapter is wonderful though.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews