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Thirty years ago, Christians around the world were introduced to Latin American liberation theology, a powerful theological movement emerging among Christians in that part of the world but with links to currents stirring in many other places. A generation later, the context in which liberation theology took shape has changed significantly, its advocates are older and the concerns and aspirations it touched have also changed. Other theological voices have taken center stage, liberation theology has disappeared from the front pages of the newspaper and is virtually unmentioned even in many academic journals. After two decades of evolution and growth, the nineties proved to be a period of reevaluation and redirection.
But in spite of the changes that have occurred, the theological enterprise among Latin American Christians remains vibrant and creative-and of importance to North American Christians, even if that is not always recognized. The purpose of this article is to summarize what has happened to liberation theology in the last decade, to identify what seem to be areas of future development, and to offer some suggestions with regard to the future dialogue between Christians from North and South.1
When Gustavo Gutierrez published his seminal study A Theology of Liberation in 1971, it was as if a bombshell had exploded among Latin American Christians. Only a few years before, at its meeting in Medellin, Colombia, the [Roman Catholic] Latin American Bishops' Conference (CELAM) had taken seriously the encouragement given by the Second Vatican Council to evaluate and restructure its pastoral ministry in light of the context in which it is carried out. That mandate is indicative of the Vatican Council's intention, under the leadership of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, to bring the Roman Catholic Church into the modern world, epitomized by Pope John's hope of aggiornamento ("today-ment") and summarized in the Council's affirmation that "the Church exists to serve the world."
While liberation theology in Latin America is undoubtedly indebted to the impulses affirmed by Vatican II and especially the Medellin Conference, it was not unrelated to other currents already moving in various places in the aftermath of World War II. Africa and Asia were feeling the results of a powerful movement to end the colonial control of territories dominated by the wealthy...