These papers consider liberation theology in a comparative perspective. They address a wide range of geographical contexts including Iran, Nicaragua, Peru, Guatemala, Palestine, India, Indonesia, and the United States, as well as diverse religious traditions including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Indigenous traditions. The papers expand our notion of the theological to include not only formal theological texts but also ritual practice, sacred space, storytelling, care work, and political practices of resistance, revolution, and reconciliation. Together, the panelists help us to appreciate the possibilities and the potential limitations of liberation theology as a comparative framework.
“Liberation Theology” is still in its infancy stages of interreligious comparison and is predominantly understood solely in a Christian context. Even still, scholars are noticing similarities between Christians and Muslims, referring to some as “Islamic Liberation Theologians.” These comparisons are often without developing or defining what makes them “liberation.” In this paper, I will present a two-part framework that allows scholars to identify a type of theology or ethic as “liberation.” The first component of the framework is a theory of oppression, often in terms of salvation history and political oppression. The second component is a focus on praxis, the serious reflection on shared experiences of oppression that leads to the material liberation of the oppressed. To substantiate this framework, I will provide examples from two paradigmatic figures in Christianity and Islam: Gustavo Gutiérrez – Latin American Catholic priest – and Ali Shariati – Shia Muslim revolutionary.
In political discourse, liberation and reconciliation are often seen as competing goals. Liberation and freedom are conceived in terms of autonomy, while reconciliation and unity are conceived in terms of mutuality. Against these customary associations, the Black liberation theologian J. Deotis Roberts insists, “There can be no liberation without reconciliation and no reconciliation without liberation.” Roberts’s Christian theology offers an alternative, dialectical picture of the interplay between freedom and interdependence. This paper compares Roberts’s argument with the work of Mohandas Gandhi. In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi argues similarly that true independence is not possible without taking responsibility for one another. The eighth-century Buddhist monk Śāntideva likewise offers a vision of liberation in which one is freed for the sake of others, and freed by caring for others. Comparing these authors’ arguments points toward an alternative paradigm for integrating the urgent demand for emancipation with the urgent need for cooperation.
This paper studies the myth of peace in the temples of Sukuh, Cetho, and Kethek during the twilight of the Majapahit Kingdom (14th–16th century) and Christian liberation theology. Both traditions emerged from periods of upheaval, seeking harmony through decolonial and transformative practices. The Javanese temples, with their punden architecture, Shaivite reinterpretations, and ruwatan rituals, reflect a quest for cosmic and social balance. Similarly, liberation theology, through Ignacio Ellacuría’s “liberating grace” and Cláudio Carvalhaes’s liturgical resistance, emphasizes decolonization and communal justice. Drawing on Raimon Panikkar’s intercultural myth as and Victor Turner’s ritual theory, this study examines how both traditions construct sacred narratives to address oppression and environmental crises. The ruwatan ritual is compared to Ellacuría’s and Carvalhaes’s transformative practices, highlighting a shared impulse to decolonize dominant paradigms and reimagine peace as spiritual and social renewal. This comparative approach enriches interreligious peacebuilding and offers a framework for contemporary challenges.
Informed by the lives and practices of Palestinian women in Gaza and Mayan women in Guatemala, this chapter attempts to provide an answer to the question “Wenak ya Allah?” - where are you, God, amid genocide? I advocate for an approach that embraces women’s experiences as sources for reflection and inspection of our theologies. Following George Khodr’s theology of the cross, I explore the parallels between the Guatemalan and Palestinian contexts. I argue, following Guatemalan and Palestinian women’s embodiment of care and agency amidst genocide and its aftermath, that the commitment to ethics of care embodies God’s presence within the community in Gaza and Guatemala. We see God embodied in those who practice care, particularly women.
Unlike most twentieth-century social revolutions religion played a central role in both the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions. Both Iranians and Nicaraguans re-articulated the meaning of their respective religions in prefigurative free spaces. As the socio-political climate worsened in their respective countries in the late 1970s they employed stories from the Bible and Qur’an to mobilize against their respective governments.
Although class and regional differences exist between religious participants from each country our comparative case study reveals that they shared in common sacred stories centered on prophecy, religious virtue, miracles, and the challenges associated with demanding social justice. Building on the religious discourse approach, centered on literatures that focus on stories and storytelling, we set out to examine the specific ways these sacred stories motivated them to take action and facilitated their transformation as revolutionary actors.