The Reemergence of Liberation Theologies Models for the Twenty-First Century

Declared dead in the 1990s, liberation theology is very much alive and well today across the globe. This book brings together prominent voices from the global North and South to present brief analyses of liberation theology's future. It includes leaders in the field along with the newest voices. Each of these pieces was presented in the American Academy of Religion in the first five years of the Liberation Theologies Consultation. This book aims to reach a wider audience of undergraduates and graduates in religious studies and theology to provoke discussion of the future of liberation theology. As the consultation itself stated, the two themes of this book are: cross-over dialogue - between contexts and between disciplines; and reflection on the implications of liberationist discourse for the transformation of theology itself.

Thia Cooper is an associate professor in Religion, Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and Peace Studies at Gustav Adolphus College

PART I: DOES LIBERATION THEOLOGY MATTER FOR THIS CENTURY?

Resisting Imperial Peace: Theological Reflections; D.Hopkins
Context is What Hurts: Rethinking Contextual Theology in Light of Empire and Economics; J.Rieger
Theology, Spirit and the Imperial Economic System; J.M.Sung
The Hermeneutics of Bones: Liberation Theology for the 21st Century; M.Aguilar
Practicing Liberation Theology Beyond Theology; I.Petrella
PART II: LIBERATION THEOLOGIES IN THE USA
A US Theology of Letting Go; R.R.Ruether
Dialogic Mediations: Reflections on the Hopeful Future of US Liberation Theology; B.Valentin
American Indian Liberation: Paddling a Canoe Upstream; T.Tinker
Core Elements of Liberation Theologies in the 21st Century: A Mujerista Perspective; A.M.I.Diaz
Uninterrogated Coloredness and Its Kin; E.Townes
PART III: LIBERATION THEOLOGIES AROUND THE WORLD

Rethinking Liberation: Preliminary Reflections Toward a Latino/a-Canadian Theology; N.Medina
Gender and Liberation Theology for the 21st Century: Intercultural Approaches, Gender dialogues crosswise, and Human Rights; H.Walz
Liberation Theology and Indigenous Peoples; W.Longchar
Embodied Theology: Cosmological Meanings of Teologia India (Indigenous Theology) in Chiapas, Mexico; S.Marcos
PART IV: THE FUTURE OF LIBERATION THEOLOGIES

Popular Messianism, Complicity, and the Continued Relevance of Liberation Theology; J.Kirk
Doing Justly: The Revelatory Work of Kara Walker, Resistance Artist; E.Kierulf
Toward a Twenty-first Century Black Liberation Ethic: A Marxist Reclamation of Ontological Blackness; C.Sinclair
A Christian Liberationist Approach to International Economic Responsibility and the Crisis at the United States- Mexico Border; W.A.Walker, III
Doing Liberation Theology as a Resistive Performance; M.Sales