Medellín and Theology of the Liberation: more than a historical relationship

Abstract

Medellín and Theology of Liberation share a social and ecclesial context marked by profound transformations, challenging Christians to gather together seeking for alternatives to the situation of a society characterized by an institutionalized injustice and exclusion. And both Medellin and Theology of Liberation were two apt answers, which would provoke too much talking, thinking and doing. Medellín gave a proper face to the Latin American Church, shaped by the so called Base Ecclesial Communities, the popular reading of the Bible, a poor Church for the poor, a social pastoral and martyrs of social causes. The word itself was given by Theology of Liberation, formed around Medellin, was not only “a new way of doing Theology”, but “a new theology”, the very first theology in Church history that was different from that one which was born in the centre, a theology that was born on the margins.