Libertion Theology

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Here's an excerpt from the introduction, page 14.

"Third world Christians think that people like us read the Bible from the vantage point of our privilege and comfort and screen out those parts that threaten us. They tell us that the basic viewpoint of the biblical writers is that of victims, those who have been cruelly used by society, the poor and oppressed. They further tell us that they are the contemporary counterparts of those biblical victims, cruelly used by contemporary society, the poor and oppressed. Consequently, when they hear the Bible offering hope and liberation to the oppressed of the ancient world, they hear hope and liberation being offered to them as the oppressed of the contemporary world. If God sided with the oppressed back then, they believe God continues to side with the oppressed here and now.

Is that what the Bible is really all about? Enough third world Christians are saying so, and living changed lives as a result, to impel us to explore the matter and see whether there might be a new word for us as well. We will do this by taking ten familiar biblical episodes and trying to see them through new eyes. The passages have been chosen both because they are important to third world Christians and because they are familiar to us. The texts give us a common meeting ground to compare different interpretations. As we see how others read the Bible, we may get a new understanding of what the biblical message says to us."
Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes, Robert McAfee Brown

Reading Material

Two years ago, I read The Alchemist for the first time. The next summer, I read it again. And now I'm picking it up once more. It's amazing to me how this book manages to challenge the core of me. Each paragraph somehow relates to my life at the moment, encouraging me where I'm at. This year, among other things, the more I read the more I'm convinced that I should be reading the Bible constantly. If The Alchemist can reach my innermost thoughts in only 167 pages, God's word must be able to do so much more. Yet somehow I keep putting it off, as author Paulo Coelho has my mind completely immersed in the journey of Santiago.

If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. Originally written in Portuguese, its been translated into fifty-six languages and sold millions of copies. I'd let you borrow my copy, but it's got all of my personal thoughts scribbled through it. Get your own.

"We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand." p.76