Liberation Theology

In El Salvador, Liberation Theology is alive and well.  The Theology of Liberation is ... an attempt to link theology with social justice in an intellectual and practical sense simultaneously.  It challenges the church to rethink its very mission and reason for being in a changing world, a world of oppression, exploitation, a world of poverty affecting millions of people across the globe.

There are four ideas central to the movement:

• The preferential option for the poor.  This means that the church must align itself with poor people as they demand justice.
• Institutional violence.  Liberationists see a hidden violence in social arrangements that create hunger and poverty.
• Structural sin.  Liberation theologians argue that there is a social dimension that is more than the sum of individual acts of sin. 
• Orthopraxis.  This term was coined by liberation theologians as a counterpoint to insistence on orthodoxy, meaning correct belief.  Liberation theologians argue that what is most fundamental is not just correct belief, but correct action--that is, an effort leading to human liberation.

While some of this is not easy to understand, the people in El Salvador whom we met believe strongly that religion should not be used to oppress and I agree.  We went to the sites where Archbishop Oscar Romero was killed and to where four priests and several nuns were killed all because they spoke out against oppression in the church.  It is only when we know the atrocities that we can do something about not letting these things continue.