Abstract
Liberation theologies and radical theologies are siblings from different parents. They both attest to the death of God: liberation theologies from the rubble of Marxist materialist historical approach and radical theologies from the remains and debris of liberalism and the hermeneutics of suspicion. Both theologies work with and against the onto-theological normativity of western thought. Radical theology proclaims that God is dead because we can finally be free from it. Liberation theology shows how this Christian God of the rich is dead, while very much alive in the arrogance of cool and trendy sepulchered religiosities. This chapter examines these points of contention before unpacking the possibility of a relationship between radical and liberation theologies.
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Notes
- 1.
To see the ways in which radical theology can be lived through an ecclesiological way, including its liturgies and homiletics, see the books of Christopher Rodkey: The Synaptic Gospel (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2012); Too Good to be True (Winchester, UK: Christian Alternative, 2014); The World is Crucifixion (Aurora, CO: Noesis, 2016).
- 2.
Mark C. Taylor, Deconstructing Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1982).
- 3.
Taylor (1984).
- 4.
John Caputo, Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida (Indianapolis, IN: Indiana UP, 1997), 4, 14.
- 5.
Victor Taylor and Charles Winquist, eds., Encyclopedia of Postmodernism (New York: Routledge, 2003), 330.
- 6.
Sergio Rouanet, “A Volta de Deus,” Folha de São Paulo, Mais! A Encruzilhada da Fé (19 May 2002), 9.
- 7.
Clayton Crockett and Jeffrey Robbins, “Foreword,” in Winquist (2003), ix.
- 8.
Merold Westphal, “Postmodern Theology,” in Edward Craig, ed., Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1998), 394.
- 9.
Taylor (1984), 11–12: “Err: to wander, or stray about, to rove…. To err, is to fail, miss, go wrong in judgment or opinion; to make a mistake, blunder, or commit a fault; to be incorrect, to go astray morally; even to sin.”
- 10.
Ibid., 13.
- 11.
Catherine Belsey, Post-Structuralism (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002), 103.
- 12.
Joan Casañas, “The Task of Making God Exist,” in The Idols of Death and the God of Life, ed. P. Richard (Oregon: Wipf, 1983), 113.
- 13.
Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton, Radical Theology and the Death of God (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966).
- 14.
Jon Sobrino, “The Spirit of Liberation: Spirituality and the Following of Jesus” in Mysterium Liberationis, eds. I. EllacurĂa and J. Sobrino (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1993), 680.
- 15.
Christopher Rodkey, a radical theologian, and Nancy Cardoso Pereira, a liberation theologian, have been doing the herculean work of the intellectual and the pastors in amazing ways. Grounded in local communities, they engage the lives of the people and the world of academic ideas.
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Carvalhaes, C. (2018). Liberation Theology. In: Rodkey, C., Miller, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Theology. Radical Theologies and Philosophies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96595-6_44
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96595-6_44
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