Liberation Theology and Indigenous People

Abstract

The development of two-thirds world contextual local theologies is a part of the larger movement for liberation and selfhood. Though contextualization of theology has been the way of doing theology throughout the history of Christian thought, the recent contextual theologies in the two-thirds world, such as dalit theology, minjung theology, feminist theology, and others, significantly differ in their methodology, approach, focus, and content from dominant theological paradigms. Despite the primary focus and goal of these theologies being liberation, their approaches to liberation are different. For example, feminist/womanist theology reflects the struggle of women in the context of their experience of oppression and marginalization in male dominated structures and a major focus is on women’s liberation. Black theology reflects “Black experience” and the struggle of Black people. Minjung theology is a product of the struggle of the Korean people against the dictatorial regime exercised particularly in the 1970s. Dalit theology’s main focus is to dismantle the oppressive caste structure and liberate the dalit from caste discrimination. Similarly, the methodology and perspective of indigenous theology also differs from other contextual or dominant theologies. Therefore, this essay attempts to highlight the distinctiveness of indigenous theology to widen the perspective of liberation theology.