Liberation Theology in the Philippines: Faith in a Revolution studies the interrelationship of international development policies and local social and economic structures in the Philippines. This ethnography demonstrates that the application of conventional development paradigms to the situation overlooks the human suffering and displacement experienced by the people for whom the policies are supposed to help. By contrast, the Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC) movement offers an alternative strategy for development that aims to build a more just and community-oriented society, while promoting sustainable development. The study begins with an historical analysis of the relationship between liberation theology, the Catholic Church, and the nationalist struggle. The remaining chapters look at the real experiences of people living and working in the BECs, as they struggle against some of the negative impacts of traditional approaches to development. In addition, the author illustrates how BECs can fail when environmental and social factors clash with a community's attempts at development, and highlights the theology and religious aspects of the BEC movement. This unique contribution to the study of liberation theology and development will be of interest to scholars, students, and professionals working with development agencies and religious organizations.

Based on the Duffy Lectures, this book will be of interest to all theologians interested in doing vernacular, liberation, and postcolonial theologies. Brazal fills several gaps in theological research and ethics, such as the absence of postcolonial theological ethics in the Philippine context and the lack of attention in liberation-postcolonial discourse to structural and systemic dimensions of power.

A dynamic chapter of church history is now being written in Asia. But the theological inflections at its heart are not well understood by outsiders. Simon Chan explores Asian Christianity at its grassroots, sustaining level and finds a vibrant, implicit theology that is authentically Asian. More than a survey, this is a serious and constructive contribution to Asian theology.

In the chaos that is Latin American politics, what role does the Catholic church play with regard to its clergy and its members? How does the church function in Latin America on an everyday, practical level? And how successful has the church been intervening in political matters despite the fact that Latin American countries are essentially Catholic nations? Philip Berryman addresses these timely and challenging issues in this comprehensive.Unlike journalistic accounts, which all too frequently portray liberation theology as an exotic brew of Marxism and Christianity or as a movement of rebel priests bent on challenging church authority, this book aims to get beyond these cliches, to explain exactly what liberation theology is, how it arose, how it works in practice, and its implications. The book also examines how liberation theology functions at the village or barrio level, the political impact of liberation theology, and the major objections to it posed by critics, concluding with a tentative assessment of the future of liberation theology. Author note: Phillip Berryman was a pastoral worker in a barrio in Panama during 1965-73. From 1976 to 1980, he served as a representative for the American Friends Service Committee in Central America. In 1980, he returned from Guatemala to the United States and now lives in Philadelphia.

Climate change-related effects and aftermaths of natural disasters, such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, have wreaked havoc on local peoples’ lives and livelihoods, especially in impoverished coastal communities. This book looks at local-level responses to the effects of climate change from the perspective of ecological theology and feminism, which provides a solution-based and gender-equitable approach to some of the problems of climate change. It examines how local social and religious action workers are partnering with local communities to transform and reconstruct their lives and livelihoods in the 21st century.

An Alternative Vision: An Interpretation of Liberation Theology offers a complete overview of the liberation theology movement that is ideally suited for a thorough study of the major questions and important theologians that have contributed to the debate. It outlines and brings together into a single unified account liberation theology's alternate vision for providing the possibility of meaningful historical existence for humans in the world today. The author translates the Christian vision of liberation theologians from Latin America into more general theological and cultural categories familiar to the English-speaking world, then shows how that vision makes a unified interpretation of Christian doctrine. First, liberation theology must be seen as a response to massive human suffering witnessed throughout the world today. This human agony is largely caused by human beings and the social and political structures we create, and liberation theology addresses this dilemma using the tradition of Christian wisdom and direct imperatives that have universal, transcultural significance. The second goal is achieved by showing the connection between liberation principles and the major doctrines of Christian belief, including God, Jesus Christ, faith, grace, the church, sacraments, ministry, and spirituality.

The Theology of Struggle is a genuinely popular Fillipino theology rooted in the history and culture of a people who have endured colonial oppression at the hands of Spain, North America, and Japan, as well as neo-colonialism and home grown dictatorship. Because Christianity has played a role in assisting the history of oppression in the Phillippines, a theology of struggle must include a struggle in theology, to wrest Christian symbols from the hands of the oppressors and return them to the poor. This theology, which is otherwise expressed in articles, poems, art, and action, receives its first systematic treatment in Toward a Theology of Struggle. In Part On, Fernandez establishes the historical and cultural context out of which the Theology of Struggle has emerged. Part Two represents Fernandez's own constructive work, in which he shows how a theology of struggle must address the quest for identity and peoplehood. In Part Three, Fernandez explores the question of theological method, outlining the areas of convergence and distinction between the Theology of struggle and other Third World theologies, as well as setting forth the distinctive challenge that this theology of the Philippines poses to the authority and dominance of Western theology as a whole.

This extensive work explores the changing world of religions, faiths and practices. It discusses a broad range of issues and phenomena that are related to religion, including nature, ethics, secularization, gender and identity. Broadening the context, it studies the interrelation between religion and other fields, including education, business, economics and law. The book presents a vast array of examples to illustrate the changes that have taken place and have led to a new world map of religions. Beginning with an introduction of the concept of the “changing world religion map”, the book first focuses on nature, ethics and the environment. It examines humankind’s eternal search for the sacred, and discusses the emergence of “green” religion as a theme that cuts across many faiths. Next, the book turns to the theme of the pilgrimage, illustrated by many examples from all parts of the world. In its discussion of the interrelation between religion and education, it looks at the role of missionary movements. It explains the relationship between religion, business, economics and law by means of a discussion of legal and moral frameworks, and the financial and business issues of religious organizations. The next part of the book explores the many “new faces” that are part of the religious landscape and culture of the Global North (Europe, Russia, Australia and New Zealand, the U.S. and Canada) and the Global South (Latin America, Africa and Asia). It does so by looking at specific population movements, diasporas, and the impact of globalization. The volume next turns to secularization as both a phenomenon occurring in the Global religious North, and as an emerging and distinguishing feature in the metropolitan, cosmopolitan and gateway cities and regions in the Global South. The final part of the book explores the changing world of religion in regards to gender and identity issues, the political/religious nexus, and the new worlds associated with the virtual technologies and visual media.

The election of Ferdinand Marcos to the presidency of the Republic of the Philippines coincided with the conclusion of the work of Vatican II in 1965; and Marcos's dictatorial policies would inevitably clash with the Vatican's call for the clergy to advocate greater social justice for the poor. In this authoritative account of the role of the Catholic Church in the recent history of the Philippines, Robert L. Youngblood traces the political engagement of the Church over the twenty years between Marcos's election and his ouster from power in 1986. Drawing upon extensive research, Youngblood explains how, although church and state professed to share the goal of improving the welfare of the poor, Marcos's economic development policies and oppressive rule created church opposition which helped accelerate the collapse of his regime. Youngblood considers the evolution of church programs from social action projects, such as the organization of cooperatives and credit unions, to the development of social justice programs that emphasized the creation of more democratic and caring communities. He examines the dynamics by which the leaders of the Philippine Roman Catholic and Protestant churches moved from a brief period of goodwill toward the Marcos dictatorship to considerable opposition by the late 1970s, as church-sponsored work among the poor was increasingly viewed by the regime as subversive. Youngblood shows that after the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr., in 1983, the deterioration of the standard of living of average Filipinos, along with Marcos's repressive policies toward the churches and other abuses in the name of national security, were factors which impelled powerful church figures to actively oppose the dictatorship. Tracing the internal deliberations of the Philippine churches as they came to take the lead in opposing human rights abuses, Marcos against the Church deepens our understanding of problematic relations between church and state. Historians and social scientists interested in the Philippines and modern Southeast Asia, historians of religion, political scientists working in comparative politics and political development, and others concerned with issues of human rights will want to read it.