2013 Articles

All for One or One for All? Liberation Theology and the Quest for Self- Determination in Latin America, Israel, Palestine, and the United States

Hesselmans, Marthe

At the onset of the apartheid regime halfway into the twentieth century, many Afrikaners believed they engaged in a righteous God ordained struggle of liberation. After decades of British suppression they would now be free to fulfill their Christian mission and preside over South Africa. Later that century anti-apartheid activists would similarly invoke the Scriptures, this time to urge the liberation of blacks from Afrikaner oppression. In both cases people claimed the right to self-determination partly on the basis of their faith. In the first case theological notions of liberation and election helped bolster a profoundly exclusivist ideology and systematic racism. Within the anti-apartheid movement theologians, on the contrary, sought to develop an inclusive theology that advocated freedom for all of humanity.