Russian Émigré Theology and Latin American Liberation Theology
- Writer:Graham McGeoch
- Notes: 68 pages. 14x20
- Cover: Μαλακό
- Editor:Volos Academy Publications
- ISBN: 9786185375249
- Year:2023
This essay points out the common topics in Russian Émigré Theology and Theology of Liberation, such as the “option for the poor,” the concern for human freedom and dignity, and the action of God through history. The presence of these common themes demonstrates the influence of important theologians of both these movements to their counterparts, such as e.g. Nikolai Berdyaev, Juan Luis Segundo and Leonardo Boff. The exchanges between the two currents are largely due to their common presence and contact in Paris, a city with a great symbolic capital that provided opportunities for communication between Christian traditions, but also between the Christian and the secular, often revolutionary thinkers. Is it possible to expand the restricted use of the term Russian Émigré Theology to include “peripheries,” like Latin America, where Russians settled? Is this Russian Theology (with its own internal concerns), which wrestles with the Russian Religious Renaissance, moving in a decisively different direction to the secular Liberation Theology? Or are the discussions of human freedom in Russian émigré Theology and Liberation Theology familiar ideas and concepts being discussed in unfamiliar combinations and contexts?
Graham McGeoch is a theologian and minister of the Church of Scotland. He teaches Theology & Religious Studies at Faculdade Unida de Vitória, Brazil and collaborates with UNI periferias –an international university based in the favela Maré, Rio de Janeiro– which brings together scholars, activists and inhabitants at the periphery across the world. He served on the Geneva- based World Council of Churches Executive and its Central Committee (2006-2013). He studied English Literature and Politics at the University of Glasgow, Theology at the Presbyterian University of Mackenzie, São Paulo, Theology at the University of Edinburgh, and Theology & Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow. He is a member of the Society of Latin American Studies and the International Orthodox Theological Association.
