“The great majority of Latin Americans are not only poor but also Christian. So the great question at the beginning and still valid today was—and still is—what role Christianity has to play. How are we to be Christians in a world of destitution and injustice? There can only be one answer: we can be followers of Jesus and true Christians only by making common cause with the poor and working out the gospel of liberation.”
–Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology.
I have been reflecting on this today as I wrap up my semester's work on Globalization and have been thinking on what that word, which seems so positive, really means for the developing world that I have come to love as my own home. In the midst of all the triumphs and the growth, it has been a troubling semester...I know that I am not going to figure out my "role" as a global follower of Christ in just four years of college, or even a whole lifetime, but I am stepping firmly into the realm of discovery anyway. It has meant a lot of honest reflection, a lot of angry venting, and even more reading...I keep asking, "what does God's preferential option for the poor mean to me today, as a student of North Park? As a voting citizen in the city of Chicago? As a social justice worker in Latin America?" Scripture has taken on a whole new meaning for me: every verse speaks directly to me about my responsibility in Christ to care for "the least of these." Today, that means the homeless youth I have come to love on the streets of Chicago. Tomorrow that means the Indigenous of Peru...the next day...Palestine?
Oh Lord. Be the Life, the Source, the Joy of the marginalized.
Amen.
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