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Theology, according to liberation theologians is only a second step. The first is praxis. A liberating praxis puts the poor and the marginalised at the centre. It is found in the collective response of global religious communities responding to crises – and a global pandemic offers an important case in point, reminding religions of our shared humanity, and the need for interreligious cooperation and understanding to effect a positive response.
In the context of seismic socio-economic and political change, religion provides a communal response for feeding the poor, fighting for their rights, and challenging the post-colonial financial model that is now beginning to lose its ground.
This book blends an examination of emerging research on the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in marginalised communities, with the author’s own research on social and poverty isolation in India, and his own experience as told in diaries written whilst in lockdown in a poor district of Santiago, Chile. It challenges majority world churches and religions in a post-pandemic world to learn from each other and from Jesus’ own identification with the outcast, and urges them to take on a way of life and prophetic learning from the world of the poor.
Mario Aguilar is the director and a founding member of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics at the University of St Andrews. Aguilar's research includes what is considered to be the largest study of its kind, a ten-year research project (2007-2017) on religion and politics in Tibet. He is the author of numerous books, and the general editor of a three volume Handbook on Liberation Theology.