Underdevelopment and Liberation Theology

Liberation Theology arises in Latin America (the historical roots of Liberation Theology are to be found in the prophetic tradition of evangelizers and missionaries who from the beginning of colonization questioned the type of presence of the Church in the continent and the way in which the indigenous, the blacks, the mestizos and the poor populations of the countryside and the city were treated), a poor and mostly Christian continent, was born in the context of the emergence of the Third World on the historical scene and in direct connection with the Liberation movements spread throughout the subcontinent. In this birth, the insertion of Christians in the revolutionary processes intervened in a very special and decisive way.This is the time when Latin American governments, who had blind faith in the ideal of development (developmentalism), set out to lead their countries out of archaic and traditional structures and began a process of modernization, following mimetically the steps of the model of the developed countries.