from Part II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2026
This chapter shows how, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the WCC sought to spread the liberationist form of human rights activism developed in response to authoritarianism in Latin America to other world regions. In Asia and Africa, the ecumenical movement sought to apply lessons derived from the Latin American context while at the same time developing approaches suited to the particular contexts at play. South Korea’s minjung theology, which played a prominent role in resistance to the country’s military dictatorship as well as its deep economic inequality, was a widely influential example of Asian liberation theology that mixed with human rights advocacy. In sub-Saharan Africa, the All-Africa Conference of Churches encouraged churches to resist their political leaders’ efforts to deflect criticism of their own human rights records, though the struggle against apartheid and skepticism of human rights as essentially Western hampered such efforts. For Christians in Western Europe and North America, meanwhile, taking up a liberationist human rights agenda meant applying a critical lens to Western societies, but especially finding ways to act in solidarity with the Third World.
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