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Development and Environment: in Dialogue with Liberation Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Celia Deane‐Drummond
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Extract

It is only comparatively recently that there has been an attempt to examine issues in environment and development together, rather than separately. The shift in attitude by the greens came as a result of the realisation that poor nations are forced to destroy their environment in order to survive and by the developers as a result of a new awareness that policies which destroy the very basis for change are invalid. The broad agreement in the notion that both environment and development are interconnected applies regardless of the particular models of development or environment.

Liberation theology identifies with a particular model of development which arose at a time when the global and political implications of environmental issues were largely ignored. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that environmental concerns are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the classical texts. The purpose of this paper is to explore both the challenge of the environment to liberation theology and its possible contribution to an inclusive environmental theology. Some models of development are more likely to be compatible with particular environmental philosophies. What contribution, if any, can liberation theology make to the current debate?

In the post-war era the conventional wisdom of the so-called ‘modernisation’ theory held that in order to achieve development so called ‘underdeveloped’ nations must adopt a profit incentive and find ways and means for economic productivity.

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Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 78 , Issue 916 , June 1997, pp. 279 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

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