Faith Fights Empire: Liberation Shelf

Health as Liberation: Medicine, Theology, and the Quest for Justice — Alastair V. Campbell

A rare bioethics text that refuses to treat healthcare as politically neutral — Campbell fuses liberation theology with medical ethics and the result is bracingly honest. Published in 1995, Health as Liberation challenges the clinical detachment that often insulates medicine from questions of poverty, access, and structural violence. Campbell, a Scottish theologian and bioethicist, argues that health is not a private good to be purchased but a precondition for human flourishing — which means healthcare systems themselves can be sites of liberation or oppression. The book's theological grounding (Gutiérrez, Paulo Freire, feminist ethics) keeps it from drifting into policy abstraction; this is healthcare imagined as a moral obligation, not a market. As of August 2026, it remains one of the only sustained attempts to apply liberation theology to clinical practice. Explore our current copy of Health as Liberation. Browse more Philosophy books at Patina.

Latina/o Social Ethics: Moving Beyond Eurocentric Moral Thinking — Miguel A. de La Torre

De La Torre dismantles the white-centric assumptions baked into mainstream ethics — sharp, unapologetic, and essential for anyone tired of theory that pretends to be universal. Why does so much ethical theory feel like it was written by people who've never had to navigate systemic marginalisation? De La Torre's answer: because it was. Published in the mid-2000s, Latina/o Social Ethics reconstructs moral philosophy from the standpoint of Latino/a communities in the United States — immigration raids, wage theft, the assumption that English is the only language worth speaking. De La Torre rejects the "view from nowhere" pretensions of Anglo-European ethics (Kant, Rawls) in favour of an ethics grounded in lived experience: what does justice look like when your family's legal status is precarious, or your neighbourhood is redlined? The book is dense but never dull; de La Torre writes with the controlled fury of someone who's spent decades watching theory ignore the people it's supposed to serve. Explore our current copy of Latina/o Social Ethics. Browse more Philosophy books at Patina.

Social Justice in Clinical Practice: A Liberation Health Framework for Social Work — Dawn Belkin Martinez & Ann Fleck-Henderson

Martinez and Fleck-Henderson give clinical social workers the toolkit they've been missing: a liberation framework that doesn't treat systemic oppression as background noise. Published in 2014, Social Justice in Clinical Practice addresses a gap most clinical training ignores: how do you do therapeutic work with clients whose suffering is structural, not individual? The authors propose a "liberation health" model that centres race, class, gender, and immigration status as active forces in mental health outcomes — not "complicating factors" to be noted and set aside. The book is refreshingly pragmatic: case studies, intervention strategies, and a clear-eyed acknowledgment that therapy alone cannot fix poverty or deportation. It's aimed at MSW students and practitioners, but the framework applies to anyone working in helping professions who's frustrated by the gap between clinical theory and the realities clients actually face. Explore our current copy of Social Justice in Clinical Practice. Browse more Philosophy books at Patina.

Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins — Miguel A. de La Torre

De La Torre's ethics textbook reads like a manifesto — he's not interested in "both sides," just in what justice looks like when you stop centering the powerful. If Latina/o Social Ethics is de La Torre's methodological groundwork, Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins (2004) is the full theological application. He systematically reworks every major topic in Christian ethics — war, sexuality, economics, environmental justice — from the perspective of communities the mainstream church has historically marginalised: Latino/a, Black, Indigenous, queer, poor. The book refuses the polite both-sidesism of academic ethics; de La Torre's stance is that neutrality is a luxury afforded to those who benefit from the status quo. His writing is accessible without being soft — this would work as a seminary textbook or a book club selection for progressive congregations trying to move past shallow "social justice" gestures. Explore our current copy of Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins. Browse more Philosophy books at Patina.

Ethics for a Small Planet: New Horizons on Population, Consumption, and Ecology — Daniel C. Maguire & Larry L. Rasmussen

Maguire and Rasmussen wrote the definitive eco-theological ethics text of the 1990s — and it's aged disturbingly well, given we've ignored most of its warnings. Published in 1998, Ethics for a Small Planet tackles the knot of population, consumption, and ecological collapse from a religious ethics perspective — Catholic social teaching, Protestant eco-theology, and liberation theology all contribute. The core argument: the Global North's obsession with population control in the Global South conveniently ignores that a single American consumes resources equivalent to fifty Bangladeshis. Maguire and Rasmussen call for radical redistribution of wealth and a complete rethink of what "development" means. Nearly three decades later, the book's central thesis — that climate justice is inseparable from economic justice — has gone from fringe to consensus in progressive religious circles. It's dense, but if you're interested in the theological roots of today's climate activism, this is required reading. Explore our current copy of Ethics for a Small Planet. Browse more Philosophy books at Patina.

A New Christian Manifesto: Pledging Allegiance to the Kingdom of God — Bob Ekblad

Ekblad's manifesto challenges American Christians to choose: empire or Kingdom, nationalism or the radical solidarity of the early church. Bob Ekblad is a theologian who spent decades doing Bible study in prisons and migrant labour camps, and A New Christian Manifesto (2008) distills that work into a confrontational call: stop pledging allegiance to flags, borders, and economic systems that crush the poor. Ekblad reframes discipleship as defection from empire — the Roman one Jesus lived under, the American one Ekblad's readers inhabit. The book is structured as a series of provocations (Who is your real king? What does it mean to "seek first the Kingdom"?) grounded in close readings of the Gospels. It's not academic theology; it's a field manual for Christians tired of church-as-usual. Ekblad's prose is warm but uncompromising — he's after transformation, not comfort. Explore our current copy of A New Christian Manifesto. Browse more Philosophy books at Patina.

The Beautiful Gate: Enter Jesus' Global Liberation Movement — Bob Ekblad

Ekblad reframes the Gospel as an invitation into a global liberation movement — less fire insurance, more collective freedom struggle. Published in the early 2010s, The Beautiful Gate picks up where the manifesto left off: if discipleship is about joining Jesus' liberation movement, what does that actually look like on the ground? Ekblad uses Acts 3 (Peter and John healing the beggar at the Beautiful Gate) as a template for how the early church disrupted both religious and imperial power. The book weaves biblical exegesis, stories from Tierra Nueva (Ekblad's community in Washington), and reflections on what it means to follow a Messiah who was executed by the state. Ekblad's theology is unabashedly political — he rejects the "Jesus saves souls, not systems" quietism of much evangelical teaching — but it's also deeply pastoral. This is liberation theology grounded in small-group Bible study, not abstract theory. Explore our current copy of The Beautiful Gate. Browse more Philosophy books at Patina.

Guerrilla Gospel: Reading the Bible for Liberation in the Power of the Spirit — Bob Ekblad

Ekblad's hermeneutics are guerrilla tactics — he teaches marginalised readers to reclaim Scripture from the institutions that have weaponised it against them. Guerrilla Gospel (2011) is Ekblad's most methodologically explicit work: a guide to reading the Bible as a liberating text when you've been taught it's a tool of control. The "guerrilla" framing is deliberate — Ekblad positions marginalised readers (prisoners, undocumented migrants, the homeless) as interpreters whose insights mainstream scholarship misses. He walks through specific biblical texts (the Exodus, Mary's Magnificat, Jesus' temptation in the wilderness) showing how they've been domesticated by empire-friendly readings and what they look like when read by people on the underside of power. The book includes practical exercises for group Bible study; it's a manual, not just a manifesto. If you've ever felt the Bible was written for someone else, Ekblad is here to tell you it wasn't. Explore our current copy of Guerrilla Gospel. Browse more Philosophy books at Patina. These texts refuse the polite fiction that faith and politics occupy separate spheres. From de La Torre's decolonial ethics to Ekblad's grassroots biblical hermeneutics, each insists that theology without justice is just ideology with better PR. They're not easy reads — liberation theology doesn't do comfort — but if you're looking for a Christianity that doesn't baptise the status quo, this shelf is where you start.

What is liberation theology and where did it come from?

Liberation theology emerged in 1960s Latin America as a Catholic movement reinterpreting the Gospel through the lens of structural poverty and colonial oppression. Gustavo Gutiérrez's A Theology of Liberation (1971) is the foundational text, arguing that God sides with the poor and that faith must lead to concrete political action — land reform, labour rights, challenging dictatorships. The movement was endorsed by Latin American bishops at the 1968 Medellín conference but later critiqued (though never condemned) by the Vatican in the 1980s.

Where can I buy secondhand liberation theology and social justice books in Australia?

Honestly, yes — Patina Paperbacks is a Sydney-based online preloved bookshop with 13,000+ secondhand titles shipping Australia-wide. Our philosophy collection includes works by Miguel A. de La Torre, Bob Ekblad, and other liberation theology scholars. Stock rotates as copies sell and new arrivals come in, so check the current philosophy shelf for what's available right now.

Who is Miguel A. de La Torre and why does his work matter?

Miguel A. de La Torre is Professor of Social Ethics and Latino/a Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. His work dismantles the Eurocentric assumptions baked into mainstream Christian ethics, reconstructing moral philosophy from the standpoint of Latino/a communities facing immigration enforcement, economic precarity, and systemic racism. Books like Latina/o Social Ethics and Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins are required reading for anyone interested in decolonial theology and justice-focused Christianity.

What's the difference between Bob Ekblad's three books on liberation?

A New Christian Manifesto (2008) is the confrontational call to abandon empire and pledge allegiance to the Kingdom of God. The Beautiful Gate (early 2010s) shows what that looks like in practice — biblical exegesis grounded in Ekblad's work with migrants and prisoners. Guerrilla Gospel (2011) is the methodological manual: how to read the Bible as a liberating text when you've been taught it's a tool of control. Read them in order if you're new to Ekblad; start with Guerrilla Gospel if you want the hermeneutics first.

Is liberation theology still relevant in 2025?

Absolutely. Climate justice, prison abolition, immigrant rights, economic redistribution — every major justice movement today echoes liberation theology's core claim that faith without structural change is hollow. The language has shifted (fewer references to Marxist analysis, more intersectionality and decolonisation), but the central insight remains: God's justice isn't abstract, it's material, and theology that ignores power is just propaganda. Books like Martinez and Fleck-Henderson's Social Justice in Clinical Practice show how liberation frameworks are being applied in new fields.

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