ABSTRACT
Liberation theologies challenge biblical scholars, preachers, and the entire Christian community to articulate their theological commitment and engagement in the liberation struggle of those who suffer from patriarchal oppressions: from racial, sexual, colonial, economic, and technological exploitation. Academic biblical scholarship with a positivist posture rejects liberation-theological interpretations of the Bible as "ideological" and "unscientific" because they are influenced by present-day concerns. In contrast with interpreters who claim to be free of institutional interests, liberation theologians maintain that theology as well as biblical interpretation are never done in an institutional and personal vacuum but consciously or not are always "interpretation for". Whenever one cannot accept the religious, political, and personal ethos and ethics of a biblical text, one cannot accept its authority as revealed and as Holy Scripture, that is, if one does not want to turn the biblical God into a God of oppression.
