Charles H. Long the Liberationist: Context, Contact, and Meaning


Liberation theology confronts head-on the dominant systems and structures of power. It shakes the foundations of empire and hegemony, deconstructs the public narrative of silent subordination, and rejects the portrait of the citizen as suffering servant. The liberationist calls for changes that necessarily transcend the individual subject into the societal landscape. This paper argues that the historian of religion, Charles H. Long engages his scholarship with such liberative sensibilities. It suggests that the works of Long are better understood with this added liberatory lens. Accordingly, it suggests the incorporation of Long into the corpus of liberationist thinkers.