Manfred K. Bahmann

A Preference for the Poor tells the story of Latin American Liberation Theology in a succinct and scholarly, yet readable way. Author Manfred Bahmann highlights the emphases of major Latin American liberation theologians; the rise of military dictatorships; the pope's course correction in his 1975 encyclica "Evangelii Nuntiandi," fleshed out at the 1979 Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) conference in Puebla; and the movement's decline with the collapse of world Marxism. Following a description of the phenomenal growth of Pentecostalism on the traditionally Roman Catholic continent, Dr. Bahmann posits a Protestant view of a new Liberation Theology built on a spiritual foundation for Christian believers within a world of global capitalism.