Gonzalo Castillo-Cárdenas was born in Bucaramanga, Colombia. He retired as professor emeritus of church and society and third world studies from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary after teaching there for many years.
""Within this book Manuel Quintín Lame, the persecuted leader of oppressed Indians in Colombia, emerges as a fascinating and disturbing forerunner of contemporary liberation theologians. The career of Lame requires us to reassess the issues of syncretism, of the relation between suffering and insight, of the role of passion and intellect in the religious life. Readers will discover similarities between Lame and the English Winstanley or the Korean Minjung theologians, yet will recognize in Lame an utterly unique figure."" Roger L. Shinn, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary ""Repressed, persecuted, denied, co-opted, and officially forgotten, some of these ancient liberation theologies are now resurrected by/within the new liberation theologies, which, in turn, find a nurturing sense of historical, communal rootedness in the former. Such is the case of Quintín Lame's liberation theology that comes back to life here."" Otto Maduro, Professor of Sociology of Religion, Pontifical Catholic University Andrés Bello, Caracas