"The fifth conference of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians met in New Delhi, from August 17 to 29, 1981. The participants, fifty in all, came from twenty-seven different countries representing Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and minority groups in the U.S.A. They included observers from Europe and the U.S.A. "Poverty and oppression are universal phenomena in the Third World. The groanings, yearnings, and cries for liberation of the masses reach out to heaven, and, as in the days of Moses, God continues to be Yahweh the Liberator, who sees the affliction of the people and comes to deliver them (Exod. 3:7-9). In the struggle against oppression, God is revealed to be the saving God who acts in history. The experience of the Third World as a source of theology must be taken seriously.
"In the Third World, the poor and oppressed themselves are beginning to articulate their own reflections in both verbal and nonverbal forms. Though unsystematic and nonprofessional, this theopraxis - this faith-based interpretation of the struggle and religious experience of the poor - is a rich source of theological formulations in the Third World. Inasmuch as the poor are truly irrupting, then the God-image and expression of the poor must equally irrupt as the most meaningful image and expression of God in today's world."