Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

386 • LIBERATION THEOLOGYand sentenced to life imprisonment in March 1999 but committedsuicide in his jail cell in February 2007.In January 2007 two pipe bombs were mailed, one to AmericanCentury Investments in Kansas City, Missouri, and the other to JanusCapital Group in Denver, Colorado. The bombs were not functionaland each was accompanied by a letter signed “the bishop” demandingthat the firms change certain stock prices. On 25 April 2007, U.S.authorities in Dubuque, Iowa, arrested a former postal worker, JohnP. Tomkins, who was charged with mailing the bombs.In Great Britain in the period 18 January–8 February 2007, a letterbomber struck seven times, maiming nine victims, until on 19February 2007 police arrested Miles Cooper, a school janitor, whowas then prosecuted for the bombings. The bombings were directedat forensic science laboratories, and Cooper appeared to be an animalrights advocate. In August 2007 Britain experienced a campaign ofletter bombs believed to have been carried out by right-wing extremists,in which 18 letters and six packages, some containing bombsand others containing glass, razor blades, and threatening messages,were sent targeting left-wing parties, Jewish and Muslim groups, andadvocacy groups representing homosexuals and the disabled.LIBERATION THEOLOGY. Liberation theology is an attempt toreinterpret the Christian gospel as a creed of social, economic, andpolitical liberation and to reconcile it with leftist revolutionarymovements. This theology has spread predominantly among theRoman Catholic clergy of Latin America, although it is also beingespoused by segments of older Protestant denominations representedwithin the World Council of Churches and has developed advocatesamong Roman Catholics and nonfundament alist Protestants outsideLatin America. Of the various clerical orders, the Jesuits have beenmost intimately connected with this movement, while the missionaryreligious order associated with Maryknoll has also undertaken advocacyof this worldview. While liberation theology appeared to bean amalgamation of Marxism and dependency theory with Christiantheology, this doctrine owed much to the Catholic concept of corporalacts of mercy, to the view of the congruity and synergism of goodworks with faith, and to a postmillennialist view of church history.By propounding the theology of liberation and joining forces withrevolutionaries fighting social injustice, many clerics believed they