GUSTAVO GUTIÉRREZ: THE FATHER OF LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2002

Peruvian liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez's massive work, Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ, should not be read as a defensive or retreating move for liberation theology in the face of two decades of opposition. Rather, it is best understood as a creative and strategic counteroffensive to advance liberation theology in terms that the Vatican can only find difficult to counter. Nevertheless, liberation theology struggles with the difficulty of intellectually justifying itself on nondependency and non-Marxist grounds. In any case, the struggle for the work of liberation in Latin America continues. Conventional wisdom has it that liberation theology is in trouble. Multiple besetting challenges and oppositions are said to be inducing the movement's demise: the disintegration of socialism in the ex-Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Cuba; the replacement of many liberationist bishops with conservatives by an oppositional Pope John Paul II; the electoral defeat and splintering of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas; the shift in focus from Latin American dependency to Latin American debt; the Vatican's ignominious silencing of Leonardo Boff; the renewal of electoral democracy in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s; and the disillusioning character of multiple popular Latin American liberationist movements, including Peru's brutal Sendero Luminoso. Signs of liberation theology's plight are increasingly evident. Former liberationist militants, such as Hugo Assman, significantly moderating their thinking, and former champion of ecclesial progressivism, Leonardo Boff, feeling compelled to resign from the priesthood, it is suggested, disclose a movement in intellectual, ecclesiological, and political crisis. The 1993 publication of Gustavo Gutiérrez's Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ merely confirmed, for many, the impression of liberation theology's demise. This massive, 682page tome by the movement's leading light is not a step forward, but backward. Las Casas is a retreat to the past, a defensive move. The going has gotten tough. The present is in crisis. So Gutiérrez is leading his readers to hunker down and keep hope alive by tapping into the continuity and stability of history, by taking solace in a great hero of days gone by. The passion and militancy of Gutiérrez's earlier work is gone. But, given liberation theology's present troubles, a defensive retreat to the past is about the best, and perhaps wisest, move that Gutiérrez could currently make. So it is said. I suspect, however, that Gutiérrez had something entirely different and more clever in mind. Las Casas, it seems to me, is not most plausibly read as a defensive retreat to the comfort of the past. Rather, Las Casas is best read as a strategically offensive move that challenges Romeindeed, the entire Catholic Church-with the imperative to reconstruct the very essentials of Christian systematic theology. Gutiérrez is not hunkering down. He is taking aim at the heart of the Vatican-guarded doctrines of christology, soteriology, eschatology, and missiology, and doing so in a politically keen way that leaves him virtually invulnerable to counterattack. With Las Casas, Gutiérrez appears to be saying that, not only is liberation theology not collapsing,

Biblical Interpretation, 1996

Journal of Church and State, 1979

ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2015

This dissertation examines the content and meaning of Gustavo Gutiérrez’s notion of liberation in his preand post-1986 writings, framing the trajectory of this notion as a direct response to the 1984 and 1986 Vatican condemnations of liberation theology, composed by former-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now, former-Pope Benedict XVI). While Gutiérrez’s early theology was in part informed by Marxian social critique, charges of explicit “Marxism” resulted in a significant reordering of some central critical elements, in ways that complicate the fundamental liberationist assertion that theology is to be a “second act.” Following Ratzinger’s critique, Gutiérrez moves ever closer to a theology that talks about liberation, and away from a theology that is itself liberatory, particularly as bound to praxis and critique. Where Gutiérrez once questioned the very meaning of religious unity in a world characterized by (economic) division, for example, his later theology abandons such speculation, ...

Australian Religion Studies Review, 2012

The liberation theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez has offered an effective postcolonial critique of the conditions of life of the Latin American poor, and of a theological method that legitimated them. The present article studies early writings of Gutiérrez that show his critique taking form. In the first instance, Gutiérrez argued, theological truth is not something beheld in philosophical theoria, but is rather a performance of agonistic practice. One may usefully abstract to theoretical expressions of the truth about divine matters; however, the abstractions are only useful if—indeed only true if— they play back upon that practice to effect greater freedom for the poor. So Gutiérrez drew upon and pointed toward a ‘new spirituality’—a theological and practical reorientation away from the spirit of a Eurocentric faith, enmeshed in the geopolitics of colonialism and neocolonialism under which most Latin Americans have suffered for centuries, toward the spirit in which the poor whom he served live. Eventually, in pursuing this reorientation himself, Gutiérrez became persuaded that methodology is not the primary mode of critique, and began a turn from conceiving theology as ‘critical reflection on practice’ to conceiving it as ‘thought about a mystery’. This study’s limited purpose is to understand Gutiérrez’ development to this pivotal moment.

Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology, 2000

Full-text available at http://hdl.handle.net/10523/12753. David Tombs, ‘The Legacy of Ignacio Ellacuría for Liberation Theology in a “post-Marxist” Age’, Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology 8.1 (August 2000), pp. 38-53. Note This paper was originally presented at the American Academy of Religion Meeting, Boston, 20th November 1999, at the Religion in Latin America and the Caribbean Group in a session on ‘Liberation Theology in a “Post-Marxist” Age’ to mark the tenth anniversary of Ellacuría’s assassination. It was subsequently published as David Tombs, ‘The Legacy of Ignacio Ellacuría for Liberation Theology in a “post-Marxist” Age’, Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology 8.1 (August 2000), pp. 38-53. It is reproduced here with kind permission from the Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology. Abstract The shifts in global politics in the last two decades have been described as the demise of Marxism and the triumph of capitalism. In this context, the murder of Ignacio Ellacuría SJ, five other Jesuits and two women (who had sought protection in their residence at the Universidad Centroamericana in San Salvador), was one of the last military operations conducted in twentieth-century ideological conflicts over Marxism. As Rector of the University, Ellacuría was an ‘engaged intellectual’ who was well-known for his commitment to the poor. In response members of the Salvadoran military, church and business community repeatedly claimed that Ellacuría was a Marxist subversive and eventually these accusations precipitated his assassination. The analysis of his relationship to Marxist movements, analysis and thought presented here demonstrates that this was never the case. Ellacuría had contacts with leaders of the armed opposition but was never a member of any armed or Marxist group. He drew on Marxist analysis and terminology but, as his response to the Vatican Instruction on liberation theology shows, despite recognising the value of parts of its analysis he always remained critical of Marxism as a system and distanced himself from aspects that he saw as incompatible with his Christian faith. He insisted that he was a Christian not a Marxist, and that the most significant influence on his thought was his faith in God in a world of inhuman suffering. Since Ellacuría’s death, El Salvador’s peace process and transition to democracy in the 1990s has changed the social and political context in which he worked. However, the structural violence and poverty remain a crucial challenge to Christian faith in El Salvador and elsewhere in Latin America. Ellacuría’s understanding of the virtues and potential pitfalls of theological engagement with Marxist social analysis will continue to be relevant for liberation theology as it seeks to present Christian faith in a prophetic way in the new so-called ‘post-Marxist’ context.

Politics & Policy, 1989

Philippiniana Sacra

2lbid., p. 184. 'Gutiérrez echoes the profound thought which Thomas Aquinas already expressed several centuries ago: "Es más lo que no sabemos de Dios que lo que sabemos de El." José María Arguedas, a Peruvian writer from whom Gutiérrez draws a considerable amount of inspiration, expresses a similar idea in these words: "es mucho menos lo que sabemos que la gran esperanza que sentimos." G. GUTIERREZ, El Dios de la vida, Lima, 1981, pp. 5-6. '/bid. p. 6. The original runs thus: "No parece importante subrayar que, efectivamente, la teología intenta pensar el misterio. Y hay que recordarlo con claridad porque tal vez ha habido, y hay todavía, en la Iglesia un cierto discurso sobre la fe que habla de Dios con demasiada certeza; con tal seguridad que parece dueño del conocimiento de Dios. En efecto, se dan teologías ... que se presentan como sabiéndolo todo sobre Dios: su esencia, atributos, cualidades, etc. En realidad, el llamado de la teología tradicional, expresado por ejemplo en el doctor de Aquino-llamado que hunde sus raíces en un fondo bíblico-nos alerta para asumir el discurso sobre Dios con mucha mayor humildad. Ciertamente hablaremos del Dios de nuestra fe, pero conscientes de que es poco lo que sabemos de El ... Limitación mas bien carácter preciso de la reflexión teológica, que puede esclarecerse si tenemos presente un tema clásico ... acerca de ese vrofundo misterio que es el Dios bíblico."

Kairos : Evangelical Journal of Theology, 2018

In this paper, we will explore liberation theology as defined by Gustavo Gutierrez, who is considered to be its founder. We will use it as an example to show how secular philosophy, and Marxism in particular, can influence Christianity and create new theological directions and movements. Also, we will see if there are some of its principles which we can freely accept as Christians, and which of them do we need to take with a grain of salt.

Kairos

In this paper, we will explore liberation theology as defined by Gustavo Gutierrez, who is considered to be its founder. We will use it as an example to show how secular philosophy, and Marxism in particular, can influence Christianity and create new theological directions and movements. Also, we will see if there are some of its principles which we can freely accept as Christians, and which of them do we need to take with a grain of salt.

Liberation theology is a very broad concept and this work is going to deal with exploring the concepts of salvation in the writings of Gustavo Gutiérrez. It will be evaluated and compared with the same concepts in the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr. Although Niebuhr has not used the term liberation, I believe that it is possible to compare the two authors by tracing the similarities and differences throughout the definitions of sin, the role of the church and the formulation of salvation. So I will try to do comparative analysis of salvation in the Gutiérrez's liberation theology with the same concept in religious social theory, so called 'Christian realism' of Reinhold Niebuhr.