A review of Raúl Zegarra’s A Revolutionary Faith Using Quotations
Liberation theology between public religion and public reason
A Revolutionary Faith by Raúl Zegarra is definitely a top read of 2023. I was going to review it, but then decided a selection of quotes would serve just as well to facilitate reflection, and maybe inspire you to read the book for yourself.
So I present these quotes without commentary, hoping they will consolidate your thinking on how Christianity is considered anew based on the insights of liberation theology.
“The question of poverty is increasingly understood as a structural problem that cannot be solved through charity. Hence, the moral responsibility of the Christian believer facing the problems of poverty and injustice cannot avoid structural solutions. It cannot avoid politics.”
“Guided by their faith-but with implications that go beyond the traditional religious realm-liberation theologians and the communities shaped by their theology demand a new social arrangement in which politics and the economy are put at the service of the people, especially the most vulnerable. Hence, liberation theologians take advantage of the autonomy of the temporal order, gained through the process of secularization-as-differentiation, to push-on religous grounds for a more just here and now. What we see here is a multilayered and complex process that deserves careful consideration.
In this sense, liberation theology has been crucial in a still-in-the-making transformation of Christianity, in which the response to the systemic problem of social inequality is no longer solely charity and almsgiving but a correlative systemic critique and proposal of new social structures.”
“The poor are not merely the receivers of the solidarity of the better-off or just the object of study of the progressive-minded theologian. The poor, through their organizing, witness, and reinterpretation of the role of faith in the process of liberation, are active producers of new articulations of the Christian tradition. In this new articulation- systematically presented in the work of Gustavo Gutierrez, among others- the preferential option for the poor takes a hermeneutical normative role: so much so, that in David Tracy's theol-ogy-through the symbol of the Second Coming- it is elevated to the status of a fundamental, indeed classic, symbol to disclose the meaning of the Christian mystery as a whole.”
For liberation theology, fulfilling the promises of God’s love for creation requires going beyond “special love” for the poor to pursue social justice advocating for systemic change.
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Finally this poignant description of how things have changed for liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez over the past decade…
“A certain pessimism seems to have overcome Gutiérrez. He shares with me. “Some of the things we used to do, do not work as much anymore. There is less community? Yer he immediarely continues in a more hopeful vein: "But we never know. What we do know is that life is not separated: the life of prayer from the life of politics. They are different, of course; but there is unity [between them as well." In fact, Gutiérrez adds in the same interview that when we break the unity between faith and politica in the life of Christian discipleship, terrible things start happening.
People want to limit the things God cares about just to those understood as traditionally religious, instead of believing that nothing escapes God's gaze and concern.
"But people often resist this unity.”Gutiérrez shares.
He adds: "We tend to overstress themes like sin or the cross when we think about faith. Sin is, of course, important; but it has to be contextualized.
Devotion is important, but (it is] not enough? Fully separating this from our political responsibilities appears to him to be a mistake, a theological mistake.
Yet, he adds, we should acknowledge that there is lack of trust in the political process. And that lack of trust is legitimate."
Therefore, the new ecclesial and sociopolitical situation demanded a change of strategy. It also demanded new forms of articulation of our fundamental question, that of the relationship between faith and politics, As Gutiérrez stresses, the new situation required "a transformation of our way of living out our Christian faith. We kept the same beliefs, but there were changes: we had to find new meeting places and areas of outreach, we had to add nuances, some things [like their parishes] were taken away from us." A spirituality of resistance and persistence had to develop. Lay-people, for instance, migrated to nonprofits in which they continued to live out the values of their Christian faith. The Bartolomé de las Casas Institute was vital in that process. It became a place of resistance that gave resources to many people, lay and religious, to defend the option for the poor. One central aspect of such formation, Gutiérrez adds, was the study of magisterial documents so that people could understand that the preferential option for the poor was deeply embedded in the social teachings of the Catholic Church.
At a more personal level, Gutiérrez shares:
"For me the question was if all this was worth doing. I decided to do it. But many friends in Latin America decided to leave [the Church, the project. I tried to convince them to stay. But I do not blame them; the conditions were worse in other places." He adds: "What saved (this project) was our persistence.
We learned how to be Christians in difficult times. We learned from the example of Jesus: there is suffering, but we can also have joy, hope, and celebration. That is the way you resist."