#gustavo guiterrez

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If we understand salvation as something with merely "religious" or "spiritual" value for my soul, then it would not have much to contribute to concrete human life. But if salvation is understood as passing from less human conditions to more human conditions, it means that messianism brings about the freedom of captives and the oppressed, and liberates human beings from the slavery that Paul VI referred to (Populorum Progressio no. 47). 

The sign of the coming of the messiah is the suppression of oppression: the messiah arrives when injustice is overcome. When we struggle for a just world in which there is not servitude, oppression, or slavery, we are signifying the coming of the messiah. Therefore the messianic promises bind tightly together the kingdom of God and better living conditions for human beings or, as Paul VI said, more human living conditions. An intimate relationship exists between the kingdom and the elimination of poverty and misery. The kingdom comes to suppress injustice.

Gustavo Guiterrez, "Toward a Theology of Liberation" (July 1968), trans. Alfred T. Hennelly, S.J.

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When. we speak of theology, we mean a theology that takes into account its variation according to time and circumstances. From this we can deduce three characteristics: 

1. Theology is a progressive and continuous understanding, which is valuable to a certain extent. If it were merely the understanding of abstract thought, this would not be true. If theology is the understanding of an existential stance, it is progressive, it is the understanding of a commitment in history concerning the Christian's location in the development of humanity and the living out of faith. 

2. Theology is a reflection - that is, it is a second act, a turning back, a reflecting that comes after action. Theology is not first; the commitment is first. Theology is the understanding of the commitment and the commitment is action. The central element is charity, which involves commitment, while theology arrives later on. 

This is what ancient authors said with regard to philosophy: "Primum vivere, demde philosophare- first you must live, and then philosophize." We have interpreted this as first la dolce vita, and then some reflection if we have time. No, the principle is much more profound: philosophy, like theology, is a second act. The pastoral consequences of this are immense. It is not the role of theology to tell us what to do or to provide solutions for pastoral action. Rather, theology follows in a distinctive manner the pastoral action of the church and is a reflection upon it. 

3. If it is the intellectual understanding of a commitment, theology is an endeavor that must continuously accompany that commitment. The pastoral action of the church will be a commitment to God and the neighbor, while theology will accompany that activity to provide continual orientation and animate it. Every action of ours must be accompanied by a reflection to orient it, to order it, to make it coherent, so that it does not lapse into a sterile and superficial activism.

Gustavo Guiterrez, "Toward a Theology of Liberation" (July 1968), trans. Alfred T. Hennelly, S.J.

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To have faith in Christ is to see the history in which we are living as the progressive revelation of the human face of God. "Who sees me sees the Father." 

Gustavo Guiterrez, "Toward a Theology of Liberation" (July 1968), trans. Alfred T. Hennelly, S.J.

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14th of 2015.

A Theology of Liberation // Gustavo Gutiérrez.

Venerated theologian, impassioned pastor, and lover of the poor. Very few people can write these words like Guitérrez has done. Even fewer people can validate these words like Guitérrez has done and continues to do. American [Evangelical] Protestants will do well by reading from this premier, “poor” (one must read the last section on poverty to…

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