Gutierrez, Gustavo. A theology of liberation: history politics and salvation, New York: Orbis books, 1988.
The purpose of this book is to express the meaning and
the nature of the theology liberation and to describe the reason which gave the
birth of new era in Latin America. It expresses the new challenges to injustice
and dependence. According to the writer the term liberation theology is the critical
reflection on the Christian praxis in the light of the word of God. The writer
uses the term liberation as better the explanation of the term development. In
new sense the liberation can be understood as single process of salvation.
The author
starts his book with an explanation of some different ways of doing theology.
According to the classical point of view, the theology can be understood as wisdom
and as rational knowledge. The theology as wisdom is about the meditation on
the Bible and spiritual life. The
theology as rational knowledge was established as science. Its functions are
permanent because its meeting is between faith and reason. There are some theologians who have different
views on theology as rational knowledge like Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great
and Abelard. After that, the author
shows that theology must be understood as critical reflection on praxis which
is based on the following's person, events and issues like charity, spirituality
and anthropology.
The author talks about the concept of the development.
The word development is that is opposite to the underdevelopment. This term
present two points of views. They are
rich countries and poor counties. This term is related to social process and
includes the economic, social, political and cultural aspects. The important
point is correct understanding of different levels of the liberation process. Those
levels are liberation of whole classes in economic and political sense and
individual level of liberation. The
general idea of liberation is to be free from dependence.
There are different responses
to the question of the relationship between faith and temporal realities and
between the church and the world. The
author shows those responses by history. He starts from the Christendom
mentality and continues until new Christendom. The new Christendom is the new theological
mentality and pastoral approaches which attempts to learn from the separation
between faith and social life. In this fourth chapter we can see how the church
as a power in relation to the world has been profoundly modified during the
human history but it continues to be at the centre of the work of salvation. It follows to conclude that people always search
for the just a democratic society which is based upon justice, respect for the rights
of the other and human fellowship. According to the author there are two missions
of the church in the world. They are
evangelization and inspiration of temporal sphere. The task of the kingdom of
God is to provide the fellowship of the church and world.
In the chapter five of
this book, the author has mentioned the crisis on the two levels. These two
levels are pastoral action and the theological reflection. In the pastoral action, he has founded the
necessity for the Christian community to return to the purely religious and
spiritual function of the church. In the theological reflection, the author defines
some terms like secularization which is the result of a transformation of the
human self-understanding. Harvey Cox writes that we
have defined secularization as the liberation of man from religious and
metaphysical tutelage, the turning of his attention away from other worlds and
toward this one, humanism and
worldliness. At the end of this chapter
the author shows that humankind has one call to salvation and to participate in
the liberation process is already participation in the work of salvation.
The chapter six and seven shows us that the
Latin America has gotten a new rebirth and awareness after long process of
oppression, dependence and regression. Latin America has begun to move in the
direction of modernization. There is criticized about capitalism which is a
form of imperialism and colonialism and justified socialism as more appropriate
choice for society. The author has seen the oppressor in this situation was the
United States of America. He claims to reject all kinds of oppressors by use of
social revolution
The author in the chapter
eight has raised some question like what is the meaning of the faith. And how to build a just society in harmony
with values of the kingdom? He sees that
Medellin's meeting was beginning of new relationship between pastoral language
and the social actions. The author is calling Christian to learn to live and
think of peace in the conflict. According to him the Latin Americans are moving
to new idea of the unity and community. It means that the Christian task is to
be in the world without being of world.
The author talks about
the relationship between salvation and the process of the human liberation
throughout the society in the ninth chapter of this book. Here, he is trying to
find the connections between the unjust society and the creation of a new
humanity. The centre of God's salvific
design is Jesus Christ, who by his death and resurrection transform universe
and makes it possible for the person to reach fulfillment as human being.
Human history is the
location of our encounter with God in Christ. In this tenth chapter, the author
says the humanity is the temple of God. It means that God dwells everywhere and
will present in the very heart of every human being. He talks about our relation with not with God
but also with our neighbor. He says that to love one's neighbors is to love
Christ because Christ is within the neighbor. The third things which can help
to someone to build a more just society is to know what real spirituality is. Real
spirituality is participation in the struggle for liberation of those oppressed
by others.
In the chapter eleven,
the author talks about the eschatology and politics as parts of the liberation
theology. The eschatological ideas are the divine force of the theology of
liberation. There is different view of
some person's about hop like Hegel and Marx and Feuerbach. This hope doesn't only
believe in future but also fulfilling the mobilization and the liberating
function in history against injustice and trampled human rights. The political
dimension of gospel is another part of liberation theology. The author is taking Metz' political theology
and rereading Jesus in the light of politics, his socio-political attitudes and
the relationship with Zealots. In this case the church becomes an institution
of social criticism and serves as the liberation.
The author is talking
about the church and sacrament in the history in the twelve chapters of this
book. here, he writes about the relation
between the ecclesiastical task and the God's plan of salvation, according to the
author, all our ecclesiology will depend the kind of relationship that we
establish between two to call the church the visible sacrament of the saving
unity is to define it in relation to the plan of salvation whose fulfillment in
history the church reveals and signifies the human race
The last chapter of this
book is thirteen. In this chapter, the author is writing about the poverty. According
to the writer, there is two kinds of poverty.
They are material poverty and the spiritual poverty. The material
poverty is the lack of economic goods necessary for a human life worthy of the
name. Blessed are the poor in spirit is
spiritual poverty. This is the precondition for being able to receive the word
of God. He comes to the logical conclusion that poverty must be understood as
solidarity with those who suffer on the one hand and on the other hand as a
protest against all those who practice oppression.
I was quite upset before
when I didn't understand at all while reading this book once because this
book has very hard English word like
secularization, colonialism, imperialism and capitalism etc. but later, I have
come to understand that this book a theology of liberation is very beautiful
books. I liked so much this book while reading because this books help me to know
the hard situation of Latin America as well as the relation between the church an
world, salvation and creation, I enjoyed reading this book because this book
has thirteen chapter with different topic all of these
topic are based on theology. Over all, this book is very effective books for me
and helped me to grow my theological understanding.
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