548
LIBERATION THEOLOGY 549
Source: Gustavo Gutierrez. "Liberation Theology." In The New Dictionary
of Catholic Social Thought. Edited by Judith Dwyer.
Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1994. 548-553.
liBERATION THEOLOGY
Latin American liberation theology first
appeared around 1960, facing vigorous
pastoral opposition. (At almost the same
time, black theology of!iberation appeared
in the United States, followed by similar
yet different theological perspectives from
different parts of oppressed and marginal­
ized humanity.) Liberation theology in
Latin America arose from the poverty of
the great majority of the Latin American
population and the understanding that the
reality of the misery was due to a profound
social injustice,. together with the under­
standing that this was contrary to the
preaching of the life-kingdom, central to
Jesus' gospel, and of the need to live with
joy and hope the grace of God's love.
From the beginning this effort to under­
stand our faith had three important ques­
tions: What does it mean to do theology?
What is the meaning of poverty in biblical
revelation? How can we witness resu!Tec­
tion in a context of poverty and death?
Those questions are still present. They will
be our guide in this brief work.
Talking About God
Every theology is talk about God; in
the final analysis, God is its only subject
matter. On the other hand, the God of
Jesus Christ is presented to us as a mystery.
A sound theology is therefore conscious of
attempting something difficult, not to say
impossible, when it seeks to think this
mystery and speak about it. This fact ac­
counts for the well-known statement of
Thomas Aquinas: "We cannot know what
God is, but only what God is not." At the
same time, however, God is a mystery that
must be communicated and may not be
left hidden, because it means life for every
human being. How, then, are to find a
we
way of speaking about God?
Adopting the viewpoint of the theology
of liberation, I will say that we must begin
by contemplating God and doing God's
will and that only in a second step are we to
think about God. By this I mean that wor­
ship of God and the doing of God's will
are the necessary conditions for thinking
about God. Only if we start in the realm of
practice will we be able to develop a dis­
course about God that is authentic and
respectful.
Contemplation and commitment within
history are fundamental dimensions of
Christian practice; thus there is no way of
evading them. The mystery reveals itself
through prayer and solidarity with the
poor. I call Christian life itself the "first
act"; only then can this life inspire a pro­
cess of reflectioil, which is the "second
act." Contemplation and commitment
combine to form what may be called the
phase of silence before God. Theological
discourse, on the other hand, is a speaking
about God. Theology is talk that is con­
stantly enriched by silence.
The great hermeneutical principle of
faith, and therefore of all theological dis­
course, is Jesus Christ. The incarnation of
the Son of God is the basis of the herme­
neutical circle: from human being to God
and from God to human being, from his­
tory to faith and from faith to history, from
human words to the word of the Lord and
from the word of the Lord to human
words, from love of our brothers and sis­
ters to love of the Father and from love of
the Father to love of our brothers and sis­
ters, from human justice to the holiness of
God and from the holiness of God to
human justice.
Theology is a critical reflection, in the
light of the Divine Word received in faith,
on the presence of Christians in the world.
As such, it must help us to see how we are
to relate the life of faith to the demands
made upon us in the building of a human
and just society. It will make explicit the
values of faith, hope, and charity con­
tained in this commitment. In the final
analysis, theology helps make service of
the church's evangelizing mission more
evangelical, more concrete, more effec­
tive. Theology is in the service of the
church's work of evangelization and devel­
ops within it as an ecclesial function.
In the framework of theology of libera­
tion the distinction of two phases (first act
and second act} is a key element in theo­
logical method, that is, in the procedure
that must be followed for reflecting in the
light of faith. It is no, a matter simply of
theological methodology but rather im­
plies a lifestyle, a way of being and of be­
coming a disciple of Jesus.
In the book that tells us of the acts of the
first Christian community, the Christian
manner of life is given a particular and
original name: "the way." The word is used
without any further qualification. To "fol­
low the way" means to conduct oneself in a
certain manner; the Greek word hodos can
mean both conduct and way or path. Chris­
tians are distinguished by their behavior,
their lifestyle.
Reflection on the mystery of God can be
undertaken only by following in the foot­
steps of Jesus. It can therefore be said that
our methodology is our spirituality, that is,
our way of being Christians. Perhaps it is
because of this connection between Chris­
tian life and theological method that the
basic ecclesial communities of Latin
America are playing an increasingly active
role in this development of a theology. For
these communities the commitment to the
poor is a capital issue.
All theology starts with the act of faith.
In this context, however, "faith" is under­
stood not simply as an intellectual accept­
ance of the message but also as a vital
reception of the gift of the Divine Word
heard in the ecclesial community, as an en·
counter with the Lord, and as love for our
550 LIBERATION THEOLOGY
brothers and sisters. Here we see the real
meaning ofSt Anselm's words.
The primacy of God and the grace of
faith give the work its raison d'etre. In th!l.t
light we realize that if Christians seek to
understand their faith, they do so, in the
final analysis, in order to be able to "follow
Christ"-that is, to feel, think, and act as
he did. An authentic theology is always a
spiritual theology as understood by the
fathers of the church.
The fontal character of the sequela
Christi is already a long-standing concern
in Latin American theological thought.
But the concern has become more urgent
and richer in the rush of events in recent
years (the persecution and assassination of
many Christians for their commitment to
the poor). In the context of the stmggle for
liberation, which seeks to establish love
and justice among all, a new way is perhaps
opening up for the following of Jesus in
Latin America.
Ever since the Enlightenment a large sec­
tor of modern theology has taken as its
point of departure the challenge launched
by the modern (often unbelieving) mind.
That mind confronts our world of religion
and calls for a radical purification and re­
newal of it. Bonhoeffer took up the chal­
lenge and formulated in a penetrating way
the question that is at the origin of a num­
ber of theological undertakings in our
time: "How are we to proclaim God in a
world come of age?"
But in Latin America the challenge does
not come first and foremost from non­
believers but from "nonpersons"-that is,
those whom the prevailing social order
does not acknowledge as persons: the poor,
the exploited, those systematically and
lawfully stripped of their human status,
those who hardly know what a human
being is. Nonpersons represent a chal­
lenge, not primarily to our religious world
but to our economic, social, political, and
cultural world. Their existence is a call to a
revolutionary transformation of the very
foundations of our dehumanizing society.
In this context, then, the question is not,
How are we to talk of God in a world come
of age? but, How are we to proclaim God
as a Father (or Mother) in a nonhuman
world? What is implied when we tell non·
persons that they are sons and daughters of
God? These questions were the ones being
asked in one fashion or another back in the
16th century by Bartolome de Las Casas
and many others once they had come into
contact with the native Americans.
In other words, the question being raised
today in Latin American is this: How are
we to speak of God in face of the suffering
of the innocent? This is more or less the
theme of the Book of Job. We can in fact
claim that a language for speaking about
God is arising among us today out of the
unjust sufferings but also the hopes of the
poor of Latin America.
The World of the Poor
It can be said that in recent decades the
church's life and thought in its Latin
American setting have been marked by
what we may call "the irruption of the
poor." This phrase means that those who
until now were "absent" from history are
gradually becoming "present" in it. This
new presence of the poor and oppressed is
making itself felt in the popular struggles
for liberation and in the historical con­
sciousness arising from these struggles. It
is also making itself felt on the social level
in the rise of the basic ecclesial communi­
ties and in the theology of liberation.
The poor who are irrupting into our his­
tory are a people both oppressed and
Christian. Latin America is in fact the only
constituent part of the so-called Third
World that has a majority of Christians.
This makes the situation especially painful
and constitutes a major challenge to the
Christian faith and to the church. These
two dimensions must be present in our
theological reflection.
The Latin American situation is charac­
terized by a poverty that the Latino·
american bishops in Puebla call "the most
devastating and humiliating kind of
scourge" (Puebla, no. 29) and "anti·
evangelical" (1159). In the well-known
phrase of Medellin (1968 bishops' confer­
ence), the situation is one of "institution­
alized violence" (Peace, no. 16). It there­
fore becomes necessary to analyze and de·
nounce the structural causes of the injus�
tice and oppression in which the poor of
Latin America are living.
We are becoming increasingly aware
today of what is at stake in this situation,
namely, that poverty means death. It is of
all this that we are speaking when we talk of
poverty and the destruction of individuals
and peoples, of cultures and traditions. We
are speaking especially of the poverty of
the most deprived: Indians, blacks, and
women, these last being doubly marginal­
ized and oppressed if they are also Indian
or black. We are not, therefore, as has been
claimed at times, confronting only the
challenge of a "social situation," as if it
were something-death-that has nothing
to do with the fundamental demands of the
gospel. No, we are confronted here with
something opposed to the reign of life that
the Lord proclaimed: with something,
therefore, that a Christian must reject
We are convinced that there is no Chris­
tian life without songs to God, without
thanksgiving for God's love, without
prayer. In the Latin American setting we
may ask, How are we to thank God for the
gift of life in a situation that bears the
stamp of premature and unjust death?
There are no easy answers to this question.
It is certain, however, that, as the lives of
the poor prove, such a situation does not
do away with songs of thanksgiving. It does
not silence the voice of the poor. It can
even be said that Latin America is living in
a time of judgment, a propitious moment,
a kairos, a call to set out on new ways in fi.
delity to the Lord.
Theology always makes use of one or an­
other kind of rationality, although it is not
identified with it. The rationality corre-
LIBERATION THEOLOGY 5 51
sponds at any given moment to the cultural
universe in which believers are living .
Every theology inquires into the meaning
of God's word for us at the present histori­
cal moment
Talk of present-day poverty in Latin
America leads to an effort to know it both
descriptively and by determination of its
causes. This determination is effected
through analyses and interpretations in the
area of the social sciences (we connot iden­
tify social sciences and Marxist analysis).
The episcopal documents at Medellin and
Puebla, as well as ot,:1er episcopal docu­
ments, have been engaged in precisely that
kind of determination. The appeal to the
social sciences in the theology of liberation
has for its primary purpose to promote a
better understanding of the social reality of
the Latin American people, the reality in
which, as a matter of historical fact, many
are living out their faith and hope.
It is in the light of the life that we must
assess the situation of premature and un­
just death in which the great majority are
living in Latin America. The assessment
will make clear to us that the deeper mean­
ing of what we call "total liberation" is, in
the final analysis, the acceptance of the
kingdom of life. In this context, "life" in­
cludes all dimensions of the human, in
keeping with the all-embracing will of
God. It is therefore contrary to the situa­
tion of unjust death in which the poor and
oppressed are living.
For this reason, because the gift of life
leads us to reject unjust death, the ultimate
motive at work in what is called "the pref­
erential option for the poor" is to be found
in the God in whom we believe. There can
be other worthwhile motives: the emer­
gence of the poor in our time, the social
analysis of their situation, human com·
passion, acknowledgment of the poor as
agents of their own history. But, to tell the
truth, for Christians the basis of this com·
mitment is theocentric. Solidarity with the
poor and the oppressed is based on our
552 LIBERATION THEOLOGY 553

faith in God, the God of life who is re­
vealed in Jesus Christ.
To Announce the Gospel
The "scandal of the cross" sheds light on
the situation of unjust death in which so
many in Latin America are living. The re­
alization that the Lord loves us and the ac­
ceptance of the unmerited gift of the
Lord's love are the deepest source of the
joy of those who live by God's word.
Evangelization is the communication or
sharing of this joy. It is the sharing of the
good news of God's love that has changed
our lives. The point of departure for the
work of evangelization is thus always an
experience of the Lord-an experience of
the Father's love that makes us his sons
and daughters and transforms us by mak­
ing us more fully the brothers and sisters of
all human beings.
To proclaim the gospel is to call men and
another. Neither separation nor confusion,
neither verticalism nor horizontalism.
Only in this way is it possible to preserve
both the unity that the free and unmerited
initiative of God has bestowed on every
area of human history and the relative au­
tonomies without which the coherence of
human action and the gratuitousness of
grace cannot be asserted wiih sufficient
clarity. The end result is what liberation
theology speaks of as a total liberation in
Christ.
Liberation is at bottom a gift of the
Lord. St. Paul tells us that "for freedom
Christ has set us free" (Gal 5: I). This
means liberation from sin, which is a self­
centered turning in upon oneself. Sin is in
·effect a refusal to love others and, conse­
quently, a refusal to love the Lord. Accord­
ing to the Bible, sin, or the breaking off of
friendship with God and others, is the ulti­
mate cause of the want, injustice, and op­
America is to find a language about God
that grows out of the situation created by
the unjust poverty in which the broad
masses live (despised races, exploited so­
cial classes, marginalized cultures, dis­
crimination against women). This lan­
guage must at the same time be fed by the
hope that heartens a people in search of its
liberation. It is in this context of sufferings
and joys, uncertainties and certainties,
generous commitments and ambiguities,
that our understanding of the faith must be
continually renewed.
It can be said, I think, that a prophetic
language and a mystical language are being
born in this soil of exploitation and hope.
The problem here, as in the Book of Job, is
to speak of God in the context of the suffer­
ing of the innocent. The language of con­
templation acknowledges that everything
has its origin in the Father's unmerited
love. The language of prophecy denounces
tory?" That is the question suggested by a
testimony like that of Archbishop Romero,
to name but one among many.
We celebrate this life in the Eucharist,
the action that is the primary work of the
ecclesial community. When we share the
bread we commemorate the love and fidel­
ity that brought Jesus to his death, as well
as the resurrection that put the seal of ap­
proval on his mission to the poor. The
breaking of the bread is at once the point of
departure and the point of arrival of the
Christian community.
The aim of the theology of liberation is
to be a language about God, and to be this
in the communion of the church. It is an ef­
fort to make the Word of life present in a
world of oppression, injustice, and death.
See a/so BASE COMMUNITIES; BLACK THEOLOGY;
EVANGELIZATION; EVIL, SOCIAL; KJNGDOM OF GOD;
MEDELL I N; POOR, PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR; POY·
E R T Y; PRAXIS; PUEBLA; WOMEN.

women into an ecclesia; it is to gather them
into a community. Only in a community
can faith be lived out in love; only there
can it be celebrated and deepened; only
there can it be experienced as simultane­
ously fidelity to the Lord and solidarity
with all human beings. The God pro­
claimed by Jesus Christ is a God whose call
is universal and addressed to every human
being. At the same time, however, God has
a preferential love for the poor and dispos­
sessed. Universality is not only not op­
posed to this predilection but even re­
quires it in order to make clear the
meaning of the universality itself. The
preference, in turn, has its proper setting
in the call that God addresses to every
human being.
Three dimensions or levels may be dis­
tinguished in the process of liberation: lib­
eration of a social, political, cultural, and
economic kind; specifically human libera­
tion with its various aspects; and libera­
tion from sin. In the final analysis the
process is single but not monolithic; vari­
ous dimensions, aspects, or levels must be
distinguished and not confused with one
pression in which human beings live (see
Medellin, Justice, no. 3).
The claim that sin is the ultimate cause
is in no way a denial that these situations
have structural causes and are objectively
conditioned. But at the same time, it must
also be kept in mind that no social trans­
formation, however radical, automatically
brings with it the suppression of all ills.
From this it follows that the coming of
the kingdom cannot be identified with the
historical embodiments of human libera­
tion. The growth of the kingdom is indeed
a process that takes place in history
through Iibera tion, to the extent that
liberation means an important fulfillment
of the human person and is a condition for
a new and fraternal society. Without the
liberating events of history, the kingdom
does not grow; the process of liberation
only destroys the roots of oppression and
of the exploitation of one human being by
another. This is not the same thing as the
coming of the kingdom, which is first and
foremost a gift.
From the viewpoint of theological re­
flection, the challenge we face in Latin
the situation of injustice in which the peo­ GUSTAVO GUTIE RREZ
ples of Latin America are living, and de­
nounces as well the structural causes of this
situation. Without prophecy, the language
of contemplation runs the risk of detach­
ment from the history in which God is act­
ing and in which we encounter God.
Without the mystical dimension, the lan­
guage of prophecy can narrow its vision
and weaken its perception of that which
makes all things new.
The aim of these two languages is to
communicate the gift of God's reign as re­
vealed in the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus. Being a witness to the resurrec­
tion means choosing life and indeed all ex­
pressions of!ife, because nothing is outside
the comprehensive embrace of God's
reign. This witness to life (life material and
spiritual, individual and social, present
and future) is particularly important in a
continent marked by premature and unjust
death. It is also particularly important in
efforts to achieve liberation from oppres­
sion. Witnesses to the resurrection can
therefore join Scripture in asking the
ironic question: "Death, where is your vic-