605

67

Liberation Theology
Jules A. Martinez Olivieri

The precise semantic range of the theological concept of “atonement” does not
have an equivalent in theological Spanish or Portuguese. In order to refer to the
salvific work of Christ, Latin American theologians hold the metaphors of sal-
vation in dialogical relation with words such as redención, expiación, salvación,
and liberación.
Liberation theology (henceforth, LT) uses the adjective “liberation” not as a
topic added to doctrinal discourse, but rather as a way of orienting and shap-
ing Christian theology in its diverse dimensions. LT is better conceived as a
theological movement, a mode of doing theology with the flexibility to include
multiple ecclesial traditions (Roman Catholic and Protestant) around key
motifs: soteriology, the primacy of Christian praxis as the first act of theology,
and a methodological option that seeks the perspective of the impoverished and
marginalized as a locus theologicus (C. Boff, 10–13). Moreover, adjectival use of
“liberation” when modifying “theology” has become a way to refer to a range of
contextual theologies that elaborate theological discourse in light of challenges
faced in different regions of the world. Hence, there is a plurality of theologies
of liberation inspired by Latin American liberation theology. Some of them
concentrate on responding to globalized economic oppression, ethnocentrism,
racism, gender and sexual violence, and colonialism.
A main point of discussion in LT is the nature of Christ’s salvific work. If
humanity needs salvation, from what do we need to be saved? Liberation
Christology conceives salvation as freedom from personal and collective sin.
Gustavo Gutierrez, one of the early vanguards in LT, views sin as not only a
relational break with God and neighbor, but as a “historical reality” that dis-
torts human praxis and is an obstacle to human flourishing. Sin encompasses a

9780567565532part2_p355-820.indd 605 4/7/2017 8:32:47 PM

606 607

606 Jules A. Martinez Olivieri

metaphysical, historical, and personal reality of rebellion. Accordingly, if sin is

an intra-historical reality, then salvation should be experience in history.
Liberation Christology delves into Jesus’s salvific significance by attending
to the meaning of his “life-acts.” That is to say, one must interpret the cross
and resurrection in light of the proclamation of the arrival of God’s kingdom.
Furthermore, the proper recipients of this proclamation, as evidenced in the
synoptic gospels, are the victims of poverty and oppression induced by sinful
religious and political systems (Sobrino, 67). Therefore, the salvation proclaimed
by the Messiah is an immanent eschatological reality. To follow Jesus and his
work is to seek after his cause and his concrete praxis.
The meaning of Jesus’s death is inseparably tied to the historical causes of
the crucifixion. LT opts for a methodological retrieval of the humanity and
concrete history of Jesus, a Christology “from below,” in order to approach the
question: “Why was he killed?” The death of Jesus was a political execution, a
consequence of the prophetic and political nature of his message. Jesus was in
conflict with religious and imperial authorities, accused of conspiring to destroy
the temple (Mark 14:58), of being blasphemer (Mark 14:64), and claiming the
royal title of King of the Jews (Mark 15:2). These accusations evidence the inten-
sity of the conflict created by Jesus’s political and economic teaching and praxis.
These elements are vistas into the kind of liberation Jesus communicates through
all his acts. Jesus’s radical humanizing of the impoverished masses—women,
children, and religiously marginalized groups posed a threat to temple theology
and Roman politics. Jesus died the way he died because his teachings destabi-
lized oppressive religious, political, and economic systems. This historical datum
is indispensable for soteriology because it provides the narrative content and
hermeneutical key for many liberation theologians’ concepts of salvation.
The meaning of Jesus’s death is necessarily transcendent, for the death of
Jesus is not the death of an ordinary human being, but the death of one whose
life is identified with God’s life (Sobrino, 220). As such the cross is God’s defini-
tive expression of love, a credible love offered for suffering humans. Liberation
theology is aware that the New Testament has multiple social, political, and reli-
gious metaphors that frame one’s understanding of the cross. Feminist liberation
theologians have identified the detrimental effects on women by the ideological
use of concepts like the atonement, for the purpose of legitimizing the suffer-
ing of women as analogous to Jesus’s own trials. But the explanatory power of
concepts such as redemption, sacrifice, substitution, and reconciliation find
their power in the Messiah’s example. That is, Jesus is the “sufferer” par excel-
lence; he is the “sacrifice” that ends all sacrifices (Tamez, The Amnesty, 58). Jesus

9780567565532part2_p355-820.indd 606 4/7/2017 8:32:47 PM

607

Liberation Theology 607

is the persona salutis who, in filial obedience to God is driven as the spirited
Messiah, succumbs to death, and gives his life for others. Jesus confronts death
for the sake of sinners, providing hope for women and men through the power
of sacrificial love.
Liberation from structural manifestations of sin depends upon the dialectic
of his cross and resurrection—the vindication of the victims in the resurrection
of the crucified Messiah. Jesus is powerfully representative of both the ideal
human and the victims that long for God’s justice (Sobrino, 229). Jon Sobrino,
the principal Christologist in Latin America, interprets God’s suffering on the
cross as good news, for in God’s immanence in the cross Jesus took upon himself
the mechanisms that negate life and overcame the patterns of death in history.
The redemptive value of Jesus’s death is not causally efficacious for humanity.
Instead, the efficacy of the cross pertains to its symbolic power “in the form
of an exemplary cause more than of an efficient cause” (230). Accordingly, the
construal of salvation as liberation refers to the present aspects of God’s work
that advance social and personal justice, thus reframing life for the most vul-
nerable as a gift shared by everyone. Subjectively, the experience of liberation
includes faith, awareness of communion with God, hope for a new world, and
so on. Objectively, liberation encompasses the public witness of the transform-
ation of the human habitus and actus, where men and women are not only
accepted by God the Father through the Son, but are made free (from oppres-
sion) with the Spirit, and given the opportunity to live life as co-participants
of God’s liberating acts. These are the visible and historical signs of the in-
breaking of God’s reign.
The cross is a victory over the dehumanizing powers of death and violence;
an atonement, an event of reconciliation with God and neighbor. Liberationist NB for Ch 3, Cross
elaborations on the significance of the cross treat it with attention to its historical
reasons, while elaborations of the metaphysical or transcendent consequences of
Jesus’s redemptive work are modest. Still, the crucifixion of Jesus communicates
that the God of love is with us in suffering. God has determined to be on the
side of the victims, for they are the main recipients of Jesus’s acts. The commu-
nity of faith is called to be a people that find God in solidarity with their cause.
God shows his love preferentially by revealing the Gospel and siding with those
who are condemned by the world. The cross and the resurrection delegitimize
ideologies of injustice, and as doctrinal discourse, also function as hermeneut-
ical lenses for interpretation. For in the cross we “know” that God is close to us
in our experiences of hopelessness; the victims of sin are vindicated, and the
struggles for justice are the will of God.

9780567565532part2_p355-820.indd 607 4/7/2017 8:32:47 PM

608 609

608 Jules A. Martinez Olivieri

The history of the crucified is the unraveling of sin and liberation from it. The
ibid?
solidarity offered by Jesus is the solidarity of God. In the new gospel logic, the
marginalized become the subjects of that reign and are the first citizens of God’s
kingdom. What Jesus requires of the recipients of his Gospel is faithfulness. The
poor who receive the good news find themselves in a privileged situation.
Jesus’s liberations concern the poor, the sick, the demon-oppressed—all signs
that God’s rule has arrived. Sin is a force that distorts human praxis, and Christ’s
saving action is materially experienced. In this way LT declares that Jesus saves
from sin. There is a broad cosmic affirmation that God’s salvation includes the
complete recreation of humanity and creation (Rom. 14:7), but the modes of
salvific actions presented in the ministry of Jesus are concrete expressions—that
is, temporal liberations that anticipate the nature of eschatological salvation,
while creating a historically visible community. This community is the recipient
of communion, peace, and justice (Gonzalez, 160).

Bibliography

Boff, C., “The Method of Theology of Liberation,” in Systematic Theology: Perspectives

from Liberation Theology, 1996.
Boff, L., Passion of Christ, Passion of the World, 1987.
Gonzalez, The Gospel of Faith and Justice, 2005.
Pixley, La resurrección de Jesús, el Cristo, 1997.
Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator, 1994.
Tamez, The Amnesty of Grace, 1993.
Tamez, “Latin American Christology in the Light of New Theological Actors,” in Voices
from the Third World 22.2, 1999.

9780567565532part2_p355-820.indd 608 4/7/2017 8:32:47 PM