The Power of the Poor in History
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
Gustavo Gutierrez, the doyen of the Latin American liberation theologians, published his landmark 'A Theology of Liberation' in English in 1973. In 'The Power of the Poor in History' he presents in eight major essays his developing theological insights.
Gustavo Gutierrez, a Native of Lima, Peru, was educated in Lima, Chile, and Europe and was ordained in 1959. In his work, Gutierrez's theological training is joined with his experience of living and working among the poor of Rimac, a Lima slum, where he also founded and directs the Bartolome de Las Casas Center. He is Professor of Theology at the Catholic University in Lima and advisor to the National Union of Catholic Students. His books include the classic 'A Theology of Liberation', 'We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People', 'On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent', and 'The God of Life'.
"This is a people's theology, not a textbook theology...addressed not to professional theologians but to lay people.... This is not a theology created by the intelligentsia, the affluent, the powerful, those on top; it is a theology from the bottom, from 'the underside,' created by victims, the poor, the oppressed. It is not theology spun out in a series of principles or axioms of timeless truth that are then applied to the contemporary scene, but a theology springing up out of the poverty, the oppression, the heartrending conditions under which the great majority of Latin Americans live."
Robert McAfee Brown, from the Preface
"Gustavo's aim is to practice Christian theology, to spread the Christian message, and to do so within a context of repression and oppression rather than in an abstract vacuum. In so doing he has not just introduced a new way of theologizing, but also a new spirituality, viz., the spirituality of solidarity with the poor.... The essence of his theology of liberation is evangelical militant compassion, a truly theological project based on the very core of the Gospel. He is the first person in modern history to reactualize the great Christian themes of theology, starting from a fundamental option for the poor. This new way of theologizing does not just add a new chapter to the old theology; it conceptualizes not only the pastoral and institutional aspects of Christian ecclesial life but also its dogmatic and ethical aspects, in a way long-forgotten in Europe. Gustavo Gutierrez is a pioneer in practicing a theology of liberation, a theological practice which mobilized an entire continent and opened the eyes of European and North American theologians to their unhistorical and often idealistic way of thinking."
Edward Schillebeeckx
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