Religious studies courses can feature a broad range and variety of texts, including anything from The Daodejing, to The Mishnah, to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, to Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger, to Said’s Orientalism. The Marty Center partnered with the Undergraduate Religious Studies Program to design “Why This Text Matters” as a series of videos to help faculty prepare for courses, their students, and anyone generally curious about important texts in the study of religion. In the space of about 30 minutes, viewers can gain a deeper understanding of the context, themes, and significance of texts taught by experts at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
About the Text:
Gustavo Gutiérrez’s "A Theology of Liberation" (Spanish: 1971; English: 1973) is the most influential text of the global of tradition of liberation theology, and one of the most decisive contributions to the theology of the 20th century. Grounded on the experiences of poverty, inequality, and political violence of millions of Latin Americans, "A Theology of Liberation" is the first systematic account of the struggle for social justice of many Latin American Christians and its significance for theological reflection, Christian discipleship, and religious-based political activism. In this book, Gutiérrez argues that the problem of poverty is not just a social or economic issue, but a deeply Christian and theological matter. "A Theology of Liberation" maintains that poverty and inequality are not part of the fate of the poor, but that disenfranchisement and marginalization have causes and that these causes are mainly political-that is, they relate to the social systems and institutions that govern the distribution of social goods. Therefore, a coherent Christian ethics must commit to the eradication of the systems that perpetuate social injustice, which means going beyond prayer and almsgiving to take a political stance. "A Theology of Liberation" is one of the most lucid articulations of how to take such stance in a way that does not reduce faith to politics, or politics to faith.
18 янв 2024
