Systematic Theology: Perspectives from Liberation Theology

by Jon Sobrino (Editor), Ignacio Ellacuría (Editor)

Drawn from the landmark reference work Mysterium Liberationis, this book highlights the core themes of systematic theology form the perspective of Latin American liberation theology.

Genres: Theology, Research

302 pages, Paperback

First published February 21, 1996

About the author

Jon Sobrino, S.J. is a Jesuit Catholic priest and theologian, known mostly for his contributions to liberation theology.

He received worldwide attention in 2007 when the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a Notification for what they see as doctrines which are "erroneous or dangerous and may cause harm to the faithful."

Life

Born into a Basque family in Barcelona, Sobrino entered the Jesuit Order when he was 18. The following year, in 1958, he was sent to El Salvador. He later studied engineering at St. Louis University, a Jesuit University, in the United States and then theology in Frankfurt in West Germany. Returning to El Salvador, he taught at the Jesuit-run University of Central America (UCA) in San Salvador, which he helped to found.

On November 16, 1989 he narrowly escaped being assassinated by the Atlacatl Battalion, an elite unit of the Salvadoran Army. By a coincidence, he was away from El Salvador when members of the military broke into the rectory at the UCA and brutally murdered his six fellow Jesuits, Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Juan Ramón Moreno, Ignacio Martin Baro, Amando López, and Joaquín López y López, and their housekeeper Elba Ramos and her 15-year old daughter Celina Ramos. The Jesuits were targeted for their outspoken work to bring about resolution to the brutal El Salvador Civil War that left about 75,000 men, women, and children dead, in the great majority civilians.

Investigated by the Vatican throughout his career as a professor of theology, he has remained an outspoken proponent of peace, joining protests in 2008 of the continued training of Latin American military officers in torture techniques at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, GA.

Works

Sobrino's main works are Jesus the Liberator (1991) and its sequel, Christ the Liberator (1999), along with Christology at the Crossroads (1978), The True Church and the Poor (1984), Spirituality of Liberation (1990), The Principle of Mercy: Taking the Crucified People from the Cross (Orbis, 1994), No Salvation Outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays (Orbis, 2008). See also Stephen J. Pope (ed), Hope and Solidarity: Jon Sobrino's Challenge to Christian Theology (Orbis, 2008).

Reviews

[J.L. Neyhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the preface, Jon Sobrino talks about how his co-editor, Ignacio Ellacuría, was murdered in 1989, two years after they had begun planning the structure, themes, and authors for this book. They had already received most of the manuscripts when Ellacuría was murdered at the Central American University, “along with his fellow Jesuits Segundo Montes, Joaquín López y López, Juan Ramón Moreno, Ignacio Martín Baró, Amando López, and two humble women of the people, Julia Elba and her daughter Celina” (Loc 98). On top of the devastating and tragic loss of their lives, their manuscripts were burned when the soldiers destroyed their offices. Sobrino writes, “the martyrdom of Ignacio Ellacuría, theologian, author, and co-editor—is fundamental, concrete reality, and to a certain extent irreplaceable for an understanding of the content of this book” (Loc 98). He says the only way the theology of liberation can be understood is amidst oppression.

This book highlights the main themes in liberation theology as organized by a systematic approach to theology. It emphasizes that the liberation theologian is not someone sitting comfortably in an ivory-tower in academia. Instead, they are “theological activists” with “one foot in the center of reflection and the other in the life of the community.” The theology of liberation is done from the perspective of the poor, fighting for their liberation. Liberation is the shaping principle of this theology. This theology (and this book) seeks to give a voice to the oppressed, to stand against injustice. The emphasis is always on praxis - that the theological reflection is borne out of the lived experience and lived theology on the ground: “The radical originality of the theology of liberation lies in the insertion of the theologian in the real life of the poor, understood as a collective, conflictive, and active reality. [...] This first act of liberation theology marks the anteriority of a faith praxis over the theological theoretization of that praxis (second act)” (Loc 332). Along with this focus on praxis and “God’s preferential option for the poor”, as Gutierrez calls it, the other big theme that emerges is the central focus on the reign of God as hope but also as the thing we are called to work towards now as we seek to liberate people from oppressive structures even here on earth:

“The reality of the Reign of God is such that, if, by an impossiblity, human beings had no hope, its content would be a logical contradiction. Hope, then, is essentially necessary for an understanding of what the Reign of God is. [,,,] Not that the poor (at least in Latin America) have no transcendent hope in a resurrection; they surely do. But for them, to live right now would be as much of a miracle as to live after death. They see the opposite of hope not only in death, but in the impossibility of life here and now. This is why their hope, when they have it, is so radical. The theology of liberation, then, asserts that in order to grasp what the Reign of God is, not just any hope will suffice. Only the hope of the poor will do. The hope of the poor must, in some manner, be adopted as one's own. But once this has been accomplished, one also has a better systematic understanding of what the Reign of God ought to be: a promise of life in the face of the anti-Reign.” (Loc 1732)

[Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming to this book, I worried that liberation theology (as if it is one set thing) was just marxism in Christian garb. While it is true that liberation theologians use marxist tools of analysis, the book shows judicious and methodically biblical reflection on topics.

The selection of essays in this volume are excellent. While obviously I think some chapters were better than others. Often the writers, who are predominantly Catholic are absorbed with working through Catholic doctrine rather than working through the Biblical text. In this regard, I think alot of liberation theology is probably more at home with free church theology than catholic theology (but I admit, I am biased).