A Revolutionary Faith

Raúl E. Zegarra’s A Revolutionary Faith: Liberation Theology Between Public Religion and Public Reason on liberation theology wisely eschews a focus on liberation theology’s putative demises or rebirths and instead examines how its proponents, especially Gustavo Gutiérrez, position it between faith and politics using a Christian lens. Such in-between space both uncovers and overcomes many critiques of the theologies of liberation, especially the Catholic liberation theology forged in Peru by Gutiérrez and his many partners and collaborators. Thus, Cardinal Ratzinger’s (later Pope Benedict XVI’s) sustained critique of liberation theology, as either Marxist or undermining core Christian beliefs and identity, fails when Zegarra juxtaposes liberation theology with Peru’s revolutionary Communist organization Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), which Zegarra refers to as a “terrorist group” (81). Both liberation theology and the Shining Path claimed to be revolutionary for the poor, but liberation theology’s commitment to the non-violent ethos of Christ distinguished (and saved) itself from the excesses and false promises of Shining Path.

For Zegarra, Gutiérrez’s formulation and adaptation of liberation theology as faith invested in politics but not subsumed by politics or enmeshed with any specific political party or platform—because of fidelity to Christ—makes it both a partner and prophetic challenge to any purely secular system. In this light, the final chapter is particularly useful in its evaluation of how liberation theology’s praxic aims can partner with and advance John Rawls’ philosophical system, which argues that society should defend and protect the rights of the marginalized. The book’s subtitle, Liberation Theology between Public Religion and Public Reason, ably makes its case here in doing so.

Gutiérrez is one of Zegarra’s main interlocutors, whom he cites as a friend and whom he interviews, along with other seminal figures of la corriente (current, stream), the name given to proponents of liberation theologians in Peru (82 and 185 footnote 2). David Tracy is another towering friend and influence, whose oeuvre also pervades Zegarra’s approach and language. This is not surprising. As one of the last great public theologians, Tracy has always been deeply invested in the plight and irruption of the poor and in theology’s need to articulate, respond, and influence how its traditions and ways of life are promulgated, practiced, and lived in the public square. Tracy and Zegarra emphasize the value of the Catholic theological tradition, richly interdisciplinary, interreligious, and public. Thus, Zegarra draws on Tracy to further extend his arguments on how liberation theology (especially as formulated by Gutiérrez) can embody Tracy’s aims for a committed religious faith, buttressed by a healthy hermeneutical suspicion and secular/sacred dialogue that can benefit all of society, especially the poor and marginalized, while countering anti-democratic tendencies and threats.

The book consists of four main chapters, with roughly 150 pages of main text and 50 pages of copious and detailed footnotes where Zegarra engages in critiques and analysis of material linked to his work but not finding space in the main text. No book or article is cited without some acute comment or reflection about it, and Zegarra also undertakes certain arguments only in the footnotes. For example, regarding his substantial disagreements with the social theorist and agnostic liberation theologian Ivan Petrella, Zegarra writes that: he will “engage [Petrella’s] work in footnotes to show the contrasts between his interpretation and mine” (187 footnote 25). In a later footnote, he then deconstructs Petrella’s manifesto for liberation theology and his call for theologians to go “beyond theology” by contending that such a position “shows his selective interpretation of liberation theology, dismissing it as a theological, faith-based project” (190 footnote 52). Relying on Gutiérrez and Tracy, Zegarra is not seeking to minimize, go beyond, or merely translate theology in the public square. Instead, theology and even a religion’s comprehensive doctrine, as Rawls came around to see, can serve as a boon and purifier for the democratic, (and ideally) social justice-focused public square.

While the Second Episcopal Conference of Latin America at Medellín in 1968 was a turning point in liberation theology’s trajectory, chapter 1 helpfully presents a concise history of liberation theology leading to Medellín while stressing that liberation theology for Gutiérrez is theological, structural, and political. It is liberation in Christ, and this cannot be bracketed as some kind of secular humanism or NGO. Chapter 2, moreover, provides a layered and complex examination of the role of tradition in the revolution, as Zegarra is not just interested in the enacting of social justice prerogatives through the lens of liberation theology, but also in its previous and ongoing articulation and evaluation. It is also in chapter 2 that Zegarra turns explicitly to Tracy. First, however, he examines the manifestation and interpretation of religious experience through his reading of Paul Ricœur to highlight the complexity of religious experience within the “framework of a tradition” (52–53). After a sociological examination of a key tenant of Christian belief, namely Jesus of Nazareth as God Incarnate, Zegarra closes the chapter presenting Tracy’s contributions in providing a language for a public theology, aware of plurality, fragments, and deep societal injustice, but committed both to faith and to participation with those from other or no faiths—what is often called “faith-based” political engagement. Such religious and secular participation and engagement also invoke what John Rawls calls an “overlapping consensus,” a theme further developed in chapter 4.

Chapter 3, though, first homes in on liberation theology’s beginnings, struggles, and current public face and practice in Peru. Zegarra offers a nuanced and rich historical overview of liberation theology on the ground. Especially valuable is his analysis of the relationship and need for “mutual learning” between liberation theology and Pentecostalism (114), and why liberation theology, because it is not simply political, can thrive in new contexts. Despite this optimistic note, though, in Zegarra’s interviews with Gutiérrez, among others, a tinge of lament regarding a more materialistic, less community-based societal ethos surfaces.

Finally, in chapter 4, Zegarra seeks to bridge the work of John Rawls, especially his difference principle and the ethics that are supposed to follow from Rawl’s hypothetical original position, with the option for the poor advocated by Gutiérrez and liberation theology. While Zegarra and the book’s publisher inflate the newness of this turn, a turn that seemed common in my postgraduate class with David Hollenbach at Boston College two decades ago, Zegarra’s book is nevertheless essential reading to evaluate the role and potential of liberation theology amidst our gloriously multi-religious and non-religious, but also increasingly polarized, public square.

Peter Admirand is an associate professor of theology at Dublin City University and director of The Centre for Interreligious Dialogue.

Peter Admirand

Date Of Review:

March 15, 2024