Gustavo Gutierrez – författare

Revealing the scriptures as they unfold through the liturgical year, this text covers all three cycles, A, B and C. It offers reflections on each of the Sunday lectionary readings, stresses the biblical themes of liberation and love, and points out the challenges of living the faith.

A selection of the most important writings of Gustavo Gutierrez, one of the founders of liberation theology.

Gustavo Gutierrez's latest and most moving book opens with a crowd of two million people gathered in his native Lima, Peru, to greet John Paul II. A couple speak for them all: 'Holy Father, we are hungry. We suffer affliction, we lack work, we are sick. Our hearts are crushed by suffering as we see out tubercular wives giving birth, our children dying, our sons and daughters growing up weak and without a future. But despite all this, we believe in the God of life, and we struggle for this life in the ace of death.' How can such people believe in a God of life? That is what this book explains.

This book offers a selection of representative texts which should enable readers to perceive the whole breadth and depth of Gutierrez's challenge to late twentieth-century Christians.

This is the credo and seminal text of the movement which was later characterized as liberation theology. The book burst upon the scene in the early seventies, and was swiftly acknowledged as a pioneering and prophetic approach to theology which famously made an option for the poor, placing the exploited, the alienated, and the economically wretched at the centre of a programme where "the oppressed and maimed and blind and lame" were prioritized at the expense of those who either maintained the status quo or who abused the structures of power for their own ends. This powerful, compassionate and radical book attracted criticism for daring to mix politics and religion in so explicit a manner, but was also welcomed by those who had the capacity to see that its agenda was nothing more nor less than to give "good news to the poor", and redeem God's people from bondage.

A significant event in the development of liberation theology was the publication of We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People by Gustavo Gutierrez.We Drink from Our Own Wells is the nuanced articulation of the Christ-encounter as experienced by the poor of Latin America in their struggle to affirm their human dignity and claim their true identity as the sons and daughters of God. Such is the writing that it is impossible to reduce liberation theology to a political movement.The spirituality of We Drink from Our Own Wells does not allow for such reductionism. The telling of this spiritual journey has had a profound impact on Christians around the globe.Here in this SCM Classic edition, the text is introduced to us by Marcella Althaus-Reid, who herself is passionate about doing theology in reality, by being informed by political, economic, gender, sexual and postcolonial analysis. A self-proclaimed "indecent theologian" she brings a fresh awareness to the reading of Gutierrez's work ensuring that the passion for theological justice in which this text was formulated is as relevant and significant to theologians wishing to pursue justice and decency in all walks of life today.

This is the credo and seminal text of the movement which was later characterized as liberation theology. The book burst upon the scene in the early seventies, and was swiftly acknowledged as a pioneering and prophetic approach to theology which famously made an option for the poor, placing the exploited, the alienated, and the economically wretched at the centre of a programme where "the oppressed and maimed and blind and lame" were prioritized at the expense of those who either maintained the status quo or who abused the structures of power for their own ends. This powerful, compassionate and radical book attracted criticism for daring to mix politics and religion in so explicit a manner, but was also welcomed by those who had the capacity to see that its agenda was nothing more nor less than to give "good news to the poor", and redeem God's people from bondage.