Latin American Christology: A God Who Liberates

Abstract

This paper will investigate the dynamic nature of Latin American Christology, a Christology that cannot be separated from the tenets of liberation theology. I will first offer an overview of the development of Latin American Christology and liberation theology, along with its unique features; then, I will analyze some major representatives of Latin American Christology, specifically Jon Sobrino and St. Óscar Romero (through the research of Edgardo Colón-Emeric). Lastly, I will conclude with the relevance of Latin American Christology within the greater landscape of Christian theology today. The theologians considered in this paper are primarily Catholic theologians, with the exception of Edgardo Colón-Emeric, a Methodist pastor, who has become a global voice of authority on the life, thought, and vision of the martyred St. Óscar Romero. Latin American Christology, as will be argued in this paper, cannot be understood separately from the space, culture, and identity of Latin America—the land and the context. This measures to a pivotal pedagogical claim of Latin American Christology as a global teaching pillar for all Christologies and theologies, Catholic or Protestant, within Latin America or outside Latin America.

1. Introduction

In looking at Christology in the space, culture, and identity of Latin America, God can only be considered as a liberator. The field of Christology, which looks at the personhood of Christ and further involves an investigation on soteriology, has become of critical interest lately with different theologies blossoming not only in Latin America but all over the world. Latin American Christology is rooted in and inspired by the Exodus narrative and stems from liberation theology while seeking to offer an avenue to a deeply intimate and vulnerable relationship with Christ that is with and for the peoples of Latin America. Jon Sobrino, a Spanish Jesuit theologian, labels these people as “the crucified people”, people who are victims, survivors, and martyrs. These people believe in a Christ who serves as the exemplar of the ultimate victim—the archetypical survivor. This Christ gives hope to the Latin American people for salvation, resurrection, liberation, and the beatific vision that is to come. In addition, Father Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino OP, a Peruvian theologian and a Dominican priest who is considered “the Father of Liberation theology”, affirms that “...for the first time in many centuries theology is being done outside the customary European and North American centers” (Gutiérrez 1973, xix). This strand of Christology that emerges from Sobrino is overwhelmingly associated with God as a liberator. Through this broadening of the narrative of theologies, of Christologies in particular, the Latin American context is crucial for all peoples of the Christian faith to understand. In using liberation as a method, this paper will explore a Latin American Christology through analyzing the values of non-violence, freedom, and hope.

In his monumental text, The Theology of Liberation, Gutiérrez notes that in modernity, “there is a greater sensitivity to the anthropological aspects of revelation. The Word about God is at the same time a promise to the world… All this has caused the revaluation of human presence and activity in the world, especially in relation to other human beings”.1 The social, political, and historical realities of the Latin American people yield a unique perspective of Christology in the Latin America region that centers a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable. In discussing Latin American Christology, faith and culture are in open and constant dialogue with one another. Gutiérrez further suggests that “a theology which has as its points of reference only “truths” which have been established once and for all—and not the Truth which is also the Way—can be only static and, in the long run, sterile”.2 Thus, Latin American Christology is a flexible theology. This is not to be confused with it as passive, neutral, or weak in its structure; Latin American Christology is quite critical of abstract, ahistorical Christologies. Rather, it is open; it is relational; it is ultimately a theology of solidarity, a theology that is with, for, and of the crucified people in Latin America.

Latin American theology ultimately explores the question of God through the derivation and development of Latin America (Sobrino 1991, p. 185). A Latin American Christology—focusing on the personhood and divine-hood of the figure of Christ in and beyond the Gospels—ultimately calls us to participate in a “new creation”. Gutiérrez offers, “the Gospel does not get its political dimension from one or another particular option, but from the very nucleus of its message… And the Gospel gives Israel’s hope its deepest meaning; indeed, it calls for a ‘new creation’”.3 Latin American Christology is political, social, and deeply relational in its methodology of calling for this “new creation”.

Sobrino’s initial Christological investigation, Jesus the Liberator: A Historical-Theological Reading of Jesus of Nazareth, was written in 1993, and his sequel, Christ the Liberator: A View from the Victims, was written in 2001. His Christology is offered through the hermeneutical lens of “the hope of the victims—with the correlative revelation of God as God of victims—and from the possibility of living already as risen beings in the conditions of historical existence” (Sobrino 2001, p. 1). His words in this book are offered as hermeneutics but also as a source of inspiration for Christians and how they ought to live.4 When considering how one ought to live, in looking at context, culture, and faith, one must consider the signs of the times. In asking, “What’s left of the victims?”, Sobrino reflects as follows:

“For me, this atmosphere always brings back the memory of Ignacio Ellacuría. He asked himself what was the sign of the times (that is, what is it that characterizes a period and in which God is made present), and he replied that this sign is always the crucified people, stripped of life, though the form of their crucifixion may vary”.5

In both Jesus the Liberator and Christ the Liberator, Sobrino discusses Auschwitz as a “sign of the times”, as an example of the meta-paradigmatic (Paul VI 1965, §4). He notes that “it is a powerful way of recalling the essential relationship between God and the victims”.6 In looking at the sign of the times, in being aware of the particularity of our context, significant, cultural moments are able to be validated as they reground us in the original paradigm of Christ’s crucifixion. Sobrino continues, “We can proclaim that in the new paradigm there is no reason for the recent Auschwitzes”.7 This is the new creation that Latin American Christology seeks to bring into fruition, a new creation where all are liberated, where all are free. Sobrino further reflects, “the situation in Latin America is that we are not doing theology after Auschwitz, but during Auschwitz…”8 Therefore, glimpses of the new creation occur during and through Auschwitz; however, the new creation has not yet come into consummation.

It is important to note the publishing of the Vatican document titled Instruction on Liberation Theology in 1984. This document does not name any theologians in particular, but Sobrino received the document with criticism. He states in Christ the Liberator that

“Israel’s most original creed relates God to freedom from Egypt, and it is vital to know why. Some think—and this is reflected in the first Vatican Instruction on Liberation Theology, in 1984—that the reason lies in God seeking to create a people with whom he can later make an alliance, so that this people will offer worship to him alone. This interpretation of the Exodus rejects any other that puts historical-political liberation at the forefront”.9

Sobrino is concerned here with the document’s religious interpretation inferring an individualistic relationship with God. Sobrino stresses the role of the communion with one another as essential to the formation of one’s relationship to God.10 The Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith then released a notification on the works of Sobrino in November of 2006 to further clarify discrepancies in his Christology regarding method, as well as aspects of Christ’s divinity, sonship, self-consciousness, and soteriology.11 However, to go into full detail regarding the dialogue between Sobrino and the Vatican will be outside the scope of this paper. It is through noting this foil where it can be determined that Latin American Christology sustains a relevance to the greater global Church and to the greater movements of liberation.

In cutting across this divide, St. Óscar Romero will be an important witness to turn to because he is someone whom both Church officials and liberation theologians believe to be a true disciple of Christ. Through the research of Edgardo Colón-Emeric, Romero’s Christology prescribes that “the instrumentality of the humanity of Christ carries the word of God across the creator-creature distinction. His human flesh modulates the eternal will to the audible range… Jesus is anointed by the Spirit, or, in Romero’s colloquialism, Jesus is soaked in the Spirit, and by the Spirit his microphones continue to make him present to all”.12 In Romero’s Christology, in understanding Christ as a sermon and as “God’s best microphone”,13 there is the simultaneous expectation of listening to Christ, as well as participating and being affected by this Christ. This, in turn, calls us to live our lives as Christ—as sermons, as microphones. Therefore, Colón-Emeric notes that “in Christ is to be found the solution to the problems of El Salvador”.14 Romero’s Christology, which emphasizes relation, dialogue, and intimacy, adds to the buoyancy and vivacity of the overarching importance of Latin American Christology to the greater global context.

This paper will investigate this dynamism regarding the nature of Latin American Christology, a Christology that cannot be separated from the tenets of liberation theology. I will first offer an overview of the development of Latin American liberation theology and Christology; then, I will evaluate the Christologies of Jon Sobrino and St. Óscar Romero, and lastly, I will conclude with the ongoing relevance of Latin American Christology today.

2. Brief Overview of the Development of Latin American Liberation Theology and Christology

Latin American liberation theology came to fruition in the 1950s and 1960s in Southern and Central America. Gutiérrez reflects, “[Liberation theology] represents rather an attempt to accept the invitation of Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council and interpret this sign of the times by reflection on it critically in the light of God’s word”.15 In Latin America, this was a time of strife and conflict that led to revolutionary shifts in governmental and political dynamics, widening the economic and social gap between the lower and upper classes. Horrendous poverty was active and flourishing in the margins of the cities, while the middle and upper classes were building up and centralizing. Gutiérrez claims that “the elimination of misery and exploitation is a sign of the coming of the Kingdom”;16 thus, liberation is greatly concerned with salvation. The motif of the Exodus narrative prevails that liberation is a “political action”,17 and God calls us to thoughtful political participation and action in this process of liberation. Sobrino notes that “it is clear that the victims are waiting for a new exodus and for the God who has the power to bring it about… the victims find something good in a God who is subject to suffering”.18 Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt, freeing them from exploitation and alienation, instead offering them a life to be lived with dignity that can lead to salvation.

For these Christians, according to Sobrino, “the passage of the Red Sea in the Old Testament is a historical reality (whatever the actual facts of the matter are), which, when referred to God, becomes a kerygmatic claim: ‘God freed his people from Egypt.’ Based on this claim as attributed to God through faith, we come to the sociological statement about God in himself: ‘God is liberating.’” (Sobrino 2001, p. 94). God is not “an ahistorical being” (Shadle 2018, p. 95), and liberation theology is not an ahistorical enterprise.

The strife in Latin America during this time must be understood in terms of the larger scheme of the Cold War at play for years between the Soviet Union and the United States. Latin America ultimately became a battleground between the West and the Soviet Union. Latin American reforms regarding infrastructure led to tensions and further divisions between the state and the people; revolutionary movements rebelled and intensified against governmental dictators across the South. This is the historical context through which liberation theology emerged; these are the signs of the times that must be considered.

Gutiérrez yearned to voice the lived experience and reality of the Latin American people from this historical context. For salvation can only be attainable through the offering of a preferential option for the poor and the marginalized. In his opinion, it is “to these poor, Jesus showed undoubted partiality, so that what is now called the option for the poor can be said to start with him”.19 For Gutiérrez, this preferential option for the poor and marginalized, which he considers a biblical prerogative and necessary duty of the Christian believer, must be recognized as a salvific prerequisite of the vulnerable. It is this “participation in the process of liberation [that] is an obligatory and privileged locus for Christian life and reflection”.20

Gutiérrez ultimately seeks to pay attention to the problems of structural and personal accounts of sin, where the solution is both a structural and personal account of liberation. This leads to Gutiérrez’s epistemology that liberation is the means to achieving salvation. It is in liberation theology, in this journey of seeking the actualization of salvation, where it can be realized that “the fullness of liberation—a free gift from Christ—is communion with God and with other human beings”.21 This radical communion can only be made possible through the dissolving of exclusive boundaries and through the dignifying of the crucified peoples of Latin America; this radical communion is what ultimately leads to salvation. Sobrino asserts that the most powerful aspect of liberation theology “lies in helping the poor to overcome this feeling of helplessness and powerlessness, to believe that liberation from oppressive forces is possible”.22 This is how liberation theology impacts Latin American Christology, with faith in Christ as central to this posture of hope. Further, this is why Latin American Christology is essential to the greater landscape of the Christian narrative today.

A critique of liberation theology is that it is Marxist in its methodology and thus loses sight of Christ. However, according to Matthew A. Shadle in Interrupting Capitalism: Catholic Social Thought and the Economy, “Gutiérrez recognizes the Marxist origins of some of the social scientific concepts used in liberation theology, including his own, but insists this usage does not imply an acceptance of Marxism itself”.23 Gutiérrez argues that Marxism is not used as a vision of economy in liberation theology but rather as an analytical and anthropological tool. Similar to how Aquinas cites Aristotle for his theological writings, Gutiérrez references Marx as a companion along the way of his theological reflections, never losing sight of Christ in the process.

Shadle further claims that the world is increasingly becoming more globalized and that there must be a renewed commitment to the Catholic faith with liberation theology as the method of this renewal. He suggests that one of the major differences between European theology and Latin American theology is the dialectical tension between the nonperson and the nonbeliever, stating that “whereas modern European theology is a response to the challenge of the nonbeliever, Latin American liberation theology is a response to the challenge of the nonperson—the person robbed of humanity by oppressive economic and political conditions”.24

According to Shadle, the world renders the poor as non-humans. Liberation theology is deeply concerned about the ethics of humanization, emphasizing that the emancipation of one group should not require the oppression of another group, for this is not true liberation. Powerful elites have combated different restorative efforts that were intended to lift up the voices of the marginalized, turning to militaristic means and repression to advance their own interests.

Therefore, in looking at Marx, Gutiérrez is able to articulate a reflection of pastoral care type on these antagonistic struggles and tensions between classes. Liberation theology is Christocentric in its actualization, always analyzing the truth of situations in light of the Gospel and Christ’s message. Gutiérrez seeks to build up a new type of humanity that denies the homogenizing path of development and affirms the inclusive radicality of liberation. Gutiérrez notes that, as time goes on, forms of oppression undergo paradigm shifts and that there must be an awareness of these subtle changes in the methods of oppression in modern society—a constant checking in with the sign of the times. The goal of liberation is freedom, and the concept of freedom must be understood through a historical lens, for freedom and the struggle for human liberation are intimately connected. Sobrino notes that “Jesus presents himself devoid of authoritarianism, but with sovereign freedom. The Gospels clearly show Jesus as a free person… this freedom is seen in sovereign form, along with great bravery, in his denunciations and unmaskings”.25 True freedom cannot be created by someone else but rather must be discovered by the subject. A posture of listening is crucial in the dialogue of the liberation process, for liberation only comes from within communities; it cannot be forced or projected onto someone else.

Gutiérrez affirms that sin is a breach in one’s relationship with God and is ultimately the cause of division, oppression, and injustice. In thinking of Christ as the ultimate liberator, Gutiérrez notes that Christ liberated us in order to love. He states that “the fullness of liberation...is communion with God and with other human beings”.26 Thus, in liberation theology, freedom is considered a “relationship”, meaning that freedom is not something that can be achieved alone, as liberation theology yearns to look at individual acts of charity with regard to an analysis of social structures.

3. Some Major Representatives of Latin American Christology

3.1. Jon Sobrino

Jon Sobrino, a Spanish Jesuit theologian who spent much of his life in El Salvador, wrote Jesus the Liberator: A Historical-Theological View in 1991, 20 years after Gutiérrez’s Theology of Liberation, which was written in 1971. The year 1991 is also three years after the fatal and horrific event that occurred on 16 November 1989, the brutal assassination of Sobrino’s fellow Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter.27 Sobrino admits that his book on Latin American Christology is “written in the midst of crucifixion, but definitely in the hope of liberation”.28 Sobrino is concerned with how abstract Christology has become; he notes that such Christologies are “up against a mystery” and “conceptually limited”.29 He seeks to ground Christology through a historical–theological view, offering the poor to serve as protagonists by grounding Christology in their life and witness. He sees historical reasons as an important distinction in Latin American Christology, for historical authenticity precedes liberation. Sobrino assesses, “we need to present a Christ who, as a minimum, is the ally of liberation, not of oppression”.30 It is Christology’s responsibility to show the face of Christ so that Christ may be used to liberate, to free the Latin American people from oppression, from marginalization, and from crucifixion. For, according to Sobrino, “in Latin America… Both Christ and the continent are today crucified”.31 Thus, the purpose of Sobrino’s book is to see Christ as a liberator and then to see the Latin American people as liberators, as well as liberated.32

Sobrino seeks to center specificity, context, and experience. He notes, “abstraction without specificity, reconciliation without conflict, absoluteness without relation, these are the grave dangers of the traditional image of Christ”.33 Christology must utilize human intelligence—doctrinal, as well as intellectual—but what it also needs is something spiritual, “in that it should help persons and communities to meet Christ, to follow the cause of Jesus, to live as new men and women and to conform this world to the heart of God”.34 Thus, Latin American Christology is a Christology of liberation, which means it is a theology of historicity, of particularity, and of relationality. It is Gutiérrez who confers that “where there is justice and righteousness, there is knowledge of Yahweh; when these are lacking, it is absent”.35 Knowledge of Christ comes forth through the practice of justice and thus through the practice of liberation—through the practice of being known and dignified.

In his warning of the abstract, Sobrino notes that “identifying a setting is, then, essential for Christology”.36 Christology cannot be ahistorical. Sobrino suggests that Christology must be understood as a Christopraxis, not that praxis displaces the logos but that the “logos may illuminate the truth of Christ in terms of Christ’s own desires that liberation show become a reality”.37 Seeking a liberated reality is the telos of Latin American Christology.

It is the crucified people in Latin America who offer clarity in that “the solution offered by the First World today is bad in fact, because it is unreal since it cannot be universalized. It is bad ethically, because it is dehumanizing for all, for them and for the Third World”.38 What is dehumanizing for one is dehumanizing for all. To combat this perpetuation of cyclical oppression, Sobrino’s Christology challenges us to “live as already risen beings”.39 Christ’s resurrection can be lived out now in the present, but it can only be conducted in communion with Christ and with one another. His main argument in this sequel text is that if Christ’s resurrection is not made evident in the present, then it is an abstract and extrinsic reality to us; it becomes “something that cannot be made historical or verifiable in any way, as the following of Jesus can”.40

If Christ’s resurrection looks to the future of the actualization of the beatific vision, then it must be grounded in the present reality as it awaits in anticipation of the coming of the future.41 This present reality is a gratuitous mystery; thus, “in this sense the resurrection falls outside the scope of conventional historical proof”.42 However, it is here where theologians tend to shift to the abstract and where Sobrino seeks to remain grounded in a historical–theological approach. The risen Lord, who points to the eschaton, “also points to what is inward: the initiative that comes from God”.43 It is not the historicity of the logistics of the resurrection that interests Sobrino; rather, it is the historic conclusion of the faith of the disciples in the post-resurrection event. This is what ultimately serves as the foundation of the Church, the Church being a result of what it is to spread the good news.

Sobrino is ultimately interested in the history of how Christology informs faith. Gutiérrez claims that “Faith reveals to us the deep meaning of the history which we fashion with our own hands: it teaches us that every human act which is oriented towards the construction of a more just society has value in terms of communion with God–in terms of salvation; inversely it teaches that all injustice is a breach with God”.44 Faith in the resurrection of Jesus must consider the question of the liberation of the victim.45 What forms this ultimately, and what forms faith, is hope. There is a sense of understanding Christology but then also living out Christology that Sobrino seeks to uncover. The resurrection is an act from God that leads to a particular type of faith, “and this action of God’s is not any action but action that liberates victims”.46 Christ is on the side of the victims.47

According to Sobrino, the crucified people see God as liberator. The crucified people are victims, survivors, and martyrs; the resurrection of Christ speaks to their otherness as the mechanism of salvation; their otherness makes them capable of salvation.48 Therefore, Sobrino specifies that “what is important, I believe, is to insist that God is involved in the passion of Jesus and the passion of the world”.49 In the passion of both Christ and the world, Sobrino affirms that goodness can be found because of the closeness of Christ’s crucifixion to the situation of the marginalization of the peoples in Latin America. Through the Cross, goodness is anticipated.

Sobrino concludes, “the basic point, however, is that this action by God is a reaction… This requires something previous, to which God reacts. And this previous something is the misery, cries, sufferings, and oppression of a people, with all of which God is related in a transcendental, not merely an occasional, manner”.50 God listens to and responds to the cry of the poor, to the cry of the victims, and to the cry of the crucified people of Latin America. This is God’s self-revelation: a mercy that is relational, that is flexible, and that is in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed. Sobrino assesses that “the poor of this world–the Galilee of today—are where we encounter the historical Jesus and where he is encountered as liberator”.51 Therefore, it is through God’s mercy, a mercy that we are called to replicate and spread, where justice comes to fruition, where liberation flourishes.

3.2. St. Óscar Romero

St. Óscar Romero served as the Archbishop of El Salvador from 1977 up until his assassination in 1980. He was originally elected as archbishop because of his conservative religious views; however, after the death of his close friend, Rutilio Grande, SJ, in March 1977, he became very vocal about defending the human rights of his people and calling out the government’s violations.

The dean of Duke Divinity School, Edgardo Colón-Emeric, writes in Óscar Romero’s Theological Vision: Liberation and the Transfiguration of the Poor that the Transfiguration served as one of Romero’s favorite religious topics, leading to his powerful preaching on Feast Days of the Transfiguration. Colón-Emeric affirms that “for El Salvador, whose name is dedicated to the transfigured Christ, the savior of the world, the Transfiguration is not only a liturgical feast but a national holiday” (Colón-Emeric 2018, p. 70). Romero has a series of homilies on or related to the event of the Transfiguration that Colón-Emeric examines in detail in his book. In order to better understand Romero’s Christology, Colón-Emeric reflects on the person of Christ as a sermon. He notes, “Jesus is the Father’s living sermon… In Jesus, the revelation of God reaches its culmination: God’s plan of salvation literally puts on flesh”.52 There is this intimate relationship with God that Romero depicts in his Christology through regarding Christ as a sermon.

In addition, Colón-Emeric asserts that “the church prolongs and perfects the mission that God began in Israel”.53 Romero calls his people to live responsibly; he calls for a posture of stewardship—to accept, to receive, to revel in the gift of being, and to discern how to use this freedom. The poor are essential to the life of the church, for “the poor lead the church’s public speech; they are the church’s voice coach”.54 In listening to Christ, one is able to find their words; the words of the voiceless “are strengthened with the power of the luminous life-giving Word of Tabor”.55 The Transfiguration serves as this site of stewardship, of liberation, and of Christological inspiration for the Latin American peoples.

Colón-Emeric further asserts that “the most singular feature that emerges over time is the presentation of the Transfiguration as an ecclesial vocation that reorients natural human aggressiveness in a constructive direction”.56 For Romero, Mount Tabor is the locus of salvation and thus Transfiguration—the location of where Christ revealed God’s glory; this site serves as hope for the potentiality of Transfiguration, a potentiality that Romero sees in the people and the land of El Salvador.57 Similar to Sobrino in seeking to particularize and historicize the figure of Christ, Colón-Emeric notes about Romero that “the act of translation results in the transplantation of the living tradition of Christianity into Latin American soil. In the case of Romero, the transplantation is fertilized by the local history and practices revolving around the celebration of the Transfiguration”.58

The Transfiguration served as Christ’s response to Peter’s rejection of the Cross. Colón-Emeric claims that “by the scandal of the Transfiguration Jesus prepared his disciples for the scandal of the cross”.59 In Romero’s Christology, you cannot ignore the Cross, but you cannot isolate the Cross, either; there is the Cross, and then there is what is beyond the Cross. Both work in relation to one another, both need our attention, and both must shape us in how we ought to live our lives—in how we ought to transfigure.

The Transfiguration serves as an important learning moment, offering a glimpse of the beatific vision as what is to come but also offering a methodology (not a blueprint for social transformation, as Colón-Emeric says) for how one ought to hold oneself in one’s local situation, in one’s current economy, and in the living of one’s life in the day to day.60 It encourages one to consider the broader, eschatological horizon that is grounded in the struggling of the everyday—in both the local and the universal. “The Transfiguration reveals the Son of Man”,61 reveals Christ, reveals what is to come of Christ, and the potentiality of what is to come for us. Thus, Colón-Emeric writes that “the transfiguration of Christ should kindle desire for the transfiguration of humanity. Humans were made for joy and light”.62

Colón-Emeric then turns to “ressourcement from the margins”63 as a method of liberation theology that enacts Romero’s Christology. This method goes hand in hand with liberation theology in its re-claiming—transfiguring—of a people’s history and also in the transfiguring of how to imagine the future. Colón-Emeric notes that “the roots of the problems in El Salvador are not only political, and hence neither is their solution”.64 Therefore, violence is a Christological problem that begs a Christological answer. According to Colón-Emeric, “the Son of Man is also the key to the problem of violence”.65 Violence is not the disease but rather is a symptom. It is the Transfiguration that humanizes this violence, this aggression, which begs a disposition centering a “violence of love”,66 a powerful concept Romero emphasizes throughout his homilies.

In drawing attention to the role of aggression in the Transfiguration, Colón-Emeric notes that the five characters present in the Lukan Narrative of Mount Tabor—Moses and Elijah (Old Testament friends) and Peter, James, and John (New Testament friends)—all have a history of aggression. Colón-Emeric ultimately argues through the use of Romero’s homilies that aggression—healthy aggression—is needed to actualize holiness and that this is necessary for evolution.67 A proper harnessing of aggression is the foundation in the process of transfiguring. In the biblical scene of the Transfiguration, they then break bread with one another. It is liturgy that connects us to history, liturgy that situates us and that helps order our aggression in our context to be oriented and performed for God’s will. Colón-Emeric continues, “the transfiguration of Christ calls humans to embrace their full liberation. The revelation of the Son of Man as the Divine Savior is not only an indicative but an imperative”.68 Thus, the Transfiguration calls us to act.

Transfiguring serves as a methodology of liberation; it motivates us to taste the beatific vision through the seeking personal Transfiguration in contemplating the Transfiguration of Christ. It is this history that motivates us to transcend history. Colón-Emeric notes that “the Transfiguration is a window through which the glory of God shines”.69 Through the Transfiguration, God liberates. For Romero, Christ identifies with the suffering ones as a means to dignify the poor.70 It is on Mount Tabor where the saving project of Christ is revealed.71 Thus, transfigured structures need transfigured humans. And Romero believes that all humans are capable of this transfiguring: “Everyone has value because all humans are made in the image of God. The Transfiguration reveals the transcendent dimension of truly human action”72 and action of whom all are capable.

4. Key Christological Insights of Latin American Christology

4.1. Non-Violence

Latin American Christology seeks to transcend beyond Christological theory; it is an applied type of Christology. Sobrino turns to the view of the victims in order to know Christ in a more practical way.73 This practice is actualized through a commitment—in words and actions—to a posture of non-violence. In this particular hermeneutical lens of Christology, one sees violence as a consistent theological theme that needs to be addressed. In looking at the view of the victim, poverty “is the most lasting form of violence”.74 Sobrino yearns to centralize the poor in his Christology, noting that he uses the victims in order “to express my recurrent concern over the devaluation and disappearance of the Kingdom of God. It did not come, but the mediator came, which has led Christologies to concentrate on the person of Christ and to ignore the cause of Jesus, which is the Kingdom of God for the poor… Its beneficiaries were universalized, and the poor lost their centrality in history and in theology”.75

As Colón-Emeric noted, violence is a theological problem that seeks a theological answer. In addition to this, “the Son of Man is also the key to the problem of violence”.76 All violence needs redemption; all violence needs Christ in order to heal.77 The Transfiguration event calls us to transfigure ourselves, to transfigure our own violence into non-violence. In looking at the victims, at the poor, we are able to see a glimpse of rightly oriented transfiguring; “they bring light by which we can see the contents properly”.78 Sobrino goes as far to call the poor “quasi-sacraments”,79 as glimpses of Christ among us (Sobrino, Christ the Liberator, 8). Gutiérrez suggests that “to know Yahweh, which in Biblical language is equivalent to saying to love Yahweh, is to establish just relationships among persons, it is to recognize the rights of the poor”.80 This call to transfigure violence—to harness holy aggression through and with the poor to bring about justice and liberation—is a Christological call. Colón-Emeric asserts that “the God revealed on Tabor is a God of life who is against violence in every form, a God of justice. This God does not infantilize his creatures but gives them freedom so that they may learn from the divine pedagogue of peace how to channel their aggression in responsible directions”.81 Whatever side of the conflict one may find themselves on, Romero’s Christology begs the believer to not take up arms and encourages a centering of non-violence. Latin American Christology condemns armed revolution of any sort, for peace-making is essential to the praxis of Latin American Christology. In addition, in Pope Francis’ encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, he notes that “violence leads to more violence, hatred to more hatred, death to more death” (Francis 2020, §227). Thus, non-violence is the only method to pause this cycle; it is in this liberation from violence to which true freedom calls us.

4.2. Freedom

Freedom is another central, recurring theme in Latin American Christology. In looking at the context of Latin America, the marginalization and oppression of the poor and vulnerable, freedom becomes a key issue that leads to the following questions: what does freedom look like? Who can have access to it? How are we to be in communion with one another while exercising freedom? Sobrino notes that “freedom reflects the triumph of the risen Christ not because it removes us from our material reality but because it places us in our historical situation in order to love, without anything in this situation being a barrier to loving… freedom is binding oneself to history in order to save it but—continuing the metaphor—in such a way that nothing in history binds and enslaves the ability to love”.82 True freedom does not refer to a blueprint of chaos or anarchy; rather, it involves a specific orientation of one’s will toward God’s will. This freedom brings joy and the celebration of life.83 However, the oppression of my neighbor leads to my own oppression; the lack of freedom of my neighbor leads to a lack of or a distortion of my own sense of freedom, for “to be a Christian is to be in solidarity”.84 Freedom must thus involve a consideration of the other.

Solidarity is a key aspect of freedom; freedom cannot be achieved in isolation—it must be relational; it must be communal. Sobrino notes that “the possibility of God not only saving suffering creatures but of saving them in the human way, by showing solidarity with them. It expresses the possibility of God being a God-with-us and a God-for-us, though, in order to be so, God himself has to define himself as a God-at-our-mercy”.85 God transcends alienation and solitude through the crucifixion, in granting the crucified people dignity. It is this communion with God, communion made possible through the crucifixion, which produces the ability to be known. Sobrino claims, “and this, like all communion, produces identity, dignity, and joy. This God—whatever his power—has credibility for victims because he has come close to them in their dimension as victims. And they feel joy at this”.86 To be known is to be loved is to be liberated is to be free. This knowingness is what leads to hope among the Latin American peoples—hope of the resurrection, of the beatific vision, and that the best has yet to come. Sobrino notes, “this freedom and joy express the fact that we can live now as new men and new women risen in history;”87 we can now live—through our freedom—as resurrected peoples.

4.3. Hope

There is a consistent movement from lament to hope that can be found in the Latin American context. To make the resurrection present in our daily reality is a daring and dangerous notion. According to Gutiérrez, “hope thus emerges as the key to human existence oriented towards the future, because it transforms the present”.88 Hope is necessary in order to grasp the resurrection event.89 Sobrino states that “this hope is no longer seen as a transcendental anthropological dimension of human beings but as something partial in its realization, and this is a major contribution to the hermeneutics of understanding the resurrection”.90 It is this radical hope in God—in the resurrection—grounded in the historicity of the event, which serves as the basis for popular piety in the Latin American peoples. Sobrino also suggests that “the graver the crisis for the people, the more God’s powerful salvation is hoped for”.91

The hope of the resurrection deals with the hope of the crucifixion; thus, praxis alongside hope is what unifies and brings meaning to history.92 According to Gutiérrez, “the hope which overcomes death must be rooted in the heart of historical praxis; if this hope does not take shape in the present to lead it forward, it will be only an evasion, a futuristic illusion”.93 Thus, praxis is a response to faith in God in reality and seeing beyond reality the hope of the resurrection and all that is to come. Thus, according to Sobrino, all hope is rooted in love.94

5. The Ongoing Significance of Latin American Christology

Latin American Christology cannot be understood apart from the land on which it theologizes, which, according to Sobrino, is “an extremely violent continent, primarily because of the omnipresent and cruel structural injustice, and also the repression by armies and death squadrons”.95 This land—these people—their unique perspectives, experiences, practices, and beliefs, have much to offer in making the greater field of Christology in the Christian tradition more dynamic, more fluid, and more open to understanding how Christ is at work in our lives. In theologizing with, of, and for the poor, the land must be considered a primary conversation partner, especially through the perspective of war and ongoing climate change. Sobrino notes, “Christology is developed when a community is placed in contact with Jesus and/or memories of him. It is the community that remembers, and so selects certain things in Jesus. And this is what Latin American Christology also seeks to do”.96 Latin American Christology serves as a critical reflection on agency and popular piety in the post-resurrection event, in faith in Jesus, in hope of surviving systems of oppression while holding onto the hope of the resurrection of Christ and their resurrection to come.

In addition, the language surrounding Christ is incredibly important to consider, for it serves as the access point to understanding this event. Sobrino notes, “it also means that this language is severely limited and has to be complemented with another type of reality if we are to understand what is described as having happened”.97 Experience and practice—going beyond language—is crucial to Latin American Christology. In knowing this, it is important to address that theologizing—that reading, writing, and wrestling with language—is a privilege; Sobrino calls to attention, “those of us who can do theology are the non-poor, the non-victims” (Sobrino, Christ the Liberator, 7).

Colón-Emeric notes that “the story of salvation does not begin with conquest. It begins with Creation. Scripture teaches that human beings were made perfect because they were made by and for God”.98 Thus, the Kingdom is realized through new creation, a new creation that is realized in communion with one another, where liberation and justice are practiced. There is a promise of communion with and for all of each other, and for all with God, because “the political is grafted into the eternal”.99 However, the center of Latin American Christology is the victim—the poor and the vulnerable—because of Latin American Christology’s understanding of the resurrection: “What is specific about Jesus’ resurrection is, therefore, not what God does with a dead body but what God does with a victim. The raising of Jesus is direct proof of the triumph of God’s justice, not simply because of his omnipotence, and it becomes good news for the victims”.100 This is the promise of unity—of salvation—that is capable through the universal love of God.101

This must be practiced in the Church and by the Church recommitting to listening to the voices on the margins, “to listening to the cries of the oppressed and responding with the liberation that was announced and attained in Jesus Christ”.102 The Church serves as a locus of communion—with each other and with God. Gutiérrez addresses that “the human person is destined to total communion with God and to the fullest fellowship with all other persons… To be saved is to reach the fullness of love; it is to enter into the circle of charity which unites the three Persons of the Trinity; it is to love as God loves”.103 Thus, Latin American Christology calls the Church to a posture of love, for when humans love, liberation is actualized, and God is present.104