the liberation hypothesis meaning

After 50 years, ‘liberation theology’ is still reshaping Catholicism and politics – but what is it?

Assistant Professor of Theology, Fordham University

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Leo Guardado does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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It isn’t often that theology makes headlines. But for the past 50 years, a way of thinking about God and poverty has been doing just that: liberation theology.

Liberation theology’s approach to living out Christian faith has been both globally influential and bitterly controversial. It has been investigated by the CIA on suspicion of promoting social unrest and inquisitioned by a former pope who accused it of getting too close to Marxist thought. It’s even inspired conspiracy theories . Critics have dismissed it as naive – but also called it a threat to free market capitalism.

Fifty years have passed since the landmark publication of the book most associated with liberation theology: “ A Theology of Liberation ,” by a Peruvian priest named Gustavo Gutiérrez. Gutiérrez. whose most recent manuscript I’m helping to edit, published the book in Spanish in 1971, and then in English in 1973. With its emphasis on the liberation of oppressed people, especially the poor, this book helped reconfigure many Catholics’ ways of thinking about the relationship between faith and justice.

As a theologian who grew up during the civil war in El Salvador , I emphasize to my university students that it is impossible to grasp the beating heart of this theology without paying attention to the poverty and legacies of colonialism in Latin America.

Urgent questions

Since colonization, the wealthy few have owned most of the land in Latin America, rendering the majority poor and landless . By the mid-20th century, Christians involved in social and political movements for greater justice in the region were asking what, if anything, their faith had to do with these struggles.

In 1968, Roman Catholic bishops and theologians gathered for a meeting in Medellin, Colombia, to assess the state of the church in the continent. The bishops wrote that “a deafening cry pours from the throats of millions of persons, asking their pastors for a liberation that reaches them from nowhere else.”

The “inhuman wretchedness” of poverty, they argued, was the result of systematic injustice that structured the profound inequality of Latin American society. They called this “institutionalized violence” – similar to what the famed sociologist Johan Galtung would term “ structural violence ” a year later.

When Gutiérrez’s text was published a few years later, it responded more fully to these questions about the relationship between faith and justice. Today, the book has been translated into 14 languages – most recently to Arabic .

Taking a side

One dimension of liberation theology has to do with analyzing the sources of social inequality. Its approach treats poverty as a complex phenomenon that cannot be reduced to economics, or separated from politics, because it intersects with other forms of oppression, such as sexism and racism. Poverty, Gutiérrez and other theologians have argued, is an evil – something they believe God does not want – for it can bring suffering and early death. In this view, poverty is not a natural condition ; it is a violence that some communities inflict upon others.

The key principle of liberation theology is “ the preferential option for the poor .” This is a commitment to prioritize the material needs of the poor, as well as their knowledge, experience and spirituality. This principle is grounded in the conviction that God is not neutral, but is always on the side of those who most struggle to live.

El Salvador’s saint

To advocates of liberation theology, embracing the “preferential option for the poor” means struggling alongside people whose societies consider insignificant, and sharing their life and death. Oscar Romero , archbishop of San Salvador in the late 1970s, is often admired as an example of a Catholic leader living out liberation theology. “All those who draw close to suffering flesh have God close at hand,” he said in one homily .

In the lead-up to El Salvador’s 12-year civil war , Romero fought for agrarian reform for landless rural farmers. He mediated between labor unions, popular guerrilla organizations and the military to try to prevent armed conflict. He established the country’s foremost human rights and legal aid organization and urged U.S. President Jimmy Carter to cease U.S. financial support for El Salvador’s military.

In one of his last homilies, he asked soldiers to stop the killing – just a day before being assassinated by military agents in March 1980.

Romero was canonized in 2018 by Pope Francis, who has said that prioritizing the poor is “the key criterion of Christian authenticity.”

Controversial then – and now

One of the most persistent critiques against liberation theology is that it gives rise to revolutionary violence and that, since it is influenced by Marxist analysis , it believes violent class conflict is inevitable. Most strands of liberation theology condemn violence , although they draw a distinction between the institutionalized violence of inequality and violence against injustice itself .

A different kind of critique argues that liberation theology is too political – that it reduces salvation to human action, not God’s actions. In this view, liberation “theology” is more of a secular philosophy, or leftist social commentary. Some of these critiques shaped how the Vatican initially responded to liberation theology . Pope Francis has been more favorable toward it, telling theologians , for example, “Do not settle for a desktop theology,” but to focus on real people and real life.

Critics of liberation theology have proclaimed it is passe, irrelevant, even dead – but prematurely, it seems. Today, liberation theology’s reach has spread far beyond Latin America and Roman Catholicism: from Black theology of liberation to Islamic liberation theology ; from Hindu to Jewish and Palestinian ones; and to feminist and queer theologies that have been influenced by liberation theology.

Liberation theology will likely always have its critics, but its supporters continue to build on the legacy of the past 50 years wherever they see poverty, injustice and oppression.

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• Liberation theology
• The Catholic Church

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Philosophy of Liberation

Philosophy of Liberation is the collective name for a philosophical movement and method of doing philosophy that emerged at first in Argentina during the late sixties, but that went on to spread throughout Latin American during the early seventies. It is for this reason that sometimes some critics and historiographers of the philosophy of liberation make reference to a “strict” and a “broad” conception of the philosophy of liberation, in order to refer to the immediate context of its earliest articulations, and to its later general dissemination and development. The philosophy of liberation belongs to the “maturity” stage within the “contemporary” period of Latin American philosophy, if we use Jorge J.E. Gracia and Manuel Vargas’s periodization of Latin American philosophy (Gracia and Vargas 2013). Without question, however, the philosophy of liberation is the distinct manifestation of Latin American philosophy that has received the most international attention, and that has had the most influence both within Latin America and the United States [ 1 ] .

While the philosophy of liberation is deeply rooted in the history and debates of Latin American philosophy, to the extent that it may be claimed that it is the most elaborate and substantive response to the task articulating a distinct Latin American philosophy, it is nonetheless also a chapter within the broader history of European philosophy. Even as it defines itself as a critique of Eurocentrism and the hegemony of European philosophy, it has evolved out of and made use of its philosophical currents, movements, concepts and debates. Some may be argue that the philosophy of liberation belongs to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and Marxism, or more generally, historical materialism. In fact, because many philosophers of liberation came out of these different traditions, the philosophy of liberation was and remains from the outset an internally heterogeneous movement. This heterogeneity has increased as some philosophers have engaged in what Enrique Dussel has called a “South-South Dialogue,” in which philosophies from the so-called “global south” address each other directly without deferring to the authority of dominant Euro-American philosophy (Dussel 2015).

The philosophy of liberation aims to think the distinct place and role of Latin American in world history using what are argued to be autochthonous cultural and intellectual resources, from out of a situation of economic, cultural, political, and philosophical dependency. It has a practical aim: liberation. In very general terms, the philosophy of liberation defines itself as a counter-philosophical discourse, whether it be as a critique of colonialism, imperialism, globalization, racism, and sexism, which is articulated from out of the experience of exploitation, destitution, alienation and reification, in the name of the projects of liberation, autonomy and authenticity. That is, the philosophy of liberation has presented itself as an “epistemic rupture” that aims to critique and challenge not only basic assumptions and themes of Euro-American philosophy, but also to make philosophy more responsive to and responsible for the socio-political situation in which it always finds itself. Thus, by “counter-philosophical discourse”, philosophers of liberation did not mean that it was “anti-philosophical”. Instead, they meant to emphasize a heightened degree of reflexiveness or self-awareness in their theorizing. Positively, the philosophy of liberation affirms cultural diversity, gender and racial equality, and political sovereignty. In more recent years, some philosophers of liberation have been using the language of “pluriversality,” instead of “universality,” to refer to this fundamental affirmation and celebration of global cultural diversity (Dussel 2015; Mignolo 2011). The philosophy of liberation’s philosophical orbit is defined by the axes of critique, commitment, engagement, and liberation. As a critique of all forms of philosophical dependency and inauthenticity, it is consciously and avowedly a metaphilosophy. The philosophy of liberation is thus, among other things, a view about what counts as philosophy and how it should be pursued.

This article is divided into four main parts: history, background, currents, and themes and debates.

1.1 The Long History

1.2 the immediate history, 2. background, 3.1 the ontologicist, 3.2 the analectical, 3.3 the historicist, 3.4 the problematicizing, 4. themes and debates, other internet resources, related entries.

As was noted, the philosophy of liberation belongs to the “maturity” stage of the “contemporary” period of the history of Latin American philosophy (Gracia and Vargas 2013; Gracia 1988–89). As a philosophical movement that engages in the critical task of recovering what is distinctly “Latin American” thought, it has sought explicitly to unearth and rescue Amerindian thought, in its pre-Colombian and post-Conquest forms, as well as all the different philosophical tendencies and movements that emerged during the long history of colonialism, independence and projects of national formation. It is for this reason that the philosophy of liberation has as one of its goals a critical historiography of Latin American thought, specifically, and philosophy tout court , in general. Figures such as Enrique Dussel, Rodolfo Kusch, Arturo Roig, and Leopoldo Zea have articulated their versions of the philosophy of liberation in terms of a recovery of earlier stages in the formulation of a project of Latin American liberation. Yet, the philosophy of liberation as a self-conscious movement and current, emerged out of a very distinct convergence of geo-historical, cultural, intellectual and philosophical tendencies, conflicts and processes.

The philosophy of liberation, arguably, began in the late sixties when Leopoldo Zea and Augusto Salazar Bondy launched a debate with the question: “Is there a Latin American philosophy?” Whether the answer was affirmative or negative did not affect the fact that the movement would have to embark on the long path of the recovery of Latin American philosophy, at the very least in order to identify those moments of originality and authentically autochthonous Latin American thinking. It is for this reason that some philosophers liberation have argued that there are at least three antecedent historical stages that serve as the geological subsoil of liberation philosophy. Following Dussel, they could be sketched as follows (Dussel 2005: 374–5):

First Period . This is the period of the beginning of the critique of the conquest and the development of a discourse that engages Amerindian thought. An important inaugural date is 1511 when Antón de Montesinos critiques the way evangelization is taking place in the Americas. This is the period when a distinct continental awareness of the injustice that is being committed against the indigenous populations of the so-called New World emerges. The debate between Ginés de Sepúlveda and Fray Bartolomé de las Casas at Valladolid in 1550 marks the clear emergence of a liberation discourse and consciousness. In this debate Sepúlveda articulated a moment in the emergent imperial and colonizing modern consciousness of Europe when he argued that Amerindians were naturally born slaves and that therefore they were to be subjugated. Sepúlveda questioned the humanity of Amerindians (Dussel 2007, 2007a; Ruiz Sotelo 2010). In contrast, de las Casas affirmed the rational humanity of Amerindians, while acknowledging their distinctiveness. In fact, de las Casas affirms their rationality and treats appeals to their reason as a theological and evangelical norm. The only true way for evangelization is the path of rational deliberation and not violent religious usurpation and imposition.

Second Period . This epoch is defined by the process of what might be called the first emancipation, from 1750 until the end of the nineteenth century. Defining figures are Benito Diaz de Gamarra, who published in 1774 his Elementa Recientioris Philosophiae , Carlos de Singüenza y Góngora, and Francisco Xavier Clavigero, who articulated an anti-colonial and anti-absolutist political philosophy that launched a critique of the Spanish monarchy. Some of the notable figures of this epoch include Fray Servando Teresa de Mier (1763–1827), Manuel M. Moreno (in La Plata, what would become Argentina, 1778–1811), Simón Rodríguez (in Venezuela, 1751–1854), Simón Bolivar (1783–1830), Francisco de Miranda (1750–1816), Juan Germán Roscio (1763–1821). In the eighteenth century, these thinkers and many other “ patriotras ” articulated a political discourse of emancipation from the Spanish crown. They called for continental independence, as well as the development of a distinct “American” identity. Because of her blend of poetry, theological speculation, praise of Amerindian traditions, and nascent feminist awareness, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695) should also be considered a contributor to this first discourse of emancipation and should be included among the figures that define this epoch.

Third Period .This epoch could characterized as a second moment of emancipation, beginning at the end of the nineteen century and being bookended with the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Defining figures are José Carlos Mariátegui (1894–1930), whose book Siete ensayos sobre la realidad peruana (Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality) (1968) gave expression to a new emancipation agenda that is explicitly elaborated in terms of a dual approach that is attentive to the historical reality of the Americas, with its indigenous and criollo backgrounds. It launched a critical appropriation of European ideas in the “Latin American” context. This epoch is defined by the crises of both development efforts and populisms that were inattentive to the severe racial, ethnic, and class divisions within the Latin American nations. It is against this context that Augusto Salazar Bondy (1925–1974) and Leopoldo Zea (1912–2004) began to debate the question whether there is a Latin American philosophy. This third period is defined by the explicit consciousness of economic, political, social, and cultural dependence, under-development, and domination (Vallega 2014). It is in this period that the need of a discourse of liberation begins to be explicitly articulated.

This section discusses the broader social and intellectual context of the third period indicated above, from which an explicit and nuanced philosophy of liberation would emerge.

An important part of the origin of the philosophy of liberation as an autochthonous philosophical movement was rooted in the question of a distinct or authentic Latin American philosophy. The problem of a distinct Latin American philosophy has been in gestation at least since the late nineteen century, when the so-called “generation of patriarchs” began to ask about a philosophy or thinking from and for the “Americas” (Beorlegui 2004). This problem took a distinct shape when Salazar Bondy (1968) re-framed it in terms of the question as to the actual existence of a Latin American philosophy. Using existentialist and Marxist categories, Salazar Bondy gave a negative answer. There is no authentic Latin American philosophy because the sub-continent has lived and developed under conditions of mental colonialism, intellectual subordination, and philosophical dependence. In order to achieve an authentic Latin American philosophy, Salazar Bondy maintained, the sub-continent had to achieve its independence and establish its autonomy and self-determination. These thoughts, and Zea’s subsequent response (1969), set the agenda for a generation. The philosophy of liberation , so explicitly christened, it could be argued, has gone through at least the following three stages: constitution and maturation, persecution and exile, challenges and debates (Dussel 2005; Beorlegui 2004; Cerutti Guldberg 1983 [2006]).

Constitution and Maturation (1969–1975). The philosophy of liberation was explicitly labeled as such at the Second Argentine National Congress of Philosophy, which was held in Cordoba in 1971 (Dussel 2017). The inaugurating group was conformed by Osvaldo Ardiles, Alberto Parisini, Juan Carlos Scannone, Julio de Zan, and Anibal Fornari. But this group took a more formal shape at the jornadas (week long working seminars) of philosophy that were organized at the Jesuit University, Universidad of San Salvador (where Pope Francis was educated), in San Miguel, in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first jornada took place in 1971, and a second was held later the same year with the title “Latin American Liberation”. A third jornada was held in 1973, at which Salazar Bondy gave a paper titled “Filosofía de la dominacion y filosofía de la liberación (Philosophy of Domination and Philosophy of Liberation” (1973), and Leopoldo Zea gave a paper titled “ La filosofía latinoamericana como filosofía de la liberación ( Latin American Philosophy as a Philosophy of Liberation )” (1973). This stage comes to a close in 1975 with the First Mexican National Congress of Philosophy in Morelia, Mexico, with papers by Dussel, Miró Quesada, Arturo Roig, and Abelardo Villegas. This was an important meeting because it signaled the launching of the philosophy liberation as a Latin American philosophical agenda that supersedes its initial Argentine formulations. A new group of philosophers from across Latin America entered into the debate: Hugo Assmann, Carlos Bazán, Arturo Roig,

In 1974 the journal Revista de Filosofía Latinoamericana begins to be edited and published in Buenos Aires, and goes on to become a major publishing venue for philosophers of liberation, along with Stromata , published at the University of El Salvador, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in which many of the inaugural essays and quasi-manifestos of the movement were published.

Persecution and Exile (1975–1983). Following the military lead coup d’état against María Estela Martínez Perón in March of 1976, there began a period called the “dirty war,” which was in fact a form of “state terrorism,” that included the persecution and assassination of philosophers affiliated with the nascent movement of the philosophy of liberation. Due to their persecution, many went into exile, moving to Canada, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. One of the consequences of this persecution was that hitherto Argentine project of a Latin American philosophy of liberation was brought to other parts of Latin America, making it into a continental project. However, the Latin American dictatorships of the sixties and the Cold War in general, had directly influenced internal debates about the “who” of Latin American philosophy, and consequently had polarizing and decisive effects for how liberation was understood. The role of populism and nationalism in defining the task of philosophy became a litmus test. In 1980, the AFYL (Asociación Filosofia y Liberación [Philosophy and Liberation Association]), was established in Bogotá, Colombia, and it become a major vehicle for organizing congresses, round tables, and sessions at international philosophy congresses.

Challenges and Debates (1983 to today). With the transition to democracy and the collapse or defeat of the military dictatorships in Latin America there began a new stage in the normalization and maturation of liberation philosophy. Horacio Cerutti Guldberg’s Filosofía de la liberación latinoamericana ( Philosophy of Latin American Liberation ) (2006) offered the most comprehensive historical and critical reconstruction of the movement. In 1988–89, Jorge J.E. Gracia edited a special issue on “Latin American Philosophy”, with a long essay by Cerutti Guldberg in which a synoptic overview of the movement is presented. In 1993, Ofelia Schutte published her Cultural Identity and Social Liberation in Latin American Thought in which a critical confrontation with some key theses of liberation philosophy is developed. These substantive texts signaled the maturity and general coherence of the philosophy of liberation, at the very least as it was perceived by its critics. These works called for re-articulations and reformulations that made explicit the inner tensions and divisions within the group of thinkers that had first given voice to this new current and method of doing philosophy in Latin America.

These differences and divergences have become increasingly pronounced. It may now no longer be possible to speak of a “philosophy of liberation”, in the singular. Instead, it may be more appropriate to speak of “philosoph ies of liberation”, in the plural, where what is shared is a set of overlapping themes among the distinct accounts of what are the situations and conditions from which liberation is to be sought, and different philosophical methods and traditions used to articulate those accounts . To be sure, there remains a substantive core that holds together the constellation of the philosophy of liberation now in the middle of its fourth decade of existence. Widely shared characteristics of the various philosophies of liberation include the following:

• An indisputable point of departure for all philosophers liberation is the consciousness of the economic, social, political and cultural dependence of Latin America on Europe and the United States.
• The general affirmation that “philosophy” has to be practiced from a specific context of both engagement and commitment within the distinct Latin American historical and geopolitical situation. The claim is that implicitly or explicitly all philosophizing is always a form of commitment with an existential situation. All philosophers of liberation share the conviction that a philosophy that is worthy of that name is a tool or means of enlightenment, a theoretical elaboration at the service of a praxis of liberation. The philosophy of liberation is the twin of a practice of emancipation.
• All philosophizing is done out of a concrete historical situation. Yet, this “concrete historical” situation has received different formulations, which define the different currents within the philosophy of liberation (see section 3 , below). For now, we can note that the “point of departure” can be a people, nation, or autochthonous culture; it can refer to a class or economic group understood along Marxist lines; it can include a cultural, historical, existential project that manifests itself in terms of a historical formation or agent.
• As a critique of putatively colonized thinking and dependent philosophy, the philosophy of liberation is a metaphilosophy. For this reason, issues of method are integral to its philosophical agenda. In tandem with the different “points of departure” for philosophy that is authentically grounded, different liberation philosophers argue on behalf of the virtues of one or another philosophical method or current. Thus, we find some philosophers of liberation who are “indigenistas”, some who at one time or another were Ricoeuerian, Heideggerian, Levinasian; others who were Diltheyan, Gadamerian, and Gaosian and/or Ortegian, and some who were Marxists. The philosophy of liberation, which is critical of European philosophy, is so from within, immanently, even when some of its representatives argue from some “analectical” standpoint, or standpoint of metaphysical “exteriority” to imperial and totalizing thought. It is thus not surprising that philosophy “companions” or handbooks to Existentialism, Phenomenology, Marxism, or to figures such as Martin Heidegger, Karl Marx, Emmanuel Levinas, include entries on “philosophy of liberation”, or some of its most representative figures.
• Inasmuch at it is defined by the word “liberation”, all philosophy of liberation is entangled with the project of sketching an utopia and identifying the “subject” of the construction of such an utopia. The utopia of liberation entails either recognizing the suppressed historical subject, or forging a new one. This liberation or emancipating subject could be “ el pueblo ”, or the proletarian class, or the popular sectors, made up by the “ pueblo ” now understood as the destitute and exploited of the nation. For others, as we will see, this subject is constituted by the nation as it is embodied in its popular sector. That sector is not understood simply in terms of class or even cultural identity, but in terms of an anti-colonial attitude aimed at national sovereignty.

These general and shared characteristics, problems and themes could be summarized in three observations about the coherence and unity of the philosophy of liberation.. First, there is a general agreement that Latin American philosophy must be a philosophy of liberation that aims at overcoming dependence, domination and subordination. Second, there is ample disagreement as to the who, what, or how, is this project of liberation to be undertaken. Third, there is also ample disagreement as to the “content” or final goal of liberation. In short, the philosophy of liberation is defined by what many would argue is integral to all philosophy as such, namely questioning the general individual existential situation of alienation, the corresponding project of liberation, and what the utopia of achieved liberation could and would look like. Philosophers of liberation argue, nevertheless, that this questioning takes on a universal character only and precisely because it is taken up from within a specific and unique existential, historical, and geo-political situation.

Like all philosophical movements and traditions, the philosophy of liberation emerged out of both world historical and regional socio-historical contexts. In terms of the world historical background, World War II, and in particular the disclosures about the genocide of the Jews, the Cold War, and the South East Asian wars, created a world historical stage in which Europe and its intellectual and moral traditions stood discredited. Whereas before, all things European were regarded as the standard against which everything would have to be measured, Europe had become suspect. Latin Americans had to look elsewhere for inspiration and intellectual guidance.

The regional socio-historical situation was framed, on the one side, by the Cuban revolution, and the numerous military dictatorships throughout the Latin American subcontinent, on the other, that took place as a consequence of the Cold War and the failures of economic development in Latin America. The Cuban revolution, however, had a profound impact in the socio-political-cultural imagination throughout Latin America. In the iconic image of Che Guevara (1928–1967), the revolution promise a transformation of the Latin American human being— el nuevo hombre —as it also raised the possibility of political sovereignty for Latin American nations. The decade of the sixties in Latin American was a time of political turmoil, but above all of cultural renewal and utopian yearning.

The philosophy of liberation, however, was above all an intellectual and philosophical response and unquestionably synthesis of a series of intellectual and cultural movements that had been gestating for a decade throughout Latin America. The cultural context was so ripe with proclamations and thinking about “liberation” that if the philosophy of liberation had not been so named in the late sixties and early seventies, today we would have wondered whether philosophers had been abducted from this world and sequestered in some time capsule. The philosophy of liberation was both necessary and inevitable.

Drawing on the work of Carlos Beorlegui, a historian of Latin American philosophy, we can say that there are some identifiable “matrixes”, or intellectual sources, from which liberation philosophy emerged (Beorlegui 2004: 677–690). [ 2 ] Here, they will be characterized as follows.

The Economic Matrix: The Theory of Dependence . After the end of World War II, the United States undertook to finance the “development” of Latin America on the model of industrialized and capitalist nations. This is what the Alliance for Progress (1961–1973) aimed to do this by granting loans that would help economically underdeveloped nations to ascend the ladder of economic development. This program was guided by the economic theory called “ desarrollismo ” or developmentalism . Yet, Latin American nations continue to lag behind both socially and economically.

It is in the face of this failure that a series of economists began to develop “dependency theory”, or the “theory of the development of underdevelopment”, among who were: Theothonio dos Santos, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Enzo Falleto, Celso Furtado, and Anibal Quijano. The core of this theory was that the underdevelopment of the Latin American nation was not due to endogenous factors, but rather was a direct consequence of economic dependence on Europe and the United States. The model of development that reigned during the fifties and sixties, according to these theorists, had a double perverse effect: greater capital accumulation in the metropolises and lending nations, and greater indebtedness and impoverishment in the so-called underdeveloped nations. The economic underdevelopment of Latin America was now to be understood in terms of an economic theory that showed that underdevelopment is not a prior stage in the natural economic development of nations, but rather an integral dimension of the international economic order created by colonialism, imperialism, and neo-imperialism.

The Religious Matrix: The Theology of Liberation . The emergence of Liberation Theology has been amply documented and studied in the specialized literature. Yet, liberation theology is as much a phenomenon of global Catholicism as it is a unique Latin American development. The reforms began with Vatican II (1962–1965) and the Second Latin American Bishops congregation in Medellín, Colombia (1968), created the church context for the consolidation of what was in effect a social movement, namely the “ communidades de base ” (base communities). The theology of liberation developed in response to a new understanding of the church’s relationship to the “people” and the role of the faith in a world of incredible poverty and social inequality.

The theology of liberation forged a whole new language: the “preferential option for the poor”, the “underside of history”, “the church of the people”, “orthopraxis is prior to orthodoxy” that influenced some philosophers of liberation. Still, two of the most important contributions of the theology of liberation to the philosophy of liberation were the imperative that critical reflection had to emerge out of committed praxis , and the problematization of the concept of “ el pueblo ”. The theology of liberation may be understood as theological reflection on what constituted a people, a community of faith. In short, theology of liberation asks: who is the subject of God’s soteriology. Most noteworthy is that Gustavo Gutierrez published his Teología de la liberación. Perspectivas (A Theology of Liberation) in 1971 in Peru, while Hugo Assmann published his Opresión-Liberación: desafío a los cristianos ( Oppression-Liberation: Challenge to Christians ) the same year in Chile. The Catholic Church also provided an institutional framework within which some of the work of philosophers of liberation could be pursued by hosting “ jornadas ”, sponsoring congresses, and providing teaching opportunities in its affiliated universities for philosophers of liberation, many who had been expelled from public universities.

The Educational Matrix: The Pedagogy of the Oppressed . In 1970, after nearly two decades of literacy work in the Brazilian favelas and poor sectors of Brazil, Paulo Freire published his paradigm shifting text Pedagogia del oprimido ( Pedagogy of the Oppressed ) (1970), which was followed in 1972 by his Education for the Praxis of Liberation . At the core of Freire’s work were three key ideas: if the people are to overcome their dependence, they can only do so through their own agency, by becoming the subject of their own liberation; to become a subject of one’s own liberation means to engage in a process of conscientização , or consciousness raising, that takes place through a pedagogy that rejects the notion of the learner as a passive receptacle and instead departs from the fundamental realization that learning is a dynamic process. Two key notions of Freire’s pedagogy of liberation were that (1) teaching requires listening to the people, and (2) schooling means life, that is, learning is both indispensable to life and it takes place in the midst of living. Freire’s key phrase “ conscientização ” goes on to be appropriated by liberation philosophers as their own goal: philosophy is at the service of the raising of both individual and collective consciousness.

The Literary-Artistic Matrix: The Boom and the Muralists . It is often forgotten that the sixties were the time of the Latin American literary Boom. This is the decade when José M. Arguedas, Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García-Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, Juan Rulfo, Ernesto Sábato published their major works. During this decade there also emerged a genre that gave expression to the heavy consciousness of dependence and the spirit of rebellion and quest for emancipation, namely the Novelas de Guerrilla ; among which are Julio de la Vega’s Matías, el apóstol suplente (1971, Jesús Lara’s Ñaucahuazú, Sueños (1969, Renato Prada Oropeza’s, Los fundadores del alba (1969), Gaby Vallejo de Bolívar’s Los Vulnerables (1973, Oscar Uzin Fernández’s, La oscuridad radiante (1976). Just as these writers demonstrated how a distinct Latin American literary tradition could be forged, the muralists demonstrated how standards of artistic beauty that celebrated proudly the aesthetic sensibility and creativity of the continent. The estética indigenista ( indigeneous aesthetics ) celebrates by muralists like Diego Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros, and painters like Frida Kahlo, created a new iconic representation of the Latin American people that more ecumenically reflected the continent’s mestizaje , or racial mixing and hybridity.

The Sociological Matrix: The Sociology of Liberation . The fifties and sixties, as was already noted, were decades of tremendous social-economic-political turmoil throughout Latin America. Latin American industrialization went in tandem with massive urbanization and de-ruralization. Extensive migrations from the countryside to the cities gave rise to the shantytowns that are so distinctly visible in most Latin American metropolises. Sociologist began to address the unique challenges of de-ruralization and urbanization. In Colombia, sociologist Orlando Fals Borda, who worked with Colombian peasants, began to develop what he called a “sociology of liberation” that meant to address the very unique situation of the urban and rural poor in contexts in which the state was nearly absent. Fals Borda studied in particular the ways in which the poor created their own institutions and norms of social interaction. Combined with the theory of dependence, the sociology of liberation, created an interdisciplinary matrix that sought to address the conditions of systemic inequity, while raising the norm that people could be the agents of their own liberation.

It is clear that both dependence and liberation were in the lips of economists, sociologists, theologians, and writers. The philosophy of liberation gave expression in concepts what was a lived local and globally interlinked experience.

3. Currents

Like existentialism, hermeneutics, phenomenology, and poststructuralism, the philosophy of liberation was never a homogeneous or monolithic movement. From its inception the philosophy of liberation was marked by internal tensions, which over time have become more intense, but that have also led to philosophical developments that have taken the original theses to new levels of refinement and theoretical elaboration. Cerutti Guldberg, who has written the most substantive and comprehensive study of liberation philosophy, has offered a typology of the internal currents that names four different currents (Cerutti Guldberg 1983, 1988–9, 2006). Beorlegui, writing more recently, argues that there are in fact six currents, though he accepts Cerutti Guldberg’s four as being the core and originating current (Beorlegui 2004: 695–727). These four currents will now be discussed sequentially.

This current is generally associated with Mario Casalla, Carlos Cullen, Gunther Rodolfo Kush, and Amelia Podetti. According to these thinkers, a Latin American philosophy of liberation has to begin from the ontological situation of the American people, which has a distinct relationship to being. This distinct relationship to being is expressed in the two forms of the verb “to be” in Spanish: ser (to be) and estar (to be in). Authentic Latin American philosophy begins from the estar of the American people in its own being. At the same time, everything that is either European or North American has to be rejected as manifestations of a philosophy of oppression and philosophical hegemony. This new philosophy that breaks with the past and everything that is allegedly foreign must break with the “ontological dependence” that has been suffered by Latin American in different ways. This current rejects as much European liberalism, as a form of abstract individualism, and Marxism, as a form of economic and inorganic collectivism. It calls for a form of populism that is neither nationalistic nor class oriented. Instead, “ el pueblo ” is considered as an ontological entity, a community of fate, and organic unity that is a pure manifestation of a being-in that assumes distinct cultural characteristics. This “ pueblo ” is not the nation, but the American mestizo and Amerindian. It is for this reason that Cerutti Guldberg also refers to this current as a manifestation of “anti-historicist populism” (Cerutti Guldberg 1988–9: 46).

This current is associated with Enrique Dussel and Juan Carlos Scannone. Like the ontologicist, the analectical also presents itself as a critique of both Eurocentrism and North American neo-colonialism. It presents itself as a critique of modernity, conceived as a colonial and imperial ideology that has “ encubierto ” or concealed what is distinctly Latin American. More generally, however, the analectical current articulates itself as a metaphysical critique of the thinking of the totality, of all that is thought in terms of being, the whole that is postulated as the true. At the same time, it also argues that philosophy must “depart” or “locate” itself with reference to both a subject and object of philosophizing. This subject and object is also “ el pueblo ”, or the people.

In contrast to the ontologicist position, however, the people is not understood ontologically, but metaphysically, or more precisely analectically, (derived from “ ana ” or beyond, in contrast to “ dia ” or through and between). This strand of the philosophy of liberation aims to overhaul all of philosophy by subsuming all Western philosophy under the logic of the thinking of ontology and the dialectical totality that is always self-referential, from Aristotle and Plato, to Hegel, Marx and Habermas.

For philosophers in the analectical current, the authentic people is what is always outside the totality. Its form of being cannot be determined once and for all. It is at a given time, as it gives expression to its quest for justice that has left its own legacy and memory of struggle. However, its continuing quest for justice and the redress of past sufferings remain undetermined and unaccounted for. If for the ontologicist current the role of the philosopher is to guide the people to recognize its own deep and unsuspected wisdom, for the analectical philosopher the role of philosopher is one that is focused on being attentive to the clamoring, or “interpellations”, of the people, so that he or she can give voice to their cry for justice. That said, it must also be noted that both Dussel and Scannone have moved beyond many of these ideas, as they were first formulated in the early seventies (Dussel 1998, 2007; Scannone 1990). To this extent the analectical denomination may be already anachronistic. While Scannone, remaining faithful to his Levinasian philosophical commitments, has turned towards the development of “inter-cultural philosophy”, Dussel’s critical engagement with Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas has led him to develop a more dialectical philosophy of liberation, one which has made the linguistic and pragmatic turn (Vallega 2014). Furthermore, in dialogue with Walter Mignolo and Santiago Castro-Gómez, Dussel has been arguing that the philosophy of liberation contributed and is part of the “decolonial turn” in Latin American philosophy (see Castro-Gómez, 2011; Dussel 2015; Mignolo, 2011; Mignol and Walsh 2018; Moraña, Dussel, Jáuregi, eds. 2008; Allen and Mendieta, forthcoming).

This current is associated with the work of Horacio Cerutti Guldberg, Arturo Roig, Arturo Ardao, and Leopoldo Zea. Like the “problematizing” current (see below), it presents itself as a critique of the two prior tendencies. These thinkers argue that it is neither possible nor desirable to set out from some absolute unsoiled and authentic point of departure. Instead, they argue that we are always already immersed in a history of ideas, and the task is thus to think the experience of Latin America from out its distinct history as it has been already thought. Indeed, a lot of the work the thinkers in this current have done is to engage in a rigorous reconstruction of the history of ideas in Latin America, to see their emergence out of unique process of social transformation, and their continued dialogue and confrontation across the decades and centuries. This history of ideas in Latin America has also been presented as part of the project of political emancipation. It is for this reason that the historical antecedents of Latin American philosophy cannot be dismissed, for they are also part of a history of the forging of political freedom in the subcontinent (Zea 1991).

This current is associated with the work of Horacio Cerutti Guldberg, José Severino Croatto, Manuel Ignacio Santos, and Gustavo Ortiz. Cerutti Guldberg has also argued that Salazar Body and Hugo Assmann ought to be considered as contributing to this current. For this group of thinkers, the criteria of philosophy’s efficacy or relevance cannot be authenticity, or how it relates or departs from some “null” point of enunciation that either responds to or is an interpellation of some “macro” subject. For this current, the question is what could constitute a critical reflection, without fetishes or mystifications, on the demanding crises and challenges of Latin American social reality. Unlike the ontologizing and the analectical currents, both the historicizing and the problematicizing reject all ontological or metaphysical attempts to fix “ el pueblo ” or what is properly “ Lo Americano ”, (that is, what properly belong to the “Americas”). Philosophy is caught in the river of history, it cannot jump out of, or pretend that a “rupture” with the past can be executed or proclaimed. For this group of thinkers, the critical issues were twofold. First, how does philosophy respond to a specific set of historical challenges, without falling pray to the ideological prejudices that condition that presentation of that very historical? Second, what is the language that will allow that philosophical reflection to remain ever vigilant?

Notwithstanding these substantive and often time irreconcilable differences, the philosophy of liberation has been recognized as an extremely important and representative philosophical movement that synthesized and responded to distinctly Latin American intellectual traditions and historical challenges. In nearly half a century, other figures have aligned themselves with the movement, even if they were not part of the founding cohort.

This is the case with Franz Hinkelammert, who was born in Germany in 1931, and was educated in the Free University in Berlin. In 1963, he emigrated to Latin America, first to Chile and then to Costa Rica, where along with Hugo Assmann, he funded the Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones (DEI). His original training was in economics, but over the last four decades he has produced a series of influential books dealing with the relationship between theology, economics, and philosophy. His work takes up liberation theology, but from the perspective of political economy and aims to show that the theology of liberation’s critique of religious idolatry are matched by Marxism’s critique of the fetish of the commodity form and exploitation. Hinkelammert has also produced a series of monographs aimed at the critique of neoliberalism. Still, what he has contributed is what he calls the Crítica de la razón utópica (Critique of Utopian Reason) (1984), which is operative as much in Marxism as it is in liberalism. To counter unrealizable utopian projects, Hinkelammert introduced the principle of “ factibilidad ” or feasibility, as criteria for the evaluation of the ethicalness or morality of any transformative moral-political project.

Another figure that has contributed to the further refinement of the philosophy of philosophy, mostly through his students, is the Jesuit theologian Ignacio Ellacuría, born in 1930 in Viscaya, Spain. He was a student of Karl Rahner and Xavier Zubiri. He moved to El Salvador, to teach at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), where he became rector in 1969, a position he led until 1989 when he was assassinated by paramilitary forces trained by the United States military.

Ellacuría worked closely with the Spanish philosopher Zubiri, whose work aimed to overcome the separation between epistemology and ontology, knower and known, through the notion of what he called “sentient intelligence”, or “feeling logos ”. Ellacuría took up Zubiri’s ontological work and transformed it into a philosophy of history. Reality is historical and thus it is dynamic. Dynamic historical reality is where subjects are formed, but they are also the ones that make historical reality transformative because of their praxis , their practical engagement with the world. The praxis of human, however, is also always the expansion of the horizon of action. Praxis gives rise to more possibilities for engagement historical reality. The telos of praxis is thus greater liberty. His incomplete magnum opus Filosofía de la realidad histórica (1991) aimed to develop a philosophy of history that celebrated the “historical intelligence” that is the sediment of praxical beings taking charge of their historical reality that aims at greater liberty. It is to be noted that Ellacuría’s philosophy of history and “feeling logos ” have been most effectively taken up in Dussel’s most recent work on the ethics and politics of liberation, which is one reason that, as was noted above, the “analectical” designator may no longer be a useful denomination for a current that has been influenced so profoundly by recent developments in Latin American philosophy (Dussel 1998, 2007, 2009, 2017, 2018; Bautista 2014; Grant 2020; Mills 2018).

Philosophical currents have distinct profiles not only because of the theses that define their methods and approaches, but also because of the themes and problems that remain their preoccupations despite changes and the incorporation of new methods and theses. The philosophy of liberation has since its inception taken up the following themes.

The question of populism . At the heart of the philosophy of liberation is the problem of the historical subject of liberation. This problem has been addressed in terms of the idea of the “ pueblo ” or people. Yet, this has been defined in a variety of ways: as an ethnocultural historical formation; as a socio-economic entity; as a cultural entity that transcends both nations and classes; as what is to be forged through a democratic political project. The problem of what or who is the “people” has taken on a new urgency as new forms of democratic participation have emerged, and as Latin American nations find themselves more integrated economically and politically due to hemispheric transformations. The political transformations of the last decade throughout Latin America, away from revolutionary violence and towards political participation, have been addressed in terms of the need to rethink the issues of political representation and participation.

The question of the subject . This problem is the other side of the question about the historical subject of liberation. What is the relationship between the individual subject, whether it be conceive as an epistemic or ethical agent, and their belonging to a macro-historical subject, where this may be conceived as “ el pueblo ” that is either a national-cultural unit, or a transnational, cultural entity, such as the “Americas”. As a chapter in phenomenological-hermeneutical philosophy, the philosophy liberation has addressed the nature of the particular and distinct embodied, free, historically located, and dependent subject. The embodied and historical situatedness of the agent is continuously addressed from the standpoint of the most deprived and most vulnerable in the collective historical subject that is always under question.

The Question of Gender/Race . As in the liberation of theology, the philosophy of liberation was initially slow to address the questions of both gender and race, although the later was always a central theme of Latin American philosophy in general. The issue of race was addressed in terms of mestizaje, blanqueamiento (whitening, i.e. the idea that through racial mixing Blacks would become White and thus assimilate into the broader society), indigenity, negritude, and racial mixing in general. Mestizaje, however, has tended to cover up the distinct role that race has played in the formation of Latin American identity. The question of gender, nonetheless, was explicitly addressed by Enrique Dussel as early as 1977 in the third volume of his Filosofía Etica Latinoamericana (Dussel 1977), in which he developed an erotics of Latin American liberation. In 1980 Dussel published Liberación de la Mujer y Erótica Latinoamericana , which is made up of re-edition of the seventh chapter of this third volume, along with a new text titled “Toward a Metaphysics of Feminity,” which as the title suggests aims to offer a metaphysical understanding of gender, in which woman is the “Other” of man. Dussel’s metaphysics was critiqued for being an anachronistic and “machista” ontologization of Catholic, in particular, and Christian, more generally, understandings of sex and gender that negated the historical contingency of gender roles that resulted in a recalcitrant rejection of sexual difference other than man/woman (Schutte 1993). In the epilogue to the 1994 edition of Liberación de la Mujer y Erótica Latinoamericana , Dussel, however, rejected and critiqued his earlier views, noting that the Latin American feminism of the sixties was primarily oriented towards a critique of North American feminism, and that the category of “gender” had not yet being thoroughly absorbed and appropriated within Latin American thinking. He also rejected the unintended “homophobic” dimension of his earlier call for an “Erotics” of Latin American liberation. Over the last three decades, in dialogue with Linda Alcoff, Lynda Lange, Maria Lugones, Ofelia Schutte, and Elina Vuola (Alcoff and Mendieta, eds. 2000), as well as theologians such as Maria Clara Bingemer,  Ivone Gebara, and Elsa Tamez, philosophers of liberation have began to address what Lugones has called “the coloniality of gender” (Lugones 2010).

The question of utopia . As a philosophical movement defined by the quest for liberation, the philosophy of liberation has had to always address the question of the role of utopia in energizing individual and social movements. The question of utopia, however, is the problem of the collective imaginary that projects goals that will guide transformative movements. Yet, at the same time, such transformative imaginaries are criticized because of their lack of feasibility or operability.

The question of history . The significance of history is a problematic that threads the entire current and tradition of the philosophy of liberation, not only because “dependency” and “liberation” are understood as historical issues, but because the very project of liberation is to be undertaken from within history. Indeed, even in its most “ontological” and “analectical” versions, the philosophy of liberation is always addressing the historical character of human existence. Collectively, philosophers of liberation affirm that historical indexicality of freedom, that is, that human freedom cannot be understood in the abstract, but only against a very specific historical conditions that are material because they take the form of socio-political institutions. For philosophers liberation, human liberty must be embodied and material precisely because it is part of a dynamic historical reality.

The question of democracy and social order . The philosophy of liberation was defined as much by its resistance to all forms of authoritarianism as by the persecution that many of its philosophers suffered at the hands of dictators and authoritarian political figures. In its early years question of democracy, legitimacy and legality were subordinate to the metaphysical and ontological questions of the subject of historical emancipation. However, over the last two decades, the political future of Latin American has become a more pressing issue. The quest for national sovereignty and liberation from Euroamerican imperialism is now framed in terms of ethnoracial democracies and the greater participation of sectors of the Latin American people that were either excluded or entirely ignored during the processes of national independence and national-state formation. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, philosophers of liberation think of themselves as contributing to the elaboration of what has been called “multicultural” democracy, and in this way, more historically inflected and less “ontological” notions of “ el pueblo ” are being embraced and developed.

To close, like most vibrant and still alive currents in world philosophy, the philosophy of liberation has been contributing to three key issues that are vital to all philosophy in general, namely: the question of meaning, i.e., how we produce, reproduce and transmit historically produced meanings across a variety of semiological and hermeneutical practices. This is the general question of how humans continue to communicate across time, even when their basic conditions of the production of world-views has radically altered. In tandem, the philosophy of liberation, which began partly as a challenge to a certain historiography of ideas in Latin America, continues to raise the question of how we write the history of philosophy, for whom and for what purposes, in such a way that we surrender to neither ideological distortions nor naïve purisms, neither Eurocentrism nor thirdworldism. Finally, like all transformative and enduring philosophical movements, the philosophy of liberation has since its inception articulated itself as a metaphilosophical reflection, i.e., as a philosophy that reflects on its own practice and what merits the dignity of being called philosophy tout court (Vallega 2014).

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• Vargas, Manuel, 2004, “Biología y la filosofía de la raza en México: Bulnes y Vasconcelos”, in Construcción de las identidades latinoamericanas: Ensayos de historia intelectual , Aimer Granados and Carlos Marichal (eds), Mexico City: Colegio de México.
• –––, 2005, “Eurocentrism and the Philosophy of Liberation”, APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues , 4(2): 8–17.
• –––, 2007, “Real Philosophy, Metaphilosophy, and Metametaphilosophy”, CR: The New Centennial Review , 7(3): 51–78.
• Uzin Fernández, Oscar, 1976, La oscuridad radiante , La Paz, Bolivia: Editorial “Los Amigos del Libro”.
• Vasconcelos, José, 1948, La raza cósmica , México: Espasa Calpe; English translation, The Cosmic Race: A Bilingual Edition , Didier T. Jaén (trans.), Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
• Vasconcelos, José, and Manuel Gamio, 1926, Aspects of Mexican Civilization , Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
• Vega, Julio de la, (1971), Matías, el apóstol suplente , La Paz, Bolivia: Editorial “Los Amigos del Libro”.
• von Vacano, Diego A., 2012, The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity and Latin American/Hispanic Political Thought , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Zea, Leopoldo, 1949, Dos etapas del pensamiento en Hispanoamérica. Del romanticismo al positivismo , México: El Colegio de México; English translation, The Latin American Mind , James H. Abbott (trans.), Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
• –––, 1969, La filosofía americana como filosofía sin más , México City: Siglo XXI.
• –––, “La filosofía latinoamericana como filosofía de la liberación” Stromata , 28, no. 4; 399–413.
• –––, 1976, El pensamiento latinoamericano , Barcelona: Ariel.
• –––, 1988–89, “Identity: A Latin American Philosophical Problem”, The Philosophical Forum , XX, 1–2:33–42.
• –––, 1991, La Filosofía como Compromiso de Liberación , Caracas, Venezuela: Biblioteca Ayacucho.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

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The Liberation Hypothesis Perspective and Juvenile Court Outcomes: Implications for an Understanding of the Interplay Between Offender and Offense Characteristics

This study used a sample of delinquent referrals from a Northeast state for 10 years to examine the impact of race/ethnicity, gender, crime severity, and prior record, individually and in combination, on juvenile court outcomes.

Extensive empirical support demonstrates the importance of legal (e.g., crime severity, prior record) and extralegal factors (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender) in predicting juvenile court outcomes. An understudied area is inquiry into how certain extralegal factors interact with legal determinants to impact the social control of juveniles. Although the liberation hypothesis predicts that extralegal factors have a diminishing effect on case outcomes as the severity of the case increases, the current study found no support for this expectation. 78 references (publisher abstract modified)

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Liberation theology

Last updated 2011-07-18

Liberation theology was a radical movement that grew up in South America. It said said the church should act to bring about social change, and should ally itself with the working class to do so. The late Pope John Paul II opposed the movement.

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• The case for
• The case against
• Óscar Romero
• Liberation theology today

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The case for liberation theology

Love for the poor must be preferential, but not exclusive. Ecclesia in America, 1999

Liberation theology was a radical movement that grew up in South America as a response to the poverty and the ill-treatment of ordinary people. The movement was caricatured in the phrase If Jesus Christ were on Earth today, he would be a Marxist revolutionary , but it's more accurately encapsulated in this paragraph from Leonardo and Clodovis Boff:

Q: How are we to be Christians in a world of destitution and injustice? A: There can be only one answer: we can be followers of Jesus and true Christians only by making common cause with the poor and working out the gospel of liberation. Leonardo and Clodovis Boff

Liberation theology said the church should derive its legitimacy and theology by growing out of the poor. The Bible should be read and experienced from the perspective of the poor.

The church should be a movement for those who were denied their rights and plunged into such poverty that they were deprived of their full status as human beings. The poor should take the example of Jesus and use it to bring about a just society.

Some liberation theologians saw in the collegiate nature of the Trinity a model for co-operative and non-hierarchical development among humans.

Most controversially, the Liberationists said the church should act to bring about social change, and should ally itself with the working class to do so. Some radical priests became involved in politics and trade unions; others even aligned themselves with violent revolutionary movements.

A common way in which priests and nuns showed their solidarity with the poor was to move from religious houses into poverty stricken areas to share the living conditions of their flock.

The Pope disagrees

The case against liberation theology.

The late Pope John Paul II was frequently criticised for the severity with which he dealt with the liberation movement.

His main object was to stop the highly politicised form of liberation theology prevalent in the 1980s, which could be seen as a fusion of Christianity and Marxism. He was particularly criticised for the firmness with which he closed institutions that taught Liberation Theology and with which he removed or rebuked the movement's activists, such as Leonardo Boff and Gustavo Gutierrez.

He believed that to turn the church into a secular political institution and to see salvation solely as the achievement of social justice was to rob faith in Jesus of its power to transform every life. The image of Jesus as a political revolutionary was inconsistent with the Bible and the Church's teachings.

He didn't mean that the Church was not going to be the voice of the oppressed, was not going to champion the poor . But it should not do it by partisan politics, or by revolutionary violence. The Church's business was bringing about the Kingdom of God, not about creating a Marxist utopia .

No more exploitation of the weak, racial discrimination or ghettoes of poverty! Never again! These are intolerable evils which cry out to heaven and call Christians to a different way of living, to a social commitment more in keeping with their faith. Pope John Paul II at Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico, 1999

Nicaragua was a particular hot-spot. Priests had been active in the overthrow of a dictator, and had taken jobs in the revolutionary government that followed, despite being forbidden to by the Pope.

What the Church should be doing

In 1984 and 1986 the Church issued major documents on the theme of Liberation. They echoed John Paul's view that the Church should work for the liberation of the poor, but do so in an appropriate way for a church, inspired not by a political vision of a perfect world, but by helping each human being to find their freedom by redemption from sin - the church's job was to bring people into personal contact with God.

The Pope stated this clearly in a sermon in Mexico in 1990:

...When the world begins to notice the clear failures of certain ideologies and systems, it seems all the more incomprehensible that certain sons of the Church in these lands - prompted at times by the desire to find quick solutions - persist in presenting as viable certain models whose failure is patent in other places in the world. You, as priests, cannot be involved in activities which belong to the lay faithful, while through your service to the Church community you are called to cooperate with them by helping them study Church teachings... ...Be careful, then, not to accept nor allow a Vision of human life as conflict nor ideologies which propose class hatred and violence to be instilled in you; this includes those which try to hide under theological writings. Pope John Paul II, 'Option for the Poor' sermon in Mexico, 1990

This didn't exclude social action - far from it, but the social action should be in the image of the gospel and the gospel was open to everyone.

Jesus makes it a condition for our participating in his salvation to give food to the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, console the sorrowing, because "when you do this to one of my least brothers or sisters you do it to me" (Mt 25:40). Pope John Paul II

Papal motivation

Some say that there was a clear political motivation behind the late Pope's actions. He was fervently opposed to the communist hold on Eastern Europe, and so he could not possibly show any sympathy with the priests in South and Central America who were working with communist revolutionaries - such inconsistent behaviour would have destroyed his credibility.

This is too cynical a view. John Paul II was, as always, ruled by his faith and belief. He genuinely thought that the Liberationists were distorting Christianity, and he was determined to get the Church in South America back on the rails of redemption. For John Paul II, God's essential act was entering into our time and our humanity and transforming &quot"our history into the history of salvation". It was through salvation that the poor and oppressed were to be raised up.

Liberation theology's martyr

Óscar romero (1917-1980).

One of the most high profile clerics associated with liberation theology was the Archbishop of San Salvador, Óscar Romero.

Initally considered a social conservative, he became increasingly an outspoken advocate for the poor and oppressed as the security situation in El Salvador deteriorated in the late 1970s.

He was assassinated while saying mass in a cancer hospice in San Salvador on 24th March 1980.

Julian Miglierini travelled to El Salvador to reflect on the legacy of a man many Salvadeorans consider a saint.

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Liberation theology after John Paul II

Modern liberation theology.

On the occasion of Pope Benedict XVI 's first official visit to the Americas, Trevor Barnes went to meet modern Brazilian supporters of liberation theology.

• The official Vatican position on Liberation Theology
• Liberation Theology Resources
• Pope John Paul II
• Pope Benedict XVI

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Liberation Theology

Other essays.

The theology of liberation is a combination of Marxist philosophy with certain biblical motifs. It argues that we should reconstruct the whole of Christian theology by seeing it through the “axis of the oppressor and the oppressed.”

The theology of Liberation developed in the 1960s to argue for the liberation of various groups—primarily poor, black, women—from economic and political bondage. For these theologians, it is not enough to support the oppressed; one must be committed to social movements, even revolutions, dedicated to overturning the structures of society. For this purpose, liberation theologians adopt Marxism as an “analytical tool,” with which they make radical revisions to every traditional Christian doctrine.

The theology of liberation became quite pervasive in the last half of the twentieth century. To illustrate: Deane W. Ferm’s Contemporary American Theologies 1 contains eight chapters, five of which discuss currently fashionable theological positions. Of these five, one is “evangelical theology,” one Roman Catholic theology, and three are various forms of liberation theology: Latin American, black, and feminist. Slogans, concepts, and arguments from liberation theologians have been appearing in Roman Catholic and evangelical theologies as well, and there has been much commonality between liberation theology and other thinkers, particularly Jűrgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Process theologians like John Cobb and Schubert Ogden.

As Ferm indicates, liberation theology has become a general name for several different movements: Latin-American, African American, Feminist. 2 Latin-American thinkers include Rubem Alves, Gustavo Gutierrez, Hugo Assmann, Jose Miranda, Juan Luis Segundo, Jon Sobrino, Leonardo Boff, Jose Miguez-Bonino. James Cone is considered to be the founder of “Black theology,” with other writers Albert B. Cleage, J. Deotis Roberts, Major J. Jones and W. R. Jones. 3 Feminist theological writers include Mary Daly, Rosemary Reuther, Letty Russell, Sheila Collins, Penelope Washbourn, Elizabeth Johnson, Letha Scanzoni, Virginia Mollenkott, and Helen Longino. I shall focus, in this discussion, on the Latin-American form of liberation theology, and in particular Gustavo Gutierrez’ A Theology of Liberation , considered by many to be the leading text of the movement. 4

The theology of Gutierrez (1928–) deals primarily with the relations of rich and poor. Black theology, of course, focuses more on race, and feminism more on gender. But for all these groups it is a question of relations between one group considered oppressive and another considered oppressed. They argue that the Bible should be read from the perspective of the oppressed.

Liberation theology agrees with Bultmann that exegesis without presuppositions is not possible. Specifically, the liberationists focus on presuppositions derived from the socio-economic, race, and gender status of the exegete. The Bible looks different to the poor and to the rich, to black and to white, to female and to male. Those who are relatively prosperous often fail to note what the Bible says about poverty. So there is no exegesis that is socially, racially, economically, or politically neutral. We should not assume, for instance, that European or North American theology provides adequate categories for theology in the third world.

Understanding Scripture, for the liberationists, presupposes not only ideas but practical involvement—“praxis,” as they say. We need contact, experience with reality if we are to think rightly about it. So truth itself is something practical, as theory is part of practice. It is an event, something that happens. 5 To know God is to do justice (Jer 22:16). 6 Praxis is the only way by which truth can be verified: ideas for social improvement should be judged by how they actually work. 7

Even more specifically, the liberationists emphasize that we must be involved in socio-political action if we are to rightly understand the Scriptures. Christ must be heard in every area of life, and here too neutrality is impossible. Everyone already has some social agenda. The only question is which one it will be. But socio-political action is, they say, necessarily “conflictual” 8 in character. For the interests of the poor and the rich inevitably conflict. 9 In this matter, we must choose sides.

Gutierrez considers the objection that such militancy is inconsistent with the Bible’s teaching that we should love our enemies. He replies that combat with one’s enemies does not necessarily involve hatred. It may be for the enemy’s good. In any case, one cannot love his enemies until he has identified them as enemies. Cheap conciliation helps no one.

So Gutierrez insists that all theology must take its bearings from the “axis” of oppression and liberation. In the Bible, such an emphasis will focus on the exodus, God delivering his people from slavery, and on the laws and prophets that call Israel to have compassion for the poor. Jesus’ redemption is a second exodus in which God again brings down the proud and exalts the humble.

Gutierrez says that Marxism presents the best analysis of the oppression/liberation conflict in terms of class struggle. So the liberation theologian must be committed to Marxism at least as an “analytical tool,” 10 at most to socialist revolution as such. So theology is the critical reflection on praxis, from within praxis.

Its ultimate goal is that of Marx: not to understand the world, but to change it. Particularly, its goal is not to protect and defend a tradition. The theologian should venture beyond the traditional historical models, making use of sociological analysis to understand the cultures he seeks to change.

But most of all, the theologian should be involved in the social conflicts of his time. He should not seek theological “permission” for this involvement. Rather, the involvement is the presupposition of theology itself. Hugo Assmann says that commitment to revolution is independent of and prior to any theological rationale. In my judgment, this is wrong. It limits the scope of God’s word, forbidding it to judge whether a revolution is legitimate.

Liberation theology borrows many concepts and much rhetoric from the “theology of secularization” (as Jűrgen Moltmann and Harvey Cox). Gutierrez says that we should accept the modern development toward secularization. 11 It coincides with a Christian vision of man: that redemption makes us more fully human. And it affirms creation as something distinct from God, and man as its lord. So, he says, the church should be understood in terms of the world, religion in terms of the profane, rather than vice versa. The church should not try to use the world for its own ends, but should be a servant.

So history is one. There is no ultimate distinction between the profane and the sacred. 12 Creation is a saving act, and political liberation (as in the exodus) is a self-creative act. Salvation is re-creation, fulfillment, in which man is an active participant, in response to grace. The Incarnation of Christ underscores the sacredness of the profane (189-94).

Gutierrez follows Moltmann’s argument that theology ought to be “future oriented,” 13 but he puts more importance than Moltmann on the present situation, citing biblical and historical examples. There is an “already,” as well as a “not yet.” He says,

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. One must be extremely careful not to replace a Christianity of the Beyond [like Barth and Bultmann—J. F.] with a Christianity of the Future; if the former tended to forget the world, the latter runs the risk of neglecting a miserable and unjust present and the struggle for liberation. 14

I shall now summarize how Gutierrez treats the familiar theological loci . In his doctrine of God, he affirms God’s transcendence and immanence, but in both cases with a liberationist accent: God is transcendent, for the First Commandment brings judgment against all false gods, including those forms of Christianity that accept injustice. He is immanent in that he acts in history to deliver the oppressed, 15 and he continually exists in and with mankind. 16 His presence is universal: in Gentiles as well as Jews, and in non-Christians as well as Christians. Particularly, he dwells in the “neighbor,” 17 which includes all people. To be united to God, we must be “converted to the neighbor,” and vice versa. 18

Gutierrez says that within human nature there is an infinite openness to God. 19 So there is no antagonism between the natural and the supernatural. Because of God’s “infinite salvific will” all are affected by grace and effectually called to communion with God. They are all in Christ. 20 So the boundaries between church and world are fluid. “Some even ask if they are really two different things.…” 21 So participation in liberation is a saving work.  Sin is a selfish turning in on oneself, refusing to love neighbors and therefore to love God. 22 Ultimately, man is therefore the source of poverty, injustice and oppression, both individually and by way of “structures” of collective society. Individual and corporate sin feed on one another. In a footnote, Gutierrez mentions Marx’s correlation between private ownership and sin. Because of private ownership, in Marx’s view, the worker is alienated from the fruit of his work. Gutierrez, however, warns us against “overestimating” the importance of this correlation. 23

Most liberationists accept the biblical history in its main outlines, though there are some among them who are skeptical, like Leonardo Boff. They do not, however, put much emphasis on the miracles, atonement, and resurrection of Christ, except, like Moltmann, as incentives to expect God to work surprises in the future.

The liberation theologians do devote considerable energy to the question of why Jesus himself did not engage in political action during his earthly ministry. Gutierrez points out that Jesus had friends among the Zealot revolutionaries. 24 He agreed with them on the soon coming of the kingdom, his role in it, and the seizing of that kingdom by violent men (Matt 11:12). But Jesus nevertheless kept his distance from them, because (1) His was a universal mission, not a narrow nationalism. (2) His attitude toward the law was different from that of the Zealots. (3) He saw the kingdom coming as a gift of God, not from man’s own effort. (4) He saw the root of the political problems in a lack of brotherhood. (5) He respected the autonomy of political action. Thus, says Gutierrez, Jesus’ revolution was more radical than that of the Zealots. His message is directed to the heart, and it is heart-change that best leads to structural change. Saving grace, therefore, destroys the root of the problems of society. But all human attempts to overcome oppression are also opposed to selfishness and sin, and are therefore liberating. So, again, sacred and secular work together.

The Church is the “universal sacrament of salvation,” 25 a community oriented toward the future promised by the Lord. It should be preoccupied with the world, not itself. Indeed, as a part of the world it must be inhabited and evangelized by the world. So it reveals the world’s true nature as being in Christ.

Like Moltmann, Gutierrez opposes the “Constantinian model” and prefers the concept of secular theology, that the church exists to serve the world and should take its agenda from the world. Thus the church must be mobilized to fight poverty. He is convinced that capitalism is no solution to the poverty of Latin America and that Christians should encourage their societies on a socialist path. 26 The establishment of socialism may require violence. But Gutierrez insists that economic oppression is itself the result of violence, so that removing that oppression can justify “counter-violence.” 27

Like many philosophical and theological movements, liberation theology makes serious mistakes at the beginning of its thinking process (epistemology) that infect everything else it says. The liberationists demand that commitment to Marxist revolution is the presupposition of the theological task, so it requires no “theological permission.” Thus the word of God is silenced on the central tenets of liberation theology where it ought to speak the loudest.

Nevertheless (I think inconsistently), the liberationists provide a lot of insight into biblical social and individual ethics. God does care especially for the poor, and those who have contempt for the poor will bear special judgment. But the liberationists, by presupposing Marxism, cut themselves off from serious discussion about the best way to aid those trapped in poverty, leaving only violence as the means of settling the question. That so many Christians have fallen into this trap is a major part of the tragedy of the church in Latin America. And those liberationists who are concerned about the state of women, or of African Americans, should beware of encouraging similar results.

Note: This essay is a revision of a chapter by John Frame in  A History of Western Philosophy and Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2015), 423–9.

Further Reading

Advocates and Descriptions of Liberation Theology:  

• Boff, Leonardo, Introducing Liberation Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987).
• Bonino, José Miguez, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1975).
• Cone, James, A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011).
• Dault, Kira, “ What is Liberation Theology? ”
• Gutierrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1973, 1988).
• Gutierrez, Gustavo, and Muller, Gerhard Ludwig, On the Side of the Poor: The Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 2015).
• Johnson, Elizabeth, She Who Is : The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (NY: Crossroad Publishing, 2002).
• Lacugna, Catherine Mowry, ed., Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective (NY: HarperOne, 1993).
• Singer, Olivia, Liberation Theology in Latin America

Analyses and Critiques:  

• Doino, William, Jr., “ The Errors of Liberation Theology ”
• Ferm, Deane W., Contemporary American Theologies (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990).
• Frame, John M. A History of Western Philosophy and Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2015), 423-429.
• Novak, Michael, The Case Against Liberation Theology .
• Storms, Sam, “ Liberation Theology ”

This essay is part of the Concise Theology series. All views expressed in this essay are those of the author. This essay is freely available under Creative Commons License with Attribution-ShareAlike, allowing users to share it in other mediums/formats and adapt/translate the content as long as an attribution link, indication of changes, and the same Creative Commons License applies to that material. If you are interested in translating our content or are interested in joining our community of translators,  please reach out to us .

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6 The Philosophy of Liberation

• Published: February 2011
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This chapter focuses on the economic dimension of postcolonial critique. It raises the question of how it is possible to build a distinctively postcolonial polity if the economy is dependent on the former colonial powers. It introduces readers to the philosophy of liberation, a theoretical approach that weaves together a Christian ethos of responsibility and a Marxist-inspired concern with inequality and struggle. This chapter explores the philosophy of liberation by focusing on the work of two thinkers: José Mariátegui, whose un-orthodox Marxism lead to an original analysis of the economics and politics of neo-colonialism and Enrique Dussel, the best known contemporary proponent of the movement. Mariátegui and Dussel articulate two different solutions to the problem of imperialist domination and resistance. Mariátegui provides a materialist analysis that is influenced by Marxism but develops in an original direction in order to make sense of the conditions of the global periphery. Dussel elaborates a normative critique of domination that reflects his training in Catholic theology and phenomenology. The chapter argues that each of these approaches has flaws, but, read together, they provide theoretical insight into one of the most important contemporary issues: resistance to global economic inequality. Their work helps illuminate the ideological orientation of contemporary leftist movements in Latin America that are building coalitions to challenge economic inequalities.

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Liberation Theology

Maduro believes religion has some independence from the ruling class and economic system which means it can act as a revolutionary force for change. He uses the example of Liberation Theology to describe an instance in Latin America (El Salvador and Nicaragua) whereby priests began to speak up for the poor as the right-wing military dictatorship shows no support for them. This saw the priests develop a new theology which interpreted the Christianity in a way which sided with poor and oppressed groups in the society. Which then later saw arguments increase that power and wealth should be distributed more evenly across society.

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The eyebrow-raising legal theory behind Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump

It took a jury two days to find former president Donald Trump guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, proving that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's somewhat risky approach to prosecuting the hush money case was a sound choice.

Soon after Bragg's office brought the first indictment against Trump in April 2023, three other felony indictments were returned in three other jurisdictions: Florida, Georgia and the District of Columbia. As the cases wound their way through their respective state and federal court systems, the expectation was that Trump’s D.C. federal election interference case would go to trial before any of the others. Many were therefore surprised when it was announced that Bragg’s case would be the first to go. And the (somewhat delayed) scrutiny into the New York election interference case kicked into overdrive.

It’s the added element of the “another crime” that raised eyebrows.

When the indictment was unsealed in April 2023, it revealed 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, in violation of New York Penal Law, Section 17-152. It’s important to take a minute to digest what the prosecution had to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt: Trump, with the intent to defraud, made (or caused to be made) false entries in an enterprise’s business records, and his “intent to defraud included an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” What is the other crime that the prosecution said Trump intended to commit or to aid or conceal the commission of? According to Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass, that would be New York Election Law Section 17-152: “Conspiracy to promote or prevent election. Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”

The Manhattan DA’s office has prosecuted a number of falsification of business records cases. These are usually straightforward, run-of-the-mill paper crimes. Bragg has even referenced them as the “bread and butter” of his office’s white-collar work. But it’s the added element of the “another crime” that raised eyebrows. And this is the heart of the novel legal theory that Bragg chose to employ in this trial. The Washington Post reviewed the New York State Law Reporting Bureau as far back as 2000 for any relevant case law regarding this specific statute. The report found “two entries in which a judge issued legal opinions on the statute. Both were from [Judge Juan] Merchan last year   in rejecting Trump’s motions to have the case dismissed.” That’s how rarely Section 17-152 is prosecuted in New York. And that fact makes Bragg’s decision to primarily premise the prosecution of a former president of the United States on that statute even more novel.

Bragg is an experienced prosecutor. He graduated from Harvard Law School, clerked for a federal judge, worked in the New York attorney general’s office as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, and was a law professor at New York Law School. While at the SDNY, his case focus was on fraud and money laundering cases, as well as public corruption. He knows his way around the courtroom and is no stranger to Trump prosecutions: He led the team at the AG’s office that successfully prosecuted the Trump Foundation, for which it was dissolved and Trump made to pay $2 million in restitution. 

Bragg had the right combination of book smarts and street smarts to bring this indictment against Trump, and the wisdom to see this case for what it truly was. In an interview with WNYC , he declared: “The core is not money for sex. ... it’s about conspiring to corrupt a presidential election.”

As you may recall, Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., began investigating Trump as far back as 2019. Vance has advised that his investigation began in and around the same time as that of the Southern District of New York. In fact, he says that the SDNY told him to stand down, which he did for over a year. Vance ultimately decided not to prosecute Trump — or any of his confederates — on any charges. One reason : due to concerns about “novel issues around using the false statements statute in connection with committing a crime that violates federal election laws.” Vance did indict, in July 2021, former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Corp. (doing business as Trump Organization) and the Trump Payroll Corp. (doing business as Trump Organization) on, among other offenses, charges of criminal tax fraud, grand larceny and falsification of business records in the first degree. That prosecution resulted in a guilty plea to perjury from Weisselberg and a guilty verdict after trial for the remaining defendants.

Initially, Bragg, himself, showed doubts about pursuing a prosecution.

Initially, Bragg, himself, showed doubts about pursuing a prosecution. Two top prosecutors, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, who were brought in by Vance to run the Trump investigation and stayed on when Bragg took the reins, abruptly resigned in early 2022 . Pomerantz, in his resignation letter that was made public , harshly criticized Bragg for his inaction. Pomerantz said in the letter that he believed that Trump was “guilty of numerous felony violations” and that Bragg’s decision not to prosecute Trump was “contrary to the public interest.” Fast-forward 13 months, and Trump was indicted by Bragg.

The inside baseball on prosecuting cases is that even if the facts meet all of the elements of the crime, and even if there is a good faith basis to prosecute, that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t other factors considered before deciding to move forward with a case. Part of that calculation includes a likelihood of success with a jury. In this instance, Bragg and his prosecution team must have considered if there was a chance of jury nullification and if the jury would be able to understand the theory of the prosecution and care enough about this case. With a guilty verdict now reached, I guess we know the answer.

Katie S. Phang is the host of "The Katie Phang Show," which airs Saturdays and Sundays at 8 a.m. ET on MSNBC. She is a legal contributor for NBC News and MSNBC based in Miami. She leverages her significant trial attorney experience to provide analysis and commentary on the latest legal issues.

Chants of ‘intifada’ ring out from pro-Palestinian protests. But what’s it mean?

A pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia University in early May. Chants calling for "intifada" have become central at many demonstrations against the war in Gaza and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Adrian Florido / NPR

The chants at a recent pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University were loud and defiant.

“Intifada! Intifada! Long live the intifada!”

That term is one of many that have become points of contention among people with opposing views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that have turned language into a battleground.

Many of those protesting Israel's offensive in Gaza say 'intifada' is a peaceful call to resist Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. But many Jews hear chants like "globalize the intifada" as calls for violence against them and against Israel.

“Intifada” is an Arabic word that generally translates as “uprising.” But the word’s role within the tortured history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has loaded it with meaning well beyond that, making it a term that evokes strong emotions on both sides.

Related: After the protest: Portland State University community grapples with broken trust and binary thinking

A prolonged period of protests and civil unrest against the Israeli occupation in the late 1980’s came to be known as the First Intifada. A second, much more violent uprising began in the early 2000s. During the Second Intifada, Palestinian militant groups adopted bloodier tactics, killing about 1,000 Israeli civilians and soldiers, often through suicide bombings at eateries and on buses. Israel responded with ground troops and tanks, killing more than 3,000 Palestinians.

For Eliana Goldin, a Jewish undergraduate and leader of a pro-Israel group at Columbia, the term “intifada” is inextricable from that violence.

Growing up in a Zionist family, she said, “the word intifada was only associated with death and terrorism and destruction. So ‘intifada’ still feels just as charged as if someone were to say Holocaust. Or if someone were to mention any sort of catastrophe that happened against a people that you consider yourself a part of.”

For her, the chants sound like an incitement to repeat violence against Jews.

For many, it’s a call for liberation

For Basil Rodriguez, the word is not about violence at all. She’s a Palestinian-American graduate student at Columbia, and said that when she chants “intifada” at protests, she’s expressing a commitment to her people’s struggle against Israel, and calling for an end to the status quo in the conflict.

“For me, it just speaks to liberation,” she said. “To free Palestine from the apartheid regime, and the military occupation. For me it calls for freedom and for change.”

A pro-Palestinian march near Columbia University in early May.

Taoufik Ben-Amor, a linguist and professor of Arabic Studies at Columbia, said there are several reasons people interpret the word differently.

Intifada comes from the Arabic root meaning to shake off, as if dust from a cloth. It's a term Arabic speakers use to describe any kind of social uprising aimed at shaking off an oppressive system – like against the Iraqi monarchy in the fifties. But for non-Arabic speakers, Ben-Amor said, it's easier to disassociate the word from that meaning.

“It’s different when someone who knows Arabic uses the word,” he said, “as opposed to someone who doesn’t and who knows the word only in a context in which it has been politicized.”

But he also said the decision by pro-Palestinian protesters in the U.S. to use the Arabic word rather than to translate it is a deliberate choice – one with implications for both sides.

“If you turned the word ‘intifada’ into uprising,” he said, “then it would belong to the English vocabulary that people are completely familiar with. By not translating into English you can actually define the meaning as you want, and so the word becomes a sort of weapon in both hands – to be used in this political jostling that’s happening.”

Related: How these University of Texas-Austin students view Gaza war protests on their campus

The word and its reception have evolved over time

Arabic words are often stigmatized, he said, associated with violence and terrorism when they don’t inherently carry those meanings. In the case of ‘intifada,’ its meaning has evolved over time alongside the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, taking on different associations for different people.

The pain and trauma that Israelis suffered during the Second Intifada influences their perception of the word, explaining why chants calling for an intifada revolution might alarm them. But Ben-Amor notes that the Second Intifada was also very painful for Palestinians, who were killed at three times the rate as Israelis. Yet they tend not to recoil from the word because of its broader association with their aspirations for freedom from the occupation, he said, and not necessarily with violence.

Eliana Goldin, the Jewish undergraduate from Columbia, said she would like to think that her classmates who chant “intifada” at protests are not actually promoting violence against Jews. But she said it's hard to believe because on her campus she also heard chants she says are suggesting Israel’s erasure.

“They chant ‘we don’t want two states, we want all of it,’” she said. NPR did hear this chant at Columbia University. “They chant 'death to the Zionist state.' When there’s so much other rhetoric going on in the same chants that obviously points to destruction of Jewish people, why am I to believe that intifada doesn’t mean what I think it means?”

Related: Oregon Jewish students, faculty share range of concerns amid ongoing protests

She said she wishes protesters would choose a different word, because of the visceral fear it elicits from many Jews, including people like her who, though Zionist, calls the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories a tragedy.

Basil Rodriguez rejects the idea that she should have to sanitize her language at protests.

“Arabic is our indigenous language as Palestinians,” she said. “The idea that we have to not say a word because it’s in Arabic I think plays into the racist assumption that Arabs are terrorists. And so I’m not going to ever stop saying the word intifada.”

Taoufik Ben-Amor said when it comes to words like intifada — and other contested terms like genocide, martyr, resistance — the stakes are high. The words used to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have always had the power to shape public sentiment, and likely always will.

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Campus protests over the Gaza war

Chants of 'intifada' ring out from pro-palestinian protests. but what's it mean.

Adrian Florido

A pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia University in early May. Chants calling for "intifada" have become central at many demonstrations against the war in Gaza and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Adrian Florido/NPR hide caption

NEW YORK — The chants at a recent pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University were loud and defiant.

“Intifada! Intifada! Long live the intifada!”

That term is one of many that have become points of contention among people with opposing views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that have turned language into a battleground.

Many of those protesting Israel’s offensive in Gaza say "intifada" is a peaceful call to resist Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. But many Jews hear chants like "globalize the intifada" as calls for violence against them and against Israel.

“Intifada” is an Arabic word that generally translates as “uprising.” But the word’s role within the tortured history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has loaded it with meaning well beyond that, making it a term that evokes strong emotions on both sides.

A prolonged period of protests and civil unrest against the Israeli occupation in the late 1980s came to be known as the First Intifada. A second, much more violent uprising began in the early 2000s. During the Second Intifada, Palestinian militant groups adopted bloodier tactics, killing about 1,000 Israeli civilians and soldiers, often through suicide bombings at eateries and on buses. Israel responded with ground troops and tanks, killing more than 3,000 Palestinians.

For Eliana Goldin, a Jewish undergraduate and leader of a pro-Israel group at Columbia, the term “intifada” is inextricable from that violence.

Growing up in a Zionist family, she said, “the word intifada was only associated with death and terrorism and destruction. So ‘intifada’ still feels just as charged as if someone were to say Holocaust. Or if someone were to mention any sort of catastrophe that happened against a people that you consider yourself a part of.”

For her, the chants sound like an incitement to repeat violence against Jews.

For many, it’s a call for liberation

For Basil Rodriguez, a Palestinian American graduate student at Columbia, the word is not about violence at all. Rodriguez, who uses they/them pronouns, said that when they chant “intifada” at protests, they're expressing a commitment to their people’s struggle against Israel, and calling for an end to the status quo in the conflict.

“For me, it just speaks to liberation,” Rodriguez said. “To free Palestine from the apartheid regime, and the military occupation. For me it calls for freedom and for change.”

A pro-Palestinian march near Columbia University in early May. Adrian Florido/NPR hide caption

Taoufik Ben-Amor, a linguist and professor of Arabic Studies at Columbia, said there are several reasons people interpret the word differently.

Intifada comes from the Arabic root meaning to shake off, as if dust from a cloth. It’s a term Arabic speakers use to describe any kind of social uprising aimed at shaking off an oppressive system — like against the Iraqi monarchy in the 1950s. But for non-Arabic speakers, Ben-Amor said, it’s easier to disassociate the word from that meaning.

“It’s different when someone who knows Arabic uses the word,” he said, “as opposed to someone who doesn’t and who knows the word only in a context in which it has been politicized.”

But he also said the decision by pro-Palestinian protesters in the U.S. to use the Arabic word rather than to translate it is a deliberate choice — one with implications for both sides.

“If you turned the word ‘intifada’ into uprising,” he said, “then it would belong to the English vocabulary that people are completely familiar with. By not translating into English you can actually define the meaning as you want, and so the word becomes a sort of weapon in both hands — to be used in this political jostling that’s happening.”

The word and its reception have evolved over time

Arabic words are often stigmatized, he said, associated with violence and terrorism when they don’t inherently carry those meanings. In the case of "intifada," its meaning has evolved over time alongside the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, taking on different associations for different people.

The pain and trauma that Israelis suffered during the Second Intifada influences their perception of the word, explaining why chants calling for an intifada revolution might alarm them. But Ben-Amor notes that the Second Intifada was also very painful for Palestinians, who were killed at three times the rate as Israelis. Yet they tend not to recoil from the word because of its broader association with their aspirations for freedom from the occupation, he said, and not necessarily with violence.

Eliana Goldin, the Jewish undergraduate from Columbia, said she would like to think that her classmates who chant “intifada” at protests are not actually promoting violence against Jews. But she said it's hard to believe because on her campus she also heard chants she says are suggesting Israel’s erasure.

“They chant ‘we don’t want two states, we want all of it,’ ” she said. NPR did hear this chant at Columbia University. “They chant 'death to the Zionist state.' When there’s so much other rhetoric going on in the same chants that obviously points to destruction of Jewish people, why am I to believe that intifada doesn’t mean what I think it means?”

She said she wishes protesters would choose a different word, because of the visceral fear it elicits from many Jews, including people like her who, though Zionist, calls the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories a tragedy.

Basil Rodriguez rejects the idea that they should have to sanitize their language at protests.

“Arabic is our indigenous language as Palestinians,” they said. “The idea that we have to not say a word because it’s in Arabic I think plays into the racist assumption that Arabs are terrorists. And so I’m not going to ever stop saying the word intifada.”

Taoufik Ben-Amor said when it comes to words like intifada — and other contested terms like genocide, martyr, resistance — the stakes are high. The words used to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have always had the power to shape public sentiment, and likely always will.

Correction June 2, 2024

An earlier version of this story misgendered student Basil Rodriguez. Rodriguez uses they/them pronouns, not she/her.

Gene variants foretell the biology of future breast cancers

A Stanford Medicine study of thousands of breast cancers has found that the gene sequences we inherit at conception are powerful predictors of the breast cancer type we might develop decades later and how deadly it might be.

The study challenges the dogma that most cancers arise as the result of random mutations that accumulate during our lifetimes. Instead, it points to the active involvement of gene sequences we inherit from our parents -- what's known as your germline genome -- in determining whether cells bearing potential cancer-causing mutations are recognized and eliminated by the immune system or skitter under the radar to become nascent cancers.

"Apart from a few highly penetrant genes that confer significant cancer risk, the role of heredity factors remains poorly understood, and most malignancies are assumed to result from random errors during cell division or bad luck," said Christina Curtis, PhD, the RZ Cao Professor of Medicine and a professor of genetics and of biomedical data science. "This would imply that tumor initiation is random, but that is not what we observe. Rather, we find that the path to tumor development is constrained by hereditary factors and immunity. This new result unearths a new class of biomarkers to forecast tumor progression and an entirely new way of understanding breast cancer origins."

Curtis is the senior author of the study, which will be published May 31 in Science . Postdoctoral scholar Kathleen Houlahan, PhD, is the lead author of the research.

"Back in 2015, we had posited that some tumors are 'born to be bad' -- meaning that their malignant and even metastatic potential is determined early in the disease course," Curtis said. "We and others have since corroborated this finding across multiple tumors, but these findings cast a whole new light on just how early this happens."

A new take on cancer's origin

The study, which gives a nuanced and powerful new understanding of the interplay between newly arisen cancer cells and the immune system, is likely to help researchers and clinicians better predict and combat breast tumors.

Currently, only a few high-profile cancer-associated mutations in genes are regularly used to predict cancers. Those include BRCA1 and BRCA2, which occur in about one of every 500 women and confer an increased risk of breast or ovarian cancer, and rarer mutations in a gene called TP53 that causes a disease called Li Fraumeni syndrome, which predisposes to childhood and adult-onset tumors.

The findings indicate there are tens or hundreds of additional gene variants -- identifiable in healthy people -- pulling the strings that determine why some people remain cancer-free throughout their lives.

"Our findings not only explain which subtype of breast cancer an individual is likely to develop," Houlahan said, "but they also hint at how aggressive and prone to metastasizing that subtype will be. Beyond that, we anticipate that these inherited variants may influence a person's risk of developing breast cancer."

The genes we inherit from our parents are known as our germline genome. They're mirrors of our parents' genetic makeup, and they can vary among people in small ways that give some of us blue eyes, brown hair or type O blood. Some inherited genes include mutations that confer increased cancer risk from the get-go, such as BRCA1, BRCA2 and TP53. But identifying other germline mutations strongly associated with future cancers has proven difficult.

In contrast, most cancer-associated genes are part of what's known as our somatic genome. As we live our lives, our cells divide and die in the tens of millions. Each time the DNA in a cell is copied, mistakes happen and mutations can accumulate. DNA in tumors is often compared with the germline genomes in blood or normal tissues in an individual to pinpoint which changes likely led to the cell's cancerous transformation.

Classifying breast cancers

In 2012, Curtis began a deep dive -- assisted by machine learning -- into the types of somatic mutations that occur in thousands of breast cancers. She was eventually able to categorize the disease into 11 subtypes with varying prognoses and risk of recurrence, finding that four of the 11 groups were significantly more likely to recur even 10 or 20 years after diagnosis -- critical information for clinicians making treatment decisions and discussing long-term prognoses with their patients.

Prior studies had shown that people with inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations tend to develop a subtype of breast cancer known as triple negative breast cancer. This correlation implies some behind-the-scenes shenanigans by the germline genome that affects what subtype of breast cancer someone might develop.

"We wanted to understand how inherited DNA might sculpt how a tumor evolves," Houlahan said. To do so, they took a close look at the immune system.

It's a quirk of biology that even healthy cells routinely decorate their outer membranes with small chunks of the proteins they have bobbing in their cytoplasm -- an outward display that reflects their inner style.

The foundations for this display are what's known as HLA proteins, and they are highly variable among individuals. Like fashion police, immune cells called T cells prowl the body looking for any suspicious or overly flashy bling (called epitopes) that might signal something is amiss inside the cell. A cell infected with a virus will display bits of viral proteins; a sick or cancerous cell will adorn itself with abnormal proteins. These faux pas trigger the T cells to destroy the offenders.

Houlahan and Curtis decided to focus on oncogenes, normal genes that, when mutated, can free a cell from regulatory pathways meant to keep it on the straight and narrow. Often, these mutations take the form of multiple copies of the normal gene, arranged nose to tail along the DNA -- the result of a kind of genomic stutter called amplification. Amplifications in specific oncogenes drive different cancer pathways and were used to differentiate one breast cancer subtype from another in Curtis' original studies.

The importance of bling

The researchers wondered whether highly recognizable epitopes would be more likely to attract T cells' attention than other, more modest displays (think golf-ball-sized, dangly turquoise earrings versus a simple silver stud). If so, a cell that had inherited a flashy version of an oncogene might be less able to pull off its amplification without alerting the immune system than a cell with a more modest version of the same gene. (One pair of overly gaudy turquoise earrings can be excused; five pairs might cause a patrolling fashionista T cell to switch from tutting to terminating.)

The researchers studied nearly 6,000 breast tumors spanning various stages of disease to learn whether the subtype of each tumor correlated with the patients' germline oncogene sequences. They found that people who had inherited an oncogene with a high germline epitope burden (read: lots of bling) -- and an HLA type that can display that epitope prominently -- were significantly less likely to develop breast cancer subtypes in which that oncogene is amplified.

There was a surprise, though. The researchers found that cancers with a large germline epitope burden that manage to escape the roving immune cells early in their development tended to be more aggressive and have a poorer prognosis than their more subdued peers.

"At the early, pre-invasive stage, a high germline epitope burden is protective against cancer," Houlahan said. "But once it's been forced to wrestle with the immune system and come up with mechanisms to overcome it, tumors with high germline epitope burden are more aggressive and prone to metastasis. The pattern flips during tumor progression."

"Basically, there is a tug of war between tumor and immune cells," Curtis said. "In the preinvasive setting, the nascent tumor may initially be more susceptible to immune surveillance and destruction. Indeed, many tumors are likely eliminated in this manner and go unnoticed. However, the immune system does not always win. Some tumor cells may not be eliminated and those that persist develop ways to evade immune recognition and destruction. Our findings shed light on this opaque process and may inform the optimal timing of therapeutic intervention, as well as how to make an immunologically cold tumor become hot, rendering it more sensitive to therapy."

The researchers envision a future when the germline genome is used to further stratify the 11 breast cancer subtypes identified by Curtis to guide treatment decisions and improve prognoses and monitoring for recurrence. The study's findings may also give additional clues in the hunt for personalized cancer immunotherapies and may enable clinicians to one day predict a healthy person's risk of cancer from a simple blood sample.

"We started with a bold hypothesis," Curtis said. "The field had not thought about tumor origins and evolution in this way. We're examining other cancers through this new lens of heredity and acquired factors and tumor-immune co-evolution."

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grants DP1-CA238296 and U54CA261719), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.

• Breast Cancer
• Brain Tumor
• Lung Cancer
• Colon Cancer
• Diseases and Conditions
• Ovarian Cancer
• Breast cancer
• Monoclonal antibody therapy
• Mammography
• Breast implant
• Colorectal cancer
• Breast reconstruction

Story Source:

Materials provided by Stanford Medicine . Original written by Krista Conger. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Kathleen E. Houlahan, Aziz Khan, Noah F. Greenwald, Cristina Sotomayor Vivas, Robert B. West, Michael Angelo, Christina Curtis. Germline-mediated immunoediting sculpts breast cancer subtypes and metastatic proclivity . Science , 2024; 384 (6699) DOI: 10.1126/science.adh8697

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Nonlinear Sciences > Pattern Formation and Solitons

Title: modulation theory of soliton-mean flow in kdv equation with box type initial data.

Abstract: For the KdV equation with box type initial data, the interaction between a trial soliton and large-scale dispersive mean flow is studied theoretically and numerically. The pure box initial value can cause rarefaction wave and dispersive shock wave, and can create an area of soliton train. The key to the interaction of soliton and mean flow is that the dynamic evolutions of the mean flow and the local soliton can be described by the same modulation system. The soliton modulation system is derived from the degenerations of the two-genus Whitham modulation system. Considering the influence of rarefaction wave, dispersive shock wave and soliton train on the trial soliton, in the framework of Whitham modulation theory, the equation describing the soliton trajectory and the changes in amplitude and phase shift are given explicitly. The predicted results are compared with the numerical simulations, which verifies the corrections of the theoretical analysis. The exotic interaction phenomena between soliton and mean flow found in this work have broad applications to shallow water soliton propagations and real soliton experiments in fluid dynamics.

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