A Theology of Liberation:

...The accent here falls less on such large political questions than on the struggle to form authentically Christian communities of faith...

...How, indeed, inasmuch as Gutierrez's theological commitment grows, while his skepticism over ideology and politics deepens...

...With more than a hint of the poet in him, Gustavo Gutierrez thus aptly concludes the new "Introduction" to the anniversary edition of what promises to be his classic, A Theology of Liberation...

...The new Introduction explains both terms in an explicitly and more consistently orthodox manner...

...Here, too, the change is in the direction of inclusive-ness, but ironically one that opens up a critical distance between liberation theology and Marxism...

...Liberation theology's option for the poor, which Gutierrez tries to equate with John Paul "love of preference" for the poor, is grounded not in social analysis or human compassion but, "in the final analysis, in the God of our faith...

...The point of this theology is not to make a theological case for, in Paul Til-lich's words, the decision of socialism for socialism...

...In this case, the mellowing inevitably marked by anniversaries truly does deserve to be celebrated...

...Social conflict yields a variety of explanations, and the Marxist ideology of class struggle is only one of them...

...Do they now stand Betrayed by his explicit quest for ecclesiastical fidelity...

...The loves that Gutierrez confesses were never in question...

...The other change in the text is, perhaps, more controversial...

...After fifteen years, his language has mellowed as this lover of the church more carefully stakes out a claim to orthodoxy...

...When Gutierrez wishes to emphasize the theological meaning of liberation, he consistently speaks of an "integral liberation" which is open to "the gra-tuitousness of God's love as the first and last word in biblical revelation.'' He now makes it clear that the connections among the three levels of liberation, as outlined in the original edition, are governed by the "conception of human nature' ' accepted as normative by the mainstream of Catholic social teaching...

...But what of these other loves...

...With fifteen years' additional pastoral experience behind him, Gutierrez now finds it necessary to emphasize caution against reductive and purely "immanentist" understandings of praxis and liberation...

...What of God and the people...

...Though liberating praxis still "endeavors to transform history,'' this transformation is not reducible to changes in socioeconomic structures...

...What might appear in political terms as a betrayal of commitment, here can be appreciated as an uncompromisingly spiritual quest for the kind of fidelity that will allow all three of Gutierrez's loves to reach their fulfillment...

...The role of the church, therefore, is to strive for an "authentic universality" that seeks to overcome our social divisions by humbly confronting them with the Gospels...

...The mellowing of Gutierrez's theological language indicated here makes for a series of subtle but profoundly significant shifts in his way of expressing the meaning of praxis and liberation, which inevitably affect the meaning of the preferential option for the poor, as well as the mission of the church in response to it...

...The original text has not been touched, but for two telling exceptions...

...With none of these theological clarifications does Gutierrez actually contradict his original covenant with God and his people, but the shifts of emphasis do seem to amount to a very large practical difference: Gutierrez concludes the revised section on "Faith and Social Conflict' ' by repudiating the attempt to identify the option for the poor with any ideology or specific political program...

...Nor is this simply a convention for the Peruvian theologian, for in the new Introduction he tries several times to take account of feminist perspectives in and on Latin America...

...but the change in his manner of expression could be...

...The first is a bow in the direction of linguistic revisionism, by which apparently sexist abstractions like "man" must now be rendered in such appropriately inclusive terms as "humanity...

...Assuming that he means what he says, Gutierrez's liberation theology, therefore, can no longer be understood primarily as a form of political theology...

...This, too, is consistent with the new Introduction, for Gutierrez there indicates that in principle he does not disagree with the Vatican's two instructions on liberation theology and their warnings about Marxist methodology, but welcomes them as a constructive contribution to "the inevitable clarification of this theological undertaking...

...What once had been offered straightforwardly as "Christian Fellowship and Class Struggle" has been substantially rewritten as "Faith and Social Conflict...

...Dennis P. McCann My book is a love letter to God, to the church, and to the peo-ple to which I belong...

...Consistent with his later writings, the new Introduction exhibits a deep sensitivity to the inarticulate spiritual concerns of God's silent majority, and in light of these concerns the central question for liberation theology now stands clarified:' 'How is it possible to tell the poor, who are forced to live in conditions that embody a denial of love, that God loves them...

...Love remains alive, but it grows deeper and changes its manner of expression...