Gustavo Gutierrez: Essential Writings (Making of Modern Theology)

This volume concentrates on the key texts and ideas in Gustavo Gutirrez's thought. It presents the essential Gutirrez for students and the general reader. In his first anthology of Gutirrez's massively influential work, James Nickoloff draws from Gutirrez's many published books and translates some pieces for the first time. Arranged both thematically and chronologically, the Selected Texts highlight not only the revolutionary import of Gutirrez's theology but also his deep and searching spirituality, his bold view of the church, and his personal challenge to the reader to engage the world's injustices directly. Nickoloff's expert Introduction explains the development of Gutirrez's ideas and sheds new light on the Latin American, especially Peruvian, context of his thought.

Gustavo Gutierrez, the "father of liberation theology," is a Peruvian priest of Indian descent. Gutierrez studied theology in Europe before returning to his native Lima to pen the epochal volume A Theology of Liberation, which first enunciated principles of this global theological movement: God's option for the poor, theology from the underside, the power of the poor in history, the importance of social analysis, the primacy of practice over theory.

James B. Nickoloff, who studied and worked with Gutierrez for two years, is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.